scale this: Google

[OT from cottage renovations]

attention conservation warning: severe geek content

of the very small number of people who ever read this space, I'm not sure how many -- if any -- have ever spent time inside a data center or have much of an idea of what it takes to keep this whole interwebs thing going.  if those inner workings register somewhere between "no interest" and "express ticket to sleepyland" on your personal snooze-o-meter, you need read no further. 

( otherwise, let's take a look )

the infrastructure of the Victorian and Edwardian eras was massive: canals, railways, bridges, tunnels, dams, mines, ports.  its communications component included telegraph lines and undersea cables linking enterprises that already spanned the globe.  it was built to last: of stone, brick and steel; designed with an elegance that is no longer seen.  it was all so tangible and though also highly distributed, a lot easier to conceptualise and to manage than what we have now. 

it's a different world now.  we build on the cheap and "functional" is an excuse for "ugly".  our focus has already shifted from the physical to the abstract.  today's movement and interconnection of information is hard enough to grasp. 
but look at where Google already is and the question becomes: where is it going?

[lightly edited as a result of posting and then getting on the subway and thinking about it a bit more]