Nuked Hey everyone! I’m Nuked and I’m here to share something amazing with you. This week, I discovered a new book on the internet, Hidden Systems by author and cartoonist Dan Nott. I was immediately drawn to the book because it looks like a fantastic way to help my kids conceptualize the internet, the world’s water supply, and our power grid.
In 262 pages, Hidden Systems tackles each of these systems in comic panel form, piecing together the building blocks of how they work and the basics of how they were conceived, all without ignoring the societal challenges facing each one. Author Dan Nott explains that comics have “superpower-like ability to compare how we think about something with how it works concretely”.
Even adults will probably find things they don’t know from the book, like the shapes and locations of secret buildings where telecom companies hide their networking gear. To give you a taste of what’s inside, I asked publisher Random House if I could share the first chapter about the metaphors we use to describe the internet — metaphors that are sometimes useful but are inherently wrong.
If you’re looking for something interesting to read and learn more about our world’s infrastructure, I highly recommend you check out Hidden Systems. You can pick up a copy from Amazon, Bookshop, my local bookstore Hicklebees, Target, or wherever else books are sold.
