Here’s a snippet of conversation between two friends chatting on Gtalk :

Lady1 : Hi there, how are you?
Lady2 : Hi! Not doing so fine you know – the weather’s quite gloomy today and I have loads of unfinished laundry to handle. Life’s soo.. tough! How are you doing yourself?
Lady1 : I have promised to attend a friend’s book-release party tonight and haven’t got a thing to wear. Gotta go shopping now, but feeling soo.. lazy. How true - it is a tough life!

If only these ladies knew how much tougher it is to work behind the scenes to keep that conversation going. Meet John Rennie – the "protector of the Internet". The title is perfectly befitting of Rennie and his crew, as they spend their lives braving the rough waves of the North Atlantic Ocean, repairing thousands of miles of undersea cables that carry web and phone traffic across the world. And you thought your job was tough.

A truly great read from Popular Science on the one indispensable service that all computer users take for granted.