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Journalist Andrew Blum explains what and where the Internet is physically. His book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet tells the story of the Internet's physical infrastructure and chronicles the its development, explains how it works, and takes an in-depth look inside its hidden monuments.

This week, Comcast, the largest provider of cable and internet in the country, started charging for broadband using a tiered data plan - much like wireless carriers currently do. This move is not likely to affect many people right now, but as The New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter tells Brooke, Comcast might be preparing its subscribers for the future of internet pricing.

The founder and CEO of Tumblr, David Karp, discusses the successful micro-blogging site, Tumblr's efforts to launch the editorial project "Storyboard," and other tech news.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, is a controversial surveillance bill currently making it ways way through the House of Representatives. Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent and senior writer at CNET, explains the bill, and why privacy advocates are so alarmed by it.

Chances are you use email. If you’re like 88 percent of Americans, you also own a cell phone. And if you’re among the well-connected 46 percent, you check your email ON your cell phone. All of this can make us feel more connected. But it can also make us less connected to those who are sitting right next to us. And it can be addictive. What to do?

Siva Vaidhyanathan, chair of the Media Studies Department at the University of Virginia and the author of The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry), previews his Intelligence Squared defense of the argument that, "When it comes to politics, the Internet is closing our minds."

→ Event: Intelligence Squared debate with Eli Pariser, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Evgeny Morozov and Jacob Weisberg on Tuesday, April 17 at the NYU Skirball Center. Watch Live.

It's long been said that when you travel, the best way to get to know a new place is to meet the people who live there. And, while it's not always possible, perhaps the best way to know the locals is to live among them, maybe spend a night or two on their couch. Patricia Marx wrote about couch surfing for The New Yorker. Valerie is a couch surfer from Chicago.

After Yahoo! announced yesterday 2,000 job cuts, we look back at past search engines like Archie, AskJeeves and Hotbot. Steven Levy from WIRED magazine joins us to discuss how the idea of search on the Internet has evolved.

"Do you Yahoo?" was the web giant's catchphrase, but not enough people are answering in the affirmative these days. Yahoo has announced that it is laying off 2,000 employees in the hopes of turning around the company. Joe Nocera, Op-Ed columnist for our partner The New York Times, says Yahoo should be a cautionary tale for other tech companies like Google and Facebook, who might be next in line.

Wired correspondent James Bamford describes the $2 billion Utah Data Center that is being constructed for the National Security Agency. It’s expected to be up and running in 2013 and will house their database for all forms of communication—emails, cell phone calls, Internet searches, and even bookstore purchases.

Most of us think nothing of putting our lives in the cloud; photos in Flickr, videos on YouTube, most everything on Facebook.  But what about when those services abruptly go away, taking all of our collective contributions with them?  Well Jason Scott operates on the assumption that everything online will one day disappear.  He explains to Bob why he and the Archive Team are dedicated to saving user-generated content for posterity.

This week, two class action lawsuits were filed by privacy advocates against Google, because under their new privacy policy, the company can pool user data collected from all of its web services into one place. Software researcher Tom Henderson reacted in a different way: he decided to stop using all of Google's services. Bob speaks with Tom about how he “divorced Google.”

Daniel Rossen - Up On High

One of the greatest assets of the internet is that it leads to great content discoveries that readers might not otherwise be able to find. One of the biggest liabilities is that content is frequently repackaged without crediting its creators or where it was found. Brooke talks to Maria Popova, editor of the website Brain Pickings and one of the creators of the Curator's Code, which seeks to honor the way people discover content online.

The Iranian government is set to launch a "Halal Internet" this spring as an alternative to the greater World Wide Web. Bob speaks to Fast Company reporter Neal Ungerleider about the most ambitious attempt by a government to censor the internet since China's "Great Firewall."

Quantic and His Combo Barbaro - Cancao Do Deserto

This Is Yesica, the tipsy one on the right. She's a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model from Argentina. She is very nice to look at.

As knowledge moves onto the internet, the nature and shape of knowledge is changing to reflect the new medium.  Brooke speaks to David Weinberger, author of Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room.  He says knowledge used to be limited by capacity and filters, but not anymore.

Zammuto - Wasn't That Lucky

John Seabrook talks about YouTube and the other new professionally produced channels that it plans to roll out over the next six months. It is part of a larger strategy, designed by YouTube’s Robert Kyncl and Salar Kamangar, to increase the amount of time people spend on the site. His article “Streaming Dreams: YouTube Turns Pro” appeared in the January 16 issue of The New Yorker.

Brooke asks Harvard Law professor and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society Jonathan Zittrain if access to the internet should be considered a human right.  He says that according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to receive and impart information through any media, and today's media of choice is the internet.

In the quest to find out whether or not the internet is a human right, Brooke speaks to Vinton Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet. He says that the internet is a useful tool for improving the human condition, but because it is just a tool, it doesn't rise to the level of a human right.