While not quite as secretive as the article makes it sound, I thought this was an interesting look at how a technology that is generally considered to be somewhat outdated (for internet backhaul, at least) can still be incredibly useful.

I put up a 50' tower to get non-sattelite internet at my house a couple years back and since then I've been interested in towers and the kinds of things you find at the top of them--generally antennas of some sort. It's neat to see all the microwave towers when you're driving out in the western US. You can tell they're microwave towers since they're real stout--not spindly like an AM or FM radio station tower or a steel monopole like your standard cell phone tower. They're usually painted red and white, too. They have to be stout because microwave dishes are huge and relatively sensitive to alignment; the wind blows around spindly towers more than you'd expect (and more than you'd like when you're standing at the top of one...).