Over the weekend my DSL=gone. (Last post was actually in the queue before the outage) And while I had a tech scheduled to come out, the line problem fixed itself sometime early Monday. The roughly 36 hours without the Internet brought home exactly how much we rely on it now. Especially when me and the missus were parked in the Solon Arabica parking lot trying to log on to our e-mail late Sunday night.
This also makes me think that the trend toward effciency, productivity, doing more, quicker with less, is leading us to a society that is built on too many systems with a single point of vulnrability. A decade or two ago any retail store would be able to sell something during a blackout. Now, if the power’s gone, they can’t. Not just because the cashier can’t make change without a machine to tell them the amount, but because no one marks the prices on products anymore. We have all these applications living in the cloud (this blog included) with pushes for more, what happens when there’s a large internet outage over a section of the country? How many business will that cripple or destroy?
3 Comments
steve buchheit · October 28, 2008 at 1:04 pm
It’s called “War Driving,” and being someone who’s only local internet option was dial-up, I’m an old hand (although I never got used to all the chalk marks).
Tarrell Childs · November 21, 2008 at 7:45 am
I’ve been wondering the same thing in recent years. My thought was always what if some strange phenomenon from space hit us like a global EMP blast, how would the “civilized” world deal? I’m mildly paranoid anyway so I make it a point to stay as current as possible with ideas of physical survival, just in case.
michelle · November 21, 2008 at 11:14 am
Interesting point, Tarrell. I’m all about self-reliance and know that if bad things happen, Steve and I can survive, albeit a lot less comfortably. However, while we could have food, shelter, equine transportation, generator, etc., I can’t see how to get on the internet if a situation like you described were to happen. And I felt mighty disconnected from society without it for just a few hours. And the big-box stores would close. Smaller independent stores would still be able to do business, although it would be an adjustment for all. Maybe I just watched too much Jerrico.
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