Lately in the news there have been one water main cracking up after another. Some speculate that it is the DWP's water restrictions causing it, by allowing sprinkler use Mondays and Thursdays, the water mains are pushed past their maximum.
What if it happened to your information super highway? What if that "pipe" coming into your computer burst from all the information surging through it? When does it become just too much for the invisible binary airwaves above our heads?
When I first went online, way back in 1994, I had a 2400 baud modem. The sound of the handshake was soothing, after a few bings, pongs, and zzzaps it connects. Don't even think of anything other than text and maybe an image on your screen. You were lucky even to get to a few pages after a minute or three. Hop scotch a decade and a half and I can download music, while sending a 9 mg file, not to mention watching a video of a cat in a tissue box. I had no doubt back in 1994 that we would be leaps and bounds ahead, but I did not realize how much we would depend on the speed of connectivity.
Ever have the misfortune of having your internet access go down? It's like loosing a limb. "I can't get your email, so that's why I am calling". We are forced back into our old ways, the phone call. The hardest part of phone calls are the fact you can only do one at a time, unlike emails where you can get your point across by hitting reply all. When you think of it, we are only saving minutes of time, which we then sit and wonder what to do with ourselves.
The local residents that were affected by the water main break had to do without water, they made do by showering at the gym, buying bottles of water, they were inconvenienced but they had work arounds. When our internet goes down we work around by using the phone or head out to a working network, or even just go offline and taking a break from the constant buzzing. But like all "breaks", we expect it to be fixed and back to normal eventually. We sit patiently tapping our fingers, our mantra "it will be back soon, I just know it."
Water will always travel the same way to our homes, but the internet has the advantage where it will evolve into newer and faster ways to deliver information to us. The only small fissure in the pipeline is the power source that pushes it through to us, and as long as we rely on that singular source of power, our internet pipeline is as fragile as our water mains.
Image: Ophelia Chong / SuperTrain
When I first went online, way back in 1994, I had a 2400 baud modem. The sound of the handshake was soothing, after a few bings, pongs, and zzzaps it connects. Don't even think of anything other than text and maybe an image on your screen. You were lucky even to get to a few pages after a minute or three. Hop scotch a decade and a half and I can download music, while sending a 9 mg file, not to mention watching a video of a cat in a tissue box. I had no doubt back in 1994 that we would be leaps and bounds ahead, but I did not realize how much we would depend on the speed of connectivity.
Ever have the misfortune of having your internet access go down? It's like loosing a limb. "I can't get your email, so that's why I am calling". We are forced back into our old ways, the phone call. The hardest part of phone calls are the fact you can only do one at a time, unlike emails where you can get your point across by hitting reply all. When you think of it, we are only saving minutes of time, which we then sit and wonder what to do with ourselves.
The local residents that were affected by the water main break had to do without water, they made do by showering at the gym, buying bottles of water, they were inconvenienced but they had work arounds. When our internet goes down we work around by using the phone or head out to a working network, or even just go offline and taking a break from the constant buzzing. But like all "breaks", we expect it to be fixed and back to normal eventually. We sit patiently tapping our fingers, our mantra "it will be back soon, I just know it."
Water will always travel the same way to our homes, but the internet has the advantage where it will evolve into newer and faster ways to deliver information to us. The only small fissure in the pipeline is the power source that pushes it through to us, and as long as we rely on that singular source of power, our internet pipeline is as fragile as our water mains.
Image: Ophelia Chong / SuperTrain
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This past weekend the my apartment complex lost its Internet connection. I had friends agonize over their inability to open Facebook, "google" an answer, or check their email. After three hours, our connection was restored and everyone was as excited as on Christmas morning!
I often find myself unable to look at the computer at home after a long day of staring at screens, a truth that makes me somewhat amazed at the dedication of 'crackberry' addicts. For all the internet's efficiencies, sometimes enough is too much. A cyberbreak could do us good.
Hi Maxwell,
I always wonder when the "pipe" will burst and I will be flooded with 0101011s. Cyberbreaks would be good, but the sensation of checking in after one of those breaks is like falling off the wagon with a smile. :O)
Hey Laura
Up in the hills of Los Feliz, we get outages. And when that happens I can see my neighbors peering out and seeing if everyone else's connections are down. We look at each other and sigh. :O) ophelia