The Day the Internet almost died…

Wikinews: Strong earthquake strikes off the coast of Taiwan

On 26th December 2006, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook Taiwan. In addition to the damage on land, undersea fiber optic cables were also damaged from the quake. This resulted in the disruption of communications and Internet traffic to Asia and Australia. Apparently, Internet traffic for the general asia-pacific region is routed through these undersea cables that run through Taiwan.

Work in the office was also messed up. Emails, even ones sent to local addresses in Spore, were bouncing and being rejected. Websites refused to load up; even Google “could not be found”. Messenger couldn’t log on, meaning in order to ‘chat’ with my colleagues, I had to actually walk over to their cubicle! What great inconvenience! :P

It’s quite scary how dependent we’ve come to be on the Internet for our communications in the last few years. It’s even more worrying how uncomfortable and helpless I felt when I couldn’t log in to check my e-mails and have my usual fix of internet news.

It’s almost like we are all linked into the Matrix, and if the Matrix dies, we all somehow die too – figuratively speaking.

Now all we need is the ability to "think" our clothes like they do in the Matrix. :)