As we roll into the 21st century, the Internet has become a party of many
people's every-day lives.
Email has all but replaced the fax or letters and stamps for many casual communications
and we're just as likely to turn to the web as we are TV when looking for some
evening entertainment.
The influence of the online world looks set to become even more profound now
that we've got a honking great fibre-optic cable linking our tiny islands
to the rest of the world -- but what if?
What happens if, once we become addicted to all that lovely international
connectivity, we lose it?
Much noise has been made about the way that the new Southern Cross undersea cable
is "self repairing" and has built in redundancy, and it might be pretty unlikely
that it would be disturbed while quietly nestled thousands of feet below the
waves on the ocean bottom -- but that's what happened to another cable yesterday.
Connectivity from Australia, Indonesia and parts of Western Asia were abruptly
interrupted yesterday when one of these undersea cables had an accident.
Nobody is yet quite sure what has happened to cause the cable fault, but its
repair requires tracking down the location of the problem and then performing
some rather delicate repairs.
Most analysts agree that we're going to continue to see strong growth in the
demand for international bandwidth in/out of NZ in the coming decade. So
imagine how sad life would be if the Southern Cross cable were to suffer
a catastrophic failure in (say) two year's time. It doesn't bear thinking
about does it?
The Growing Threat Of Buffoonism?
It's very refreshing to see that the new CEO of Domainz has the guts to
fess up that the new registry system is still a can of worms. Well done!
Despite repeated assurances from the former CEO, Patrick O'Brien, every man
and his dog knew that there were still major problems with that atrocious
system. I believe that O'Brien's "ignore the truth" attitude to dealing with
the problem did nobody any favours and ultimately reflected badly on his own
credibility. The fact that the problems have now been acknowledged bodes
very well for the future.
And on the subject of Buffoonery - an Aardvark reader spotted a piece in the
Evening Post last night which seems to parallel the plight of Alan Brown in
his battle with the former Domainz CEO.
It seems that England cricket batsman Michael Atherton has been hit with
a $500,000 defamation suit after he called a local (Pakistani) journalist
a "buffoon" during a 1996 press conference.
Might I suggest that anyone who sues another for calling them a buffoon, truly
is one.
The Weekly
Yes, I know the first edition of the weekly has yet to appear -- but I'm
still working on it.
Hopefully (if current leads pan out) it will include a very interesting expose'
into the astoundingly bad behaviour of a group of local "new economy" company
directors (some of who are also on the board of a public company). Just how
competent and ethical are the managers of some of our hi-tech public companies?
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