In the early morning, a saboteur cut a number of fiber optic lines essentially disabling all telecommunication in the area south of San Jose. The towns of Gilroy, Santa Cruz and Morgan Hill were without wired and mobile phones, internet, and ATMs for much of the day. It's as if southern Santa Clara county went through a 25 year time warp.
No Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Livejournal, email, voicemail, credit cards, debit cards, texts, or blogs. This reminds me that we shouldn't take these things for granted. So many people depend on email for important information, the internet for news and entertainment, and our mobile phones for keeping in touch. We don't really think about how vulnerable the network is that these services depend on.
For that natter, most people make the assumption that mobile phones and the 911 service will be there for us when we need them most. In this case, the towns announced that residents with emergencies should go to a nearby fire station, police station, or flag down an emergency vehicle.
The situation kind of reminds me of the scene in WALL-E when the trash compacting star robot comes to the late realization, "We have a pool!?" Sometimes I feel like society is headed in that direction. We can't keep from having some kind of computer display in our faces all the time, whether it be a mobile phone, computer, or television.
Sometimes I worry for humanity. The rest of the time, I'm busy checking my email and tweeting.
