The Rodeo

30 Days of writing: Day 13

Don’t they use computers to do their writing?
Don’t they do any research?

I was just watching the new series of 24 with Jen and some friends, trying very hard not to make any comments on computer usage (Jen hates watching any sort of movie/tv show with computers in it with me), when in a meeting of the US President’s advisors etc, one of them says: “We can’t shut down the internet…”.

That is fine, and an accurate assessment.
Until she finishes her sentence: “without disrupting all communications and operations control”.

I laughed so hard juice flowed freely from my nose and mouth (I caught most of it in my glass). Apparently in 24-land, the President of the US of A has the internet’s on/off switch readily at hand should terrorists want to broadcast videos of beheadings to everyone on the internet (I’m not going to worry about the fact that video requires large amounts of bandwidth, and the fact that you can’t force people to download things and make them watch film on some sort of video player that just works…).

I spent several minutes (once the friends had left) explaining to Jen how the internet (or DARPAnet anyway) was created as a way to avoid communications disruptions due to say, atomic weapons taking out a major city. Trying to explain that there isn’t a single point of failure for the internet is kinda hard.

I really hope there isn’t a single point of failure (can’t think of any offhand).
So, that’s it for tonight, not really interesting or important, but writing none-the-less.

-RodeoClown

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