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Transatlantic Cable Fault Disrupts Internet In UK
An anonymous reader submits "Web traffic between the U.S. and Europe has been hit after an undersea cable developed a major fault on Tuesday. Because the TAT-14 cable network is shaped like a ring, it should be able to cope with one such failure -- but unfortunately the consortium that owns it hadn't fixed an earlier problem, just off the U.S. coast. Just shows how systems with build-in redundancy can still go badly wrong...."
No need to mod down IMHO, it is actually a very funny part of the Holy Grail:
...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting... ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,... ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major-- ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN: King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN: Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
WOMAN: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one lives there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS:
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS:
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS:
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,... [angels sing]
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?
Blatantly offtopic, I know, but couldn't resist to share.
cheers
that and maybe they will find nemo when fixing that fiber.
No, that's just something the environmentalists has implemented in IPv6.
Yep, they vanish right into the ether.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, a rescue mission is already on thier way. They are going to fish out the cablewrecked packets from a helicopter as the packets reach the surface, and manually deliver them to the site of their destination.
Average failure rates don't mean a thing until you eliminate factors that could make the average higher for the specific equipment you are using.
Open Letter to Sprint and anyone else owning a major chunk of Internet backbone:
Dear sirs,
Your continued demonstrable lack of understanding of technology, or indeed of the financial consequences of that lack of understanding, are irritating both your customers and your shareholders.
I will gladly advise you on the correct procedure for operating a network reliably, with optimal performance. I can guarantee superior network performance at a reduced net cost. It is very clear your current technical advisors can do neither.
If you do not correct the defects in your network in a reasonable time, I shall have no choice but to proceed on determining the viability of, and obtaining captial for, a rival backbone that will be superior in performance and cheaper to maintain than your own.
In an age where the Internet is de-facto critical infrastructure, but where companies are negligent to such an extreme that even systems with built-in redundancy can catastrophically fail, there can only be two possible solutions. Either existing providers must correct their solutions - this would be the preferred option - or someone must build a system that meets the current requirements of reliability and performance.
It has been eight years since the last major blackout on the transatlantic line - eight years in which to fix existing problems and develop adequate procedures for such contingencies. Eight years in which you have demonstrably done nothing different to avoid such a crisis.
Change by choice, or change by market forces. The rest of civilization is growing weary.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
get to goatse.cx? Is there an equivalent british site, like goatse.uk? Now THAT would be redudnacy worth talkin' 'bout