fractalnavel

double category entry here, and an unusual flag.  this one isn't about politics, but is still has social impact.

i was in a local drugstore during a recent heatwave, and the power went out.  instead of servicing the customers already in the store before shutting down, they kicked everyone out then and there.  which kinda sucked since i was just finishing up, and shopping time isn't necessarily trivial.  right down the drain.  and why ?  the computers were down.  if they are that critical to a business, a proper operating plan should at least include enough backup power (from ups, generator, whatever) to process some expected number of shoppers.  i suppose they may also have been concerned about theft & security.  again, where's the backup power ? 

i saw an article about the recent virus outbreak where the people just sat and twiddled their thumbs when the computers went down.  didn't matter what type of business it was, that was the result.  news agencies, customs, retailers, ...  all were basically taken completely offline and all operations halted.

you'd think some lessons would have been learned after the wtc incident.  you'd think the blackouts a couple years back would have taught lessons as well.  well, the lessons were there, but the prospective students were all skipping class.

so what's the flag ?  not just the inadequate technical infrastructure, which is bad enough.  that's solvable, for a price.  if our society is that heavily dependent on electronic devices then it is in taxpayers' interest to have a much more robust systems.  if that means mini-generating stations on every block, or some other localized backup, so be it.  or must we legislate that every independent business facility have their own backup systems ?  this is already done with critical services such as fire, police and medical.

of course, that's just the power supply side of things.  computing resources are affected by many things, like viruses.  and to a society whose lifeblood seems to be information, computing needs the same robustness as does power, perhaps more so. 

but it's not necessarily the vulnerable computing itself which needs to be directly addressed.  people and businesses have forgotten how to operate without computing machinery.  for years, unreliable computing was a concern that was addressed by having manual failover processes.  that required some duplication of effort and recordkeeping, but was seen as necessary given the uncertainties. 

now it seems we accept the inherent reliabilities in return for hyper-streamlining of nearly all processes.  i can understand the difficulties involved when the computing based changes have resulted in qualitatively different approaches, or even entirely new businesses.  but for retail, customs and even news ?  the manual failover processes are obvious and simple.  will things be as efficient ? no.  but a complete stoppage is much less efficient than even that.

apparently the business lost - to a company, or even a nation's economy - is seen as an acceptable risk in terms of cost / benefit analysis.  on the other hand, a lot of people in the front lines are just looking for any excuse not to work for a little bit.  computer down ?  no problem, i needed the breather anyway [wink].  nothing new there.

i don't know if this nearly complete dependence on computers is a great success story, or a horrible tragedy waiting to happen.  or maybe it's already happened.