“Civilization is like a jetliner, noisy, burning up enormous amounts of fuel. Every imaginable and unimaginable crime and pollution had to be committed in order to make it go. Whole species were rendered extinct, whole populations dispersed. Its shadow on the waters resembles an oil slick. Birds are sucked into its jets and vaporized. Every part, as Gus Grissom once nervously remarked about space capsules before he was burned up in one, has been made by the lowest bidder.” – David Watson

… A thought after the crash of Microsoft operating systems bringing temporary paralysis, and in some cases ongoing disruption to many aspects of the megamachine: banks, logistics, emergency services, planes and airports, trains, medical databases, TV stations.

In Portland, Oregon the mayor made an emergency announcement due to the paralysis of city services, including emergency services.

There were also incidents of schools and supermarkets closing, and card payment systems crashing in businesses.

An industry analyst counted 1,396 cancelled flights wordwide. In some cases there were no screens working to announce the cancelled flights. In the UK, the 143 cancelled departures and 142 cancelled arrivals coincided with the busiest day for air travel bookings so far this year.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of Britain’s National Cyber Security Center and a professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.

Carpe diem!