Blackout at the Cafe

As I sit in the cafe I usually don't bring a laptop, but having technology allows me to output my thoughts in a more organized way that allows me to keep my sanity sometimes.  Otherwise the thoughts go round and round inside my head and with no escape it can get quite noisy.  Being able to output it into an understandable and organized form allows me to center myself.

I took out my laptop, and my phone.  I plugged in my external battery pack to my phone and I started my hotspot.  I opened up my computer, and I was ready.

Then the lights and music of the cafe suddenly shut down.  I had already had my coffee.  I already had my biscotti, I already had my cornetto.  So I was unaffected by the power outage event.  My computer still worked, my internet was independent.  I was part of a different system.  And because of that I was unaffected.  But had I been reliant on the system that everyone else was on at that point in time I would have been affected.

It's a reminder that being connected to the larger system, being soley reliant on the larger system leaves you to the whims of the system.

Sure, the system I had could have not worked, and if something in that system broke I could then rely on the larger system, but it's this double redundancy that is the key.  To have more that one provider, more than one support more than one reason, more than one connection.

It's a reminder that anything can fail, so not only do you need to put in the proper reinforcements and safeguards built in, the proper protections agains attack or disaster, but also another option to rely on.

Topics: The Need for Options and Redundancy