PureInsight | October 31, 2005
[PureInsight.org] I do not know when I started to have this habit. The first thing I do after I come to work is to turn on the computer, check my email for instructions from my boss, and browse the Internet for news headlines. I never thought about what we would do if there were no Internet connection. I believed that even if our network were down, it wouldn't last long unless there were a big electricity power failure like the one that happened in New York City.
The thing I never thought about actually happened. On Wednesday morning, as usual, I put down my bag and sat in front of the computer after I got into the laboratory. I clicked my mailbox icon and it could not connect. I checked the company intranet and I still could not get to it. It looked like that I had to wait until the computer expert come to work.
So I started to do my work. Luckily I do not need to search the Internet for any information. At that time, my co-worker came to work and he could not access the Internet either.
During lunch hour, we still could not connect to Internet. I was told that there were some problems with our Internet Service Provider (ISP). I could not send out the document that I suppose to send. I tried to make a phone call and that did not work either. My co-worker got bored. He walked around and started to complain. He said that it is so boring without any Internet connection. I said that maybe one day computers would control human beings. It will make you totally rely on it. You have already seen the symptoms now. Then we talked about how human beings survive in open country when they are away from modern tools. In ancient times, people made fire by boring a hole in wood. The ancient people had a carefree life, and the development of modern science causes the damage to the ecological environment.
Outside the window, the sun started to set in the west. A co-worker who is in charge of dispatching and accounting could not do anything. She refreshed her computer several times. Since there was no phone and no Internet connection, there were no orders coming in. Therefore, there was nothing that she could send out…
It was time to go home. There was still no phone or Internet connection. A day without an Internet connection makes me realize our heavy dependency on modern technology. This incident only occurred in a small company. If it should occur in a city, or even in a country, you can imagine what the result would be.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/6/22/27762.html
