This is the picture that I received the down-vote for.
ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2024
Entry 13th February 2024: Post 1: The corrosive nature of the Internet.
The corrosive nature of the Internet.
No blog yesterday and for good reason. I was without a data feed.
Let me explain....
A few weeks ago I suffered an Internet failure due to high winds
from one of those recent dreadful storms. The problem reoccurred
last week and I decided to call in BT [British Telecom].
They arrived yesterday lunchtime and set too tracking down the
fault. One thing to remember is that the actual BT cabling to
this house which is by high level wires from poles in the street
dates some 40 years old. I have lived here for 37 years and to
my knowledge other than the hub everything is as it was back in
1987. The engineer confirmed that the kit was seventies and or
early eighties in date.
OK first port of call the BT socket in the house. First problem
and he had to barely touch the thing for it to kick the hub offline.
Next test was to literally smack the wall cabling with a stick.
His hand held machine picked up numerous faults. Same thing with
the high level wires and the box on the pole.
In very little time the engineers from BT had replaced the whole
lot. New wires, boxes and connectors. Amazing. He had discovered
corrosion in all the wires and boxes and only one of the double
wires crossing from the pole was working. The one wire had fully
corroded at its centre and was not working.
I looked at the guy and realised the cables and wires were very
likely older than he was. Further, I have been linked to the
Internet for close on 28 years now and again I sense that was
longer than this guy had been alive.
I was moved to comment that I truly believe that these engineers
are now some of the most important people working on the planet.
Just imagine a world without the Internet. I spent only a few
hours cut from the system and I was already running out of my
own fingernails. What if ? Seriously... What if ? My goodness it
was not something I could even consider.
Thinks that 28 years ago I walked into a computer store to buy my
first Internet connectivity package with CompuServe. Things were
much different then, what with logging on protocols and special
locations that you could use to connect to the web. Costs were at
a premium and all ticking on a clock using dial-up. The speeds of
connection were very poor and it depended very much on the time
of day... in the the world.
I struggled with many providers before settling with Pipex who I
used for over two decades. At first everyone used Netscape and
the search engine was AltaVista. To do anything you really did
need to read a book. I spent a lot of time on the phone with the
ISP sorting out problems.
To think, those telephone cables managed to survive the 28 years
of my Internet life It is impossible to imagine the amount of
data that has passed back and forth across those thin wires. And
I am just one person and so multiplying that by the numbers in
the world just is impossible to put into any kind of perspective.
Eventually the poor things were defeated by simple corrosion and
Storm Isha. Otherwise, given the pretty faultless period prior to
these events they would have served me well for years to come.
So next time you suspect telephone wire failure my advice is
simply to hit the cable with a big stick and see if the hub kicks
out. Nothing scientific, or you could simply wait for another
storm to rip the face off your house.
I use this post to applaud the good men of BT and any number of
Internet cable engineers. To me they are champions worthy of high
honour. Without them my life would pretty much grind to a halt.
I thank you one and all. Anyhoo suffice to say I am back.
I bet you thought I was going to have a bitch about the state of
social activity of Internet users on public forums and the like,
given the wording of this blog. Not at all. Saying that, yesterday
I was down-voted on a well known Amiga forum for posting a pic
of the signatures inside an Amiga 1000 case, in response of what
to look out for when opening up an Amiga 1000 that had been in
store for decades. Happens all the time on Reddit. I sense some
there are a little jealous of my collection. Very often I get
the old thumbs down from showing my stuff.
But then it was an Amiga forum and we were discussing
the Amiga 1000, so what was I thinking. Duh.
The corrosive nature of the Internet.
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Last updated 13th February 2024
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