'
The apostrophe, like all punctuation, has a purpose in writing, but disrupts computer programming. and as such can't be used in an e-mail address. But someone who didn't know that O'Ryan wasn't a geekspeak name, put an apostrophe in the name of one of my student's e-mail adresses, blocked the web pages I needed, to know the names and data about my students who were registered already 2 days into the quarter for my GED class. It was fixed a day later, but spun in motion another catastrophistic prophesy.
Now an apostrophe may seem like a small matter, until you ask if a misplaced apostrophe could bring down the global network? Creating network dysfunction is the mission of a whole new younger generation of rebels with anarchistic tendencies, as in any era of dysfunctional societies.
That network relies on Vigintillion (and yes that means:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 yes/no bytes, or ten to the 120th power, as defined in Europe, anyway. These infinite numbers of yes/no bytes now rule the globe these days, to run our banks, our tax system, our finance system, our military, our electric grid, our communications grid, etc. etc. Did I mention Nuclear bombs.
Cataclysmic things can happen when someone can't or won't program. And the solar system could also have a sun with nuclear energy having a flare or two at two or three times higher than usual, which for most knowledgeable people is not an if but when event of a gigantic solar flare with intense magnetic fields crashed against our electrical/communication infrastructure the apostrophe wouldn't matter anymore, but in the meanwhile, any small error in programming has potentially huge consequences...especially when a hacker works hard to make it happen.
All of which is to say, from my perspective, that we've become more vulnerable to global collapse than at any time in our history, short of nuclear war.
It is really incredible to think of this global network which is operating with a collective knowledge globally but which depends on nearly microscopic chips to contain more data than that unimaginable number of "yes-no" decisions...it's hard to believe this way of life can ultimately continue...yet we do nothing to plan for an alternative...is that sanity?
