Sometimes, when I see a certain word, I read it as another. For instance, I read the word Outage more often than not as Outrage. I wonder if it’s because many folks are outraged when there is an outage – there’s a blackout after severe weather.
Sometimes, it’s warranted, such as after the Maui, Hawaii fires of 2023, which cost people their lives.
I’m sure the massive AT&T outage in February 2024 was problematic for some. But I felt more outrage when people called 911 to check if their cell phones worked.
I was also puzzled by media stories suggesting that those with cell phones—97% of Americans—should have some redundancy. Were they suggesting we should have…. no, it can’t be that… landlines? Either that or walk to your nearest fire or police station in case of emergency, we were told. I’m only a block and a half from the nearest police station but I can imagine several scenarios where walking for help would be inefficient at best, impossible at worst.
This article had some interesting statistics:
- 34% of homeowners still have a landline. Only 15% of renters have a landline.
- There is a big geographic difference in households that only have cell phones… The states with the lowest percentage of homes that only use cell phones are New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. The whole northeast has fewer homes that rely on only cell phones than the rest of the country.
We’re Both Of The Above people, New York State homeowners with both cellphones and a landline.
Missed the holiday
Related: March 10, 2024, was a holiday. “Let’s take a step back in time and celebrate National Landline Telephone Day with our activity, The History of the Telephone. This activity introduces students to Alexander Graham Bell and shows the impact of his invention – the telephone – on the U.S. population and how phones have changed since first introduced in 1876. For added fun, encourage students to make a list of people they know who still only use landline telephones.” Fun for your favorite seven-year-old.
In case you have forgotten, this was how you dialed your telephone in 1936 and 1954.
FB/IG
Regarding the March 5 event, I laughed quite a bit when people marked themselves Safe after the Facebook and Instagram outage. I understand folks tried unsuccessfully to reset their passwords multiple times, and that certainly would have been extremely frustrating. Somehow, I had missed it altogether until someone emailed me. Elon Musk was experiencing WAY too much glee over it.
In the outrage category, a friend I’ve known IRL since the 1960s noted they disputed a few Amazon claims they didn’t recognize. Amazon immediately locked them out of their account, disconnecting the Fire TVs, Alexa, AND access to Kindle. So they couldn’t turn on any of the lights in the house, watch TV or read. All of these devices/media were items they purchased! Amazon shouldn’t be able to disable them. This DID get resolved, but it’s rather Big Brother.
This got me thinking about the vulnerabilities we experience, from technical glitches to bad actors hacking into governmental, educational, and medical facilities. Those outages do generate outrage, especially the ransomware attacks. Do you ever wonder if the technological networks we’ve built our lives upon could come crashing down?