The Batram's Covered Bridge, near Willistown Township.
Two major service outages underscored our economy’s enormous dependence on technology today. United Airlines was forced the ground all flights for several hours after a router malfunction. Not to be outdone, the New York Stock exchange suspended all trading on the floor until a “technical glitch” could be resolved. Ironically, digital trades continued without problem. From The New York Times:
But both United and the New York Stock Exchange were adamant that the problems were a result of internal technical problems, rather than malicious hackers.W hile, there was no indication that the incidents were related, one prominent investor, Doug Kass, noted that the problems were a reminder that “in a paperless (and ‘cloudy’) world, investors and citizens are not likely as safe as the markets assume.”
Floor trading was suspended at the NYSE on Wednesday just hours after United grounded or delayed flights around the county.–via CNN
The age old trouble of complex systems designed by humans. The flight delays and the trading problems reminded me of an essay I had read years ago on the history of technology:
Robots and autopilots might correct for human error, but they cannot compensate for their own designers. Perhaps a brighter technological future lies less in the latest gadgets, and rather in learning to understand ourselves better, particularly our capacity to forget what we’ve already learned. The future of technology is nothing without a long view of the past, and a means to embody history’s mistakes and lessons, as we plow forever forward.
As a species, we seem to delight in advancement even as it creates new and unexpected problems for us. Call it the “Jurassic Park” paradox. We create and adapt technologies to solve a problem, then said technology creates a new issue.
But that’s what humans do. Just some food for thought.
Update: Department of Homeland Security says there’s no evidence of a coordinated cyber attack–just a really weird day.
