The Day Facebook Died

Yesterday Facebook died. Now in itself this should not have been a problem , let alone a major problem , but …..

Facebook has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp and other platforms that I am unaware of , and all these applications run on a centralised platform and when that goes down everything goes down.

You can't message someone using messenger and if this is your only connection to someone you cannot communicate.

Facebook promotes itself as a business platform , so the chances are you lose all connections with your customer base.

This is the problem with integrated packages like laptop computers and music centres. If they break then unless you are a technical expert , you need to send it away to be repaired , and be without your piece of technological fun for however long it takes.

If your hifi or computer consists of different components yu can usually replace the failed component and get up and running fairly quickly , but that is impossible with an all in one device.

Mobile phones used to have removable batteries and sd card slots but there are becoming less and less common , meaning if your battery fails , your phone fails , and if you are running out of space you need to buy a new phone (or “upgrade” for a suitable increased fee), again and imperfect solution.

This is the problem with Facebook and similar models, when it runs ok , it is probably easier fro them to maintain , but it then becomes a conglomerated point of failure when something goes wrong.

From a personal point of view Facebook facilitates 95% of my Vocal reads and is the only way barring twitter that I can get any feedback on what I post. I was about to post two stories , one anxiously awaited by my followers when it went down, so I expect my reads today to be in single figures.

On the plus side it has given me an unexpected topic to write about. In my job I look at projects , procedures and methodologies and try to identify points of failure and then refer these to those implementing the systems and also suggest possible safety options (which are usually ignored until something does fail).

I really don’t know what’s gone wrong on Facebook and know theory will be working like hell to get it back online but just hope that things don’t get rolled back and we lose data or information.

I am sitting at my computer , and it is connected to a Netgear box , which is connected to a modem which is connected to a box on the wall which is connected to a fibre system outside. The computer has a wireless mouse and keyboard and a separate screen and speaker system , with a bluetooth printer attached. Any of the cables could fail , but would be able to replace them.

The screen would be a little more difficult but I have a spare in the garage (which hopefully would work).

If the Netgear box failed I could plug directly into the Virgin Modem , and if that failed it would be a call to Virgin but I could tether to my EE connected Google Pixel 2XL phone.

So you can see I have a lot of contingencies for small failures but if I lost power then I would actually be grounded.

I do feel sorry for people who live on Facebook , who have it as their main point of contact with friends, and really there isn’t anything like it. It is full of horrendous flaws , but it is free, it can be used to share your work , it can be used to hold conversations, and when it is taken from you you are suddenly cast adrift on a sea in a boat , with no compass and no paddles , wishing you had learned your stars and asked where you had been cast off.

Ok for lead in misc we have “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” by PM Damn based on my last analogy.