Imaginary Landscape
RSS FeedEver wonder what happens when an email gets lost or a Web site is unavailable?
Sure, there are the worldly explanations:
- Someone forgot to pay their hosting bill
- A truck ran into a power substation and blew the grid
- Someone fat-fingered the keyboard while logged in as root
If however, you eliminate all these reasons, one remains.
A black hole.
According to the University of Washington, there are a number of servers across the Internet - connected and accessible - that sometimes lose data for unexplainable reasons. These "black holes" are being mapped through a project called Hubble: Monitoring Internet Reachability in Real-Time at UW.
So, next time you forget to send an important email, just say, "It must have been eaten by a black hole."
"No, really."
Updated 07/14/10 @ 11:31AM CDT by brian
Categories: Fun Technology
