The Guardian

Behind every meme and message is creaking, decades-old infrastructure. Internet experts can think of scenarios that could bring it all crashing down … It is the morning after the internet went offline and, as much as you would like to think you would be delighted, you are likely to be wondering what to do. You could buy groceries with a chequebook, if you have one. Call into work with the landlin…

Executives at world’s biggest datacenter owner grappled with disclosing information about water used to help power facilities Amazon strategised about keeping the public in the dark over the true extent of its datacentres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals. The biggest owner of datacentres in the world, Amazon dwarfs competitors Microsoft and Google and is planning a huge increase in …

Children across the UK have been shouting out ‘six-seven’ during lessons. How are teachers reacting? Across the UK, school pupils have been shouting out the words “six-seven” during lessons in the latest meme-based craze to sweep through classrooms. While some teachers have chosen to stoically ignore the trend, others have embraced it. Five teachers explain how they’re coping. Continue reading...

We know the internet will never be good again yet many refuse to learn Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

AWS explains in a lengthy post how a bug in automation software brought down thousands of sites and applications Amazon has revealed the cause of this week’s hours-long AWS outage , which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences. In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascadi…

Originality.ai scans 558 titles in herbal remedies section between January and September With gingko “memory-boost tinctures”, fennel “tummy-soothing syrups” and “citrus-immune gummies,” AI “slop” has come for herbalism, a study published by a leading AI-detection company has found. Originality.ai , which offers its tools to universities and businesses, says it scanned 558 titles published in Ama…

A failure at Amazon’s server centre paralysed global services for 15 hours. It was not just a glitch but a stark reminder of our digital dependency and fragility An outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday disrupted apps and websites around the world, affecting more than 2,000 companies and leaving millions of users unable to access services like Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, Duolingo and even A…

Metropolitan police | Cultural coherence | Internet outage | Mics on stage | Sumo wrestlers If the Metropolitan police scrap non-crime hate investigations but still record such incidents as “valuable pieces of intelligence to establish patterns of behaviour” ( Met police to end non-crime hate investigations after Graham Linehan case, 20 October ), there needs to be a much clearer definition of wh…

Cloud computing disruption highlights risk of deepening ties despite warnings from UK’s own regulators, including the Treasury Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy beamed as he met Keir Starmer in Downing Street’s garden to announce £40bn of UK investments in June. Starmer was equally effusive , gushing: “This deal shows that our plan for change is working –bringing in investment, driving growth, an…

The manosphere is known for misogyny, but that’s not the only thing that influencers in this space offer. Young men explain the allure and the problems of the manosphere in their own words Continue reading...

There was a different side to the chaos of the Amazon outage that affected crucial services around the world, such as no exams, light switches not working, and less work to do Workers were sent home, exams were delayed, coffee machines had to be turned on manually and language app users feared their hard-won progress was lost as a result of the global outage of Amazon Web Services on Monday, as s…

Fortnite, Roblox, SnapChat, Lloyds Bank and Ring doorbells among services hit by online outage Full story: Amazon Web Services outage hits dozens of websites and apps Heads-up: UBS have upgraded their view on global equities to ‘attractive’, a sign that they think investors should be putting more money into shares. Despite the angst in parts of the market that valuations have risen too high, UBS …

Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo among platforms affected after problems at cloud provider AWS A major internet outage has hit dozens of websites and apps around the world, with users reporting troubles getting online after problems at Amazon’s cloud computing service. The affected platforms include Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations including …

Connor Weston, 27, reportedly declared himself a ‘non-offending pedophile’ and threatened to kill himself An Ohio man is facing criminal charges after he allegedly stormed a stage at a Wikipedia conference in New York City with a gun – as well as a sign declaring himself a “non-offending pedophile” – and threatened to kill himself. Connor Weston, 27, was reportedly tackled by organizers of WikiCo…

The security chief of SolarWinds reflects on the Russian hack that exposed US government agencies – and the heart attack he suffered in the aftermath Tim Brown will remember 12 December 2020 for ever. It was the day the software company SolarWinds was notified it had been hacked by Russia. Continue reading...