Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Reader's Digest Bankruptcy





The recent filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection by Reader’s Digest is another sign that print media is dying and probably for good. Besides who needs print media when we have the internet. We get everything we need to know from the internet. Who needs to mess with a magazine or newspaper when we can just power on our laptops and bam everything we need is right there. It is not hard to see that one day soon everything we read on paper will be read on our computer screens via the internet.

That is exactly the problem. We have become too reliant on the internet for our information. The ease and convenience of the internet has made it so successful and so closely tied to our daily lives.

Hypothetically let’s say a virus that can’t be stopped or a group of people bring down the internet. You are probably thinking that will never happen and I am being ridiculous.

Well in 2007 that very thing did happen in the Union of Myanmar also known as Burma. The military junta cut off internet access to the entire county in an attempt to stop news and images of the atrocities from reaching the rest of the world. If Myanmar, a country of roughly 60 million can be cut off from the rest of the world then why is it not possible for internet shut down to happen on a global scale? Think about it. It is possible.

This is just another thing to think about as we approach December 2012. May be the internet will crash leaving the world in the dark. Where will we be then?



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125051784100336921.html


http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/28/myanmar.dissidents/




This video was taken before the internet access was cut.


Myanmar Internet Shut Down, But We Can Still Watch From Space
from the it's-a-small-world dept


As previously reported, the pro-democracy rallies in Myanmar have been closely covered by regular reports coming out of the embattled nation via cellphone, email and even YouTube. The government's attempts to try and pollute the web with their own propaganda must not have worked, since on Friday morning, the government shut off Internet access, cut phone lines and confiscated mobile phones in an attempt to control the outflow of information about the rallies. Though this may have slowed reports, it's very difficult for the government to completely clamp down, so some news reports are still getting out through mobile phones and a few satellite uplinks to the Internet. Even if the junta is able to completely shut things down, events can still be monitored from satellites, which are providing evidence of potential human rights abuses conducted by the government. Now that its next actions are being played out under a vigilant global eye, hopefully Myanmar officials will make the right choices in the coming days.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070928/190544.shtml

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