[rescue] A not-so-excellent Internet Adventure

[Bryan Gurney]

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:55:11 -0500, Sheldon T. Hall  
<shel at tandem.artell.net> wrote:

> When the power came back, but the 'net connection didn't, I called the  
> ISP.
> "All circuits busy."  Hmmmm.  I made a few inquiries, and it seemed like
> their whole part of Qwest was off the air.  Yes, the ISP has redundant
> backbone connections.  Yes, most Qwest switching centers around here have
> redundant power grid connections.  No, I don't know what really happened.

Hmm, maybe that's what happened to Valve Software:  
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8139/1092/

Their Steam authentication server was unreachable across the world for  
about four hours as far as I can tell.  I was unable to play Half-Life 2  
until about 9:30 PM EST or so.