about that aws outage thing
On 20-Oct-2025, there was a boo-boo over at AWS (Amazon Web Services), and because roughly about a third of the internet runs off that, when AWS has a problem, the internet as a whole has a problem. Amazon has since fixed the problem. But a lot of people realized how much of the internet relies on AWS to actually be up and running for things to work.
No, it was not a security breach thing. A lot of people think it was. Nope. It was a straight up IT thing. DNS resolution, specifically. That's the thing that translates names into internet addresses. In very oversimplified terms, that means that when you type a whatever-dot-com in your browser, DNS translates that into the numerical address (i.e. IP address) of the server serving the web site, finds it, then the site is served to your browser. It was the DNS as far as I know that temporarily broke on Amazon's end.
Did this outage affect me?
Since Microsoft laid down the boom with Windows 10 and cut off support (unless you pay for an extra year), there have been videos aplenty on YouTube from Linux people telling people DOWNLOAD LINUX AND SWITCH! SWITCH! SWITCH!
That's not happening.
It will never happen.
And I know why.
Oct 14, 2025 came and went, and that was the end-of-support day for Windows 10.
While true Microsoft has offered a way to have Win10 continue to receive updates for longer, that's not free for United States users.
Given I hardly used Win10 at all, I deleted it.
Near my computer, I have a little mini Ms. Pac-Man game. Mine is the one that looks like a little arcade cabinet. I remember many years ago back in the '80s when those things were at Toys 'R' Us and I wanted one so bad. Back then, I wanted a set of three. A Pac-Man, a Donkey Kong and a Frogger. The set I want now has changed. I have the Ms. Pac-Man, but I also want a Q*Bert and a Galaga.
There is another one however that's much bigger to truly satisfy my Pac-Man fever.
Just for grins, I looked up expensive digital watches since I prefer digital over analog. There were two things that immediately stuck out.
First, with little exception, everything was either too big or too goofy.
Second, it turns out I already own the second classiest digital timepiece, and it's not expensive at all.