Adil Najam
As regular readers have noticed, All Things Pakistan was unavailable (“Forbidden” Error) from around 1AM Pakistan Time on Sunday March 1 to around 7PM Pakistan Time on Monday March 2 (around 3PM US Eastern Time on Saturday February 28 to around 9AM US Eastern Time on Monday, March 2). As you can imagine, this caused tremendous angst to us, especially in the early hours of this breakdown, as we wondered what this was about and how we could restore things. We got a flood of emails from readers and well-wishers wondering what was up and if all was well. Unfortunately, there was no way – except to our Twitter subscribers – to let all our readers know that this was, yet again, a mess-up on the part of MediaTemple (mt) our web server host company.
The bad news was that there was nothing that we could do at our end about this (more details here). The good news is that the server is back online, and so is ATP!
Media Temple (mt) tends to be highly rated in general, but there have been multiple serious problems with its service over the years we have hosted this site with them (here and here). In fact, in recent weeks the server has been acting up a lot and resulted in at least a few shorter breakdowns of the site. Maybe, we should think seriously about moving!
But more interesting, from a ‘Pakistaniat’ angle, is that each time some technical glitch happens – and one should expect some glitches some time – not only our readers but we ourselves become immediately scared that this could be something more sinister. I guess this is a factor of the general sense of insecurity and uncertainty that we have now all become unaccustomed to. A ‘sinister’ explanation seems more plausible always than the ‘obvious’ explanation. That it is so, is sad.
I actually did think that there was something sinister. Specially because the screed read FORBIDDEN. But as others have said, its the times and place we live in, so much sinister happens in our lives that everything seems sinister.
But so glad to have Pakistaniat back!
Dear Adil bhai.
I was away from the internet for a day because of infection in eyes. Else I’d also have felt restless. It’s a sort of addiction, I need to go to ATP, a couple of times a day, even if I know that there wouldn’t be any new post.
I’m not sure, what I would have felt: A ‘Sehooni’ Saazish ;) or something else! Anyway, everybody loves your website and want to see it up all the time.
Best of Luck
Welcome back ATP
We missed you very much.
So glad to see you back.
I was also getting worried but guessed it was more likely to be technical.
But you are right, we tend to jump at anything. A tire bursts on the road and we think it is a bomb. Much like Americans did right after 911. I guess when you live with insecurity you become edgy.
I number of years ago I had read the following somewhere:
“Don’t ascribe something to a conspiracy which can be explained adequately by simple incompetence.”
But, I understand you completely, since the Pakistani experience includes both, almost in equal measure.