We can talk about "life in the cloud" all we like, but every so often there's a harsh reminder that real physical objects are what makes it all possible. Witness the huge outage in the middle east that was just reported - so far, it looks like some kind of problem with an undersea cable:

Internet outages disrupted business and personal usage across a wide swathe of the Middle East on Wednesday after an undersea cable in the Mediterranean was damaged, government officials and Internet service providers said.

There's no sign that anyone knows what caused the problem, either - and laying new cables is neither cheap nor fast. The cloud may be an increasingly important part of life, but it's useful to remember that it relies on real stuff to make it all work.

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