The biggest tech outages of 2022

The impact of these technologies could be measured by the number of people involved. More than 1 billion people in China are now exposed to the virus for the first time; 335 million on Twitter watch Musk’s antics; and fentanyl killed 70,000 people in the United States. In each of these mess, there are important lessons about why technology fails. Continue reading.

---

Imagine a world where you can earn new kinds of money and other people will pay you, well, real money to get it. Let’s call what they’re buying cryptocurrency tokens. But since there are so many types of tokens and they are difficult to buy and sell, imagine an entrepreneur creating a private stock market to trade them. Let’s call it a “cryptocurrency exchange”. Since tokens have no intrinsic value and other exchanges have gone bankrupt, you will ensure that yours is ultra-safe and well-regulated.

That was the concept behind FTX Trading, a crypto exchange started by 20-something Sam Bankman-Fried that touted sophisticated technology, like a 24/7 “automated risk engine” that checked every 30 seconds if depositors had enough real money to cover their crypto bets. The technology would ensure “full transparency”.

Behind the facade, however, FTX was apparently just an old-fashioned embezzlement. According to US investigators, Bankman-Fried took clients’ money and used it to buy luxury homes, make political donations and amass huge stakes in illiquid crypto tokens. Everything collapsed in November. John Ray, appointed to oversee the bankrupt company, said FTX’s technology “was not sophisticated at all”. Nor was the alleged fraud: “It’s just about taking money from customers and using it for your own purposes.”

Bankman-Fried, an MIT graduate whose parents are both Stanford University law professors, was arrested in the Bahamas in December and faces multiple counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. money.

To learn more about cryptocurrency promoters, we recommendif Wolf of Wall Street was about cryptoa satirical video from Joma Tech.

---

In 1953, Belgian physician and chemist Paul Janssen set out to create the strongest painkiller possible. He believed he could improve on morphine by designing a molecule 100 times more potent but short-lived. His discovery, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, would become the most widely used painkiller during surgery.

Today, fentanyl is setting grim records – it’s implicated in the accidental deaths of around 70,000 people a year in the United States, roughly two-thirds of all fatal overdoses. It’s the leading cause of death for American adults under 50, killing more than car crashes, firearms and covid combined.