Randall Stross: At my house, the Internet connection is flaky at times, so I really shouldn’t demand that my favorite Web sites have Five-9s availability. Perceived reliability is determined by the least reliable service in the chain. A home user’s Internet connection, with a laptop using Wi-Fi, would be available about 99.8 percent of the time, estimates Mr. Hölzle at Google, which equates to about 18 hours of cumulative downtime a year. So, he says, “if Google provided Five 9s, you wouldn’t know.” ...

The game, Minecraft, is quite possibly the only graphical multiplayer game that captures the text-based MUD experience of years past. By that, I mean that not only can you login and play on a server with other people, but you can also download the server software and host your own game server allowing others to connect and play. Additionally, with some mods or some coding, you can add your own features and functions to the game. ...