The Root of the Light

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Friday. Every government this week lived in the cloud, and every cloud turned out to need a plug.

KUALA LUMPUR. In Kuala Lumpur, Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof told the Dewan Rakyat that Malaysia’s data centres drew 1,374 megawatts in August, 58.5% of the 2,346 megawatts they had contracted. Operators, he said, “estimate how much power they will need,” and then use less. A task force has been set up to check actual demand.

Some 972 megawatts are being kept warm on a chair, with a coat over it.

JAKARTA. In Jakarta, a former Singaporean MP posted a chart claiming about 90 percent of Indonesia’s international internet traffic passes through Singapore, captioned “Cut?” The minister for communication and digital affairs, Meutya Hafid, urged calm: Indonesians “need not be irritated.” Then, on Instagram, she noted that the cable landing in Singapore “does not arrive there on its own; a large portion of its route passes through Indonesian waters,” and that disrupting it “could potentially cripple 80 percent of Singapore’s connectivity capacity.”

This is calm between neighbours: nobody is irritated, and each knows where the other’s wire gets wet.

TALLINN. In Tallinn, Estonia’s National Electoral Committee has approved voting by phone for the 2027 Riigikogu elections. Online voting dates from 2005, on computers only. A second app will let each voter check that the vote reached the electronic ballot box. Phone voting, said the committee’s chair, Ingrid Kullerkann, “does not involve greater risks than voting using a computer.”

One app to cast the vote, and a second one to believe it.

TALLINN. Also in Tallinn, the capital still has no official transport app. Every vehicle on the network sends its position every 10 seconds, and three free apps built by outsiders from that data have over 2,000 daily users, unadvertised. Deputy Mayor Joel Jesse says surveys show people are satisfied with the city’s website, and “we certainly plan to update it in the coming years.”

The buses give their position every ten seconds. The city gives its app’s position in years.

The boy is at a stop with a printed timetable.

“So I may choose a parliament from here.”

“From 2027.”

“But not find out when the bus comes.”

“For that you must ask a volunteer.”

KATHMANDU. In Kathmandu, the Nepal Tourism Board is taking applications for the China International Travel Mart 2026 by email, “after a cybersecurity vulnerability disrupted its online application portal.” Deadline 5 PM on 4 November, fee Rs 125,000, and then up to seven companies picked by lucky draw.

The portal fell back on email, and email falls back on a hat, in which nobody has yet found a vulnerability.

Lao Tzu, chapter twenty-six: the heavy is the root of the light, so the wise traveller marches all day without losing sight of his baggage cart. This week the light went looking for its root. Kuala Lumpur’s cloud booked more of the heavy than it could lift. Tallinn put the ballot in the pocket and left the timetable on the post. Kathmandu’s portal went light and landed in a hat. Only Jakarta knew where its cart was parked, and parked it where the neighbours could see.

Megawatts: 972, reserved. Cable: partly Indonesian. Hat: drawn on 5 November.

Yours, with one hand on the baggage cart,

The Monk