Sweet sweet internet, how I missed you...
That sort of thing is not quite as much of an issue here, but still.
[ 08-15-2003: Message edited by: Pvednes ]
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Sentow, Maybe had this to say about (_|_):
I wanted to slug the guys on the local networks."This morning, a spokesperson for the Bush administration announced that [some member of Al-Qaeda; apparently he had something to do with bombing a club?] was apprehended. Several hours later, the power outages began. Oh, by the way, this definitely has nothing to do with terrorism, nope, no sir..."
yeah, last night one of our local stations had one of those omnious panic raising apocolyptic tones of voice, he was really streaching to freak people out for ratings. i wanted to beat the fuck out of the guy. changed the channel immediatly to put on a real news broadcast that was focusing on more what was going on then trying to raise panic.
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Ares wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
^.^ After 13hours.. I have power!
THank GOD I have power this morning...Means I probably have to work 
Apparantly this power outage has reached from Ottawa, to Sudbury, to St. Catherines, down to Chicago, NYC, Detroit...I even heard Seattle in there too.
It's weird driving around in a town that is only partially lit. Where I live it was down completely (The Major Blocks were out....for anyone who knows, From Fairview to New St, and Walkers to Guelph).
There weren't any street lights on until the top half of the city...and when I went east...most of the top half of the east side was out...it was very strange driving in almost total dark.
So, ya. Burlington, Ont, Ca is (mostly?) back up. (Hopes his restraunt is closed today)
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Redmage Darkrayver had this to say about Optimus Prime:
THank GOD I have power this morning...Means I probably have to workApparantly this power outage has reached from Ottawa, to Sudbury, to St. Catherines, down to Chicago, NYC, Detroit...I even heard Seattle in there too.
It's weird driving around in a town that is only partially lit. Where I live it was down completely (The Major Blocks were out....for anyone who knows, From Fairview to New St, and Walkers to Guelph).
There weren't any street lights on until the top half of the city...and when I went east...most of the top half of the east side was out...it was very strange driving in almost total dark.
So, ya. Burlington, Ont, Ca is (mostly?) back up. (Hopes his restraunt is closed today)
Get this Damon. My dad drove into work today in downtown Hamilton and they STILL don't have power, so he came home.
God, it's so wonderful having a firepit, grill and various grillables 
. That's the only way I survived last night... making myself a mount of meat to eat!
It was also weird looking up and seeing actual stars. We do not get stars here. Toronto is covered by a Mordor-dark of haze and lights, so to be able to look up and go "WHOA. I see stars!" is rather unique. Add to that Mars was out, and it was kinda cool .
I feel bad for the people in subways and elevators and stuff, but I was in my backyard, happily munching on giant sausages and listening to the political rhetoric .
Did they finally find out what side of the border it originated from? It was kinda funny seeing the various Canadian and American dignitaries go "It definitely did not happen in Canada." "Yes it did!" "Did not!" "Did too!" "Did not!" "You big stupid head!" "Johnny Johnny poopoo pants!" when neither of them knew anything .
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Redmage Darkrayver had this to say about Pirotess:
I even heard Seattle in there too.
Seattle is on the other side of the continent... How do you figure that?
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Ares had this to say about Robocop:
Get this Damon. My dad drove into work today in downtown Hamilton and they STILL don't have power, so he came home.
*nods* Believable. Mom's work (Burlington City Hall) was closed today.
But not the restraunt. I had a SHITLOAD of work to do since last night's poweroutage happened an hour before the night dishwasher came in. AND on top of that, the people coming in who either A. Didn't have power, or B. Don't wanna cook their own breakfast.
The last two days of working there at morning shift, I finished at 1pm, or 1:30pm at the very latest. I finished at 2:45pm today...stupid people are too god damn lazy to make their own food, so they make me work my ass harder >_<.
Oh well, an extra hour and a half on the time sheet 
Aaaand Tonight, time to party at The Kingdom (The local club...they play alternative rock brought to us by Edge102...^_^). Anyone who is of the age of 19 or older, and wants to come have a good time (in the Hamilton area), come join in.
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Redmage Darkrayver was naked while typing this:
*nods* Believable. Mom's work (Burlington City Hall) was closed today.But not the restraunt. I had a SHITLOAD of work to do since last night's poweroutage happened an hour before the night dishwasher came in. AND on top of that, the people coming in who either A. Didn't have power, or B. Don't wanna cook their own breakfast.
The last two days of working there at morning shift, I finished at 1pm, or 1:30pm at the very latest. I finished at 2:45pm today...stupid people are too god damn lazy to make their own food, so they make me work my ass harder >_<.
Oh well, an extra hour and a half on the time sheet
Aaaand Tonight, time to party at The Kingdom (The local club...they play alternative rock brought to us by Edge102...^_^). Anyone who is of the age of 19 or older, and wants to come have a good time (in the Hamilton area), come join in.
Sorry, too young.
Bah, I know how that goes. Only I'd work 30mins past my shift and NOT get paid for it. Sorry to hear that you had to work over time.
I first heard about it during the days of the Y2K worries, and it was an ancient problem even then. Everyone was running around scaring the populace with fears of a "China Syndrome" nuclear disaster. Fact is that the chances of a nuclear power plant going that bad is pretty astronomical. There's safeguards. Keep morons from running a plane directly into the most sensitive areas, and you'll be fine. On the other hand...if you have a computer network that's only partially protected, and that network is the one that helps regulate the massive interconnected power grid...one mistake could shut things down.
That in itself isn't bad. Ask people living between Florida and NC. Power outages every year, almost, due to hurricanes and flooding. Inconvenient as hell, but imminently survivable. On the other hand, look what shutting down the NY Stock Exchange after 9/11 did. Jarring a major metropolitan area out of it's sense of security causes panic, panic causes lack of faith in the system, system crashes since no one can get their daily dose of reassurance, and you see massive amounts of money disappearing into the stock market.
But when Y2K failed to do anything more than give people a reason to party all the harder, the problem was swept out of public view again. Unfashionable. We should celebrate our success against the bug, not worry about these glaring problems.
And like a bad disaster movie sequel, 9/11 hits and we're forced to take a long, hard look at the weak spots in America's armor once more. And they say again "Look, the power grid is a relatively unprotected area. If something MAJOR happens...say, several switching plants and power stations getting systematically hit so the load can't redistribute, all around the same time...well...we could see a pretty severe problem spread pretty quickly. Forget dirty bombs or EMP's. A potential target for terrorists, hell it works even without terrorists, is the power grid; they don't have to shut us down forever to hurt us badly...just for a few days to screw with our money and business." But you end up with the National Alert in five fruity flavors (or as I like to think of it, the "Sesame Street" Color coding system...that's right, folks, we're at code Ernie! I repeat, Code Ernie!), the Department of Homeland Security (get your duct tape and plastic sheeting, folks, and your smallpox shots that might kill you...because only apocalyptic "plagues of Egypt" style shit ever happens), and a pair of wars (Necessary? Hell yes. I stand behind them 100%. I just would have liked to see some more smart homeland security steps being taken rather than rocket launchers being stationed around the monuments). The power grid problem gets swept under the rug again.
Then you see something like this happen and people are all wondering why someone didn't do something. Why did this happen? Because it's not fashionable to do anything else. That's why. Don't thicken the castle's walls and sharpen the arsenal if you're not going to protect the foundations and close the doors. Cyberterrorism like the MSBlast thing? Fair warning. Next time it could be a LOT worse. Power grid farts and millions are without power? Fair warning. Build more power stations, yuppies whining about how it ruins their yard be damned. Better safe than sorry.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
w00t!
So, I might be gone for a bit, as we won't be getting stable power back 'til the end of next week. Also, the blackouts could permafry my computer... sigh.
Wish me luck.
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Gikkwiny stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
Yeah, but it's not an aspect of how big the city is - it's how well planned the power grid is.NYC probably has the power grid built to handle using that much power - it's like.. in a much smaller sense, my house.
In my house, when you turn the dishwasher on, all the lights dim. If you turn the vaccum on at the same time, you get static on the TV, because we are overusing the power potential for our house - it's the same concept, no matter the size.
In fact, big cities are usally better prepared, because small cities don't think about it as much - Louisville (8,000 poeple) has had them before... the probalem is that 3/4 of the city is on the same grid, including businesses, homes, etc...
So a few years ago, when it was 110+, EVERYONE had on air conditioning... and we were getting minor brownouts.
Also means that when a squirrel suicides on a transformer, the town shuts down.
Oh, and it' not something the power company does - it happens because to many end users are sucking up to much power - the power company wants to avoid brownouts, cause they piss off customenrs.
If you're getting dimming from your vaccuum cleaner and dishwasher I think you ought to talk to your landlord... or if you own you should talk to an electrician... You've got problems.
Your lights dimming means you're using too much load on one circuit breaker and it could also mean that the breaker is bad and refuses to blow. continuous use like that can cause an electrical fire.
better have renters insurance 
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Ares said:
Sorry, too young.Bah, I know how that goes. Only I'd work 30mins past my shift and NOT get paid for it. Sorry to hear that you had to work over time.
Typically that is the case, but if I'm working my ass off, and still that late, they pay me for the time.
Once you guys start turning 19, I'll take you all into Kingdom (You, Jess, whoever else)
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There was much rejoicing when Kermitov said this:
If you're getting dimming from your vaccuum cleaner and dishwasher I think you ought to talk to your landlord... or if you own you should talk to an electrician... You've got problems.Your lights dimming means you're using too much load on one circuit breaker and it could also mean that the breaker is bad and refuses to blow. continuous use like that can cause an electrical fire.
better have renters insurance
Actually, my mom talked to an electrition about rewiring the house from 110 to uhh.. 220, I think? I don't know much about wiring.
Anyhow, he came over, took a look, and said that it was fine - the dimming is only when the TV, air conditioner, 2 computers, most of the lights, and dishwasher is on. We own the house, but... We believe the electrician guy, cause how many electricians would be like "No! I don't want you to pay me money!" Or whatever. My mom's looking at gettng the wiring redone anyhow, and we are definatly going with that guy.
See, the problem is out house is over 100 years old... all of the rooms have 4x4s going aroung the top perimeter, so wiring is a BITCH. There's like.. 1 wall you can run wiring through, then it goes up to the attic/crawlspace, then it has to come back down. X.x
(Not really, but it was funny to think about)But I got to tell you... Thursday was the best night I've had all summer. My cousin and our friends got together playing poker in candel lights, me and another guy eating all of the ice cream there was in the freezer that needed to be eaten, laying down on a roof to go stargazing in a city, and blinding all of the bats that flew over our heads. ( There was nothing else that was cruel and unusual to do. )I hoped that the power would stay off for the rest of the weekend. I had so much fun with the power being out.
People will call this the Power Out of 2003. I call it the Day That Everyone Became Amish.
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Redmage Darkrayver's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
Typically that is the case, but if I'm working my ass off, and still that late, they pay me for the time.Once you guys start turning 19, I'll take you all into Kingdom (You, Jess, whoever else)
Four more months...
*vibrates*
I wanna be of legal drinking age!!
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Verily, Nicole doth proclaim:
Four more months...*vibrates*
I wanna be of legal drinking age!!
In the case of Kingdom, yes...yes you do
In four months you shall be introduced to the best fun on a friday night (And a few of my good friends...one who practically lives there)
