Where were you when the power went out?

[hawaii kid]

Sounds like some of you East Coasters are without Air Conditioning this afternoon...
Any good stories yet?

[Peach]

Philadelphia isn't affected.

[bjacobs]

Boston's okay too. But it looks like thousands of people in New York were trapped in subway cars for a while.

[Iwant2bafencer]

We're all good here, just had a heck of storm though.

Anyone know what caused it? My guess is there was some technitian working on one of the biiiiig power plant stuff, and instead of cutting the red wire he cut the blue one!

----------------------------
Carpe Diem
Ad Astra

[Zelda]

well considering it was the news story my radio was blaring when I woke up this morning it must be kinda important!!!

[AndrewH]

I was at work (supermarket). None of the registers worked, so everyone who was in line then was just told to bag their stuff and take it free of charge. After everyone got cleared out we had to move all the meat/dairy stuff into refrigerated trucks, then we were just allowed to take whatever else was perishable in the store and eat it Mmm, free sushi.... So yea, it was actually pretty cool, considering I got paid for that too.

[Philistine]

Originally posted by Iwant2bafencer
{snip}
Anyone know what caused it?
{snip}

Actually... I plugged in that toaster I thought I'd fixed. Sorry everybody....

--Philistine

[Inquartata]

I am taking bets on how long it takes or someone to claim that it was all the fault, somehow, of "that IDIOT Bush"...

[Wizardly]

Which one, Inq? We've got two to pick from.

I have to say I love the coverage. All afternoon:
"Power still out...power still out...power still out...power still out...now the local news:"
"Power still out...power still out...etc..."
I can only imagine that were the news to cover paint drying as the next sensational story, it'd parallel this event rather closely.

So does anybody wanna start posing which conspiracy is really to blame (before they tell us what they want us to believe?) Personally, I'm going with computer virus. Either that or Y2K3.

[daeceg]

You know, I told Cobra Commander his Mega-death Sonic Ray was going to cause problems...but, nooo...had to have it his way....


When I'm an Evil Overlord:
1. All my evil henchmen will have clear plexiglas helmets, not vision and identity obscuring models.

2. I will drill all my evil henchmen in basic riflery skills.
3. I will not order the death of every firstborn son in my kingdom on the basis of some old kook's prophecy
3. All megaweapons of doom will contain a backup power supply.
4. I will not include any self-destruct mechanism on my megaweapons. If it is completely unavoidable, the button will be very small and discrete.
5. All timing devices on bombs will be rigged to go off when 10 seconds are remaining on the display.

[rukovsoft]

in france people die because we re too retarded to put air conditioning in hospitals...

in america people are trapped, because everybody has airconditioning causing over consumption and maybe surge....

damn...where are we going?lol

[Iwant2bafencer]

I've got ten bucks on the uneducated power guy. Cuz I get payed today eh hem right.

-----------------------
Carpe Diem
Ad Astra

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

Originally posted by rukovsoft
in france people die because we re too retarded to put air conditioning in hospitals...

in america people are trapped, because everybody has airconditioning causing over consumption and maybe surge....

damn...where are we going?lol

The recent blackout wasn't caused by over consumption or a surge.

[rukovsoft]

sure, but the massive waste of energy in the US contributed to that.
It was at first glance a problem of redirection of the flow of electricity. the system of grids is obsolete. sooner or later it won t be able to cope with the growing energy consumption...investments need to be made, or people need to save energy.
In addition to my work for a stae agency, i work as a consultant in an energy management company...and i can tell tell you that the competition in this field is rising. this is an evidence of this growing challenge: the need to MANAGE energy, pollution...

same problem as the oil...if manufacturers made tjeir SUV's more power efficient you wouldn t be dependnat from the middle east in terms of energy...
maybe it s time for a real energy saving policy. i noticed that this particular issue is scheduled to be debated at the congress next month.

[hawaii kid]

No doubt some Canadian plot, Eh?

[Wizardly]

I'm all for a change in the energy policy Ruko. I think a great many of us are. We've got a few things going against such a change though.

- the "oil administration" is in office
- it may be better for the people, but if you can't make a profit from it, this corporate republic probably wont enact laws to support it (the good of the profit margin often supercedes the good of the people)
- you can't go to war against it (we've had war against polio, landing on the moon, drugs, terror, communism, iraq - but a war against energy is pretty much a war against americans)
- it's easier to give a tax cut and wait for the people to get fed up and solve the problem themselves than to actually do something about it (and spend the money instead)
- it's considered political suicide to suggest that americans live with inconveniences
- otoh, it's politically safe to deny a problem even exists until something terrible happens, and then you can always draw attention to the fact that you're dealing with the issue and not that it was your fault the issue existed in the first place.
- finally, the democrats and independents are in the minority

[Inquartata]

Uh, Wiz...who was in power while the system has been deteriorating over the last ten years?

There's plenty of blame to go around.

[Dragonfly]

I was fast asleep. But I remember the first big blackout on the east coast when I was in the 5th or 6th grade. It was cool. The claim is that everyone in New York City did good and the people in the elevators were out-standing. The grocery story can be collaborated; many of the smaller stores without generators will be providing ice-cream to passers byers, {WE HOPE}

[daeceg]

Ever see the Bill Maher book "When You Ride Alone, You're Riding With bin Laden" or something like that...excellent piece of work.

While Bush can't be blamed for a lot of the problems we have now, his policies have contributed greatly. Average fuel economy for the US fleet has DECREASED over the years because SUVs are not subject to the same regulations passenger cars are. And now Bush is giving a $250,000 tax deduction to anyone who buys an SUV for business purposes. (Commuting to work usually qualifies as a business expense, so I don't know if an individual buying one for primary transportation would qualify or not).

Yeah, he's investing some money in hydrogen-powered cars. But right now, the cheapest way to get hydrogen is to crack it from natural gas, so it won't solve the fossil fuel dependency issue. In fact, according to Time at least, the natural gas shortage is more acute than a lack of oil.

<sigh>

[whtouche]

Originally posted by rukovsoft
in france people die because we re too retarded to put air conditioning in hospitals...

in america people are trapped, because everybody has airconditioning causing over consumption and maybe surge....

damn...where are we going?lol

You're.....half right in that post