Peachy Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Well,Thank goodness for my APC UPS battery; I was able to shutdown cleanly while the power outage took out the grid in southern Ontario and New York state, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. We got our power back sometime between 11:00 and 1:00 a.m.; I was asleep and awoke at 1:30 to find the lights back on. Amazing how dependent we are on electricity. I was working and living in Montreal during the massive ice storm of 1998 and can tell you how tied to the grid we all are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Yes it is amazing how life changes without electricity, blizzard in North Dakota have caused many power outages and that is never a good time to loose electricity either. I've always been thankful for fireplaces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martini Lover Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 I live in Eastern Michigan and today I am listening to the radio (WJR-Detroit) and they are without electric, water, etc. Added to that they had a oil refinery on fire! One block from my house is where the power starts. Traffic light on the corner is out. My power is on, and my cable IP is working. What a tightrope we walk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zox Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 I live in Ottawa, Ontario.We lost power @4:15 yesterday and got it this morning around 3:00AMHowever they trumpet all day on TV and Radio that we will have rotating blackouts possibly for the day or two untill everything is back to normal.I went to local Wal-mart and stocked up with supplies I bought 9" black and white TV with radio that works on both 12 V and 110 V, I bought another car battery, some propane cylindars, etc..Good news is when I went to work this morning, after an hour they send us all home with pay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 It is soooooOOOOo good to be back!! :)I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan (one hour from Detroit). The power went off around 3:30 PM EST yesterday afternoon, and wasn't restored until 2:30 PM EST this afternoon.Yesterday, it was a sweaty sleep..and I didn't sleep well at all even after I opened up all the windows...ThunderRiver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 I don't like to brag BUT !!!!!!!!! I just fire up the old generator .Seriously though I do in fact have a generator because qwhere I live it is not uncommon to have a power outage that can last days on end . Last month in fact when that fast moving storm ripped through the northern tier of Pa. we were without power for three days So I generated my own for that period of time , Even ran an extension cord to my daughter who lives next door so she could run her refridgerator and a couple of lights . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 Not sure what is worse loosing electricity in middle of heat wave or blizzard, both are deadly situations. Glad to hear everyone is getting back online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzButt Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 It is soooooOOOOo good to be back!! :)I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan (one hour from Detroit). The power went off around 3:30 PM EST yesterday afternoon, and wasn't restored until 2:30 PM EST this afternoon. TR,I was in Coldwater, MI (sourh west of A2 110 miles) when it was lost but I live in Waterford. It went out then a few minutes later my Dad DC'd my Nextel mentioning that my house had no power. I know then that something was wrong. I found gas on the 135 mile trip back home. We got it back here at my house at 7PM but only about 1/2 of my town has power.Looks like I'll be starting my day my you in Saline fixing a phone system at a store of mine. Hopefully the mass exit of the dark areas to the west has stopped so it only takes me the usual hour drive down to Maple and Michigan.Hope you stay lit.Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicDragon Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 I'm lucky. I live in MA and we were not affected by the outage. Glad to see all you back!BTW, George, i love you avatar! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 I SURVIED BLACKOUT 2003! out at 4:15pm thursday, power back at 11am friday, then knocked out again for 2 hours in evening.they're still warning of rotating blackouts and to conserve power, but nobody hears that message over the hummmm of air conditioners here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted August 17, 2003 Share Posted August 17, 2003 Glad to see so many survived. I wondered how many on the forum were affected. Here we are used to outages (I had an 8-hour one just a month ago). The propane lanterns are all in their places and candles are in every room. There they will stay until hurricane season is over. Twenty years ago power was so unstable here that we always kept lanterns in every room but now it is more likely to be just four or five times a year. I also keep a supply of monopoly and board games around. Have to have something here for the neighborhood kids. They tend to run in age from 7 to 70 around here so you have to have something to keep them all occupied. I would still rather have my hurricanes and Nor'easters than an ice storm like Peachy gets. I guess we just have to have these wake up calls ever so often to remind us there is a world out there - somewhere beyond the computer room. Welcome Back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicDragon Posted August 17, 2003 Share Posted August 17, 2003 Twenty years ago power was so unstable here that we always kept lanterns in every room but now it is more likely to be just four or five times a year.I know what you mean. Out on the island here, we used to have our own generator that supplied all our power. We used to get outages all the time with that thing. We finally switched over and we now get our power from "the main land". It's been pretty nice ever since! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted August 17, 2003 Share Posted August 17, 2003 We were still on the road coming home from our trip while the Great Blackout '03 was going on ... started while we were camping on a primitive campsite in W. VA ... so we wouldn't have known about it till later anyway. Then on our way home, no place was without power. It took till we got home and got back online till we knew anything had even happened! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 SonicDragon Posted on Aug 16 2003, 11:08 AM I'm lucky. I live in MA and we were not affected by the outage. Glad to see all you back!BTW, George, i love you avatar!Thanks Sonic but unfortunately I was asked to remove it so Back to the old one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 No power outage here but we do get them regularly.Why did you have to remove the avatar George? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 We were still on the road coming home from our trip while the Great Blackout '03 was going on ... started while we were camping on a primitive campsite in W. VA ... so we wouldn't have known about it till later anyway. Then on our way home, no place was without power. It took till we got home and got back online till we knew anything had even happened! Welcome back, Fran-We missed you! Bet you had a nice time. You sure were gone forever! Isn't it great- when they designed the interstates, they left out the traffic lights (well, mostly, at least). You probably could drive right through a blackout and never know it- unless you swung the old chariot off the super slab to grab some waffles, anyway. Clutter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted August 18, 2003 Author Share Posted August 18, 2003 Yippee! We were told non-essential government employees were to take the day off. Guess where I am this morning! Actually, I will now stay home and fire up my whole rack of computers to test my Linux/Apache server as I prep for the web server technologies night school course I've been hired to teach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicDragon Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 Actually, I will now stay home and fire up my whole rack of computers to test my Linux/Apache server as I prep for the web server technologies night school course I've been hired to teach.ooOOoo! Sounds like fun!Welcome back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 "Renesys put together a special report on the effects of the recent blackout on routing and network reachability on the Internet. It includes a cool animation of networks dropping off the internet (presumably as a result of the power outage). It is interesting to see how localized some of the outage was--networks in New York state right up to the Vermont border go dark while everything on the other side of the border is quiet. New York City obviously gets clobbered." Source: RenesysPS if you guys check out the picture, you should see something real odd. If the power outage really originates from Ohio, shouldn't Ohio be the first one to have black out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted August 21, 2003 Author Share Posted August 21, 2003 There's speculation that FirstEnergy of Akron, Ohio had a Slammer infection in January and this may have been a contributing factor in the Blackout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 No power outage here but we do get them regularly.Why did you have to remove the avatar George?Someone sent me a message that it took too long to load on their Slow dial up connection although I believe I have just about the slowest connection in this forum . On a good day I recieve at about 26.4 kbps most of the time it runs in the teens . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted August 23, 2003 Share Posted August 23, 2003 QUOTE"Renesys put together a special report on the effects of the recent blackout on routing and network reachability on the Internet. It includes a cool animation of networks dropping off the internet (presumably as a result of the power outage). It is interesting to see how localized some of the outage was--networks in New York state right up to the Vermont border go dark while everything on the other side of the border is quiet. New York City obviously gets clobbered."user posted imageSource: RenesysPS if you guys check out the picture, you should see something real odd. If the power outage really originates from Ohio, shouldn't Ohio be the first one to have black out?Actually ThunderRiver that may not be the case it depends on exactly where the surge goes to first within the grid not where it originates . I must however say I am neither defending nor accusing anyone of starting it . Most likely as a matter of fact they will try to accuse someone . "There is no way the operators of the grid could be responsible " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 We can look foreward to many months of finger pointing. Congress will eventually fold any meaningful changes proposed into bigger legislative packages, so as to add in the maximum possible pork. Poor cooperation among Midwest utilities contributed to blackout, executive saysKansas City Star, Tue. September 2, 2003:In a presentation Tuesday to financial analysts in New York, First Energy's chief financial officer, Richard Marsh, said, "There is probably no single straw that broke the camel's back. We think what happened is a combination of events, not an isolated event on anybody's line or any one operator."Executives of the International Transmission Co., which operates transmission lines in Michigan, also have complained that their engineers did not receive even a courtesy call from Ohio utility officials about their line problems prior to the blackout.When ITC found out about the problems on the Ohio lines, "it was at the point of no return" and too late to act, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm will tell the lawmakers. She says in prepared remarks that had Michigan grid operators been warned, "they might have been able to craft a contingency plan ... and avoid the cascading failures."The grid's reliability should not depend on a courtesy call, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft says in his testimony. "Frankly," his text says, "in the 21st century a system that relies on courtesy calls is clearly outdated and must be modernized."Grid Lock: The Great Blackout illuminated one thing- a system in chaosWidespread outage a wake-up call, CMU expert says Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibe98765 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 No power outage here but we do get them regularly.Why did you have to remove the avatar George?Someone sent me a message that it took too long to load on their Slow dial up connection although I believe I have just about the slowest connection in this forum . On a good day I recieve at about 26.4 kbps most of the time it runs in the teens . That's idiotic. An Avatar is only a maximum of a couple of thousand bytes. Why do we always have to set the bar for the lowest comon denominator? A few people living in the dark ages shouldn't hold back everyone else... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 I think a revamping of that statement would be advisable in light of the facts In the UK, 3.9% of homes have broadband. In the US, this is figure 17% http://www.mis.ed.ac.uk/services/mobilehom...rsus_dialup.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 Why do we always have to set the bar for the lowest comon denominator? A few people living in the dark ages shouldn't hold back everyone else...Because in this forum, we're concerned for all our members, not just those fortunate enough to live in areas where broadband is available or those financially able to afford it.And I'm afraid I don't see how having a limit on avatar size, or a policy on images within posts, is holding you back. From what? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 I hope I didn't offend anyone with this talk about my avatar . I understand maybe more than others about a slow connection . As I stated before where I live has just about to be the slowest connection there is . So I did take the avatar off and I have since slimmed it down and will repost it in its slimmer version .And if it is still causing problems for anyone I will be happy to send it to the scrap bin . As jeber said in his post the rules in this forum are for ALL the members not for just a few ..P.S. Right now I know it is a little large because of the banner I added to welcome bruno home .But this is just temporary . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 3.9% in UK and 17% in US have broadband? anyone know Canadian stats? i swear its gotta be high 70%. ;)i dont think anyone here at my work has dial up. only 1 person i know has it, and its my dad, and i'm going to force-upgrade him on his birthday. oh, and one guy who moved out to the country, he's complaing how they ONLY have dial up in the country, and considers internet useless on dial-up after using high-speed for past few years. but no fear, he's switching to satellite high-speed shortly. so out of 40 or so people i know have internet at home, two have dial-up, but just temporarily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibe98765 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 Why do we always have to set the bar for the lowest comon denominator? A few people living in the dark ages shouldn't hold back everyone else...Because in this forum, we're concerned for all our members, not just those fortunate enough to live in areas where broadband is available or those financially able to afford it.And I'm afraid I don't see how having a limit on avatar size, or a policy on images within posts, is holding you back. From what? My point is I don't see how the size of an avatar is holding ANYONE back. In other words, I think the excuse is pure, unadultrated BS. I've encountered enough old fogies on the net who believe that ANY graphics are bad and that the web should be text only. They will complain about anything that has graphics, period. If the web were restricted to those unfortunate enough to have access to, unable to afford to or chose not to afford broadband, then we would still be back in the dark ages of 1992. The world will move forward, with or without them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prelude76 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 so you're saying "assimilate or be destroyed?" for me, i too find it 'odd' how some still are on dial-up. with 100+mb Service Packs, every downloadable patch or program >10mb, streaming video websites and such, dial-up should not even be offered. even 1mb/sec DSL is getting a bit dated. i'm starting to eye 3mb DSL, and see 5mb DSL becoming norm *hopefully* soon. i wont be happy until all internet is at the max 10mbit network card limit, and then move on to 100mbit network cards but this is just a forum. and even 300kb images should not be THAT unbearable for dial-up users, i would think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.