Massive Power Outage

jimbob · #1 August 16th, 2003, 12:31 AM

Wow! Looks like I just missed all the fun over there in Central Canada/Eastern USA. Just got back to Alberta Tuesday - missed the Air Canada service nightmare by a day, then missed the whole region going dark by two days.

CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Communists... er Corporation) gave us nothing but the power-outage all night long. It's not surprising as the head offices are in Toronto, and our nation's capital, Ottawa, was also blacked out. Washington was safe, right?

They'd better figure out the power grid quick, cause this little episode just alerted the terrorist to America's achilles heel. Try this on for size: terrorist cell #1, 2 and 3 hit three power stations in either Canada or the USA on the same night. Terrorist cells # 4, 5, 6, 7, 8... are instructed to do their nasty businesses on any night that goes dark (proceed by foot or bike). Sounds like a recipe for total and complete pain to me.

[ August 15, 2003, 23:32: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Katchoo · #2 August 16th, 2003, 08:27 AM

Well the power has been going on and off all day here. We've been told to expect rolling blackouts through the weekend.

But on a personal note, I may have the Forum's first casualty of the blackouts:

My Primary Hard Drive is dead. She's making the same grinding noise my smaller Drive did Last year, and that Drive had to be shipped to Maxtor for replacement. When I initially got power restored Last night the Hard Drive seemed to boot fine, but after about 5 mins on the Desktop the System started to stall, and I got a lovely "authenticating installer" message from an unknown program. I shut the System down right away, but when I tried turning the computer back on the BIOS wouldn't read the Primary Drive anymore. I even plugged the Drive into a 2nd computer we have in the house and it can't be detected in that System either.

Fortunately I did save almost all my DoGa models onto a ZIP Disk. I say "almost all" because there are a few Neo-Standard images for the Psycho Trapper set which I completed after I had done the inital save. All the in-game BMPs and AI files are gone though, but they can be replaced with a bit of elbow grease. I'm more upset with the new web pages I had built which were going to be debuted when the set was released. Oh well, more elbow work.

Good thing I only threw out my shoulder while playing football yesterday, and not my elbow.

I don't know for certain if the blackout helped bring the Drive into the hands of the Reaper, especially since I apparently had a mystery program tying to install something. Coincidences do happen afterall.

To Kwok & Hugh and the others that shared about their Hard Drive failures from a few months back, I say thank you! I likely wouldn't have backed anything up if that string of bad luck you guys had eariler hadn't hit. Your words of caution have saved at least one person.

Although in truth, i'd gladly suffer a Drive failure if the failure would have in some way prevented the failure Kwok & Hugh had. The work they lost greatly overshadows what i've been able to save.

Oh well, cyber life goes on. Fortunately the 13GB Drive that was replaced Last year is still working well, so she'll do while I get the 40GB replaced. Oh well, it's nearly time for a massive upgrade to my computer anyways

Oh, and did I mention that the BLaster Worm apparently found it's way onto my 13GB Drive, which hasen't been used since Last September? Even weirder is that the BLaster Worm haden't infected my 40GB (Primary) Drive at all.

Oh well, I better stop before I derail this Thread. That's Narf's & GW's job

(edited to fix avatar problem)

[ August 17, 2003, 00:36: Message edited by: Katchoo ]

Loser · #3 August 16th, 2003, 02:17 PM

Question for the folks in the black outs:

How's the riot going?

Is there any looting?

Was there even a riot?

Why or why not?

You know if this happened in certain other cities (L.A., Dallas, Denver) there would be rampant looting. Hell, around here we know which stores carry 'riot gear' and tend to know when the riots are going to happen, some of us road-trip it up to Denver to participate in, watch, or just be around such events. Are they even looting in Detroit? (Detroit was hit, right?)

[ August 16, 2003, 13:19: Message edited by: Loser ]

E3 · #4 August 16th, 2003, 03:05 PM

here in Toronto, there was no rioting, I think very little looting (the police recorded less than 100 looting related calls according to the radio), and we actualy had citizens directing traffic, fairly well too, at intersections without lights and cops!

TerranC · #5 August 16th, 2003, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Loser:
How's the riot going?

Is there any looting?

Was there even a riot?

Why or why not?

You know if this happened in certain other cities (L.A., Dallas, Denver) there would be rampant looting. Hell, around here we know which stores carry 'riot gear' and tend to know when the riots are going to happen, some of us road-trip it up to Denver to participate in, watch, or just be around such events. Are they even looting in Detroit? (Detroit was hit, right?)

There were no riots.

There was no looting.

There were no riots.

Because they were civilized people, and it's senseless to loot when the shops are all manned, police and fire crews were fully crewed and patrolling the city, and when you think that this is another terrorist attack where anybody in a building could lose their lives.

[ August 16, 2003, 17:02: Message edited by: TerranC ]

Captain Kwok · #6 August 16th, 2003, 03:30 PM

TerranC:

Detroit was hit too...

DavidG · #7 August 16th, 2003, 05:58 PM

So I gather it now seems the power failure was cause by something in Cleveland. so what's up with the NY mayor (or perhaps it was the Governor) saying 'definatly absolutely it was caused by something in Canada' (not an exact quote) Good to know we can trust the politicians.

Hmm Cause is in Ohio, Incompentent service guys trying to fix PBW in Ohio... Conicidence?