Power Outages

[mrskippy]

Dorks!!!

[Draft Dodger]

Originally posted by CamEdwards
purely theoretical question:

is it rude to call someone a dork?

would this be on the radio, in person, or on, say, an internet message board?

[tucker342]

My brother in Hoboken lost power for a couple of hours....

[Craptacular]

My hobo brother Ken has superpowers.

[Draft Dodger]

My Ken doll runs on battery power

[mrskippy]

Hahhahaha ... the smoking ban is being ignored in NY bars. So now we've got $2 beers going for $6, people violating the smoking ban, what next? Bars not closing at the proper hour? All this talk about New Yorkers behaving. Hogwash.

[CamEdwards]

Originally posted by Draft Dodger
would this be on the radio, in person, or on, say, an internet message board?

At this point it might involve buying a freaking plane ticket and doing it face to face.

[mrskippy]

Originally posted by CamEdwards
At this point it might involve buying a freaking plane ticket and doing it face to face.

You callin' me out?

[Draft Dodger]

Originally posted by CamEdwards
At this point it might involve buying a freaking plane ticket and doing it face to face.

can I come too?

[mrskippy]

Originally posted by Draft Dodger
can I come too?

You callin' me out too. Damn this oughta be fun.

[Buccaneer]

Don't feed the troll.

[mrskippy]

MSNBC: National Weather Service says no lightning storms in Niagra Falls at the time of the outage.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by mrskippy
MSNBC: National Weather Service says no lightning storms in Niagra Falls at the time of the outage.

SI

[JeeberD]

This sucks. FOFC is slower than usual since half the country has no power. Bah...

[mckerney]

This does suck. Fuck power outages.

[JeeberD]

Is the power out in Chicago? Cause CW promised me that he was going to update baseball tonight. Well, he was going to update baseball after he let his testicles bone some jars for a while. Anyways, his only excuse for not having done so would be a power outage...

[mckerney]

Why would baseball not being updated make you think there is a power outage rather that CW being jealous that my part of it is better than his?

[JeeberD]

I'm too tired to reply to that. Good night...

[mrskippy]

Hey the media comes to my defense:

From the Akron Beacon-Journal

The possibilities seemed much worse when the lights first went off.

Terrorism?

A computer virus named ``Blaster'' that has wormed its way throughout the nation?

You can't blame anyone for thinking the worst.

[CamEdwards]

Ah yes, behold the power of the Akron Beacon-Journal.

[henry296]

I tried to send an e-mail to my friend at Columbia University. I got this message back:

Your message was not delivered because the Domain Name System
(DNS) for the destination computer is not configured correctly.
The following is a list of reasons why this error message could
have been generated. If you do not understand the explanations
listed here, please contact your system administrator for help.


Could the power outage cause this?

Todd

[KWhit]

Originally posted by henry296
I tried to send an e-mail to my friend at Columbia University. I got this message back:

Your message was not delivered because the Domain Name System
(DNS) for the destination computer is not configured correctly.
The following is a list of reasons why this error message could
have been generated. If you do not understand the explanations
listed here, please contact your system administrator for help.


Could the power outage cause this?

Todd

Nope. It's probably terrorism.

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Ksyrup
Damn terrorist trees!

[The Afoci]

Originally posted by cuervo72

Brought to you live from terrorists. The red x of Death!

[cthomer5000]

Finally got home from NYC (I live in central jersey). All I can say is "that sucked."

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by The Afoci
Brought to you live from terrorists. The red x of Death!

Here's another shot at it

[cthomer5000]

Mrskippy and Skydog:

Maybe Mrs. Kippy was overreacting, but i work in NYC and the first thought of the entire office upone hearing how widespread it was was "terrorism." It basically has to be the default reaction these days. Especially in NYC.


sterlingice:

Overblown? This is a very serious power outage, affecting most of the northeast. Most likely never again in your life will their be a story affecting this many people directly, please put it in perspective.

mrskippy said:Hahhahaha ... the smoking ban is being ignored in NY bars. So now we've got $2 beers going for $6, people violating the smoking ban, what next? Bars not closing at the proper hour? All this talk about New Yorkers behaving. Hogwash.

I was in midtwon NYC yesterday, stuck there overnight, and again until 2 hours ago. I've never seen the city so orderly, nor seen so many people helping each other out. Regular people where acting as traffic cops, keeping traffic moving, and there was essentially NO crime last night (which came as a major surprise to me). Today was much of the same. I think I actually believe that NYC is different post-911 now, there was really no detectable panic. Oh, And 6 bucks for a beer in NYC is standard.

[mrskippy]

Originally posted by cthomer5000
Mrskippy and Skydog:
Maybe Mrs. Kippy was overreacting, but i work in NYC and the first thought of the entire office upone hearing how widespread it was was "terrorism." It basically has to be the default reaction these days. Especially in NYC.

Not to mention that I wasn't the only one thinking terrorism at first. Besides the Akron Beacon-Journal, Newsday also has a story I see. I'm sure others do as well.

The thing is that so many people associate terrorism with blowing things up and killing people, they forget that terrorism is actually so much more than that.

Also, one thing that they've talked about is that the terrorists could do as much damage by taking down infrastructure than they can by simply flying a jet into a building.

Look how many are still without power and look at the repurcissions. Restaurants have had to dump food. Cleveland has no water supply and what is underground may be contaminated. So they have to rely on bottled.

The outage also resulted in fires caused mainly by candles. We've had a few deaths. You had people stuck in elevators for a very long time.

The stock market was weak today.

Retailers in Northeast alone -- $30 million lost.

Those are things terrorists would want to do. So you can never say this is something terrorists wouldn't do.

Some have already said how terrorists could do this. And it's already known that the system is vulnerable. Afterall, they believe this whole thing may have started on one small chunk of the grid and possibly with one little hiccup. Amazing!!!

Overblown? This is a very serious power outage, affecting most of the northeast. Most likely never again in your life will their be a story affecting this many people directly, please put it in perspective.

Wouldn't say it won't happen again in our lifetime. It's happened in the northeast before.

The significance is that this is the biggest ever, impacted some 50 million plus customers.

I was in midtwon NYC yesterday, stuck there overnight, and again until 2 hours ago. I've never seen the city so orderly, nor seen so many people helping each other out. Regular people where acting as traffic cops, keeping traffic moving, and there was essentially NO crime last night (which came as a major surprise to me). Today was much of the same. I think I actually believe that NYC is different post-911 now, there was really no detectable panic. Oh, And 6 bucks for a beer in NYC is standard.

Amazing that the people were so calm. I think people have started to realize that acting stupid will get them nowhere, other than sometime behind bars.

Looks like to me people made the most of it.

As for the beer price. Maybe I heard it wrong, but they did say that some bars jacked up the price of beer last night and people were gladly paying it.

I guess they were even ignoring the open container laws on the street last night and letting people drink their beer in Times Square and such.

Surprise, surprise -- Anheiser Busch stock supposedly is up today.

[vtbub]

need a towel when you are finished stroking skippy?

[Buccaneer]

Some (most?) of us blame the media for its overzelousness and sensationalism and we can look no further than skippy for an example of the type it attracts.

[mrskippy]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
Some (most?) of us blame the media for its overzelousness and sensationalism and we can look no further than skippy for an example of the type it attracts.

Well, I was/am a member of the media.

But, remember, these reporters are reporting what they saw, as good reporters are supposed to do.

These were what people were saying early on.

And just because the government said it wasn't terrorism, doesn't mean it isn't. Because, the fact is

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED!!!

[sterlingice]

Hm.. I thought I was done with this thread, but I guess not.

Originally posted by cthomer5000
sterlingice:

Overblown? This is a very serious power outage, affecting most of the northeast. Most likely never again in your life will their be a story affecting this many people directly, please put it in perspective.

Let's look at scope versus severity. Yes, it affected a lot of people. How? Were lives lost? Probably no more than an average day in the northeast- maybe slightly more, but we aren't talking about thousands. Ask people in Cali what they think of blackouts. Last summer the day with blackouts was called "Tuesday" or "Wednesday". Unexpected, yes, but cataclysmic, no.

It was a big pain in the arse because a bunch of people missed work and a bunch of others had to stay on an island instead of go home for one night. Hell, for an entire summer, I had a friend live out of his car and do his homework in a graveyard because it was the only lit place. A giant power outage for a couple of days is not much more than a giant inconvenience. Giant, yes, but only an inconvenience. That part of the country wanted to bitch and the rest of us had to hear it.

Hm.. things that affect more people than that in a more permanent way the past few days:
NATO was given command of the situation in Afghanistan
Libya admits to the Lockerbie bombing
The French are actually *dying* in a heat wave (3000+)
Opposition parties in India are planning a vote of no confidence for the country's leader
and Liberia's president steps down because of war crimes accusations and goes into exile

And all that required was a check of the BBC web site and an ear to the news

Look how many are still without power and look at the repurcissions. Restaurants have had to dump food. Cleveland has no water supply and what is underground may be contaminated. So they have to rely on bottled.

The outage also resulted in fires caused mainly by candles. We've had a few deaths. You had people stuck in elevators for a very long time.

The stock market was weak today.

Retailers in Northeast alone -- $30 million lost.

The Cleveland problem is a very real and dangerous problem. People can live without light for a couple of days (been there, done that). But going without water for a few days is another matter. Not only that, but it's not as if there is a lot to be purchased with every store closed.

But then we're back to the petty "Look at us, we're-New-York-so-you-have-to-listen-to-our-bitching". Fires caused by candles?!? This is retarded and just feels like you're grasping. Every year in the dorms we had a few of those a year because people would be, um.. otherwise occupied and end up lighting their rooms on fire.

The stock market is weak when Alan Greenspan coughs and $30M in retail losses happens if snowstorms hit one part of the northeast for a few hours one weekday.

Yes, one event brought all of these things together and that is significant. However, did it really have any far reaching affects on your life? Are you going to care to remember this 20 years from now except maybe to tell your kids about "that wacky day in 2003"? My point is, after the "was it terrorism" issue was cleared up (I guess those of us in the Midwest don't jump up and think "terrorism" every time something happens), this really wasn't that big of a news story: top story of the national news for a few minutes and then onto the rest of the world. But not round-the-clock coverage and some "CITY IN DARKNESS" title and theme music on every new station. It's just more of the "people only care what happens in the New York and California" myth and mentality that permeates the media.

SI

[mrskippy]

It was the biggest power outage ever. That is a major story.

It was the third outage of its kind in the region since 1965. And after the one in 1965, it wasn't supposed to happen again. It has happened twice since. That is a major story.

Even though this probably wasn't terrorism, the possiblity that it could've been was very real. One fear is that terrorists could go after infrastructure. They've talked several times on the news already that this shows that the system could be taken down by a terrorirst. That is a major story.

Also, even if the outage isn't caused by terrorism, one other thing they talked about on the news was terrorists taking advantage of the situation. Imagine a 9/11-type attack happening during a major blackout. That possiblity existed. Didn't happen. But that was also a story.

The story would've been big regardless of terrorism fears. Though the terrorism fears obviously came to the minds of many when the story first broke. This day and age, that is the first gut reaction. Any little explosion at a factory flashes that little word in people's minds. That's a permanent and lasting effect of 9/11. Before 9/11, we'd simply have said "whoops" from the start. But we don't do that anymore in things like this. Though more often than not, the cause (thankfully) is indeed "whoops."

All those people streaming onto the streets of NYC. This doesn't happen during your garden variety power outages. People being stranded outside their hotels (the Marquis is $300/night, 2000 rooms, and 90 percent full) is also huge. NYC's trademark Subway was down, buses were jammed. It was organized chaos. That's a story.

This wasn't a garden variety power outage. Even during a massive storm, you don't see 50 million people without power. You likely don't even see a whole city the size of NYC without power. Pockets yes, but not the whole city. That makes this all that much more of a story.

The fact that past major outages have resulted in looting; the fact that Detroit is notorious for erupting into chaos in these types of situations; the fact that looting was limited and that most people pulled through this. The fact that New Yorkers treated it like a party and had fun with it. That is a pretty good story.

Not to forget all the human interest stories associated with all of this. Times like these there are people out there with great stories to tell. It's the job of the media to tell them.

One way to look at this is as a series of intertwined stories all wrapped into one big picture story. The event was significant. It was newsworthy. Obviously as the lights came back on, the media started covering other news -- Tropical Storm (possible Hurricane) Erika, the California Recall, the Scott Peterson murder case, and what not. But the top story remained/remains the blackout. That will remain the case until Clevelanders have their drinking water deemed safe, until almost everyone has their lights back on, and it will remain in the news until a cause is found.

[sterlingice]

And, at the end of the day, it's still just a power outage.

SI

[mrskippy]

And, at the end of the day, it's still just the Super Bowl.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a hurricane.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a Presidential election.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a celebrity death.

This isn't (wasn't) your ordinary power outage.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by mrskippy
And, at the end of the day, it's still just the Super Bowl.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a hurricane.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a Presidential election.
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a celebrity death.

This isn't (wasn't) your ordinary power outage.

At the end of the day, the Super Bowl is a big sporting event. Which is why it's sports news- the biggest of sports news, but as much as I love sports, I realize it takes a back page to real news.

A hurricane affects a lot of people in a similar manner as this power outage. Power is out, possible looting, property damage, etc. Point me to the last hurricane that got all but 5 minutes of the national news and then got round the clock coverage.

A Presidential election affects a great many aspects of life of everyone in this country. This is easily the most newsworthy event and even other countries follow our elections because of our place in the world and how it will affect them.

A celebrity death is just that- the death of a figure who is in the public eye. As far as news is concerned, this is way down on the list of important things. Just because they get a lot of news coverage does not mean they are newsworthy (see below)- just that they can pull a good ratings number because it's easy to appeal to the lowest common denominator. There are a lot of people who would consider a celebrity death more important than a hurricane- does that mean it's more newsworthy or is it just a quaint reminder that this is the same country that loves to watch shows such as the Bachelor and Joe Millionaire? Bread and circuses anyone?

Anyone who sees these events as having something in common other than that they are occasionally front page news needs a help with perspective (and Americans wonder why everyone else in the world hates us).

And then you bring up the non sequitur comment, which doesn't help your argument at all: This isn't (wasn't) your ordinary power outage. You try to tell me four things that you consider news and then come back with something you couldn't even put in the class of those other events. I didn't see "And, at the end of the day, it's still just a power outage" because that was my line and it would sound really asinine next to a presidental election or even the Super Bowl. You don't even follow your own argument.

Now either this is an argument about semantics: what is newsworthy (a story that needs to be told, the proverbial "the public needs to know") vs what is shown on the news (celebrity death and human interest garbage story) or you genuinely lack any sense of perspective in this matter.

SI

[ice4277]

Well, our power was finally turned back on last night around 7, but they are telling us to scale back our usage of it, especially during the hottest parts of the day when people use it the most. I had to work Friday morning, and I work early, when it is still dark out; it was very strange to drive through the area with it being pitch dark. Never thought I would see anything like that. It was kind of annoying, didn't cause me any real problems, just a pain in the ass, but a number of people had real problems because of it. For example, a lot of people could not refill their oxygen tanks that they use for medical reasons because there was no power to do it. Many things such as this ended up affecting people. Oh and it is still unsafe to drink the water.

*Cues Dave Matthews Band*

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by sterlingice
And, at the end of the day, it's still just a power outage.

SI

Of course... the scope of this is entirely limited to people being without power for a few days! In no way should this raise a red flag about national security, or open our eyes to new avenues of terrorism that we don't think about on a day-to-day basis. If the president feels the need to address the issue, I'd say it's a pretty large story. When 50 million people are affected, it's more than your average news story. This event coming just days after the feds busted an arms dealer really had me thinking terrorism as I sat in my pitch black office building. At the very least this news is big news because if it wasn't terrorist, then I assure you that potential terrorists were taking plenty of notes. In a lot of ways this will be a positive, and probably will be the "wake-up call" Bush proclaimed it is. Hopefully we can take measures to avoid the possibility of so many cities being shut down at one time.

All news is local, which is why the media isn't obsessed with the French heat wave. Thousands of people will die in an earthquake in other parts of the world and it gets a brief mention on network news, 3 people die in mall collapse here and it's the biggest thing that ever happened. I'm not saying I like how the media acts, but it's just the way it is. I don't see why you fail to admit this story is even slighter more newsworthy than other things going on in the nation right now.

cthomer

[mrskippy]

Point me to the last hurricane that got all but 5 minutes of the national news and then got round the clock coverage.

Probably Hurricane Andrew.

For the record, even garden variety power outages will find their way into your local newspaper.

It all depends on what the incident is. Not every earthquake in California is big news, since we're used to it. But if you have a Northridge or Loma Prieta size quake or worse, it will become a major breaking news story.

When a power outage forces state governor's to declare a state of emergency, it's major news.

This becomes an even bigger story for local media outlets in the blackout areas. TV and Radio stations are all but obligated to report and stay with the story 24/7, if only to report emergency information.

Also, this story did impact the entire world. People couldn't get through on phones, flights were cancelled and or delayed worldwide, etc. Web sites were down. And a bunch of other things that aren't normal.

[bbor]

I plan on being a Daddy 9 months from Thursday night