Testing Chat IV: A New Hope

[Kuja]

There's been a couple times that the transformer for my condominium block blew out and left us in darkness (thankfully at night, being in AZ and all) while the apartments to either side and across the street were nice and lit up. Fortunately after a couple of these incidents we got some upgrades and it hasn't happened since.

[xon]

So how's this for fucked up?

I am going on 24 hours without electricity, and later tonight I am going to LAN party at my friend Richard's house not one mile down the street. He has not lost power. What the hell could knock out power to such a small area and require this long to fix?

I'm going to guess non-buried power lines.

[Civil War Man]

how common are power outages in the USA?

More common than they should be considering the amount of resources this country has.

During one of the hotter days recently, there was an interview on the news with a guy at one of the places where they monitor the grid. He talked about how there were no blackouts in his area that day, and how the fact that there weren't any was practically a miracle.

[Oxymoron]

It was a few summers back I think that there was this huge blackout in New York that lasted for a few days ?

I watched a documentary on the US power grid, and they chalked up that one episode on the fact that the whole infrastructure is privately owned and managed "for profit" ; which in practice mean that almost no real maintenance is done on the power transmission network.

[RyanThunder]

Oh, that'd do it

[adr]

the last time i lost power it was because a traffic collision took a pole down.... but they got it fixed in a couple hours

but i hear there's downsides with the underground cables too. cost is one but there was something more than that. i can't remember what tho

[Losonti Tokash]

I have no way to redress my grievance with them.

this is not necessarily true

[The Spartan]

I want an octopussy that sounds p rad

See, to me, octopussy sounds like a gangbang porno with 8 guys teaming up on one girl.

Octopussies sounds like the reverse or like a 8-way all girl orgy.

[Infinity Biscuit]

I pictured more having eight tentacles and a beak down there but ok

[The Spartan]

That's what you think is "pretty rad". That's more than a little horrifying.

[Darksi4190]

I have no way to redress my grievance with them.

this is not necessarily true

I believe there is also a State law that prevents individuals from sueing utility companies, so I really don't.

[adr]

so you know how "the plural of anecdote is not data"

but what is data if not an aggregation of anecdotes?

[RogueIce]

but i hear there's downsides with the underground cables too. cost is one but there was something more than that. i can't remember what tho

More difficult to fix, IIRC. A tree branch takes down some power lines, send a crew out and they string up new ones. If something happens to them underground though, you go digging.

Either that or it'd be a huge pain in the ass having to dig up basically everywhere to put them in where people have been living since before they came up with that idea. IIRC that's generally the excuse for not replacing water pipes in places like NYC, in addition to of course how much it costs and how nobody wants to pay for it.

Not that it helps if a transformer blows or something like that.

[adr]

that reminds me of a city council meeting anecdote from a few weeks ago. a city sanitation engineer was talking about a possible sewer blockage and he said it could be anywhere between like coffeen st and the butterfield errr field

and finding it would be a big pain in the ass. he explained how they'd do it and i don't remember, but it was pretty involved, and then they'd have to dig up all kinds of shit to get to it, huge involved hassle



now finding a broken electrical wire is prolly easier. my buddy sells a device that can tell you how far in a wire is broken accurate to like a meter or something, pretty incredible. i think it works by sending a pulse and measuring the time it takes to reflect back

but still digging it up would not be easy. on the bright side though, when buried, there's fewer things that can break a wire in teh first place.

[Questor]

OK, I'm back after a couple weeks (maybe, I think the last time I was here was before work got crazy and finals and texas, so 2 weeks ago.)

What'd I miss?

[RogueIce]

OK, I'm back after a couple weeks (maybe, I think the last time I was here was before work got crazy and finals and texas, so 2 weeks ago.)

What'd I miss?

Darksider become a brony.

[RogueIce]

but still digging it up would not be easy. on the bright side though, when buried, there's fewer things that can break a wire in teh first place.

That's probably the biggest issue, yeah. I don't know what would go wrong with them, mainly because I don't know how they bury them at all.

The biggest thing is the retrofitting, I'd imagine. You'd pretty much have to tear up the ground in front of every building that isn't hooked up already, which would probably get expensive fast. Plus, you know, people have to be able to go to work and live in their houses while this is all going on. I don't know how difficult that would be, granted. Still I do know that in my old house in an older neighborhood, when we got Verizon after they did their cable laying all over the place, what they ended up doing was connecting it via an overhead cable from a pole they had set up (or was already there from before, not sure, it's been awhile) rather than connecting us from underground - as opposed to the new house in a newer neighborhood where all the power and cable lines are already underground. So I'm not sure how they'd get underneath the houses to hook 'em up that way, as my sole experience was that they simply didn't bother.

And then of course they'd have to take down and dispose of all the existing poles and wires but that's probably going to be easy compared to installing the new underground lines everywhere.

[Questor]

OK, I'm back after a couple weeks (maybe, I think the last time I was here was before work got crazy and finals and texas, so 2 weeks ago.)

What'd I miss?

Darksider become a brony.

And there appears to have been some drama...

have we reset the board drama counter?

[RogueIce]

The drama counter just stays at 0. Easier that way.

[Phantasee]

I just watched Piranha DD and I'm never going back in the water. Also, the end credits are awesome.

[Dooey Jo]

[Darksi4190]

OK yeah. Still no fucking power. This I'd goddamn ridiculous. Another day and it'll have been out longer than it was during the 2003 blackout.

[Flagg]

OK yeah. Still no fucking power. This I'd goddamn ridiculous. Another day and it'll have been out longer than it was during the 2003 blackout.

Wait until you get your bill and its the same as it was this month last year since power companies don't have to take the loss despite not providing the service.

[adr]

so my right arm has become almost completely useless over the last day, right now it is sore even hanging its own weight! i think i pulled a muscle or something

blargh

[Darksi4190]

So I just talked with my neighbor, she says some portions of our city are going to be without power until Tuesday evening.

I am very angry at the power company right now. I cannot properly articulate what I would like to do to them in response to this, because I'd probably get arrested for posting it.