Electricity Apocalypse Soon? 576
mindriot writes "Heise's awarded online magazine Telepolis has published a nice article (English / German) discussing the ongoing series of power blackouts (after the U.S. blackout, London, Scandinavia, and other incidents, the most recent victim being Italy). 'The blackouts bare the Achilles Heel of our "information society" ,' the article states, and sees the recent events as a precursor to a possible massive on-line blackout. As society becomes more and more dependent on information and power networks, the failure of a single wire or the interruption of a satellite uplink can become a major issue and form a great vulnerability. As the article explains, market liberalization, globalization and plain ignorance could endanger our infrastructure to a very discomforting extent." Free markets cause power blackouts?
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Yupper (Score:2, Funny)
You better believe it! As soon as the power goes out and I can't post on slashdot [slashdot.org] or update my blog [colingregorypalmer.net] my social life is over!
Err, how about this... (Score:2, Funny)
Just like everywhere else...
Damn, blackout (Score:3, Funny)
Won't matter if it does... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Damn, blackout (Score:2, Funny)
overdependence (Score:3, Funny)
because god knows, dying in the electricity apocalypse would suck, but i'd rather go there than in the sewage apocolypse.
thank you, good night.
Yesterday, in the center of Hamburg, Germany ... (Score:1, Funny)
... my co-worker at the opposite table sais "Pah, blackouts can't happen in germany. We have a very narrow and redundant power grid." [translated]
Now imagine his face ten seconds later, when all monitores became black, all lights went off, and the UPS switched to battery supply. The local power company needed 2.5 hours to get the power back ...
(This is real life, not a joke.)
Tux2000
Re:Important not to jump to conclusions (Score:0, Funny)
Or something to that effect.
Re:Basically, yes. (Score:0, Funny)
But this way, at least one person can live out the American Dream and become a billionaire. Who are you to kill the American Dream??!
Yes, that was sarcasm folks..
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
Are you advancing a theory whereby the failing of the soviet electrical infrastructure was the direct cause of the fall of the soviet political infrastructure, thus leading to a capitalistic infrastructure and therefore free markets, or are you just making a dumbass Soviet Russia joke?
Yeah, thought so.
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:5, Funny)
The Book of the Subgenius teaches that in the face of impending emergency, the only things that need to be stockpiled are firearms, ammunition and cocaine. With this, you can build a loyal army of followers who will provide ( one way or another ) the other necessities of life. This is black-box abstraction at its best.
Anyway, I'm not concerned. All these power outages seem like a distinctly northern hemisphere prob
%% NO CARRIERRe:Shark Attacks! (Score:2, Funny)
But that aside, the shark attack rates were definately higher -- I know because I spent the summer SCUBA diving in Kailua-Kona. The exceptionally low rate of shark attacks overall means that it wasn't very statistically significant, but.. 01 was definately a bumper year for these...
Re:Free markets cause power blackouts? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:DR for the home (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Electricity Apocalypse! (Score:3, Funny)
i gotta build myself a hand powered webserver for redunduncy purposes!
A pr0n server that can be powered with one hand? Excellent! :)