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Power Outages Strike East Coast
fordp writes "CNN, CNBC and others are reporting that major power outages are happening just after 4:00PM EDT in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto, Toledo." There are reports of a Con Edison transformer on fire on 14th Street in NYC, and lots of people stuck in trains and elevators. CNN is reporting that it is, according to power officials, most likely not related to terrorism, because you know you were wondering. The Niagra Mohawk power grid is overloaded, which feeds electricity throughout the northeast U.S. and into Canada. Update: 08/14 21:06 GMT by P : The mayor said there was no fire, that it was black smoke brought on by an automatic shutdown because of the power grid failure.
..You don't have to worry as much about port 135 being open.
IM going looting. Need one of them there apple g5s!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
If I had power I could First Post.
And in other breaking news, a great chorus of laughter could be heard clear across the country, apparently originating from California.
And we all know that black smoke streaming out of electrical equipment is perfectly normal.
They set up us the bomb!
finally got that extra long extension cable rigged up....
too much work on the brain, time to head home, oh wait the subway is electric, damn.
If a riot starts, looting starts, or if this is part of some kinda terrorist attack you are going to feel dumb.
Lets be serious. This is not SCOs fault, its Microsofts fault.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Isn't that one of the legendary BOFH excuses?
shit, i better turn off my new overclocked 4ghz athlon!
R.I.P.
I bet it is running on linux and the OS license
was revoked by SCO.
From what I heard, terrorists working for SCO were exploiting port 135 worms after declaring their hatred for IBM on Friendster (of course, they were disguised as John Ashcroft and their accounts were cancelled) and, from all accounts, they were just "testing a random number generator". Where does it all end?!?!?
You know your a geek when your reading Slashdot during a power cut. :-D
He also said that there was no grid overload, it was just being shut down for regular maintenance.
Do you suffer from anxiety attacks when you do not read/post to Slashdot for more than a day?
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But it won't work after the magic smoke is left out AFAIR.
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
That's the problem. They let the magic smoke out.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I always wondered what that wall switch was for and today I finally turned it off. My bad. After dinner I'll go turn it back on.
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
You didn't get a UPS for your fish?
It has been annexed by France.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
As long as it was only black smoke and not the "magic" smoke that makes all electrical and electronic devices work they should be just fine :)
Space for rent, inquire within
NO CARRIER
Litigious bastards
Or goodbye...
I'm in California right now, near San Francisco. All power is on across Silicon Valley. Traffic lights are functioning normally, and the BART can't hold "hundreds of thousands" of people like the NYC subway system apparently can. I'm connected through an ethernet cable to the wall on a laptop, with the power adapter plugged in.
My tropical fish also live on electricity, but they are thankfully in no danger. Regardless, I'm going to freak out like everyone else.
Someone queue the Barry White, its Baby Making time. Or for those less inclined, or lacking a significant other, I guess you could always cower in a corner with no /. and no quake, and no email :)
And will it send out white smoke when power is restored, like the election of a new pope?
ps: checked out diaperdevil - very cool! As a father of 3 kids under 18 months, I think I'm going to have to place an order...
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Skynet has us by the balls now!
Yeah, I'm in Cambridge and our power is f
+++NO CARRIER+++
I expect Bush to adress Congress tomorrow. He will tell them that the US needs to be able to provide for its own strategic electricity supply. Airco is a national security priority. Therefore Canada will be annexed by the end of the week.
Canadians that object will be labelled terrorists and put in camps where they will be working on new pipelines, new electricity lines and clearing out forrests. All others canadians will be subjected to pay the USA's debt as a thanks for now becoming part of the world's oldest democracy.
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Didn't anyone notice the time the blackout happened? 4:11pm! That's 4-11! OH MY GOD! THE TERRORISTS WANT INFORMATION!
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
for a terrorist who goes by the name 'Trinity'.
four-oh-four
Who SlashDotted the East Coast?
Sanity is overrated...Being CRAZY is much more fun!!!
I feel sorry for the last guy to plug something in when the overload occured. Can you imagine plugging your toaster in and taking down power for the east coast? I'd feel pretty guilty about it, unless I meant to do it, in which case I would feel 1337.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Nice thought. I checked the website. It is nice to hear an alternate theory to terrorism. All the rednecks in my office are out buying ammo, just in case the solar flare theory doesn't pan out.
I've got 100 gallons of fresh water, and a sword.
So, after you drink all 100 gallons of the fishes water, you can chop them up with the sword and have sushi?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Well, the NYSE has tons of backup generators. A friend of mine just sent an email from the floor, and she reports that at least the AC and computers are working.
We know you are lying. Slashdotters don't know any girls.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
That was a great demo: "Hey, watch it shut itself down when I pull out the plug!"
???
John
It's a higher-octane version of the magic smoke found in computer components. When something bad happens and the magic smoke leaks out, you're screwed. There must be a lot in a transformer--probably enough to fill at least 57,000 Pentium 4's. I'd hate to get the bill for that much replacement magic smoke! Maybe they can get a bunch of old 386's and siphon out and recycle their smoke... hey I deserve a patent on that idea!
there will be a baby boom next june.
Have fun folks
Oh please, won't somebody think about the children!
Blah.
I don't know about you guys, but this sounds like the work of gort and klatu...
The piano has been drinking, not me... -Tom Waits
inside this building there is a level where no elevator can go and no stair can reach. This level is filled with doors. These doors lead to many places, hidden places, but one door is special. One door leads to the source...etc... Now that the power is out we have only five minutes to find the door on that floor.
If downtown Boston is operating normally, then something's DEFINITELY wrong.
The power company obviously had Linux running and had to pull the plug because of SCO.
oh, and I blame SARS as well.
Cause thats what Im doing RIGHT NOW :-D
btw I thought they where supposed to fix this bullshit when the power went out in the 70's??? if the same thing happened AGAIN who dropped the ball on retrofitting the power supply to let it grow with the rest of the usage
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Wow. Who would have thought that ConEd was running the grid on unpatched Microsoft servers.
Apart from the ongoing Curse, of course. ;)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
I know people in the business. They tell me that black smoke is not a documented feature of automated shutdowns.
In other words, the Mayor is shoveling bullshit.
Let's all turn on our lights at 4:13pm.... shh... don't tell anyone
</tinfoilHat>3 kids under 18 months? Could be a Mormon and his multiple wives share kid duties while he posts to /. at his leisure....
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Anyone else notice the web seems a lot faster without all those eastcoasters takin all the bandwidth? ;)
no comment
Get a straw and BLOW FOR THEIR LIVES, MAN!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
FWIW, Seattle is OK, unaffected.
Just trying to help.
The mayor said there was no fire, that it was black smoke brought on by an automatic shutdown because of the power grid failure.
Actually the smoke was from the Mayor's handlers trying to spin the fire story so as not to cause panic.....
I think it would have been better for the Mayor's minister of dis-information to have done this on television with a flaming transformer in the background.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Somebody is so fired.
You have a choice: tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend Republicans. Choose wisely.
Great...now we've done it. We Slashdotted the East Coast power grid. We're gonna get modded down BIG TIME for this.
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"CNN, CNBC and others are reporting that major power outages are happening just after 4:00PM EDT in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Ottawa and Toronto, Toledo." .NET security initiative. Power will be restored as soon as we have a secure version of Windows".
In Redmond, Bill Gates has declared "We have taken all the steps necessary to prevent the MSBLAST from doing damage. Similar steps were taken in California to prevent Code Red. It's all part of our
Hot damn! You're right! And, to think, the chance of any given date being within a month of September 11th is a whopping 1 out of 6!
That's the same chance you have of rolling a '1' on a single six-sided die!
Wow! Mind boggling improbable!
Can somebody pick me up a TiVo when the looting begins? I'll pay for shipping.
Everybody Wang-Chung tonight!
Doors stopped functioning.
See, that's what's wrong with the world today. Do we really need fucking electric doors? Shit, I bet people couldn't charge their Segways either and were unable to walk down the street.
I imagine just before the power outage, a conversation like this happened:
Engineer 1: Are you SURE it's a good idea to overclock the generators? I don't think Moore's law was meant to apply to electricity...
Engineer 2: Of COURSE it's a good idea. We've been at 60Hz since forever! If we bump it up to 90Hz, just think how much faster our coffee maker will go! I did the math last night, it'll be safe
Engineer 1: But in your calculations, you round pi to 3.1, you assume plank's constant to be 2, and this part under what appears to be penut butter says "magic squirrels = good!" And I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be using a rock as an overclocking tool...
Engineer 2: Hey, if Edison listened to that kind of negative talk, would he have ever single-handedly build the space shuttle and flown to the Sun?
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
"There are no power outages, you are being subjected to the lies of the infidels. As I speak, my wife is in the tanning salon and my aquarium fish are doing just fine".
All power is out across all 5 boros.
Good thing all my burros are powered by oats.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
A power outage in August?!? It must be terrorists, since during the hottest month of the year there's no reason to use much electricity.
end sarcasm
Bush et al have got you people afraid of your own shadows. Sad, really, though still funny.
If you make a joke now, then the terrorists have already won.
Someone has to pay when the City That Never Sleeps takes a nap.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
its machines u fools... they r taking their revenge. man vs. machine --- fight to death. They started with our most important weapon POWER!!
my computer started behaving abnn92u54092q what the 555o845090234211!!
hE3[3=[3[[[p
bin
look siG is kool
Both Barabasi's Linked and Duncan Watt's Six Degrees have interesting stories about how small failures can snowball into large failure like this one apparently is.
Of course, here in the midwest I'm sure everthing will be just fi
I just got reports from Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Casablanca and they are all unaffected. Baghdad is still out but that seems to be an independent cause.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
My computer rebooted unexpectedly. I can't tell what the reason was, so I guess I can't rule out terrorism at the current time.
The local show store didn't get its shipment of Reebox DMX walking shoes on time. No one is certain exactly why the shipment is late. So I guess they can't rule out terrorism...
Do you get a general idea of where I am going with this?
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
With no power, my poor tropical fish have less than a few hours to live
Let's see... Decisions, decisions. Fish or Shashdot..., fish or Slashdot... Hmmm.
Hey! the toilet will still flush without power. Slashdot it is!
Especially when the grid is already overloaded from too many AC's going
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
We have just as much right to post here as you do!
It would be more of an inconvinience attack. But not being able to use our computers, to us slashdotters... a terrorist attack.
We have the livenews for the power outages back on (just like we did with all the other top stories, like the "War on Terrorism") and 9/11. It's the CNN feed.
It's available on: irc.striked.org #livenews
Top headlines: "Microsoft knocks out east coast power grid to prevent DDoS attack on windowsupdate.com"
Free means no restrictions, ironic the FSF's GPL forces restrictions, isn't it? What's your definition of free?
They finally found a way to take down a lot of all those evil pirates all at the same time! Haha, too bad I'm in the Southeast!
Of course you realize I had no intention of offending.
How about this instead:
"The North Eastern Power grid went down faster than Ben Affleck at a strip club!"
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
I could believe it too. In power stations running Windows there is a well known error reporting device known to insiders as the "BSOD," or "Black Smoke of Death."
If power plants ran Windows, I think we'd see outages every few hours at least.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
When you don't buy a SCO license!!!
Really, it's the /. effect applied to the powergrid.
:)
Too much AC's have always been a problem
Aritle Link
Japanese news sources have gone on record that the catastrophic power failure that has stricken New York and other major metropolitan areas in the Eastern U.S. have nothing to do with Godzilla. Sources in Japan are claiming that Godzilla was safe on Monster Island and the hard stomping lizard monster was not involved in the blackout.
According to one spokesman at the JGL news service, Gogi Asobi, "Godzilla and all of the monsters, including Mothra and King Kong were all safe behind our defenses on Monster Island." This has ended speculation earlier in the day that either terrorism or Godzilla had been behind the blackout.
Rumors started flying shortly after the blackout that there was a possible link between Al-Qaeda and Godzilla when black smoke in the shape of a mosque were seen billowing from a power plant at 14th Street and Avenue C in Manhattan. Eyewitnesses had reported that at the same time the head of Godzilla could be seen in the East River, and that in fact he could be seen holding a shoulder mounted surface to air missile. New York Mayor Blooberg could not be reached for comment.
Would it be fair to say that the Mayor is "blowing smoke up your ass"? ;)
Let the Zionist infidels bask in their illusion, but I triple guarantee you: there are absolutely NO power problems at all in the Five Boroughs.
I am not scared, and neither should you be! We will defeat the enemy spreading such rumors and use their own shoes to butcher them!
Real Iraqi Information Minister QuotesYou're right. There is no such thing as American culture.
Ever notice that major power outages and clear skies only coincide near full moon?
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
"Thanks for the concern for the fish..."
Anyone else think they misread that the first time?
~Blake
I gotta admire the stamina, to be able to do the hottie (incidentally this is a word for hot water bottle round here), and hump the water cooler in the same panic.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Every normal shutdown procedure should come complete with billowing clouds of black oily smoke.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
try...
2, 1, *snip*
although we've got some embryos on ice as well, so who knows...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Nope you're wrong. They don't share the blame, they are entirely to blame. And it's their fault that we have global warming now too, we should have been 100% nuclear decades ago, instead these environmentalists have kept us in the dark ages burning fossil fuels!
Since you mentioned the blackouts in New York, I see two things happening. 1. Someone will make a song about it, probably a rip off of Billy Joel's Miami 2017. 2. In about 36-40 weeks, population along black out areas will experience a proliferation of births; experts will be baffled.
I got an intern on a bike powering my laptop right now.
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