Rick's b.log - entry 2008/06/27

Brownouts

So riding right to the top of my save-up-for list is a little UPS. Nothing special, maybe just a ~30 euro model. Just enough to ride the computer though power hiccups.

I don't tend to lose much work because I hit ^S fairly often, but I do record video into the computer (from satellite) and I then convert it to MPEG4 - a rather lengthy process for a 450MHz machine! My great fear is it'll reboot one day and bluescreen with "Unmountable boot volume" because XP is too stupid to be able to CHKDSK its own NTFS partitions... It's just a bit of a lurking hassle.

It is strange, you know. Where I used to live in the UK had a bit of a habit of lengthy unexplained power outages. No brownouts, just 'click' and it would be dark for half an hour. Over here, in the middle of nowhere, the power survived gales, hurricanes, and the only brownout I can recall from years past is when a farmer blew up a butane cylinder while trying to set a bird-scarer in the field, the end result being a flaming cloud passing up through the power lines - so you can forgive EDF if that upset something!
Maybe this new problem is a result of all the "lotisement" houses being constructed? They are horrid breezeblock houses with cream crêpi and they all look alike and they all don't fit into a community with stone houses. They are being dubbed "lotisville" because it is like a wonky version of suburbia.
Anyway, our local town has 8 new houses (and three new farming buildings). The next town along has around 14 new houses. Farmers are making new barns, new processing plants for corn/milk/whatever. What is this going to do to an electricity network strung up in the '50s and '60s? It is already causing problems with the busing of children to school, and the patient lists on rural GPs. Perhaps the planners and regional council people ought to play a few games of SimCity to understand that green-lighting a bunch of new houses is going to require a tad more work than selling plots of land.

Aiko?

Today's word...

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