Saturday, August 23, 2003|
Congratulations and Happy 7th Anniversary to Stone Brewing Company Had a great time celebrating the 7th Anniversary of Stone Brewing Company at their annual open house and beer festival. I've made all but one of these celebrations since year 2 and they are only getting bigger. Nostalgia makes me long for the day when it was a Stone-only event, but the size doesn't keep me away from hanging out in the brewery and drinking the always good annual ale...and this year's kicks ass!
Pictures to follow... |
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The Blackout of 2003 WAS NOT Caused By An Uncut Tree or a Sagging Power Line! I heard on both local (San Diego) and national (CNN Headline News) news tonight that the blackout last week was caused by an uncut tree. Those are the words they used. Pah-leeeeez. I'm not sure why I was so irate, but maybe it's because that's not how it went down, according to the article I commented on earlier today which I'm sure is the source for all these stories tonight (since I haven't seen any other news on this today). Is TV doing what they do best, dumb shit down or are they just looking for the easy answers? Try explaining it to us, please!
What caused it? Not enough contingency or what-if planning to find out what to do with all the power we've built for when we can't use it (or don't have enough folks to trim trees). OK...enough ranting! |
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Could Too Much Energy Flow Have Caused The Blackout of 2003? Trying to get an update on the Blackout of 2003 this morning, via the NYTimes: Experts Retrace a String of Mishaps Before the Blackout, it sure sounds like the problem was there was too much power being generated and no where for it too go. As the first system when out and power tried to route around, the next system in the chain couldn't handle all the extra power, so it shut down...and dominos fell. As the article concludes, this seems like such a strange thing when most blackouts seem to occur when there isn't enough to go around. You can read the first couple paragraphs of the article to get the sequence of events, which is facinating itself, but it gets lots more complicated from there. Another flash here is a rather Terminator-ish direction where the complexity of technology used to support our high-tech needs (or even low-tech, lots of volume needs) is such that the machines need to make decisions faster than what human's can oversee,
"Michael Holstein, vice president and chief financial officer at the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, which helps manage electrical flows on the grid for certain companies in the region where the blackout began, called the analysis "an interesting hypothesis." But he rejected any suggestion that a lack of communication had contributed to the problems. 7:32:47 AM  comment [] trackback [] Google It! - See Also: Technology |
Last update: 10/28/03; 7:44:36 AM .
