Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2001-07-25 09:46 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2001-07-25 09:46 pm
Power Outrages
Monday evening at work the power went out at work. Now, I'm one of those evil evil telephone survey people who call just at dinner time (you see, the dialer computer came with a bug: it automatically tries to time it for your dinner time, and it costs about ten thousand dollars to get the damn thing upgraded to the version that avoids your dinner time), and we work from a completely computerized system, so imagine the havoc that ensued.
All lights save for the exit lights and maybe five emergency lights (in a room that you could hold at least four basketball games in) died. The computers died. The noise in the headsets died.
Complete silence, save for one lunatic, of the blue variety, squawking, "But I was halfway through a long* one!"
Several snickers from assorted people. I identified at least one supervisor's snicker.
(*I was assigned to a survey about people's fast food habits. If the person had eaten fast food within the last month, they got the long version of the survey. If they hadn't, they got the short version. The short versions don't count towards our quota. Vanessa and I were two long surveys away from being sent home; she and I were both in the middle of a long survey.)
The lights came back up in a very few minutes. We then discovered something else interesting: the computers were acting funny. "Don't touch the computers!" the supervisors started yelling, and then one by one came around to carefully type in the word ABORT (all caps) and then BYE, also in all caps. They proceeded to do something arcane to the network to save the lost data. We took a break.
Work continued after that. We got our surveys, finally, and just as Vanessa and I had shut our computers down and were cleaning up to go home, the power blinked off again for two seconds.
The supervisors screeched bloody murder and started going through the whole emergency shutdown routine again. Vanessa and I sneaked out while the getting was good.
All lights save for the exit lights and maybe five emergency lights (in a room that you could hold at least four basketball games in) died. The computers died. The noise in the headsets died.
Complete silence, save for one lunatic, of the blue variety, squawking, "But I was halfway through a long* one!"
Several snickers from assorted people. I identified at least one supervisor's snicker.
(*I was assigned to a survey about people's fast food habits. If the person had eaten fast food within the last month, they got the long version of the survey. If they hadn't, they got the short version. The short versions don't count towards our quota. Vanessa and I were two long surveys away from being sent home; she and I were both in the middle of a long survey.)
The lights came back up in a very few minutes. We then discovered something else interesting: the computers were acting funny. "Don't touch the computers!" the supervisors started yelling, and then one by one came around to carefully type in the word ABORT (all caps) and then BYE, also in all caps. They proceeded to do something arcane to the network to save the lost data. We took a break.
Work continued after that. We got our surveys, finally, and just as Vanessa and I had shut our computers down and were cleaning up to go home, the power blinked off again for two seconds.
The supervisors screeched bloody murder and started going through the whole emergency shutdown routine again. Vanessa and I sneaked out while the getting was good.
no subject
I even have one on my computer. I bought it when I heard the rumor that there would be some chance of rolling blackouts here. The power has failed four times since then, once because justin is a dork, three times because Atrashy Junction is just like that, and they blink the power out for a second or two. As far as I am concerned, having this thing ROCKS.
no subject
I don't mind losing productivity time when it's not my fault.
I failed to bring my UPS with me 'cause it was actually my father's... it saved the family computer's ass once when lightning hit our well. It caught fire, but the computer was perfectly all right.
no subject
Its those 2 second power outages that kill data
no subject
I discovered last night that while the battery typically lasts from four to six hours, when the battery is also powering the DSL modem, it lasts less than an hour. Sis wanted to talk to her boyfriend online during the thunderstorm, and I was a little leery of leaving the thing plugged into the wall...
no subject
Browsing the web relies heavily on CACHE - to keep from reloading the web. If you want to see the web via DSL but slower, but not kill your batter, turn your cache off if at all possible. The effect will be chilling on net access speed, but your hard disc wont spin up every time a page is loaded (and a copy is saved to the HD)
The DSL modem use probably also interferes with the CPU's likelyhood of setting itself to run at half speed (or whatever lowered speed, lowered power settings are available). Try forcing these on, your system as a whole will be slower, but the CPU and HD are the two primary power eaters. (The display is 3rd)
no subject