The Horror, The Horror
Posted on November 26, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 19 Comments
Apparently a large chunk of LA’s power grid went down last night (because it rained), and the internet connectivity in my hotel is down. So I’m in the lobby of the hotel right across the street, sucking down their free lobby wifi instead. Here’s a thought — when hotels right next door have reconnected to the InterTubes, you can’t blame a momentary overnight power outage for your lack of Internet.
Anyway, can’t hide out in this lobby for too long. If I’m hard to find online today, you know the reason. Well, that and the fact I’m, you know. On vacation.
What can I say? The last time I lost my internet it was because of a landslide – each to his own… Enjoy your vacation, I’m sure the rest of us will survive, somehow.
I guess that answers the question of whether or not I’m bringing my laptop along. Didn’t really want to carry it anyway, since I plan to knit in my spare time (what spare time?) while I’m at the con.
But if you bring your laptop to a hotel lobby, are you trying to fool anyone?
Oh, it might be fixed by then. It’s just annoying to have to hike today to answer e-mail.
Just say no email. Let it slide until after the Holidays.
I’m not entirely surprised. I’ve been in at least one hotel where the staff *admitted* that they knew they had to power-cycle the router, but nobody knew where it actually was.
And the NorCal folk just laugh at our SoCal brethren. It takes something a little more exciting than a puny rainstorm to make our power go out.
Of course, I guess we shouldn’t be too smug, because a good snowfall would freak everybody here.
-kat
Vacation = Not having to check your email or care about your email. Freeeeeeeeeedom
Well, to be fair, from a utility grid perspective boundaries generally run along a street and not across. So it is feasible that your hotel could be down for utility reasons and the hotel across the street be up.
Now if it were side-by-side and had the same ISP, I’d call bull.
katster, are you kidding? Puny rainstorms knock out our power all the time. SNOW leads to pathetic pictures of people rolling around at Crissy Field in half an inch of snow. Plus, multiple-car pileups everywhere.
John, I’ve seen situations where one building is up and another building is down during outages because their blocks are on different parts of the power grid. So it’s possible your hotel isn’t merely doofy.
Coincidence? Our Comcast internet up in Silicon Valley went down last night and hasn’t been back up since. Good thing we have a spare internet provider coming to the house for just such emergencies. Yes, we are obsessive tech heads and damn proud of it.
Don’t worry, John. When you getz the internubies back, we’ll be here.
Well be waiting for you right here. (bwahahaha)
Heck, if that happened my wife would figure that my head would implode.
Wardialing for the win!
Seriously, though, the United States power infrastructure is utter crap.
It also might be whatever “runs” the internet at the hotel. A lot of hotels run a router that also manages users based on MAC addresses, and if that device went on the fritz the intertrons in hotel A could be down, but be working perfectly well in hotel B where they don’t use the goofy device.
Aye, we live verra close by and had no alarm clock and NO automatic coffee this morning. It was horrible and a tragedy too.
Stormwatch 2008 Baby!
Our DSL was out for eight days after the first decent rain in Palo Alto this fall. I really don’t understand how rain can take out large parts of California’s infrastructure.
Our phone was only out for seven days after Hurricane Betsy in Baton Rouge, and they had to string new wires through most of the city.
Well your hotel may get internet access through the phone company and the one across the street may get it from a cable company. There are lots of reason for this to happen that are beyond the control of the hotel in which you’re registered.
I think it’s a standard rule that whatever the every-so-often extreme weather is for a location, it won’t cope well with it. So the UK for instance survives rain no problem but a big snowfall and everything stops, while SoCal falls apart when it rains.
The rains here are very intense, though, when they happen.
-Matt
Why is it that the worst response to inclement weather is to be found in areas where the worst weather is better than most other locale’s best weather?
The most critically-flawed component of infrastructure which inevitably fails is (IMNSHO) the kilo-and-a-half of ground sausage between the ears of locals. Sure, the power may drop, the net may go dark, but for a real charlie-foxtrot you need no more than an hour’s abnormal weather (typically rain) and suddenly the streets are flooded with dropped clues.
What have I to be thankful for? “Today’s forecast calls for partly cloudy, with light winds at 5-10mph out of the northwest.”
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and stay safe wherever you may travel today.