h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I imagine a sci-fi movie called "The Incredible Injectable Shringking Hormone." It started as growth hormone, then suffered power loss and shrank instead, and turned into Shrankenstein's Monster

depressing thing is... as I'm adult, the growth hormone won't make me any taller now! but I'm not exactly short as I did produce it myself when a kid/pre-pubity I've now just about perfected the method to inject myself whilst in public... just to freak people out; I just stick myself in the middle of my neck... apparently that is a good way to freak normals out

I admire you for being able to take it in the neck like that.

Only for amusing effect....

Injecting yourself in the neck doesn't seem amusing in and of itself. Did you juggle balls or sing "Louie, Louie," or paint the Moaning Lisa while you were doing it?

or were you wearing a clown or jester suit?
clown>

The Dr Jekyl costume would be better

well, onlookers response to me doing it, is the amusing bit... apparently most people get a bit freaked out by it

>>However my Dad would warm Mum when a power outage was due<<

Aww

I remember the power cuts in the early 70s. They were at scheduled times - I'd leave school with power & travel home on the bus into a zone seeing candlelight in people's houses & shop windows. We organised cooking around times the power would be on.

We used to have quite a few cuts in our current home eg when very windy. I think they've mended most of the weak places now. If the power does go off, I do check that it's not just the circuit breaker tripped. If it really is a cut, I'll usually go & out warm clothes on - it's invariably during cold weather!

Daytime isn't too bad, we have a gas hob we can light with a match so can still have hot food & drinks. I'll read or do some active task that doesn't need electricity - like sorting out a cupboard. We'll avoid opening the fridge or freezer in the hope that the food will be OK.

If dark, I'll light several candles & probably attempt to read, or we might play a board or card game. Fortunately cuts have not usually been more than a few hours.

We could always get in the car & travel afield to where the power is on & find somewhere open to have a coffee!

The power is supposed to be out for a little while today because of routine mainte

That reminds me - if there was a lengthy powercut I've got two camp stoves.

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I can't actually recall th elast time now, we had an actual power cut here, but we do often get 'power blips' - if its during a time we're awake, and in, we can see the lights dim, or flicker off then on, and the digital wireless needs to be reset often; more often this occurs over night though, and its only noticible by sometimes the WiFi needing resetting, and the digital wireless needing a retune the next day... No doubt if I levfft the PC on, overnight, it would be off or reset by the morning in such a case....

Although not a power cut, an amusing situation appears to be unfolding quite near the house though, on a busy road with many shops and cafes etc on it.... - all of a sudden they have 'cash only' signs up.... no other shops nearby have this, all just on the one road, and a couple on very close by turnings just off.... - I assume the wireless connection, or wired connection for the credit/debit card readers is busted - I assume the company that refills the cash machine nearby is doing extra trips to refill it at the moment - unable to say for certain, but really kind of hoping it turns out th e recent sewage and water pipe work, on a nearby road, is to blame.... and they end up digging it all up again. for aobut the forth time in a bit over a year, now if only they'd fix the broken pavements at the same time

I would hazard a guess that if debit devices are down in the shops - so will Instant-Teller machines be. They need to connect to networks, and down to banks, to authorize money dispensing.

Not many months ago, there was a regional outage of what-ever hub system serves these options in the area. I do know that car parking anywhere near a bank that day was pretty difficult.

I have a camp stove - it does mince.

(And it's not often I do that!)

Those powerblips are annoying – sometimes I ask myself 'did I just blink?' but no, there was a momentary powercut and I have to reset the time and alarm on my clock.

Fortunately I live somewhere that a full powercut is an inconvenience that just requires a torch and, in winter, maybe an extra blanket or jumper.

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I used to have an issue that could be described as the opposite of a brown-out.


I live in a garage apartment. My father (and the rest of the family, but mostly my father) built it in the late '80s as a retirement home for his MIL, my grandmother. I moved into it after I graduated college. In those early years I noticed something odd. When my mother would open or close her garage door, the one under my living room, the lights wouldn't dim, they would brighten.

I know enough about electric circuitry to be baffled by that behavior. But as I didn't noticed any other problems, I didn't think much of it. But after some time (a few years), it started to concern me more. It REALLY shouldn't do that. How did it do that? Dimming of my lights would make sense if the door opener motor was draining current from the same circuit as my lights. But brightening didn't make any sense. My father and I checked out the wiring and couldn't find any obvious issues. My dad was more concerned than I was so he finally called the local electric utility company to come look at it.

They found the issue. Inside the weatherhead (the part that connects the building to the electric grid that they installed when the building was erected) the wires were installed incorrectly and with some bare wiring in such a way that two of the main wires could touch, but normally didn't. When the garage door opener was running enough current went through one to create a strong enough magnetic field to attract the other enough to touch which would send part of that line's current into the other. Basically, 110V would become 220V! The linemen were surprised the building hadn't burned down!

Just shows that someone up there likes your family

I'm surprised we didn't lose power last night. We're n the middle of three-day Nor'easter [fortunately it's rain, not now, otherwise we'd have three feet of snow to shovel]. My area is full of huge, old oak trees. With the powerful gusts of wind we've been having, it would be so easy for a falling tree or big branch to take down some electric wires. I got very little sleep last night; the wind made my house shake....

This has inspired an entry that's been bunged in Peer Review: A87884716 - Power Cut Preparation
Have a read through and please make comments.

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