News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by jmnicolas on Monday July 13, 2020 @09:26AM (#23820479)
> Six years without a power cut doesn't seem too surprising.

It depends where you live and / or you might not notice them if they happen at night.

Even in France which is supposed to be a first world country I experience a couple power cuts every month (twice at night this week-end, it killed my tile generation and corrupted my filesystem on my OSM server).

I probably should invest in a UPS instead of complaining on HN !

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by alibert on Monday July 13, 2020 @10:35AM (#23821185)
Every month is not normal at all. You should check with Enedis.

I live in France and my power cuts are less than 10 in +20 years.

Had +5 years of uninterrupted power at my previous place and at the current flat I live, it's currently at +1,5 years.

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by hilbertseries on Monday July 13, 2020 @11:31AM (#23821822)
Conversely, I live in SoCal and every month is very normal.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by vondur on Monday July 13, 2020 @09:36PM (#23827624)
The only power outages I have here in Socal have been scheduled, and they replaced several poles and cabling. Out for like 8 hours.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by ido on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:20AM (#23828779)
Maybe they happen when I didn't notice them but in 15 years of living in Austria & then Germany I think the number of power-cuts I experienced would be countable on the fingers of one hand.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by gambiting on Monday July 13, 2020 @05:49PM (#23825951)
Yeah that doesn't sound right at all. I live in UK, we have maybe 1-2 power cuts a year max. And I have equipment running 24/7 so I'm sure I'd know.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by swimik on Monday July 13, 2020 @09:59AM (#23820827)
A couple a month seems way too much to me. I know for sure my last one here in southern Germany was more than 5 years ago. The only one that I actually remember experiencing during daytime was in my childhood, more than 20 years ago.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by m4rtink on Monday July 13, 2020 @11:51AM (#23822065)
Here in Czech Republic it is also very infregvebt to have aby non-planned power cuts.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by rozab on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @02:19PM (#23835640)
I'm intrigued by these typos. q to g, u to v, n to b. Are you using a handwriting recognition system, by any chance?
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by m4rtink on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @08:15AM (#23844084)
Just typing too fast on the default keyboard of Sailfish OS running Xperia X. :)
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by TomMarius on Monday July 13, 2020 @01:22PM (#23823163)
At our home we had one, in 2004.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by mkl on Monday July 13, 2020 @09:31AM (#23820523)
Wow, I thought power in France would be great. I'm in NZ, and I'm sure I've gone six years without a power cut. I have a PC that's always on (no UPS), so I'd definitely notice.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by wyoh on Monday July 13, 2020 @10:52AM (#23821366)
The power in France is great, I never heard anyone have so many cuts. The only cuts I encountered is from falling trees due to lots of wind the winter. Otherwise I can count the number of cuts on two hands for the past twenty years.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by flukus on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @01:46AM (#23828928)
On the other side of the Tasman they're pretty common due to summer storms. In Queensland having candles ready when we sat down for dinner was an almost daily occurrence some months, the PC and just about everything else would be turned off and unplugged by then. The best nights were when the power went early and we had an emergency Barbecue.

Over the years it got more reliable but I'm not sure if that was universal or just my specific area getting a lot more built up.

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by abiogenesis on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @08:01PM (#23839639)
I'm in Queensland and haven't experienced any power cuts in the last 5+ years.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by kbenson on Monday July 13, 2020 @03:02PM (#23824326)
Until the relatively recent planned power outages because of fire risk, here in Northern California (an hour north of SF) it was once every year or two.

If I had to guess, I would think it's wildly variable based on location and the factors of that location. A more remote community with one main power line through forested area might experience power loss more often, and a larger city with higher density probably has its own problems with load spikes which may cause problems. Maybe a suburb or medium sized city with semi-recent infrastructure is actually the sweet spot for power reliability?

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by Baeocystin on Monday July 13, 2020 @03:52PM (#23824891)
Here in Gilroy (southern end of the Bay Area) we get one or two outages a month during the summer. Unless it's a planned rolling blackout due to heat, they're usually only a few minutes in length, at least. The Costco-special UPSes I use (CyberPower 1350VA units) have all proven adequate for keeping my work/compute infrastructure online.

I've got solar, though, and a house battery is very much on the list once my budget allows it. I don't see local system stability getting better any time soon, and likely worse now that PG&E has more leeway to shut down power during wind/heat events and the like.

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by ajuc on Monday July 13, 2020 @10:20AM (#23821038)
I don't remember a power cut since I moved to my flat in a big city 11 years ago. I would most likely notice because I run my server almost 24/7.

Every month sounds very bad, even when I lived in a countryside in the least wealthy EU province (Lubelskie, Poland) it was never this bad. Maybe once a year (and usually with a warning that it will happen).

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by fian on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @11:43PM (#23855530)
It also depends on the status of your local grid/substation. My university was on the same local distribution as a nearby hospital. The hospital had special status for receiving power, for obvious reasons. So in the 10 odd years I spent doing undergrad and post grad studies there was only ever 1 brief power outage during a thunderstorm. Meanwhile nearby suburbs probably averaged 2 power outages per year, typically for a few hours at most.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by ngcc_hk on Monday July 13, 2020 @07:09PM (#23826691)
The power is very reliable until I install a solar panel and feed to the grid. Every time a thunder storm I have to worried as it would happen. Got 2 ups in the house until they reroute the power arrangement in the house so isolate the solar with the household main (by doing something about the fuse sensitivity level). No thunderstorm for sometimes. Still awaiting.

Power is a funny thing for computer guys.

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by zwaps on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @03:51AM (#23829531)
I have lived six years at my current location in Germany and have not had a power cut, except for a burned fuse in my apartment.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by Macha on Monday July 13, 2020 @10:47AM (#23821326)
I grew up in a small city in Ireland and power cuts were a couple of times a year thing.

I now live in Dublin and I've had one in 6 years.

Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by rusk on Monday July 13, 2020 @01:59PM (#23823602)
The only one I can remember in recent times - say the last 10 years or so - is when they did “something” out at the Facebook datacenter in clonsilla ...
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by toast0 on Monday July 13, 2020 @12:39PM (#23822703)
Yeah, twice in the same weekend is the trigger condition to go ahead and buy a small UPS (or several, depending on how your computers are arranged). Be sure to get one that communicates, usually via USB-HID, so your computer(s) can shut off cleanly if the outage is long.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by mad182 on Tuesday July 14, 2020 @11:17AM (#23832913)
Power cuts every month doesn't seem very normal to me. I had a home server running for a few years without UPS, and at one point it had over 2 years of uptime.
Re:The most remarkable legacy system I have seen by iagovar on Monday July 13, 2020 @10:03AM (#23820879)
That's too much. I live in Spain and the last power cut was maybe last summer. It's probably less than once a year on average. Maybe way less, but i'm not sure.