[gentoo-dev] power outage

[gentoo-dev] power outage

[drobbins]

Hi all,

It's always exciting in New Mexico, and today was no exception.  We had an
extended power outage; however, cvs.gentoo.org is back online now.  Also, we
seem to be having DSL service interruptions on a regular basis -- I'm going to
start looking into a longer-term solution to this problem.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[Achim Gottinger]

drobbins@gentoo.org wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> It's always exciting in New Mexico, and today was no exception.  We had an
> extended power outage; however, cvs.gentoo.org is back online now.  Also, we
> seem to be having DSL service interruptions on a regular basis -- I'm going to
> start looking into a longer-term solution to this problem.
> 

I saw a short note in tv about  that today, it seems to have been a real
big power out.

achim~

> Best Regards,
> 
> --
> Daniel Robbins                                  <drobbins@gentoo.org>
> President/CEO                                   http://www.gentoo.org
> Gentoo Technologies, Inc.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://www.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[drobbins]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:10:27AM +0100, Achim Gottinger wrote:

> > It's always exciting in New Mexico, and today was no exception.  We had an
> > extended power outage; however, cvs.gentoo.org is back online now.  Also, we
> > seem to be having DSL service interruptions on a regular basis -- I'm going to
> > start looking into a longer-term solution to this problem.
> > 
> 
> I saw a short note in tv about  that today, it seems to have been a real
> big power out.

That was probably the one in California, which is being caused by strange state
(not national) bureaucratic regulations.  The one in New Mexico was apparently
caused by a couple of blown transformers.

However, all the power problems in California have had the unpleasant effect of
raising my utility bills (natural gas and electricity) to $300/month :(((((((((
That's what happens when California buys tons of electricity and gas from other
states -- the price goes crazy.

Be careful when your state/country starts regulating the utilities... a few
stupid laws can create major problems.

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[Achim Gottinger]

drobbins@gentoo.org wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:10:27AM +0100, Achim Gottinger wrote:
> 
> > > It's always exciting in New Mexico, and today was no exception.  We had an
> > > extended power outage; however, cvs.gentoo.org is back online now.  Also, we
> > > seem to be having DSL service interruptions on a regular basis -- I'm going to
> > > start looking into a longer-term solution to this problem.
> > >
> >
> > I saw a short note in tv about  that today, it seems to have been a real
> > big power out.
> 
> That was probably the one in California, which is being caused by strange state
> (not national) bureaucratic regulations.  The one in New Mexico was apparently
> caused by a couple of blown transformers.

Thought it was exciting? Blown transformers seem to be common in new
mexico. :-)
> 
> However, all the power problems in California have had the unpleasant effect of
> raising my utility bills (natural gas and electricity) to $300/month :(((((((((
> That's what happens when California buys tons of electricity and gas from other
> states -- the price goes crazy.

In Europe it is a normal thing to buy electricity from other countries.
You can
even choose a private provider for electricity (company that resells
electricity from germany and other countries).
I buy about $100/month here for electricity and I don't need gas.

> 
> Be careful when your state/country starts regulating the utilities... a few
> stupid laws can create major problems.

Do they care about my care?

Have you tested the docbook stuff? Yesterday I found a few documents
that can be converted to man/info pages too.
So the perl stuff seems to work too and it is just a document question.
I'll try to make a docbook from my
ebuild man pages as an example.
Additionaly I will look how kde customized their docbook system and try
to make one for gentoo.
To finish up the docbook system I will add ldp (Linux docbook) and
gnome-docbook stuff.

bye achim~

> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> --
> Daniel Robbins                                  <drobbins@gentoo.org>
> President/CEO                                   http://www.gentoo.org
> Gentoo Technologies, Inc.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://www.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[Philippe Namias]

On Wednesday 21 March 2001 03:06, you wrote:
> drobbins@gentoo.org wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 02:10:27AM +0100, Achim Gottinger wrote:
> > > > It's always exciting in New Mexico, and today was no exception.  We
> > > > had an extended power outage; however, cvs.gentoo.org is back online
> > > > now.  Also, we seem to be having DSL service interruptions on a
> > > > regular basis -- I'm going to start looking into a longer-term
> > > > solution to this problem.
> > >
> > > I saw a short note in tv about  that today, it seems to have been a
> > > real big power out.
> >
> > That was probably the one in California, which is being caused by strange
> > state (not national) bureaucratic regulations.  The one in New Mexico was
> > apparently caused by a couple of blown transformers.
>
> Thought it was exciting? Blown transformers seem to be common in new
> mexico. :-)
>
> > However, all the power problems in California have had the unpleasant
> > effect of raising my utility bills (natural gas and electricity) to
> > $300/month :((((((((( That's what happens when California buys tons of
> > electricity and gas from other states -- the price goes crazy.
>
> In Europe it is a normal thing to buy electricity from other countries.
> You can
> even choose a private provider for electricity (company that resells
> electricity from germany and other countries).
> I buy about $100/month here for electricity and I don't need gas.

Here in France we don't have any electricity/gas problem as it's a state 
company. They have the monopole so there is no choice here but i only paid  
42$ by month for electricity. 

>
> > Be careful when your state/country starts regulating the utilities... a
> > few stupid laws can create major problems.
>
> Do they care about my care?
>
> Have you tested the docbook stuff? Yesterday I found a few documents
> that can be converted to man/info pages too.
> So the perl stuff seems to work too and it is just a document question.
> I'll try to make a docbook from my
> ebuild man pages as an example.
> Additionaly I will look how kde customized their docbook system and try
> to make one for gentoo.
> To finish up the docbook system I will add ldp (Linux docbook) and
> gnome-docbook stuff.




>
> bye achim~
>
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > --
> > Daniel Robbins                                  <drobbins@gentoo.org>
> > President/CEO                                   http://www.gentoo.org
> > Gentoo Technologies, Inc.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gentoo-dev mailing list
> > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> > http://www.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev
>
> _______________________________________________
> gentoo-dev mailing list
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
> http://www.gentoo.org/mailman/listinfo/gentoo-dev

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[drobbins]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 01:57:31PM +0100, Philippe Namias wrote:

> Here in France we don't have any electricity/gas problem as it's a state 
> company. They have the monopole so there is no choice here but i only paid  
> 42$ by month for electricity. 

In principle and practice, there is nothing wrong with electricity being
provided by private companies.  The problem in California was due to poor
government regulations.  Here's my understanding of what went wrong:

The state of California passed a law that the electric companies can charge no
more than X dollars per kW (no exceptions).  Of course, this seems like a good
idea because it appears to protect consumers.  But then, the cost of
*producing* the electricity rose to above this amount.  This happened because
it is nearly impossible to build a new power plant in California due to
environmental regulations.  So even though California uses more power every
year, they were unable to expand their production capacity to meet demand.  It
gets worse.

Due to the price limit on electricity, the utilities couldn't pass the
additional expense to the Californian consumer.  By law, they had to charge X
dollars per kW, which meant that they were *losing* money.  So, they tried to
borrow money to to maintain their power supplies and even attempt to build new
ones, but no one would lend them money (since the loan people knew that the
utilities were in a no-win situation).  So, by law, California was forced to
buy tons of gas and electricity from neighboring states, dramatically raising
the cost of electricity and gas in the southwest.

Again, there's no problem with private utilities.  Competition will keep the
price low, usually much lower than government-run utilities.  The problem is
when the government sets up impossible-to-follow rules for the utilities
without understanding the consequences.  Then, the utilties are forced to do
stupid things (by law) and things like this happen.

It's as if I asked you to create new ebuilds, but I insisted that you couldn't
use your hands because you might get a repetive stress injury.  To the
uninformed, this sounds like a good rule (protecting you from harm), but in
practice it means you need to type with your toes!

Best Regards,

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.			

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[Philippe Namias]

On Wednesday 21 March 2001 17:26, you wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 01:57:31PM +0100, Philippe Namias wrote:
> > Here in France we don't have any electricity/gas problem as it's a state
> > company. They have the monopole so there is no choice here but i only
> > paid 42$ by month for electricity.
>
> In principle and practice, there is nothing wrong with electricity being
> provided by private companies. 

I agree with you the principe of concurrency is good for the market/consummer 
so i hope they will be soon other electricity company in France .
But what i don't understand it's why the electricity company didn't ring the 
bell sooner.
I think that this kind of company are able to predict in a certain way the 
volume of electricity needed , so why they don't alert the State Of 
California of this. 
Because now if they are allowed (in Calofornia or any state close to) to 
build a power plant it will take years to build.
So i think that your are just at the beginning of the problem?

PS: If you want candle i can send you:)


> The problem in California was due to poor
> government regulations.  Here's my understanding of what went wrong:
>
> The state of California passed a law that the electric companies can charge
> no more than X dollars per kW (no exceptions).  Of course, this seems like
> a good idea because it appears to protect consumers.  But then, the cost of
> *producing* the electricity rose to above this amount.  This happened
> because it is nearly impossible to build a new power plant in California
> due to environmental regulations.  So even though California uses more
> power every year, they were unable to expand their production capacity to
> meet demand.  It gets worse.
>
> Due to the price limit on electricity, the utilities couldn't pass the
> additional expense to the Californian consumer.  By law, they had to charge
> X dollars per kW, which meant that they were *losing* money.  So, they
> tried to borrow money to to maintain their power supplies and even attempt
> to build new ones, but no one would lend them money (since the loan people
> knew that the utilities were in a no-win situation).  So, by law,
> California was forced to buy tons of gas and electricity from neighboring
> states, dramatically raising the cost of electricity and gas in the
> southwest.
>
> Again, there's no problem with private utilities.  Competition will keep
> the price low, usually much lower than government-run utilities.  The
> problem is when the government sets up impossible-to-follow rules for the
> utilities without understanding the consequences.  Then, the utilties are
> forced to do stupid things (by law) and things like this happen.
>
> It's as if I asked you to create new ebuilds, but I insisted that you
> couldn't use your hands because you might get a repetive stress injury.  To
> the uninformed, this sounds like a good rule (protecting you from harm),
> but in practice it means you need to type with your toes!
>
> Best Regards,

Re: [gentoo-dev] power outage

[drobbins]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2001 at 05:56:23PM +0100, Philippe Namias wrote:

> I agree with you the principe of concurrency is good for the market/consummer
> so i hope they will be soon other electricity company in France .  But what i
> don't understand it's why the electricity company didn't ring the bell
> sooner.  I think that this kind of company are able to predict in a certain
> way the volume of electricity needed , so why they don't alert the State Of
> California of this.  Because now if they are allowed (in Calofornia or any
> state close to) to build a power plant it will take years to build.  So i
> think that your are just at the beginning of the problem?

Yes, it's probably just the beginning of the problem.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being pro-environment or wanting a
lower energy bill, but if someone believes in it strongly enough, they should
change their own lifestyle rather than force others (utilities) to suffer while
they watch their big screen TV 8 hours/day and keep their air conditioning on
high even when they're away from home.  For example, if you support anti-SUV
(sport utility vehicle) legislation, I hope that you do *not* own an SUV!
It's important to at least *try* to not be a hypocrite.

For the sake of a cause, people seem very willing to put restrictions on others
but not very willing to put restrictions on their own behavior.  Apparently, to
some people, personal responsibility and accountability is a foreign concept.

-- 
Daniel Robbins					<drobbins@gentoo.org>
President/CEO					http://www.gentoo.org 
Gentoo Technologies, Inc.