What do you do when there’s a blackout? Whip out your mobile phone, and moblog!
The New York Power Authority has yet to update its website on this unprecedented power outage. Its last press release is dated August 14 concerning the anticipation of higher power usage due to the hot weather. Funnily enough, their motto is splashed across the screen: “Generating more than electricity”. Yup, lots of publicity too.
Wired reports: Wireless Internet connections still up, but phone services temporarily disconnected. Back to pay phones and human-to-human interaction.
Comments
Hey Van, I’m in NYC right now and went a bit mad when the power first went out. I was in a movie theater waiting for Sean Connery to form his league of extraordinary gentleman! Anyway, it’s Friday in NYC and power is back up where I am, which is 1st Ave and 47th St in Manhattan. A lot of people got power and then lost it again so I thought I’d drop a note quickly and then get offline, just to be safe! All’s okay here though. Christine, my sis-in-law, has a very well-stocked apt!
Phew! Vanny, I was worried about you. Either way you might’ve been hit – New York and Michigan. Thanks for dropping by to leave a message, really appreciate hearing from you!
I hate to be a party pooper, but just thought I’d put everything into perspective.
Some statistics as of July 2002:
* Half of mankind, 3 billion people, live on less than $2 a day.
* More than 2 billion people have no access to modern energy.
* One third of the world cooks on wood, dung and charcoal.
* Indoor air pollution, due to smoke from cooking fires, causes 1.8 million deaths per year.
* The number of people without electricity has increased in the last 20 years and will grow by 25 per cent in the next 20 years on current trends.
* In most sub-Saharan African countries, less than 20 per cent of people have electricity.
No need to apologize…these are facts many of us are aware of even as we describe our own annoyances. People here have mentioned that the folks in Iraq are suffering a lot more because of the recent US attacks, and some 23 hours of a blackout here isn’t much compared to what others may be going through.
CNN has an article on how the Iraqis have been suffering from blackouts far longer than the Yanks have – due to the recent war. They offered 10 tips for surviving the heat wave, but were also smug about the US blackouts. ‘Poetic justice’, they called it.