Is the North American grid similar in design to the NZ and Austrilian grid or not? Reason I ask is that I remember a comment from that y2k movie that France's grid is similar to ours (don't know if it is true or just a line for the story).

If NZ and Aus are same as ours then seems like Mr. CEO was off the mark perhaps.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), December 31, 1999

Answers

I was on a chat very early this morning with an elec. ute. programmer. In his opinion some embeds can take a while to fail. Problems may surface later rather than sooner.

-- nothere (nothere@nothere.net), December 31, 1999.

How late is later? Does the programmer program the embeds or billing systems?

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), December 31, 1999.

ABC reported earlier power fails in NZ... Peter Jennings himself no less

Other posts here about Swiss connections to Australia going down and confirmation of IBM swamped with parts orders... It's not time to be dooming neither to be pollying... frankly I don't like what I've heard so far...

And no,.. I've not heard anything about oil yet either.

-- RC (racambab@mailcity.com), December 31, 1999.

RC:

Good to hear from you. Will we ever be told what happens in the mid east or should we just watch the futures prices tomorrow and see for ourselves?

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), December 31, 1999.

IS,

doubt the futures will move much on Saturday, eh?

-- (4@5.6), December 31, 1999.

My brain is still stuck on 30.12.99 since last night, I meant later today if the markets are still open when the mid east rolls over, else Monday.

-- Interested Spectator (is@the_ring.side), December 31, 1999.

R.C.,

Surf a bit more and you will see that the NZ power outage was due to high winds...The power has been restored without any impact to other services.

-- paul dirac (pdirac@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999.

Paul Dirac: reconcile your statement with the local weather report from that area of clear skies and 23 mph winds down there......

... I know what he said, now reconcile what he said with what happened.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 31, 1999.

The news on power grids in Australia, N Z and Japan sounds great but I thought most embeddeds were on GMT.Rollover for GMT is still eight hours from now.

-- Ralph Kramden (And@AwayWeGo.com), December 31, 1999.

Since I have 'rellies' (for the downunder impaired, that means relatives) in New Zealand, I made early inquiries about the state of remediation at the utilities.

I know for a fact that nearly all of their power generation facilities are hydro, and they tend towards being old and less automated (read fewer embedded systems). I corresponded with one of the larger utilities about a year and a half ago with a hard hitting questionaire which they surprisingly answered in less than 2 days. I have no doubts New Zealand will experience only minor electrical outages.

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), December 31, 1999.