Vociferous Ranting
Vociferous Ranting posted in General Zone forum comment posted by Orc Hi all and Derek especially
derek_holland Posted on Dec 11 2025, 15:28
| Author |
| 5 hours? That really sucks. No chance of a small solar panel, something to keep the refrigerator cold and fan running? |
These storms are mid to late afternoon affairs, so by the time it has moved on the Sun is pretty much gone for the day. We are somewhat fortunate that the refrigerator is tropical model designed for conditions in the worst of tropical Brazil. Two days without power and the ice in the freezer part is still icy. Unlike another fridge I will not mention where a year's worth of medicine turned to medical waste by the next morning.
5 hours is not the long I've been without power. At the end of the "Load-shedding" nightmare I was stuck in another town, an extremely humid hell-pit that needs to be edited out of Reality. Six Hours of Load-shedding on the hottest, most humid night in a decade. And I was not well, running temperatures of 39 degrees Metric. Screw a tepid bath, I wanted an ice pit. The water coming out of the cold taps (at Midnight) was still warm. Chance of getting an ambulance ? None? Life saving ambulance service not working because their comms were offline because of ... Load-shedding.
The second issue with installing an overt object like a solar panel is that it has become a target for crime. It gets installed by 5 PM and its gone by 5 AM, and no one, not even the dogs, hear anything.
| Author |
| I don't hate snow, not even a little ice. It is moving snow and a lot of ice that is exhausting. I am more concerned with drivers learning to drive in these conditions (again), that can be pretty damn scary. |
I am nervous around other drivers in normal conditions, any kind of weather or road hazard just pushes the whole idea of road use a little closer to insanity. People don't need snow (or torrential rain or thick mist) to be stupid or reckless or just clueless.
Alternatively my in-laws have told me that when they were living in the US in (I Think) the mid to late 70s, they had to attend and pass a course on winter-time driving for their South African driver's license to be valid on US roads. Seems like a good idea for locals too.
Which makes me think of road-user education in Finland. Getting your license there includes learning to drive in the worst snow conditions, including conditions where brakes will do nothing. Would be drivers also need to complete courses in first aid and hiking across snow, should their vehicle or another meet with disaster. Part of me suspects that some of these measures are just in place to give petty government employees something to do.
Anyway, Orc is way passed babbling on this one.
Take care out there, no matter what the weather conditions.
Regards
Orc
Post replies at
AlternityRPG.net forum#alternity #rpg #alternity-rpg
