How technology affects us...

[altenbach]

Wow, you have some cheap gas. It is easily 1$ more here per gallon.

[LV_Pro]

Well you are in the LA area, the most expensive in the country, according to the AAA report I heard this morning. Albuquerque had the lowest, about $0.20 below what his pump is showing. Still, they all have gone up almost $0.40 since February.

Make sure to have some of that HAM gear in a shielded box (an old style metal garbage can with a metal lid taped on with conductive tape) in case of EMP pulse!

[Henrik_Volkers]

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LV_Pro wrote:

Make sure to have some of that HAM gear in a shielded box (an old style metal garbage can with a metal lid taped on with conductive tape) in case of EMP pulse!

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Learn how to make a  tube one. 😄

[thoult]

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@altenbach wrote:

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@thoult wrote:

Regarding landlines, we have buried phone cables here all the way back to the local exchange.

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No such thing for me, because I am in a FIOS neighborhood. When they laid the fiber, they removed the copper completely. That was many years ago and I never had a situation where I wanted it back.

I am not sure about the argment, for example in the case of a big earthquake here (I am in Southern California ;)) it is equally probably that the local exchange goes down or the nearby cell tower. Also remember to keep a corded phone around, because cordless phones will stop working in a power failure too.

I you want to be really prepared, keep some lead-acid battery bank and a ham radio in the house... 😄

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Fortunately for us, the incidence rate of major earthquakes here in the UK is rather low... 🙂

Anywho, as I understand it, cell towers here tend not to have lead-acid batteries or generator packs in case of power failure, whereas all telephone exchanges do.

We're mixed copper/fibre optic too. I most definitely have copper from my house to the distribution cabinet on the corner. In my area, that's still likely to be copper back to the exchange itself.

Petrol prices are a sad topic for comparison 😞

£1.30 or so for a litre of 95 RON, that's... carry the one... £4.93 for a US gallon, which is about $8.30 at current exchange rates. Of that, some $3.70 or so goes to government in fuel duty. Another $1.40 or so goes to government in tax. If I still lived in CT, it would be $0.68 per gallon in tax and duty in the ~$3.70 I'd be paying altogether.

*shudders*

[Thoric]

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@altenbach wrote:
Wow, you have some cheap gas. It is easily 1$ more here per gallon.

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You should try living here. It's £1.30/ltre, which is about $10/gallon.

[thoult]

*cough* Imperial to US *cough* 😛

[RobCole@Work]

Interesting. Both the U.S. and Canada mandate that there must be backup power for all cell sites that can last a minimum of two days. I used to work in the cell sites and have to step over or around banks of batteries.

     Rob

@thoult wrote:

Fortunately for us, the incidence rate of major earthquakes here in the UK is rather low... 🙂

Anywho, as I understand it, cell towers here tend not to have lead-acid batteries or generator packs in case of power failure, whereas all telephone exchanges do.

We're mixed copper/fibre optic too. I most definitely have copper from my house to the distribution cabinet on the corner. In my area, that's still likely to be copper back to the exchange itself.

Petrol prices are a sad topic for comparison 😞

£1.30 or so for a litre of 95 RON, that's... carry the one... £4.93 for a US gallon, which is about $8.30 at current exchange rates. Of that, some $3.70 or so goes to government in fuel duty. Another $1.40 or so goes to government in tax. If I still lived in CT, it would be $0.68 per gallon in tax and duty in the ~$3.70 I'd be paying altogether.

*shudders*

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[LV_Pro]

Altenbach, are you sure the copper removal was intentional, over here in my area theives are breaking into unattended buildings and stealing the wiring and copper plumbing, maybe they grabbed the end of the phone lines and yanked them!

[altenbach]

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@LV_Pro wrote:

Altenbach, are you sure the copper removal was intentional,

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Yes, they removed the copper wire from the pole to my house when they installed FIOS. They did not steal it, they actually just left them with me for disposal. They contain very little copper compared to e.g. wires for street lighting.

But yes, copper theft is a serious problem her too. Once in a while somebody gets electrocuted trying to steal hot wires. 😮 Recycling centers require ID, thumbprint, etc. for certain transactions.

[elset191]

When I spent a summer plumbing new constructions it was not uncommon for people to climb in the basements and take 2 or 3 feet from the water main.  Being the summer help it was my job to dig around blindly until I found what they left so we could solder on more pipe so the house could have water.  What an unpleasant summer that was.