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posted by martyb on Thursday January 11 2018, @06:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the UPS-is-not-just-a-package-company dept.

Major power outage hits CES, a consumer electronics show

Power in the North and Central halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center, which hosts CES annually, was out for nearly two hours on Wednesday. First reports of the power outage began hitting Twitter from convention goers starting around 11:14AM PT, and was slowly restored shortly after 1:00PM PT. Security evacuated most visitors from the affected halls during that time.

"A preliminary assessment indicates that condensation from heavy rainfall caused a flashover on one of the facility's transformers," reads a statement from the CTA, the organization that puts on CES. "We are grateful to NV Energy for their swift assistance, to our customers and their clients for their patience and to the staff for ensuring the safety and security of all attendees and exhibitors."

Post anything about CES below, if you can spare the electrons.

Also at Tom's Guide.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:08AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:08AM (#620830)

    Romans did it better. Truly the ancient times were a more civilized age.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:11AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:11AM (#620833) Journal

      They had to burn whale oil. Now we get to have bright LEDs and unlimited light pollution.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:30AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:30AM (#620834)

        Roman plebs had free prolefeed and anybody who wanted a job could find a job as a day laborer.

        Where's my free food? Oh right, there isn't any. Where's my job for the asking? Oh right, there isn't any.

        Plenty of free internet though! Still need to pay for coffee. Oh yeah and I can plug my broken twelve-year-old laptop into the wall for free electricity! That's awesome.

        I tried to interview for a job today but surprise all interviews were canceled and the job was eliminated outright because the rich people who have all the money just didn't like any of the applicants.

        And the free clinic turned me away because I'm not quite terminally ill.

        Your civilization isn't.

        As a modern person living in your modern age I must say there are gaping holes in your social safety net big enough for a whale to slip through.

        Can I sell myself into slavery yet? Nope! Can't even do that.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @01:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @01:57PM (#620930)

          > Where's my free food?

          Not very resourceful, are you? Grocery stores throw out all kinds of good food, every day. If it's not available directly from their dumpsters, they may have made arrangements to truck it to a local food bank or other distribution location. Every US city I've been in has free food kitchens.

  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:34AM (1 child)

    by anubi (2828) on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:34AM (#620835) Journal

    I wonder how much filesystem corruption took place?

    I can just see a lot of corporate types running around trying to get their system back up after being improperly shut down.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:45PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:45PM (#620996)

      That is exactly why some engineers get to go to the shows every year. The demos have to come up every morning, many of which are "experimental".
      The guys who didn't get their requirements changed at the last second press the buttons and run a script, and enjoy the rest of the day. Some of them pray to Anoia before getting to their stand every morning. And if they're ever asked why they are needed, they'll now point out CES2018 and all the useless suits who couldn't have handled yesterday.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:56AM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:56AM (#620840) Journal

    so, anyone selling power banks, batteries, or UPS units should have been able to demonstrate their wares really spectacularly, right?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2, Funny) by anubi on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:39AM

      by anubi (2828) on Thursday January 11 2018, @08:39AM (#620846) Journal

      Either that, or they were among the most embarrassed exhibitors at the show!

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:43AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:43AM (#620865)

    Reflects nicely the outstanding quality of current consumer electronics.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:10AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:10AM (#620880)

      Old coot here...

      In my earlier years, I was a radio-TV serviceman.

      The stuff we have today runs rings around the crap I used to fix. Insulation got brittle and fell off of wires. Resistors were basically bits of carbon with tinned copper leads pressed into some sawdust/resin mix.. and wandered in value all over the place when they got older, or just went through a few thermal cycles. Our capacitors were wax paper and tinfoil rolls, which electrically began to leak several years after manufacture. The vacuum tubes would change emission as they aged, and occasionally release internal gases which altered their characteristics and breakdown voltages, all of which lead to quite an experience trying to fix the thing. Nothing is not where it should be, but what is the one thing that is really messing things up?

      Our basic hardware today runs rings around what I worked on. About the only thing that goes bad anymore are electrolytic capacitors, or an overloaded/overstressed part. Ok, batteries and light bulbs are still on the list, as well as wires that bend just so many times before they break.

      But our stuff today is way, way, way more complex. Way many more things to go wrong.

      We had Sams Photofact to help us fix things back in the day. We have what we can find on the internet today. We have so much intentional obfuscation that its amazing to me anything works. I try to stay way away from DRM crap, as the marketers will coo "Plays For Sure*" but the business print says "No Refunds", leaving me no recourse if I paid for something that does not work for me.

      I am quite amazed how reliable my computer is, given its complexity. However I am extremely pissed at how shoddy the software is. Like just this afternoon, using my phone at Del Taco WiFi, the connection timed out on me while I was reading an article on Google News. The content had already been loaded, I was reading it, only to be rudely interrupted by some javascript that just HAD to maintain a connection, and blocked me seeing anything by overwriting with an uncloseable window that I was offline.

      Now, I just went to Brave browser, trying to work around corporate webmasters who do things like this, and am still trying to figure out how to enable scripts to get the thing down, but once down, disable scripts so they can't be used to harass me with things like this.

      Here's hoping that when this Net Neutrality overthrow kicks in, corporate webmasters will make such a pain in the ass with their newly-minted authority to harass, that more people will study this and how to work around businesses that make irritants of themselves.

      I would sure like to see a browser that can do to advertising business like the .MP3 format did for record labels.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:05PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:05PM (#620902)

        totally agree.
        also there's nothing "old coot" about this. this happens to everybody but i presume that the young generation with
        a mobile phone as a real physical extension of their body don't report this because the "error" was "tailored just for them" : ]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @03:55AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @03:55AM (#621249)

          This kinda "sometimes, it works" meme is all the younger people have known.

          To the older folks like me, this kind of "sometimes it works, sometimes it won't, can you hear me now?" meme is just about as welcome as a slipping socket wrench.

          The idea of downloading a whole webpage, then having it blank out suddenly while reading it... well, what would I think if I took my car to the shop, and they finally got the whole shebang done, then, just as I was driving it off the lot, some corporate clown, wearing his little "JavaScript" shirt, comes out of nowhere... we gotta undo everything! We cannot find the little cap that goes on the tire stem!!!

          I take any steps I can to avoid those pesky little guys. Although I know they are just following orders from the businessman who put them up to it, they are a real pain in the butt to me, and even though the businessmen ( and their crony Congresscritters pass law to the same effect ) that I am not supposed to violate their wish-list, all they do is force me to do what I need to do covertly.

          Shopkeeper analog: Business owner hires employee who keeps taking a dump at the business entrance. Customers are getting the muck on their shoes, sometimes there is even glass shards in the muck, forcing the people who did not enter carefully to go see a doctor to remedy the resulting infection.

          Some people wise up to what that muck is, even though it has a coffee thingie on top, and start wearing galoshes.

          The business owner is furious. How dare you wear Galoshes into my Business! He runs off to his Congressional Pals, asking Law to be codified that this is HIS store, and if you are going to enter, you WILL step into the muck! Oh, incidentally, keep those Hold Harmless laws in place so I don't get all those doctor bills. Hands shake, pens wag, laws are codified, and people still keep wearing galoshes. But now they start sneaking around trying to avoid observation by all those trackers the business is using... trackers who are probably keeping track of those who are wise to the pitfalls of blind obedience to corporate desire, unbacked by corporate liability.

          The businessman loves the crap, but his customers hate it. It takes a special skill to think like some of the web businessmen these days, and its usually funded by the skills to talk other people out of their investment monies to run this thing until it slowly drains the financial resources of the investors.

          When the whole thing winds down, both the businessman, and his webmaster, get their pay and bonuses.

          And the investors first get lots of handshakes with men wearing suit and tie, then they get lots of papers - and I mean LOTS of papers - prepared by lawyers. Everyone's getting paid now. Then the investors get one final letter that after all the professionals have been paid, the total value of their investment is now zero. Followed by dead silence.

          Been there, done that, both as an investor, and seen how the game is played by the business-man.

          Enough to make one sick.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:05PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:05PM (#620954)

        About the only thing that goes bad anymore are electrolytic capacitors

        And even still, aluminum electrolytic capacitors typically are reliable and last a long time.

        The widespread failures of aluminum electrolytics are largely limited to capacitors manufactured in the early to mid-2000s by a number of different suppliers using a flawed electrolyte.

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 12 2018, @04:10AM

          by anubi (2828) on Friday January 12 2018, @04:10AM (#621252) Journal

          Is there a list anywhere with the brands of capacitor which used the bad electrolyte?

          If I know I have ticking time bombs in my customer's thingie, I will replace them on sight, rather than have them fail in my customer's hands.

          I really hate fixing any of my customer's thingies TWICE.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:54PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:54PM (#621124) Homepage
    http://www.alphr.com/mobile-phones/1008155/the-pda-is-backwith-a-deca-core-processor-and-a-25-bigger-battery-than-the

    SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!! (Yes, I'm an ex-Psion 5 owner (I still have have it).)
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:37PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:37PM (#621152)

    Hats off to whomever wrote the subject line, which is in all ways superior to the title of either of the linked articles.

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
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