FYI - from Jane Clark and Rex Bavousett

From: Dave Simon <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Power Concerns
To: [log in to unmask]

Ed asked me to post a message regarding the power issue here in California
and its impact on our website and list server .  In case you are unaware,
several days last week there were "rolling blackouts" in which power was
cut in selected areas for about 90 minutes.  Each utility customer is
assigned to one of fourteen "blocks".  We are in block one and the next
block up for blackout is 9.  Other than knowing where your block fits in
the blackout cycle, there is no warning prior to the power being cut.
Blackouts have been occurring during business hours.  It is expected that
these rolling blackouts may continue indefinitely.  No one really knows at
this point.  And, it is not clear to anyone whether the SF financial
district where we are located will suffer from rolling blackouts.

Our servers are attached to uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) but these
UPSs are intended to allow operations through brief spikes/outages.  We are
not set up to operate for 90 minutes (for cost reasons).  Therefore, if we
do have a blackout, we will take down the servers gracefully so that no
data is lost.  Visitors to the website will get a web site not found
message.  People sending messages to the list server will not get a
response, but I suspect that most mail servers will just queue up the mail
until we come back up again.

Dave

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