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  • Lightning (was Re: Weather Was

    From Daryl Stout@1:19/33 to Damon A. Getsman on Tue Oct 6 14:27:00 2015

    If you have a FreeGeek around that might be a good place to go with it, and/or to look for related batteries and equipment if you decide to salvage it.
    I've got a pretty ancient laptop, too, which I thought would be utterly unfeasible to save, but I ended up finding batteries for it on newegg, I thin it was. Got one on order right now so that I can hopefully get out and do some
    work out of the house instead of being in here day and night.

    Well, it works with the MagicJack voice mail. Even though I have actual phones connected to it, I had to turn the ringers OFF. They were going off in the dead of night...never mind I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. Besides, if my power is out, my internet is likely off as well. I might be able
    to find a replacement battery on eBay, but the old saying applies..."you get what you pay for".

    My own BBS machine runs on a PPro class dual-core machine with 2GB. Older piece of hardware, standard mini-tower size. Everything seems to be living fairly well on it; it's not such a bad computer for something that I picked u from US government surplus many years ago here. I do a few other things on i as well; basically dealing with communications that I want handled from a mor secure server than I trust linux or windows to be.

    The former BBS machine has been offline since April, when the hard drive wouldn't boot up. I haven't powered it up since then, and am considering donating it to a local shop for parts, as I don't need it back. Most of the stuff is now on the main BBS computer, which now has Windows 7 32-bit on it...and I'm not going to Windows 10, if ever. Yeah, I know I said I'd never go
    past XP, but after figuring out how to tweak things, Windows 7 is working better than XP ever did.

    I wasn't aware of that bit about the bolts out of the blue. That's pretty interesting and I think it actually explains something that I experienced onc when I was a kid. There was violent weather about, but in a break in it I ha an experience with a huge flash out of nowhere that literally stunned me for good 15-20 seconds. I was on a hillside in one of the tallest points in Bismarck, ND, when it happened. No idea that there was any electrical activity
    going on at all, though afterwards I remember feeling distinctly odd. It was so close that I never really 'saw' it, it was more of just a blinding flash that I couldn't locate the source of.

    I've seen videos of that "bolt from the blue". Players in a soccer game, and
    there's not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, you see this flash, with a loud crash
    of thunder, and nearly every player has collapsed to the ground. Thankfully, lightning victims carry no electrical charge, and can be handled safely. And, since the strike can cause the victim to go into cardiac arrest, prompt First Aid, including CPR, is essential.

    When I tell people that I'm a 2 time indirect lightning strike survivor, I tell them that "I carry no electrical charge, and can be handled safely". :)

    Daryl


    --- GTMail 1.26
    * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS, Little Rock, Arkansas (1:19/33.0)
  • From Damon A. Getsman@1:340/200 to Daryl Stout on Tue Oct 27 17:05:11 2015
    Re: Lightning (was Re: Weather Was
    By: Daryl Stout to Damon A. Getsman on Tue Oct 06 2015 14:27:00

    The former BBS machine has been offline since April, when the hard drive wouldn't boot up. I haven't powered it up since then, and am considering donating it to a local shop for parts, as I don't need it back. Most of the stuff is now on the main BBS computer, which now has Windows 7 32-bit on it...and I'm not going to Windows 10, if ever. Yeah, I know I said I'd never go past XP, but after figuring out how to tweak things, Windows 7 is working better than XP ever did.

    I'm starting to wonder how easy it might be for me to move to a Pi, or other arm device, with SSD storage, for my next incarnation. This PPro has been a monolith of stability, but I'm starting to wonder how much longer that's gonna last.
    Now that I think about it, I've got a system upgrade coming up for that machine to get the operating system current again, too. I think you're supposed to have a crucifix for at least portions of that, according to the OS upgrade guide.

    I've seen videos of that "bolt from the blue". Players in a soccer game, and there's not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, you see this flash, with a loud crash of thunder, and nearly every player has collapsed to the ground. Thankfully, lightning victims carry no electrical charge, and
    can be handled safely. And, since the strike can cause the victim to go into cardiac arrest, prompt First Aid, including CPR, is essential.

    That sounds a lot like what I saw. What I saw was probably a hilltop or two away, or likely I wouldn't be around to be talking about it, but it was enough so that I couldn't really tell WHERE it originated (all I saw was Bright) and left me stunned for several seconds afterwards.
    Speaking of CPR, I really need to get my CPR certification, if not full First Responder certification, valid and good in this state at some point.

    When I tell people that I'm a 2 time indirect lightning strike survivor, I tell them that "I carry no electrical charge, and can be handled safely". :)

    Heh. I'm a resistor not a capacitor, Jim.

    -D
    --- SBBSecho 2.27-OpenBSD
    * Origin: Tinfoil.synchro.net - now at FTN (1:340/200) (1:340/200)