#electrical failure

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Everyone knows about the blackouts of 1965 and 1977 (and those more recent), but few realize that a 500-block section of Manhattan lost power for 13 hours on August 17, 1959. New Yorkers coped in different ways. Here in an automat, they dine by candlelight.

Photo: Joe Scherschel for Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock/Life magazine

[mrmeepsmadmind]

need more cyberverse wavewave fic of these two losers like i need oxygen. husbands who are cringe but somehow think the other is way worse (they're both horrible )

[the-broken-pen]

“You’re going to blow out your arms,” the villain observed. They watched as the hero merely grit their teeth, shoving themself through another pull-up. It looked painful, and if the sweat slicking the hero’s brow was any indication, it was.

They waited for the hero to let themself drop from the bar and accept the villain was stronger. But they didn’t.

Three more pull-ups, and the villain stepped in.

“Hero,” they said slowly. “You’re about to tear the ligaments in your arms. You need to stop.”

The hero blew out a shuddering breath. Struggled for purchase, fighting gravity—and let themself drop.

The hero’s hands were bleeding, calluses torn open by the bar. The hero didn’t seem bothered when their own hands shook so much that their blood began to splatter on the gym floor.

For a moment, the villain could only stare at them.

Shit.

They didn’t know how to handle this. They knew the hero was dedicated. They knew the hero was strong, and perpetually trying to be stronger, but they hadn’t thought…

They hadn’t thought the hero would be so willing to tear apart their own body for success.

It was supposed to be fun, the villain thought. They felt a little sick as the hero pressed their palms together to soothe the bleeding, an action that was practiced and familiar. As if they had done this before.

The hero reached for something in their bag, smearing blood on the side, and pulled out a roll of blue electrical tape. The villain didn’t understand why, until the hero tore a strip off and made to wrap their hands with it.

The hero would be the death of them.

They crouched in front of the hero, plucking the electrical tape out of their hands.

“What are you doing with this?”

The hero blinked at the villain like they were the strange one in this situation.

“Wrapping my hands?”

The villain hissed in a breath.

“With electrical tape?”

The hero flushed slightly, looking down at their bloody hands. They looked close to tears.

“It…sticks to skin, really well. And it doesn’t move, either, when you move your hands or wherever else, even if you’re fighting. Plus, blood doesn’t make it come off, at least, not for a while.”

The villain blinked at them.”

“Blood doesn’t make it come off,” the villain repeated, processing. The hero nodded, reaching for the electrical tape. The villain settled it out of reach.

“Not if you wrap it right.”

Dimly, the villain realized that meant the hero had done this enough times to have it down to a science.

“And you couldn’t use a bandaid?” The villain asked incredulously. The hero shrugged a shoulder, then winced at the motion.

Yeah, the hero had absolutely blown out their arms.

“Bandaids move—“

The villain hushed them.

“Be quiet for a second.”

The hero, wisely, went quiet.

The villain rubbed a hand over their face, then studied the hero for a moment. They took one of the hero’s hands into their own, studying the damage.

“Why did you do this to yourself,” the villain murmured.

“What do you mean, why,” the hero snapped. “It’s my job.”

“Your job is to save people,” the villain corrected. “Not destroy yourself.”

“I’m not destroying myself—“

“You are.”

“Shut up—“

“Hero.”

“I need to be better,” the hero snapped. Their voice rang out across the gym, echoing into the rafters, and they both froze. After a moment, the hero spoke again, voice soft. “I need to be better.”

They said it like they needed the villain to understand. The villain wondered who they were really saying it to—the villain, or themself.

“Better than who?”

“Everyone.” It was hushed, like a secret.

The villain watched them, waiting.

The hero took a shaky breath

“My whole thing is being the best. I have always been the best. That’s the only reason I matter. If I’m not strong enough, then I am nothing, so I need. to be. better.”

The hero had started crying, very quietly, like they were afraid to take up too much space.

The villain was not equipped to handle gifted kid burnout.

“There’s more to you than just being a good athlete,” the villain said hesitantly, and the hero shook their head.

“No. There isn’t.”

“Hero.”

“Can you give me back my electrical tape?” They hiccuped to contain a sob.

“No,” the villain said firmly, and then the hero really was sobbing.

“You don’t understand—“

The villain didn’t. Not really. They had never been the kind of talented that the hero was.

They wondered now if maybe that was a blessing.

“I don’t,” the villain agreed. “But I do understand that you’ve saved half the city, and you give everything you have to give, and you always do your best.”

“But I-“

“No.” The villain stopped them. “You are doing your best.” They tipped the hero’s chin up until they met the villain’s eyes. “And it is enough.”

The hero froze, eyes darting over the villain’s face. They wondered if anyone had ever said that to the hero, if whatever mentor they had was giving them anything other than orders to be stronger. Be better. Be more.

The villain had some new targets to take care of, it would seem.

For now, though, they had to take care of hero.

“We’re going to go wrap your hands,” they said softly. “And then we’re going to take care of your arms, and you’re going to take a nap.”

The hero nodded, watching them like they were some kind of good, selfless person.

“And if I ever catch you using electrical tape again, so help me, I will put you six feet under.”

That startled a laugh out of the hero, and they let the villain guide them to their feet.

“Fine.”

The villain turned to them. “Okay?”

Are you going to be alright?

The hero seemed to understand.

“Okay,” the hero agreed.

Yes.

And so, it was.

[ryuubff]

it's probably obvious that. sebastian is my favorite. sorry. i also like sam though hes cute

also in my first spring i kept fishign up flounders (because . BECAUSE I LOVE FISHING) and i found out only sebastian somewhat likes them and just kept giving it to him.

[commonsensecommentary]

Flash forward 5-10 years: America’s junkyards will be filled with rusting electric vehicles whose batteries are leaking toxic heavy metals that are leaching into the ground water. Environmentally-friendly? Who believes this propaganda?

[regular-gnome]

this week is going great

[dosesofcommonsense]

Are we changing the climate of one person one auto fire at a time?

[techmomma]

Oh! In addition to the charging station being down, my phone might be kaput!

Y'know what you need to find (and usually USE) other charging stations? A phone! With an online map! Because finding a new fucking charging station is a reverse russian roulette, where most of the chambers suck and only one out of so many won't kill you!

You know what you can't do when you're low on charge? Go driving around, wasting your charge trying to find a different station to charge at! Because if my car fully loses charge while I'm out on the road, then I gotta call a towtruck! Those ain't cheap!

The best analogy for gas cars is imagine you have a car that can hold about 10 miles of gas. It sucks, but so long as there's a gas station, it's fine. It's special gas that's about .10/gallon so who cares.

Your car needs a specific kind of nozzle to fill your tank. Not every gas station has your nozzle!

In theory, there's about 12 different gas stations every couple of miles. Great!

The reality is 11 of those 12 gas stations don't work. They're broken, they're shut down, they've been decomissioned, and sure, there is an app that can tell you, but has the station been updated in the app? No! So generally, you won't know which ones do and don't work, until you get there! (On your limited amount of gas, as a reminder.)

So, really, on your ten-mile tank, you have... like 2 gas stations that you can go to. Within 10 miles.

And for one of them, it means sitting in their parking lot for 2 hours.

Now the good news is you found a gas station within walking distance of your house. It's a 2-hour station, but since it's within walking distance, you can park your car, go home and hang out for 2 hours, and then go grab your car. Not ideal, but it works.

Today though, that gas station is down. You have no idea when it'll be back up. Maybe it'll be back up today! Maybe a week from now! Maybe the gas company will decide it doesn't care and will just leave it broken forever! Who knows~ But it's down and you've got about 2 or 3 miles in your gas tank left. Do you want to risk wasting those 2 or 3 miles you have left in your tank trying to find a station that works?

And all of these gas stations are moving to solely paying by phone. One of them might take card! Hope it's one that works!

So you need your phone to pay for gas. Your phone that is currently, probably dead and probably needs to be replaced.

So uh. Hey. If you have some money to spare. I might need some to buy a new phone. So. If you want to throw anything my way, I have a paypal. If you would like to toss some monies my way for the inevitable phone replacement I am going to have to make. And loss of income for today because I can't go to work today.

[geoz-n]

It took me over 10 rewatches but I just realized an electrical event starts both of the mysteries in each season of dghda.

[catenary-chad]

Tell me, what:

-often has a whistle and siderods and is 100+ years old

-was genuinely good at what it did but often failed by outside systems and left to rot

-kept on switching on mostly unglamorous backwater lines away from public attention well into the 80s, 90s, and even 21st century

-is often overlooked in railroad history and even outright erased in media

-was notably less popular than other trains in toy form, often sold as a budget option, and outright baffled some kids and store owners when they saw it vs more recognizable models

-was clean, VERY reliable, and efficient despite being very old tech?

Yeah I think it’s increasingly obvious I am not talking about steam engines here.  I am talking about the humble electric boxcab.  

(A lot of the SUPER long lived ones did not have siderods but they weren’t a rare feature-these things were designed in the steam era where that was the established tech!)

These totally cubular things were used in all kinds of places for both freight and passenger work in the early 20th century.  They came in a lot of sizes, from colossal to smol, but one thing they often had in common was being STUPIDLY DURABLE and lasting 50+ years, sometimes exceeding 70 or even 90.  They were usually well-built and extremely reliable due to lack of moving parts.  

What led to their demise varied by line: some just got run into the ground (the Milwaukee Road EF-1s literally rusted out and fell apart) but many lines de-electrified or closed entirely due to long-neglected electric infrastructure (due to a mix of bad business decisions and being put into a nearly unwinnable situation by the US government subsidizing highways and airports but not giving any support to railroads like Europe and Japan).  But it wasn’t due to any failure of electric traction itself. . I’ll spare my extended arguments of how a small functional steam engine in the 80s actually fails on nearly every level as a class or even disability metaphor for its own post.  But as sacrilegious as it sounds, it’s actually FAR more symbolically fitting and historically accurate, and way less cliche to make Rusty an electric boxcab. They were useful and influencial and ran for a very long time, but are nearlu absent in train media, and haven’t been preserved or remembered well in the US/Americas in general for a variety of reasons. There’s only a handful in museums and I’m not sure if any physically run (it’s very rare for any substantial electric engine to run in preservation here due to lack of places to actually run them). Early US electrification and its decline is quietly known as a weirdly obscure train topic in general, which is unfortunate because it was very influential and also a massive cautionary tale of what car culture and lack of government support destroyed. It didn’t happen elsewhere to the same extent, but it’s unfortunately politically relevant in a lot of places today. There’s also just a broader lack of understanding about how versatile and varied electric trains really are that’s just dying to be portrayed somewhere.

And as a fun bit of toy train history, this is the Lionel 520.  It was a weird 50s-era budget model based on some obscure boxcabs from a Chilean copper mine.  It confused and sometimes disappointed kids who expected typical steam or diesel engines in train sets.  The funniest anecdote I’ve heard was someone getting one for free because a store owner was so disappointed he went “get rid of this” to his dad.  But it’s attracted a cult following akin to the VW Beetle because it worked fairly well mechanically and was just so weird and versatile to modify. A lot of boomers defend these guys online. And even better, their real-life basis ran into the 2010s for a ~90 year lifespan that is impressive even by boxcab standards.  

https://youtu.be/MZKFT9uLirE?si=uMJl36QpspZMLY0W

Making him a toy akin to this would be really fitting, they were even built by sticking a different shell on a steam engine chassis.  Maybe he was a weird freebie from a disappointed toy store, maybe Control had a relative who kitbashed him from the chassis of a busted toy steam engine and some vaguely boxy metal thing.  A repurposed train car, maybe even a candy tin repainted/shaped a bit.  

As a bonus: make the final race on a mountainous course with at least one big tunnel and tight, steep, uphill sections.  Smaller boxcabs (most larger ones too) weren’t fast, but not gassing people in tunnels and being good climbing hills and working in low temps/oxygen are major advantages over a larger diesel or steam engine.  There’s also the underused advantages of switchers in general, like being able to go backwards easily and navigate tight curves- which would also be hellish for a large steam engine and carbody diesel engines.  Tbh I like Rusty way more as a shlubby older janitor type vs moody teen, and train media does not lean into the Zamboni Guy appeal switchers and track maintenance and other mundane rail activities have.  

(You get some wacky role shuffling in this AU, but Momma/Poppa works GREAT as a high maintenance unreliable celebrity who’s disruptive but not really malicious. That’s just how steam excursions can be.  Electra becomes Rusty’s friend/comrade/adoptive sibling-ish figure who wins their heat but physically fails afterwards.  Greaseball just perpetually works as-is and needs no changes.)

[lgbtqreads]

New Releases: August 20, 2024

Prince of the Palisades by Julian Winters When roguish Prince Jadon of Îles de la Rêverie travels to America to clean up his image after a horribly public break up gone viral, romance is absolutely NOT on the agenda. Carefully planned photo ops with puppies? Yes. Public appearances at a Santa Monica art gallery? Absolutely. A pink-haired, film-obsessed hottie from the private school where he’s…

[newyorkthegoldenage]

This is not a test: on August 17, 1959, a 500-block section of Manhattan suffered a blackout that lasted 13 hours. A newsstand offered the afternoon papers for those who wanted to read about it (presumably beyond the blackout area).

Photo: Joe Scherschel for Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock/Life magazine

[sfarxuri]

their counter parts were ready that time, have to plan something else to catch them off guard doofus!

[the-lord-of-the-things]

Riding the Rails

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

I Spent 6 Months with the TESLA CYBERTRUCK and HATED It!

P.S. It's an "old" rule of car buying: "Before buying a new car, see how the first owners manage to drive at least 100,000 km, and how the car behaves. Talk to the owners and mechanics, collect information...!"

No, it looks like this stuff in Europe will not be for sale! We won't buy it....

[oculusxcaro]

While Khare wasn't exactly considered a 'success' by PROMETHEUS, there are times where her body does function according to plan. One of these are enhanced capabilities, particularly in regards to improved jumping thanks to the frog DNA inserted into her genetic sequence. One time when walking to Pauli's, Khare was startled by a group of young thugs calling out and running after her. When met by a dead-end, she jumped straight up and on top of the building, losing the group but ended up arriving late to work as she struggled to find a way down after getting on top of a (very) high roof.