A sad state of affairs

WingaWinga MrSouth Africa Icrontian
edited January 2008 in Folding@Home
Those folding junkies that follow the stats closely (oh yes you know who you are ;)) would know that over the last few years I have kept up a consistent flow of work units and have done my best to contribute towards the F@H project and of course the good team 93
Of late however my production is abysmal. No, actually it just plain sucks.

There is a good reason however and fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) it is beyond my control. You see our country's brainless leader and his cabinet of goons decided a few years ago that South Africa's only electricity provider need not build more power stations to keep up with our growing electricity demands. Nooo they can make do with what they got.
A few months ago I posted about the continuous brownouts we were experiencing. It has now reached critical proportions where they are "Load Shedding" (their official term for cutting power to entire towns and cities with no pre-warning or schedule in order to make up the megawatt shortage) up to 3 times a day on average of 2-2 1/2 hours a time.

Now for the catch 22. In order to prevent continuous power cuts which they say could go on for the next 5-7 years (it doesn't take 3 months to build a power station from scratch apparently :rolleyes:) we as good citizens have to learn to cut down on our power consumption. For example, regardless of the fact that we in mid summer with temps of 37C and humidity of 106% where I stay, they do not recommend we run our air conditioners.

Sorry I digress....folding...

So in order to play my part I now switch my computers off for the better part of the day where in the past they were running 24/7. All this just as I have gone through great pains and expense to build up 3 machines that are now capable of running the SMP client and now I am unable to install it. Firstly I know that it doesn't like to be terminated suddenly and I don't think I would meet the deadlines anyway with me losing up to 8 hours a day.

Anyway thanks for reading through my RANT and please spare a though for me sitting in the dark. Sorry about the lost production. Hopefully I can make it up some time :)

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    :( Sorry to hear about the troubles, Winga :-/
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Wow, that sucks. I think our officials would be getting a few angry missives from me. :eek3:
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Yeah... that wouldn't cut it in USA. We're too spoiled to even think of turning our AC's off.

    Side note... ship those SMP Ready rigs to me and I'll fold for you :D:D:D:D
Sign In or Register to comment.