New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion • Hacker News Board

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#81

Post by ethagnawl » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

miiiiiike wrote: post #12

I live about two blocks away. The lights dimmed and one of our breakers flipped. Then it got bad. My phone suddenly lit up, brighter than the night's electric blue sky, as everyone I've ever known called and texted to ask about what was going on. Nothing interesting. Astoria is a pretty great neighborhood tho. We have a 24-hour fruit market next to another 24-hour fruit market.

You've also got (at least one) 24 hour diner: Neptune.

After moving to NYC, I was shocked by how few of those there are left and they're only becoming more rare.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#82

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #44

mirimir wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that sort of light, there clearly was arcing. But most of the billowing smoke was from burning transformer oil. And about radio interference. This is 60 Hz, so I doubt that's an issue.

A spark’s RF interference isn’t limited to the frequency of the power supply. I don’t know the mechanism, but when I was a kid I found I could hold a lightswitch in a halfway state and hear the interference on the nearby FM radio. (Classic FM, so ~101 MHz compared to UK mains at 50 Hz).

[deleted]

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#83

Post by disabled » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

This was most likely a TDOS attack, as the Ukraine Power Grid attack on December 23, 2015 was a TDOS attack performed by the Russians [1]. Plus, the 911 call centers in various states being out of commission this night/morning, with busy signals, adds to this suspicion [2]. Additionally, there was a BGP network hijacking incident to the US Department of Energy today [3].

[1] https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunning-unprecedented-h...

[2] https://www.nojitter.com/when-911-busy

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18776051

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#84

Post by sschueller » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:20 PM UTC

disabled wrote: post #83

This was most likely a TDOS attack, as the Ukraine Power Grid attack on December 23, 2015 was a TDOS attack performed by the Russians [1]. Plus, the 911 call centers in various states being out of commission this night/morning, with busy signals, adds to this suspicion [2]. Additionally, there was a BGP network hijacking incident to the US Department of Energy today [3]. [1] https://www.wired.com/2016/03/inside-cunni…

Looks to me more like another poorly maintained piece of the power grid.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#85

Post by sschueller » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

antome wrote: post #16

Here's a pretty good view from above, from reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/aa632...

Here a close up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0u1tE2_RQ and https://streamable.com/2wi38

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#86

Post by complector » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #80

There’s so much we don’t know about high voltages. I never understood why we don’t research it more. I guess too dangerous. Even a phenomenon like this. Could we use it for lighting a whole City for less power than streetlamps?

Uh, well, for starters, you've got this blazing, uncontrolled discharge of energy, and it's just dumping tons of heat, untraviolet light and irregular magnetic force and radio transmission in all directions.

So there's a lot of waste and noisy interference being unloaded in all directions. In fact, it's so wasteful that it's dumping audible noise for miles beyond even the limits of its kinetic heat. Why waste that much energy? It's obviously costly to produce, no?

We don't even have a report on how much of the grid's juice went up in smoke. Certainly more than one hour of a 100 watt lightbulb. Maybe a megawatt hour? Maybe one hundred megawatt hours? An hour's worth of one hundred million lightbulbs? Not impossible.

And then, of course, there's the fact that night time is a good thing. All vertebrates sleep. All plants need a night cycle, for the dark phase of photosynthesis.

Sure, the city is this unnatural human social landscape, but, uh... I think the novelty of a constant high intensity electrical arc's discharge will wear off in about a week or less, for pretty much everybody, and nobody would want to live near it.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#87

Post by unqueued » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

I saw it from about 25 miles north, at the train station. The sky was the most beautiful shade of blue.

https://unqueued.github.io/public-pictures/

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#88

Post by PhasmaFelis » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #80

There’s so much we don’t know about high voltages. I never understood why we don’t research it more. I guess too dangerous. Even a phenomenon like this. Could we use it for lighting a whole City for less power than streetlamps?

> There’s so much we don’t know about high voltages. I never understood why we don’t research it more. I guess too dangerous.

High voltage is quite well-researched. I'm sure there are experts who understand exactly what is happening here. We might not know the immediate cause of the explosion yet.

> Even a phenomenon like this. Could we use it for lighting a whole City for less power than streetlamps?

I'm a total layman, but it seems like the large majority of the light generated is wasted lighting up the sky instead of the ground. It's only producing as much groundlight as it is because there happened to be low clouds that night. That's why street lamps have reflectors above them to focus the light downwards. That's not even considering the amount energy wasted as heat.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#89

Post by nkozyra » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

yqh wrote: post #54

groestl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the battle is lost, but I'm a little bit sad seeing the sky over a city being filmed in vertical video.

I'm sure most people who've clicked the play button on that video have done so on their mobiles in portrait orientation so... sorry gramps

Sometime in the future we'll look back and wonder how our televisions and movie screens became vertical. This post will go into the evidence basket.

Re: New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion

#90

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 2:58 PM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #77

stephenr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing good will come of having a look-see. I dunno. Might increase the average IQ in the gene pool?

I don't see why IQ would necessarily correlate with knowledge about meteor strike safety best practices. On the other hand, if innate curiosity about environmental phenomena is at all correlated with IQ, it could result in a lowering of the average IQ instead.

> meteor strike safety best practices

Which are similar (for the first minute anyway) for nuclear strike best practices.

You would hope that there is still some knowledge of these.

The probability of nuclear strike is low at any given time, but at the moment that you experience a unexpected extremely bright light in the sky it's higher.