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Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

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Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#91
post #8

> Germans take a 1 hour lunch from 12-1pm. Spaniards have a later lunch, starting around 1pm, and going on until 4 or 5pm. This could possibly be due to the tradition of afternoon siesta. NPR had a podcast episode (Planet Money maybe?) about how the EU was supposed to make it easier for firms to hire cross border and employees to move around. The idea was to be more like the United States. Apparently, this didn't qui…

I once heard a Danish head of a university say that they wanted more Swedes to come over and work because Danish workers tend to question orders more than Swedes do. I have no idea if this is true, just sounded funny to me.

I'm a dual US/Italian citizen and the joke in Italy is:

"The Germans like the Italians b/c they are fun but don't respect them b/c they are disorganized.

The Italians respect the Germans b/c they are organized but don't like them b/c they are not fun"

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#92

We awoke to power the next day, but mobile phone services only returned some hours later. Amazing how busy the banks were with people desperately seeking cash. Unfortunately the banks dont handle cash here now, and the ATMs were all offline. The first few hours were scary, due to complete lack of information. I am not sure how people had internet access, seemed like all networks were down here. I dont follow any news…

You want a portable shortwave radio with external antenna. Amazon shows them ~$30 which is about what they cost. If you get a fancy one they go 3-4 times as expensive. I have a radio shack grundig battery powered one and it works fine. Look at reviews, I guess, or try and find an old grundig. I'm sure other people have other brands/models. If I can remember the last decent one I was looking at I'll comment again, but…

Thanks. I'll have another look, the ones I'd seen on amzn es looked a bit gimmicky, solar torch, hand crank, bt, but looked like they would last 5min or melt in the rain.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#94
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Northern of Spain has no concept of hot in the Summer. The actual issue is that we are living in the same timezone as Berlin. And we are like reverse Brits. Brits: big breakfast, small lunch. Spain: small breakfast (coffee and a small pastry), and big lunch. So, we aren't having siesta. We have a big gap at work to be able to feed ourselves on time.

You mean the northwest like Galicia? The northeast where I live still gets plenty hot. We don't have major beach resorts like Lloret and Salou for no reason :) Though I guess this might not qualify as "Spain" depending on who you ask - if I ask my neighbours if they are living in Spain they certainly will say NO :P Hot topic alert :)

The Atlantic Spain and everything around Picos de Europa. Also, most mountain ranges, and Spain is the 2nd most mountainous country in Europe, so a lot of Spain is not that warm in Winter.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#95
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I only managed to load news pages, national or foreign, a few times during the hours of outage I think this is a problem with https. I remember intermittent connectivity as way better before Google forced the issue. And yes I like https. But it comes with drawbacks. E.g. no isp caching.

I don't think ISP caching would be a thing without https. It would bring a lot of additional complexity and resource requirements for them. I can hardly imagine that being worth it to save some bandwidth. Maybe it made sense in a world where bandwidth was very limited. Also I am very happy that it is not a thing and that ISPs cannot do that. When I go to a website I want to get the website from the webserver exactly…

> When I go to a website I want to get the website from the webserver exactly as the server delivers it and not some other page that my ISP thinks is how the website should look.

You could have some hash check to prevent hijacking. The old method would be naive today.

There would be some privacy concerns I guess. But it could be opt-in on the site owners part. I think caching some videos and pictures would save a lot of power.

> Besides with global CDNs we have something very similar but better anyway.

Sure but they are some switches away.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#96

> some information services were still able to stay online and available I’m in Valencia, Spain. The mobile internet connectivity here during the power outage was very unstable. Cellular phone signal strength was also very very low for the majority of the time. Even sending SMS or WhatsApp messages would not work most of the day, because of just how unusable mobile connection was for me and my girlfriend and our fami…

In Sweden we all get this. Saying you should have water, food, radio and cash and more so maybe Spain or EU needs this too :) Now do I have this, no. But we are further.

https://rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/30874.pdf

EU has started this a bit, we are waking up. EVROPA.

https://www.dw.com/en/european-union-response-disasters-war-...

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#97

We awoke to power the next day, but mobile phone services only returned some hours later. Amazing how busy the banks were with people desperately seeking cash. Unfortunately the banks dont handle cash here now, and the ATMs were all offline. The first few hours were scary, due to complete lack of information. I am not sure how people had internet access, seemed like all networks were down here. I dont follow any news…

Tecsun PL series is pretty much the modern version the old Grundig Yachtboy series.

I have a PL 330 as my 'is there anybody out there' armaggedon world radio receiver. I also sometimes use it just for kicks to hear radio from somewhere unreasonably far away from me.

You can find a lot of pros and cons across the different models in their offering with plenty of online discussion as well.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#98

> some information services were still able to stay online and available I’m in Valencia, Spain. The mobile internet connectivity here during the power outage was very unstable. Cellular phone signal strength was also very very low for the majority of the time. Even sending SMS or WhatsApp messages would not work most of the day, because of just how unusable mobile connection was for me and my girlfriend and our fami…

> All my money is electronic Yes, one positive aspect of these types of events is that the hazing against the cash-first minority worldwide has ebbed slightly. Sweden seems to be backtracking from their cashless push due to the threat of Russian cyberattacks as well. In related news, high-speed trains appear to have been sabotaged in Spain today, causing transportation chaos again. This happened while they have not b…

It is not at all certain that there was any sabotage. Supposedly it was sabotage because important wires were stolen, but wire has been stolen by criminals for decades to sell for the materials. And for the last few years there has been an increase of delays, breakdowns and failures in the whole railway network. It is far more likely that common theft on a decaying system caused the problems, but that would pin the blame on the government for this decay. As such they prefer to blame anyone else, including shadowy enemies sabotaging the country.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#99

> some information services were still able to stay online and available I’m in Valencia, Spain. The mobile internet connectivity here during the power outage was very unstable. Cellular phone signal strength was also very very low for the majority of the time. Even sending SMS or WhatsApp messages would not work most of the day, because of just how unusable mobile connection was for me and my girlfriend and our fami…

> - What’s going on? How bad is it? How long is it going to last? Very unstable mobile internet as mentioned. Silly question but do you have AM or FM radio? When the lights went out in the northeast blackout of 2003 we turned to our cars to put on AM radio. Even after Hurricane Sandy my mother was without power for 3 weeks and she was running a battery powered radio. I shudder to think of a future where moving inform…

My Android cell phone has a FM radio app that was pre-installed at the factory. It requires the use of wired headphones to act as an antenna, but otherwise works fine.

Re: Internet usage pattern during power outage in Spain and Portugal

#100
post #6

> Germans take a 1 hour lunch from 12-1pm. Spaniards have a later lunch, starting around 1pm, and going on until 4 or 5pm. This could possibly be due to the tradition of afternoon siesta. NPR had a podcast episode (Planet Money maybe?) about how the EU was supposed to make it easier for firms to hire cross border and employees to move around. The idea was to be more like the United States. Apparently, this didn't qui…

Also interesting with the sharp 10AM spike on both desktop and mobile in Germany. Video calls, I presume.

I was surprised by the same thing. Is it a common time for meetings? Is there some cultural thing that happens exactly at 10am?
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