While the quakes are in CA, the East coast appears to be the area that is
in  a state  of  emergency, due  to unusually  cold  weather. People  are
freezing  their butts  at  home  and turn  on  auxiliary radiators  which
overload  the   power  stations  and  cause   black-outs,  scheduled  and
unscheduled. The computers that don't get switched off and don't crash as
a result of unexpected power drops have  to be taken down because the air
conditioning doesn't work or the power  is needed in another building. To
give you an  idea of the gravity of the  situation, even L-Soft's LAWYERS
have  stopped the  meter  and  are losing  valuable,  prime billing  time
twiddling their thumbs at home in desperation!  So it is no wonder that I
can traceroute to  UBVM successfully, but it doesn't return  my pings and
won't let me TELNET.  JHUVM and AUVM appear to be down  as well. It seems
about half  of the computer  systems crashed  or went berserk,  while the
other half  are too busy recovering  from all the problems  caused by the
first group to  actually get much real  work done :-) Now  looks like the
right time  to suggest that Congress  allocate 0.1% of the  SDI budget to
building a robust power network so that the country cannot be disabled so
easily in time of war :-)
 
  Eric