Yahoo Shutdown by... what else... California...

May 7, 2001 7:51 PM

Yahoo Shutdown by... what else... California... non-huge-ad non-news.com version the power crunch is getting worse, when blackouts were ordered. Apparently it hit Exodus, and the backup generators didn't kick in properly.
posted by benjh (11 comments total)

So the real question here is... who should we scream at first... the Network Operations Center for not having backup contigencies in place properly (assuming Yahoo is paying out the rear for their services). Or California for completely crippling their power grid. Or Yahoo for not moving their servers out of the crippled power grid zone.

It's going to be an ugly summer.
posted by benjh at 7:53 PM on May 7, 2001

Is that at all related to what has apparently happened to The Internet Movie Database? I can't get to it now either. Of course I'm sure it'll come online immediately after I send this post and everybody will think I'm full of it but that's nothing new.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:17 PM on May 7, 2001

I say blame Yahoo for contracting with a company that relies on the California power grid to run its servers. The California power mess is a known entity, and as such any smart dotcom will be moving its servers out of the state of California for the duration, which will probably be one to two years. Or, at the very least, will be insuring their California servers have enough of a backup power supply to get through any rolling blackouts. (They're only supposed to last about what, 90 to 120 minutes at a time max?) If Yahoo chooses not to undertake either of these actions and instead just rolls the dice each time a Stage 3 comes around, then they get what they deserve.
posted by aaron at 8:40 PM on May 7, 2001

If I was a Yahoo! stockholder, I'd be dumping shares faster than ExLax. It's inexcusable for a company their size not to have a business resumption contingency plan. If they have one, they better be activating it post haste.
posted by netbros at 9:47 PM on May 7, 2001

benjh, You can link to a "non-huge ad" version of C|Net pages by linking to the "printer friendly" version. When C|Net started with the ugly ads, I found printer-friendly was also user-friendly.
posted by fleener at 11:35 PM on May 7, 2001

I think the real issue here is our attitude (mine included) that is totally opposed to energy conservation. There are threats of power outages this summer, across the country. There has to be a better solution than the one our dear President is offering of building more power plants and doing more drilling. If the Internet is at risk will we finally commit to harnessing alternative power as we should?
posted by wsfinkel at 12:57 AM on May 8, 2001

Only people with small minds and short memories could possibly think this is an issue that is and will be "in one to two years" solely a California issue.
posted by brian at 3:51 AM on May 8, 2001

Ah, the lamest trick in the book. "I disagree, but I can't even begin to back up my beliefs, so I'll just call everyone else idiots."

And "totally opposed to energy conservation?" California has for years been the most conservationist state in the nation, and you can see how well that's worked out. Why? Because conservation is all they've been doing. Conservation initiatives alone, without concurrent rational creation of new power sources, will result in utter failure. One would think this simple fact would be obvious to most people, considering we're talking about a state whose population and business infrastructure have been growing by leaps and bounds over the last decade.
posted by aaron at 6:21 AM on May 8, 2001

ARIN says that the US IMDb IP is within an AT&T netblock. The www machine is in Sprintlink, though, and also down. Hmmm.
posted by dhartung at 8:44 AM on May 8, 2001

I can just hear parents now, "Junior, turn off the television when you are not watching it. Don't you know people in California are sitting in the dark."
posted by vanderwal at 10:44 AM on May 8, 2001