For individuals (like plonk!) who may not understand why this story is important: embedded chip failures and infrastructure failures like this are exactly the sort of thing we were told to expect from y2k problems. Whether this is in fact y2k related, I don't know and we probably will never find out because industry has no interest in making the truth known. A story about a series of gas leaks in Scotland is a couple of thread down.

20-inch gas main blows. Weather probably not to blame The Associated Press

01/27/00 6:15 PM Eastern

BLANCHARD, La. (AP) -- A 20-inch gas main blew about 8 a.m. Thursday, forcing evacuation of houses for a mile around.

People were allowed back home two hours later. There was no fire or explosion, nobody was hurt, and the line was bypassed to keep natural gas flowing to Shreveport, said Richard Wheatley, a spokesman for Reliant Energy in Houston.

Wheatley said crews would be working through the night to replace the broken pipeline.

He said it was too early to tell for sure, but engineers doubted that Thursday's cold and snow had anything to do with the break. "We're going to analyze the sections of pipe to see exactly what caused this," he said.

The break occurred at a creek crossing, but the pipeline was buried and not exposed to the weather, Wheatley said.

Monitors noticed a pressure drop at 7:55 a.m., and the line was blocked off within 50 minutes, he said.

Only one house, very close to the break in the pipeline, lost natural gas, he said.

The boom and roar which people heard was not an explosion but natural gas escaping, he said.

Link to story:

http://flash.nolalive.com/cgi-bin/no_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/NOLA_NEWS/n1710_AM_LA--GasBlowout

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 27, 2000

Answers

Yikes.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

These can be impressive. We had one ignite a couple of winters ago. It was the middle of the night. There was a tremendous shock that shook the whole house at about 4 am. Looked out the window and it was like daylight and you could see flames shooting high in the air. We were 5 miles away. I would hate to be closer.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

"For individuals (like plonk!) who may not understand why this story is important: embedded chip failures ..."

A: Do you know the difference between an embedded "chip" and an embedded "system"?

B: At least you spelled "embedded" correctly.

C: I DO understand how important this story (and all the other ones you copy and post) COULD be if there was a pattern of common mode failures. Or a connection to Bad Computer Data.

But so far we have little to go on except speculation.

But if you post enough stories, then there will be a pattern...right?

You gotta learn to edit. Or pretty soon you're going to be posting stories on bathtub accidents and slip and falls...

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

Simplistic explanation of embedded chips(for plonk): An embedded chip (Chip A) is placed in a natural gas pipeline to monitor for gas pressure. When queried by the computer, the chip responds with the gas pressure. Another chip (Chip B) opens and closes a valve which allows the gas into this pipeline, which is a branch off of the main. Using this arrangement, the computer can balance pressures in gas pipelines by obtaining the pressure, then opening or closing valves of various branches to balance the pressures. An explosion ( resulting from a state of over pressurization of the pipeline) can occur if Chip A fails to accurately report the pressure or if Chip B fails to open or close the valve to regulate flow into the branch pipe. After rollover, when queried by the computer, some chips failed to report the pressure and would respond only with an error message. In earlier tests late last year, it was found that a chip such a B might respond to a computer command to open a valve but would not respond to a second computer command to reclose the valve, after rollover. This type of arrangement is also used in refineries to monitor pressures within pipelines. The chips are also used to monitor flow rates of oil with the pipelines, to calculate the number of gallons that have gone through the pipe, and to monitor temperatures.

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), January 21, 2000.

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 28, 2000.

Carl, what criteria do you use for selecting which reports you copy and post on this forum?

Industrial failures etc happened before 2000 and will continue to happen. I don't think you have any ability to think for yourself.

-- Mr. Sane (hhh@home.com), January 28, 2000.

I give up. you're hopeless.

have fun playing "cut and paste" reporter.

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), January 28, 2000.