handyfloss

Today the power supply failed twice within a couple of minutes, and it just fed me up. I don’t know if our supplying company (Iberdrola) was the culprit or not. Most likely it was, as it has definitely been in the past.

I am presently a member of Prof. J.M. Ugalde‘s research group, in the Chemistry Faculty of the Donostia Campus of the UPV-EHU (University of the Basque Country), and thus the reader must realize that the blackouts I’ll enumerate have affected several Faculties in the University Campus, as well as the Donostia Internatinal Physics Center (DIPC), a first-class research center located nearby. The latter has suffered plenty computer problems (hard disks, power supplies and motherboards breaking down) due to the numerous blackouts. Needless to say, so has our Computational Chemistry group.

I would like to highlight the facts that:

• The blackouts are innacceptably frequent. We live, allegedly, in the first world.
• Each blackout, each interrupted computer activity, each fried down computer… represents a kick in the groin for the research activities. The irresponsible ways of Iberdrola are effectively handicapping the progress in the Basque Country. Yes, as simple as that.

Without further ado, here goes the list of blackouts I have been able to compile, with comments if any:

1. 2005-Dec-13
2. 2005-Dec-21
3. 2006-May-26 (The card-based automated access to the Faculty broke down)
4. 2006-Jun-04
5. 2006-Jun-08
6. 2006-Jun-13

Summary: 6 blackouts in 181 days, or 30.2 dpb (days per blackout). How much is acceptable? 100 dpb, maybe? 365 dpb (one a year)? Certainly one a month is not.