> funny that, it's storming here too, on the other side of the globe. > no casualties yet, but trains had to be stopped from crossing bridges...
Yep, unusually ferocious gales, heaps of cars smashed by falling trees, heaps of property damage by objects flying around. It was very impressive in Upper Riccarton, though the largest one I saw was about the size of half a walnut. Some plants have holes in their leaves, the patch of nasturtiums looks quite funny (and smells). The hailstones were pretty soft, and shattered easily. Although I thought the car was gonna look like a golf ball it's all fine. The whole event cost me 2/3 of a roll of film... The UPS point is a good one, in case of lightning strike it'll blow the UPS instead of the computer(s). Unless you were running it in bypass mode... Before anyone has some wrong ideas, shutting a computer down by itself will not protect it from surges, unless you also switch it off at the wall (or use the equivalent switch at the power supply, yeah right if there was one). These days power supplies are always on, even if the disks aren't spinning. 100% safe of course would be to pull the plug from the wall. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.orcon.net.nz/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
