Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!oberon!eve.usc.edu!mlinar
From: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Does Turning off PC's everyday do any real damage?
Message-ID: <7723@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 17 Mar 88 18:55:02 GMT
References: <1727@ssc-vax.UUCP> <640001@hpcvlx.HP.COM>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 30

In article <640001@hpcvlx.HP.COM> ben@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Benjamin Ellsworth) writes:
>
>A "mylar balloon attack?"
>
>What is that?  (and is it a movie yet? :-)
>

I did not miss the smiley :-) :-)

However, for those who may not know (those who know can hit the 'n' key),
mylar balloons are the latest "fad" - those old plastic balloons have been
replaced with nice, shiney, mylar-coated plastic baloons.  Although slightly
more expensive, these last far longer than plain plastic.

The problem is that mylar is conductive and when they tangled in power lines,
power outage may occur.

My reference to "mylar balloon attack" goes back to this past summer when
a whole bunch of mylar balloons were released during some promo.  The
electric co. had to reset something like 8 trip switches that day due to 
mylar balloons getting caught in the power lines.  Naturally, the balloons
explode when they short out the lines momentarily, but not before tripping
the switch (which auto-reset 3 to 5 times before the power co. must manually
recycle them).  This type of power surge resulted in everything from computers
to microwave ovens and VCRs getting fried.   (Microwave ovens were the worst
casualty.)  SoCal Edison estimated it cost $800k in work in 1987 to correct
the problems caused by mylar balloons.

So watch out for the "attack of the mylar balloons"!  :-) :-)

-Mitch