Sitting in front of my computer last night, my fingers were ready for action until the lights went dark. I wouldn’t complain about it if we were still in the Aquino administration, but this isn’t. Like the kids and teens of this age, I’ve gotten used to more than a decade of having no brownouts. I have already buried all memories of the yonder years.
I was also surprised it had to happen on the night of the Olympics. A Friday, which happens to be the same day I’m supposed to update my blog. 8-8-8’s lucky my ___.
The power outage lasted about twenty minutes or so, I really don’t know (I just fell asleep waiting for the power to come back hehe). When I woke up, members of the family were watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last night.
If there was anything positive about last night, it gave me an idea lightbulb – I now had something to write about. Last night’s brief brownout – or according to my grade school teach – blackout, gave me a flood of memories. Well, er, maybe not that much coz I’d be drenched.
It was during the height of the power outage and I was still in grade school then. In one of our class discussions, a smart classmate raised his hand and asked our teach -
Classmate: “Ma’am, ano po ang pinagkaiba ng brownout sa blackout?” (What is the difference between a brownout and a blackout?”)
Teach: “Ang brownout, kapag walang kuryente sa umaga. Ang blackout, kapag naman sa gabi nangyari iyon.” (A brownout refers to a power outage in the morning while a blackout refers to a power outage at night)
Okaaaaay.
I was pretty convinced that day, smiling widely, figuring that my teach has helped me uncover one of life’s greatest mysteries. And now, X years later, I sit and ponder, was my teach correct? So you mean to tell me that the difference lies in the time of day? What about if a power outage happens during lunch time? What’s that? A lunchout? Haha.
Since I am a persistently inquisitive person, I checked out Wikipedia (as usual) to catch the definition. After reading it, I still couldn’t understand the distinction. Observe -
-
- Blackout
- where power is lost completely. While the word “blackout” is one of the most common colloquial terms, “Load shedding” or a rolling blackout refers specifically to a controlled way of rotating available generation capacity between various districts or customers, thus avoiding wide area total blackouts.
- Brownout
- where the voltage level is below the normal minimum level specified for the system. Systems supplied with three-phase electric power also suffer brownouts if one or more phases are absent, at reduced voltage, or incorrectly phased. Such malfunctions are particularly damaging to electric motors. Some brownouts, called voltage reductions, are made intentionally to prevent a full power outage.
Then on the same link, I realize that a dropout doesn’t only refer to people out of school -
-
- Dropout
- where the loss of power is only momentary (milliseconds to seconds).
So Muserati, really, what is the difference between a brownout and a blackout?
Well, my dear reader, apparently, according to this dictionary, a brownout is “Less intense than the experience of “blacking out” when drunk and not remembering portions (or all) of your night, “browning out” occurs when you don’t remember something until someone brings it up”.
So that’s probably why I couldn’t recall how long the brownout lasted. But seriously, according to the same link, a brownout is a power outage with less intensity compared to a blackout. Hmmm, what do they mean by intensity? Is this some sort of earthquake like Richter scale?
I was still unsatisfied with the definitions I had come to discover. I stretched my arms, cracked my knuckles and continued sleuthing and came to the most concise definition I could find.
A blackout is a complete interruption of power in a given service area. Rolling blackouts are controlled and usually preplanned interruptions of service. A brownout is a partial, temporary reduction in system voltage or total system capacity.
So last night was a brownout, even though it happened at night. And most of the power outages in the Aquino administration could be described as rolling blackouts.
I guess you really don’t learn everything in school. Heh.
Have a great weekend.
