[jeffbee]

You've got it basically 180° the wrong way around. "I know people in all these places" is literally crowdsourcing. It is anecdotal. PowerOutage.us is plugged into the API of every utility provider in America. It's the existence of the APIs that is crowdsourced, not the data itself.

[txlpo78]

Do you not realize that utility providers outage maps are updated based on crowdsourced information from customers?

And as I mentioned in my comment, utility providers do not consider blackouts due to capacity constraints to be “outages”, and thus are not reporting them as outages on their outage maps, which means this website does not have the correct information on blackouts. They are tracking outages only if the outage is due to something like a downed power line. Please attempt to read the full comment and understand it before replying.

[jeffbee]

You’re wrong about that, newcomer. The APIs I’ve been scraping report smartmeters that are off the air. It’s all automatic.

[txlpo78]

Nope, if you even took five seconds to read up on how the OMSes at power utilities work, you’d know this isn’t the case. Utility companies are not even close to having their grids fully automatic, and most OMSes are manually updated by human operators whenever customers call in with outage reports.

This is an area that you clearly do not have any experience in, yet you insist on being an armchair expert. Quite frankly, we don’t need armchair experts, especially ones that are blatantly incorrect and refuse to educate themselves even when information is put right in front of you. Please reflect on this.

As for your “newcomer” comment, lol. I have been on HN for years longer than your account. Apparently you’ve never heard of the ability to create new accounts, though. GTFO of here with that ridiculous gatekeeping bullshit, it’s not welcome on HN.

[9935c101ab17a66]

You’re being unnecessarily confrontational and hostile.

[rashkov]

> You’re wrong about that, newcomer.

please don't do that, it's ad hominem and definitely not the way to talk to new posters here.

[stopChanging]

wow, this is one of the most pathetic comments I've read on HN. You've clearly stepped beyond your area of knowledge and are trying to cover it with ego.

I feel I am doing right by our community when I say to you: You are not as knowledgeable and important as you think you are.

[atian]

Somehow speculation causes points to be missed on both sides and conversations like these become meaningless semantic arguments.