I live in an area where we have frequent, unannounced brownouts. They can range from a few minutes to a few hours and there's no way to tell which is which until after the fact. The most frustrating part about not having electricity for more than a few minutes is that I no longer have an Internet connection for obvious reasons.

I had already planned to buy a diesel-powered backup generator for the house, and that plan still stands, but I've now added a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to my backup plans, way ahead of anything else.

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