Now the letters of the threads that runcontinuously beneath the live reporting look to me like the cogs of a virtual flywheel, one that spins ever faster as it tries to provide our inertial present with motive force.
The country has run a deficit continuously for 30 years, but last year's was its biggest yet, driven not only by weak exports but also by rapid growth in consumer spending.
In the event of a prolonged power blackout, backup generators frequently run out of fuel or suffer performance problems when they operate continuously for more than a few days.