# keeping the lights on (upkeep)

*Ordinarily means:* Doing the minimum work to prevent a system from failing.

Maintenance at exactly the rate that holds a thing inside its window, with nothing left over for anything else.

- Computed level: L17 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: emergence  ·  Arena: emergence

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [maintenance](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-maintenance.upkeep), [window](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-window.range), [parameter](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-parameter.condition), [work](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-work.effort)

**Through:** none

**Novel properties:**
- emergence.novel_properties

## Examples
- The International Space Station requires weekly coolant refills to prevent system-wide freezing in shadow orbits. *(engineering)*
- The 2003 Northeast Blackout began when overgrown trees in Ohio disrupted a power line, overwhelming backup monitoring systems. *(institutions)*
- Yeast cells in a glucose-limited culture consume 98% of ATP just maintaining membrane potentials, not growing. *(biology)*

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-keeping-the-lights-on.upkeep*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-keeping-the-lights-on.upkeep.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*