San Francisco “Poop Patrollers” Make $185,000
August 22nd, 2018Via: ZeroHedge:
We wish we could say this was a satire piece, but a new story in the San Francisco Chronicle reveals just how lucrative collecting shit actually is.
It’s but the latest in a string of shocking revelations to hit headlines throughout the summer exposing how deep San Francisco’s crisis of vast amounts of vagrant-generated feces covering its public streets actually runs (no pun intended).
We detailed last week how city authorities have finally decided to do something after thousands of feces complaints (during only one week in July, over 16,000 were recorded), the cancellation of a major medical convention and an outraged new Mayor, London Breed, who was absolutely shocked after walking through her city: they established a professional “poop patrol”.
As described when the city initially unveiled the plan, the patrol will consist of a team of five staffers donning protective gear and patrol the alleys around Polk Street and other “brown zones” in search of everything from hepatitis-laden Hershey squirts to worm-infested-logs. At the Poop Patrol’s disposal will be a special vehicle equipped with a steam cleaner and disinfectant.
The teams will begin their shifts in the afternoon, spotting and cleaning piles of feces before the city receives complaints in order “to be proactive” in the words of the Public Works director Mohammed Nuru, co-creator of the poop patrol initiative.
While at first glance it doesn’t sound like the type of job people will be knocking down human resources doors to apply for, the SF Chronicle has revealed just how much each member of this apparently elite “poop patrol” team will cost the city: $184,678 in salary and benefits.
Image-Conscious China Appoints New Global Propaganda Czar
August 22nd, 2018Speaking of images, Chinese internment camps visible from space.
Via: U.S. News/AP:
China’s increasingly image-conscious government has appointed a trusted member of the ruling Communist Party to head up its international propaganda operation.
Former top internet regulator Xu Lin will be in charge of efforts to portray China as a progressive force for good in the world at a time when it’s facing criticism over its allegedly unfair trading practices, human rights abuses and militarization of island claims in the South China Sea.
Front Hole?
August 22nd, 2018Via: Yahoo News:
A new safe sex guide for the LGBTQIA community includes the term “front hole” as an alternative to “vagina.”
The health website Healthline, along with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Advocates for Youth, has published the LGBTQIA Safe Sex Guide, which expands current safe sex terminology.
In Guilty Plea, Ex-Trump Lawyer Cohen Says He Made Payments at Candidate’s Direction
August 21st, 2018Via: Reuters:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in New York on Tuesday to campaign finance violations and other charges, saying he made payments to influence the 2016 election at the direction of a candidate for federal office.
The guilty pleas came in the same hour that a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of eight charges of tax and bank fraud and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.
Cohen, 51, appearing in federal court in Manhattan, pleaded guilty to one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.
Cohen, one of Trump’s closest associates for more than a decade, said he arranged to make payments “for (the) principal purpose of influencing (the) election” at the direction of a candidate for federal office. He did not give the candidate’s name.
Study Reveals Great Pyramid of Giza Can Focus Electromagnetic Energy
August 21st, 2018Book from 1998: The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt Paperback by Christopher Dunn.
Via: PhysOrg:
An international research group has applied methods of theoretical physics to investigate the electromagnetic response of the Great Pyramid to radio waves. Scientists predicted that under resonance conditions, the pyramid can concentrate electromagnetic energy in its internal chambers and under the base. The research group plans to use these theoretical results to design nanoparticles capable of reproducing similar effects in the optical range. Such nanoparticles may be used, for example, to develop sensors and highly efficient solar cells. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
While Egyptian pyramids are surrounded by many myths and legends, researchers have little scientifically reliable information about their physical properties. Physicists recently took an interest in how the Great Pyramid would interact with electromagnetic waves of a resonant length. Calculations showed that in the resonant state, the pyramid can concentrate electromagnetic energy in the its internal chambers as well as under its base, where the third unfinished chamber is located.
Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
August 21st, 2018Via: NPR:
Plastic trash is littering the land and fouling rivers and oceans. But what we can see is only a small fraction of what’s out there.
Since modern plastic was first mass-produced, 8 billion tons have been manufactured. And when it’s thrown away, it doesn’t just disappear. Much of it crumbles into small pieces.
Scientists call the tiny pieces “microplastics” and define them as objects smaller than 5 millimeters — about the size of one of the letters on a computer keyboard. Researchers started to pay serious attention to microplastics in the environment about 15 years ago. They’re in oceans, rivers and lakes. They’re also in soil. Recent research in Germany found that fertilizer made from composted household waste contains microplastics.
And, even more concerning, microplastics are in drinking water. In beer. In sea salt. In fish and shellfish. How microplastics get into animals is something of a mystery, and Chelsea Rochman is trying to solve it.
Rochman is an ecologist at the University of Toronto. She studies how plastic works its way into the food chain, from tiny plankton to fish larvae to fish, including fish we eat.
South Africa Begins Seizing White-Owned Farms
August 20th, 2018Via: news.com.au:
THE South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.
Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.
While the government says it intends to pay, owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land — they’re being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million).
Stacking Concrete Blocks Is a Surprisingly Efficient Way to Store Energy
August 19th, 2018I like to follow these relatively low-tech methods of energy storage, even though they don’t seem to catch on. It’s interesting to see a modern take on old ideas.
The Energy Vault (below) is a similar concept to the Ares, which stores energy by moving a mass up a hill on rails. The Energy Vault, however, doesn’t require a hill because it uses a crane to stack concrete cylinders.
Despite the issues with lithium, the fact that those systems can deliver large amounts of power very quickly makes them highly desirable:
Tesla’s battery last week kicked in just 0.14 seconds after one of Australia’s biggest plants, the Loy Yang facility in the neighbouring state of Victoria, suffered a sudden, unexplained drop in output, according to the International Business Times. And the week before that, another failure at Loy Yang prompted the Hornsdale battery to respond in as little as four seconds — or less, according to some estimates — beating other plants to the punch. State officials have called the response time “a record,” according to local media.
Maybe a mix of lithium and low-tech systems would be good. The lithium batteries could supply the instant surge capacity while some slower responding systems spin up.
Via: Quartz:
A startup called Energy Vault thinks it has a viable alternative to pumped-hydro: Instead of using water and dams, the startup uses concrete blocks and cranes.
…
The science underlying Energy Vault’s technology is simple. When you lift something against gravity, you store energy in it. When you later let it fall, you can retrieve that energy. Because concrete is a lot denser than water, lifting a block of concrete requires—and can, therefore, store—a lot more energy than an equal-sized tank of water.
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The round-trip efficiency of the system, which is the amount of energy recovered for every unit of energy used to lift the blocks, is about 85%—comparable to lithium-ion batteries which offer up to 90%.
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Meanwhile, whether or not Energy Vault succeeds, it does make a strong case for the argument that, while everyone else is out looking for high-tech, futuristic battery innovation, there may be real value in thinking about how to apply low-tech solutions to 21st-century problems.
Venezuela, Gallery: Stacks of Nearly Worthless Cash Required to Buy Common Items
August 17th, 2018I’ve been teaching my children about inflation, fiat currencies and the end result of the scam. This photo gallery is excellent for that purpose.
Via: Reuters:
Jittery Venezuelans on Friday rushed to shops and formed long lines in preparation for a monetary overhaul that will remove five zeros from prices in response to hyperinflation that has made cash increasingly worthless.
Shoppers sought to ensure their homes were stocked with food before the measure decreed by President Nicolas Maduro takes effect on Monday, on concerns that confusion among merchants and overtaxed banking systems could make commerce impossible.
Inflation hit 82,700 percent in July as the country’s socialist economic model continues to unravel, meaning purchases of basic items such as a bar of soap or a kilo of tomatoes require piles of cash that is often difficult to obtain.
Related: Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? by Richard J. Maybury
Uncle Sam Wants You: Treasury Depends More on Domestic Bond Buyers
August 17th, 2018Mmm hmm.
Keep in mind, the Fed can simply monetize the debt, if enough suckers/bond buyers can’t be found. This is similar to check kiting, but since it involves trillions of dollars, they came up with a more innocuous sounding term for the practice: Open Market Operations.
Via: Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. government has been issuing more debt, but it’s not getting more foreign buyers in the door. As a result, U.S. investors have so far financed all of this year’s increase in the federal government’s borrowing.
Foreign holdings of the debt have remained essentially flat, though the government’s borrowing has risen by $500 billion, giving foreign investors the smallest share of U.S. government debt since 2003. Even as yields on Treasury securities have risen to multiyear highs, foreign demand for debt at government bond auctions has slowed to the weakest level since 2008.
