Number 5. Just the News. California cuts electricity amid arriving heat wave.
As heat tempderature records were broken across the U.S. southwest this month, Pacific Gas & Electric balanced the complaints of over-heated customers against the lawsuits from over-heated lines starting brush fires. Weighed in the balance, PG&E decided to roast the customers, not the brush.
Power has been cut to 2,000 rate-payers across 8 SoCal counties, where temps ranged from a balmy 97 in Pasadena to a more attention-getting 122 in Death Valley.
Another 10,000 service interruptions are planned. These measures are probably necessary to reduce the risk of fires started in out-of-control undergrowth and brush, which some say are due to historic California forest management practices.
Others might say these measures — both the alleged cause and the expected effect — are to be expected in out-of-control California.
Either way, it makes a few hours of high 90s in Kansas look not so bad.
Number 4. Reuters. Shell to pause biofuels project.
Rising carbon emissions are one thing, but falling stock prices are quite another.
Shell Oil has stopped construction work on one of largest biofuels plants planned in Europe. The reason cited is “weak market conditions,” meaning that the demand for their special cocktail of aviation gas and diesel substitutes face an unprofitable future.
Biofuels use things like discarded cooking oil and petroleum by-product waste to produce serviceable products. This article indicates the higher cost of this faux fuel is justified by regulatory requirements. Biofuel mandates have been adopted by various European countries, in an effort to end reliance on actual refined petroleum by 2050.
When Switzerland recently relaxed their biofuel targets, it seems to have signaled that other EU member states ought to likewise come to their senses.
Shell has stopped construction on their refinery; British Petroleum has paused work on two other projects, one in the U.S., the other in Germany. (I cannot imagine how expensive it is to start projects like these and then cancel them half-way. But I guess that’s what we did to the Keystone XL pipeline in 2021.)
As merely a casual observer of this industry, it seems to me there are two issues: Running the planet out of oil, and filling the atmosphere with pollutants. Substack blogger Alex Epstein has some insight on this. He says we won’t run out of petro because, if we remove what he sees as ill-advised prohibitions on nuclear power generation, we will find ways to produce more power much more cost-effectively than burning gas or coal.
The new methods will obviate the use of petrochemicals, and thus that particular pollution problem will take care of itself. Leaving a whole new set of problems in their wake, which will then set our grand-children’s hair on fire in their generation.
Number 3. MSN. Smartphones might soon get X-ray vision.
Superman has come to the Best Buy phone store. Or he will soon.
Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology is what drives your smartphone. The chip using CMOS is what allows the TSA screening booth at the airport to find the Glock hidden in your shoe.
The ability to see the outline of an object, and thus identify the object, is coming to your smartphone one day soon. The idea is that you should be able to see what’s inside a cardboard box or an envelope.
Because CMOS is apparently limited to gross shapes rather than delicate markings, steaming open the envelope to loosen the flap and read the letter can still be used as a modern Sherlock Holmes plot device. But Christmas presents under the tree may soon require lead-lined wrapping paper.
If scientists can figure out how to juice up the CMOS with a low-enough power level so that it can see through the cardboard box without frying the person holding it, we are almost there.
Be the first to try it out! I understand they are looking for human test subjects!
Number 2. NBC News. Lithium battery plant fire in South Korea kills 22.
Speaking of new technology that can go badly wrong, workers at a plant near Seoul were packaging lithium batteries when one of them exploded. (The battery, not the worker.) No reason for the ignition is given in this article, but the initial blast set off a chain reaction among the inventory of batteries.
On video, a small puff of white smoke was seen on a table holding batteries. In 15 seconds, the entire second floor of the factory was engulfed in fire.
Workers, who were apparently mostly Chinese immigrants, attempted to flee the area but ended up in box canyon: There was no exit nearby.
Now there is the usual Who-shot-John aftermath: Was there a fire sprinkler system? Were there fire extinguishers? Were safety procedures followed?
I would be somewhat interested in the “Chinese immigrant” angle. How much South Korean manufacturing is actually staffed by Chinese immigrants? Is there a legal path that is followed?
And maybe the bigger picture is why there is such focus on lithium batteries. Every time I fly (not so much anymore) I am asked to assert that my checked baggage contains no lithium batteries. I always say, “No, of course not,” because that seems like the answer that will not slow down the boarding process.
It is a complicated world.
Number 1. Gizmodo. Wells Fargo employees fired for faking being at their desks.
Now, this sounds like innovation at work. (Or maybe at play.) It’s a great example of environmental adaptation.
When COVID made people stay away from each other, work-from-home suddenly became a much bigger deal. But the age-old problem for management was: I measure my people by what I can see them doing. Therefore, I cannot effectively manage them when they are not in the same office with me.
Workers at Wells Fargo proved management right: You CANNOT see what I am doing.
The only way management could measure the remote worker’s activity level was by assessing whether there was activity on the employee’s computer. Because most employees working from home used a company-provided laptop, it was relatively easy for corporate IT to learn what was happening.
The free market then took over as demand suddenly emerged for a way to do NOTHING on the laptop while making IT think that SOMETHING was happening on the laptop.
Enter the Mouse Jiggler, aka the Touchpad Jiggler. For only $32.99 at Amazon, this can be yours. The Amazon entry is powered by AA batteries, much better than clunky alternatives which require an AC plug-in connection. Woe be to the worker who unthinkingly plugs his into a USB port: USB activity can be tracked by the IT enterprise network.
If you can’t read the highlighted text in the image above, it says:
100% UNDETECTABLE - Purely Mechanical touchpad mouse jiggler has no USB, no software, no Bluetooth, no cables. It is not detectable by hardware scans or company IT. The fingertip movement across the Trackpad is realistic incorporating the sliding and tapping fingertip movement (US Patent pending technology).
Eventually, Wells Fargo got onto the people who were doing something else at home instead of working for Wells Fargo. They terminated a batch of enterprising young up-and-comers.
With all this creativity in the marketplace, I am a little surprised our economy is as sluggish as it is. You would think with the sort of inventive thinking exemplified here, we should be able to produce all sorts of innovation.
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And that is The Alligator News Roundup for Friday, July 5, 2024. I hope you had a marvelous Independence Day celebration yesterday. Here is a meme I saw earlier this week. It has a painting of American colonists in tri-cornered hats firing muzzle-loaders from behind a log. The words say: This holiday was made possible by citizens with guns.
Have a good weekend!
And one more thing:
Are you interested in learning how to create a Substack blog with video? Reach out to me. Click the link below.
The Alligator News Roundup