A cougar was spotted roaming the docks of the Oregon coast in the city of Newport on Oct. 17. The Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife @MyODFW responded and shot it with a tranquilizer. But the cougar fell in the water and drowned from being sedated and unable to swim. pic.twitter.com/C7HSQxv6au
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/19/2024 11:29 Comments ||
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#5
Salaries - How much does Pacific Gas and Electric pay?
"Indeed-https://www.indeed.com › cmp › salaries
The average Pacific Gas and Electric salary ranges from approximately $92,761 per year for Contract Specialist to $225,950 per year for Solutions Engineer."
Decades of deferred maintenance, employee enrichment and failure to incrementally put most wind-risk transmission lines underground have resulted in 3rd world service.
[CNN] Cuba’s electrical grid shut down on Friday, plunging the whole country into a blackout after one of the island’s major power plants failed, according to its energy ministry.
In a statement on X, the ministry said "the failure" of the Antonio Guiteras Power Plant caused "the total disconnection of the National Electrical System" from 11 a.m. ET on Friday.
In Havana, motorists on Friday tried to navigate the city where no street lights appeared to be working and only a handful of police were directing traffic. Generators are a luxury for most Cubans and only a few could be heard running in the city.
The country’s health minister, José Angel Portal Miranda, said on X that the country’s health facilities were running on generators and health workers continued to provide vital services.
This week, Cuba’s increasingly energy-strapped government called for draconian measures to save power, including telling many workers to stay home.
Classes at schools were canceled from Friday through the weekend, nightclubs and recreation centers were ordered closed, and only "indispensable workers" should show up at their jobs, according to a list of energy-saving measures published by the state-run website Cubadebate earlier on Friday.
Millions of people on the communist-run island have been left without power over the last several days as the aging Cuban electrical grid repeatedly collapsed.
Cuban officials blamed a confluence of events from increased US economic sanctions to disruptions caused by recent hurricanes and the impoverished state of the island’s infrastructure.
In a televised address on Thursday, that was delayed because of technical difficulties Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said much of the country’s limited production was stopped to avoid completely leaving people without power.
"We have been paralyzing economic activity to generate (power) to the population," he said.
Marrero said fuel shortages had left much of Cuba in the dark but that shipments by boat in the coming days would improve the situation.
"We are not in an endless abyss," he said.
On Friday, the US Embassy in Cuba issued a notice on X saying there was "no information on when power will be restored." It called US citizens in Cuba, or those planning to travel to Cuba, to "take precautions," including conserving water and food, and keeping mobile phones charged.
Struggling infrastructure
Cuba’s energy crisis is not a new problem. The island’s limited infrastructure has not received the maintenance it requires for years and recurring blackouts date back to the 1990s.
The situation was further aggravated in 2022 by a fire at a fuel facility in Matanzas, in the island’s west, which destroyed 40% of the country’s main fuel storage structure.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, has warned since March that the conditions of the thermoelectric plants pose challenges for the country, according to statements provided to its state television.
In fact, seven of the eight thermoelectric plants that supply energy to Cuba are broken or under maintenance, according to a statement released this Wednesday by the Cuban Electric Union and the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the island.
The Cuban Electric Union has also reported that 37 power generation plants are out of service due to lack of fuel. These plants are in the areas of the Mariel, Mariel and Santiago de Cuba.
CNN en Español has requested comments from the Cuban Electric Union, as well as the Cuban government, to find out the number of people affected by the lack of electricity and what measures they are taking to improve the situation and is awaiting a response.
On Monday, Cuban authorities reported the installation of solar energy panels, which they hope will increase the energy generation capacity on the island. But the first of the announced projects — which would produce about 1,000 watts of electricity per hour — will only be ready in two years.
Cuban officials said that the blackout, which started late Thursday, saw 1.64 gigawatts go offline during peak hours in the early evening, about half the total demand at the time.
During his address, Marrero was accompanied by Alfredo López, the chief of the state-owned utility UNE, who said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners, as well as breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
I'm not sure when this video was taken, but as you can see, truckload after truckload of supplies were being sent from Dandong, China, to North Korea via the Yalu River Bridge that connects China and North Korea.
#2
If one knew the 'road striping standard' or 'light pole placing distance', 'common tire diameter' or even 'railroad trestle height' one could then approximate the trailer length. If one could also determine Chinese Dept of Transportation rules regarding trailer axle/weight requirement for urban travel limits, then a reasonable assumption of length and weight could be applied to the Chinese missile inventory for assessment.
#5
NKORs send troops to Ukraine, ChiComs send cargo trucks to NKOR. There are no coincidences, so perhaps this is the visible pay for NKOR troops, perhaps via a loan to Russia by Poo-Bear?
[X] The situation on the Korean Peninsula does not seem to have attracted much attention from Western media. This is South Korean armed helicopters gathering towards the 38th parallel. Meanwhile, recently, North Korea has amended its constitution, defining South Korea as a "hostile" nation, while also abandoning its pledge to unify with South Korea as a national goal.
Previously, according to the North-South Korea agreement reached in 1991, the relationship between the North and South was defined as a "special relationship," part of the process towards eventual unification, rather than a relationship between two nations.
According to the amended North Korean constitution, North Korea and South Korea are now two hostile nations.
Additionally, North Korea has already blown up the roads and railways connecting North and South Korea that were highly symbolic. Before this, the Pyongyang military had vowed to "permanently" seal off the border with South Korea.
[SecureWorld] What did the robot vacuum say to its homeowner? You suck.
All kidding aside, in a bizarre turn of events, owners of robot vacuums across the U.S. have reported that their devices have been hacked. One particularly alarming case involved a man whose Ecovacs Deebot X2 began yelling racial slurs at him.
The incidents appear to be linked to a security vulnerability in the Chinese-made Ecovacs Deebot X2 model, according to a report by the Australian Broadcast Corporation. The flaw has exposed the widely distributed smart vacuums to manipulation by bad actors, raising concerns about the cybersecurity of internet-connected home devices.
Minnesota lawyer Daniel Swenson told ABC that he initially thought his Chinese-made robot vacuum was malfunctioning when he began to hear weird sounds coming from it. He shockingly discovered someone else was accessing its camera and remote control settings.
Swenson reset the vacuum's password, only for it to begin zooming around and yelling the N-word repeatedly, all within earshot of one of his children. He turned the robot vacuum off and never turned it back on.
Later, he realized that despite the vile language, the hack could've been much worse. The Ecovac had been in use on the same floor as his family's master bathroom, and the hackers could easily have seen something they weren't supposed to.
"I just thought of it catching my kids or even me," Swenson said, "you know, not dressed."
Back in 2017, SecureWorld News reported that cybersecurity researchers took control of an LG 'Smart' vacuum and spied on the home through the device's camera. The video is unnerving.
The breaches underscore the growing threat of vulnerabilities in IoT (Internet of Things) devices. With the increasing adoption of smart home technologies, ensuring robust security measures for such devices is crucial to prevent hackers from gaining control or accessing private information.
Smart home users should stay vigilant, update device software regularly, and implement network security best practices to mitigate risks.
As the investigation continues, Ecovacs is expected to address these security concerns to safeguard their users from further incidents.
A January 2024 blog on ToolingIdeas.com provides a comprehensive rundown of the risks of IoT devices, particularly robot vacuums. The key takeaways: "Yes, robot vacuums can be hacked if they are connected to the internet. Hackers can gain access to the device's software and manipulate its functionality, such as accessing the camera or microphone, collecting personal data, or controlling its movements. It's important to use strong, unique passwords and regularly update the device's software to mitigate the risk of hacking."
[RELATED] Cyberattacks on home networks are getting more advanced, as reported on by SecureWorld News last fall. Homeowners are putting their personal data and privacy—and that of the organizations for which they work—at risk. The article provides comprehensive guidelines of how to defend against targeted cyberattacks when employees' personal devices, even those not used for work, are under threat.
[JTN] The union is expected to vote on the deal later this week.
Aerospace company Boeing and the leaders of its machinists union have reached a deal to end the ongoing strike that has stopped a majority of its production.
According to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal, Boeing is offering a 35% wage increase, which is a 10% increase from the original offer.
The union is expected to vote on the deal later this week. It announced the deal on Saturday, saying "it warrants presenting to the members and is worthy of your consideration."
The strike began last month and resulted in lots of production being stopped and many employees being laid off.
The last deal put forth was voted against by 95% of the union workers.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/19/2024 13:27 ||
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#1
A Pyrrhic victory given the overall future earnings trajectory.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[CNN] 
