08:56 – Barbara continues her recovery. She’s doing very well according to the physical therapist, but she’s frustrated because she’s not yet back to her normal abilities and forced to sit around much of the time. At least I have kit stuff for her to work on.
I see that the FCC is moving toward enforcing net neutrality, which is a good thing. Foxnews is screaming about new “burdensome regulations”, but then Foxnews always favors the interests of big corporations against the people. Just to be clear here, this isn’t about free enterprise and capitalism. Broadband providers in most of the country operate under government-granted monopolies or duopolies, so it’s only reasonable that the government enforce regulations to control their pricing and behavior. Treating broadband providers as common carriers like the phone company is perfectly reasonable.
The morning paper reports that the Triad region is now at “full employment”, which is completely bogus. As usual, the official unemployment figures exclude anyone who’s given up looking for work and completely ignore the quality of the jobs in question. A Ph.D. engineer who’s serving coffee at Starbucks part-time is counted the same as a Ph.D. engineer working full-time as an engineer at $150,000 per year. What actually matters isn’t the unemployment rate; it’s the full-time non-government employment rate, which is now at historic lows. Working part-time shouldn’t count, and “working” for the government certainly shouldn’t.
I am no fan of the mediocre entity known as Comcast. Their only virtue seems to be that they provide faster service to our house than AT&T. However I don’t see how more regulation from the “I’m from the federal government and I am here to help” people is going to accomplish anything good. I think the only immediate change is that the FCC will require our Internet service to be taxed as analog phone lines are.
There was an article trending yesterday where the Gallup CEO called the 5.6% unemployment rate a big lie.
http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx
Much like aliteracy is a bigger problem in the US than illiteracy, underemployment is a bigger problem than unemployment.
You’re drinking the Foxnews/corporate Kool-Aid. What the broadband companies have right now is the best of all worlds. They operate protected under government-granted monopolies but with no government control of their pricing or behavior. Imagine what you’d be paying if your electricity, land-line phone, natural gas, and so on weren’t subject to control by the PUC.
The broadband providers’ arguments are completely bogus. Netflix pays for its Internet connection, as do its customers. The broadband companies are extorting Netflix to pay more, which eventually ends up being paid for by us. If I as a broadband customer want to pay more for faster service, that’s fine, assuming there is competition for my broadband dollar. But Comcast, TWC, etc. extorting money from Netflix in exchange for not throttling them is unacceptable. They’ve already paid for their connection and I’ve already paid for mine.
The FCC potentate was on PBS NewsHour last night and he seemed pretty reasonable; he was attempting to reassure us all that it would be OK after it’s implemented and we would see that all our bogeymen have been swept away.
8 degrees today and headed to minus-12 tonight. Princess down for yet another weekend and I gotta drive her back to Montreal on Sunday, looks like as her mom will be flying out to Minnesota for next week. All in the service of classical music, I reckon.
Working part-time shouldn’t count, and “working” for the government certainly shouldn’t.
Yeah as one of my former bosses used to say when I did summer firefighting.
“Putting your nose in the public trough.” Actually that was damn hard work but I sure have some stories about some dedicated public servants.
Yeah, saying working for the government is shorthand. Some government work like police, fire department, EMS, etc. is actually useful, but would be more effective and efficient if privatized. The same is true for the rigorous departments at public universities and similar endeavors.
And, of course, there are a great many employees at private companies that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for government mandates. They’re doing nothing useful, so they shouldn’t count as employed, either.
We had private EMS in Houston while I was growing up. It was awful, and so it was folded into the fire department. The Romans had private fire departments and it was awful. I put fire and police protection into the same bucket as vaccinations. The externalities are worse than the cure.
Volunteer fire departments work quite well. They’d work better still in urban and suburban areas versus the rural areas where they usually operate. And paid commercial fire departments would be better still. That’s all we used to have. You got a plaque to put on the front of your building. No plaque, no service. And there were often several competing fire departments, which kept costs down and efficiency up. And those competing departments co-operated extensively when a fire was too large for one department to deal with. Kind of like power companies co-operate now when there’s widespread storm damage.
I have been battling Comcast for several weeks to get service to our new house. Comcast’s local franchise agreement requires that they provide service to all residences in their service area. When they said they would not provide service to our new house, I contacted the local regulatory agency. Comcast tried to get out of complying with their agreement by claiming our house was a commercial property, not a residence. I sent the regulatory people a copy of the property’s tax statement, easily available online. Then Comcast claimed that the property was two miles from where it is. Google Maps’ satellite view answered that claim. After running out of excuses, the Comcast office in Denver finally passed the request to a local office. I received a call from a local employee who, surprisingly, gave me his full name, direct line and email address. He said he’d get back to me by today. We’ll see.
We currently have Centurylink (former “Baby Bell”) at the house. They originally promised 20 meg down, 850K up service. When they installed it, they claimed I would get 12 megs. In fact, the modem status shows I’m connected at 9 megs. Comcast, if they provide service, should be able to give me 50 megs down, which is what we have at the old house. Dealing with Centurylink was a nightmare. They make Comcast’s customer service look good.
One interesting quirk is that the Comcast franchise agreement only covers television service. The local government employee asked me what I wanted and I told her I just wanted data service. When she told me that the agreement only required TV service, I told her that I misspoke. I am desperate for CNN, Fox, MSNBC and all of the reality shows that I have been missing. Internet would be a bonus. She laughed and said that her notes showed that I was requesting TV service.
Rick in Portland
Some government work like police, fire department, EMS, etc. is actually useful, but would be more effective and efficient if privatized.
I’m not so sure. Private prisons have been repeatedly exposed as corrupt.
EMS might be more efficient, except that they are often granted a monopoly. We have had to use EMS twice in the last few years. My son went into shock after donating blood at the local Red Cross a few years ago. They sent him by ambulance to the hospital, which was a block away. The ambulance charge was over $1,000. They could have got him there faster by putting him in a wheel chair and wheeling him there. The Red Cross promised to pay all of his costs, but it took over a year for them to do so.
My other son went to the hospital in Santa Cruz about a week before his 26th birthday. He was still on our insurance, thanks to one of the few good parts of Obamacare, but had not met the annual deductible. He benefited from the insurance company’s negotiated pricing for the hospital, but the EMS service, being a monopoly, bills everybody the same high list price. The hospital even agreed to a further reduction in his bill in exchange for his paying it immediately. The EMS would not reduce their outrageous bill at all. It was more than the emergency room charges.
Rick in Portland
My experience with Comcast thus far is that the bonzes at the regional/HQ offices don’t know much and are not very cooperative, but the local people are pretty good and will try to help you out. I called them yesterday to add a couple of channels and had a nice chat with the woman who handled my questions and it was taken care of instantly. Our situation confuses people at the other ends of these contacts due to our mailing and physical addresses and the different zip codes. This village doesn’t deliver mail and we get it by strolling over to the little P.O. and our boxes. But we’re part of the larger town, which itself surrounds the “city,” and there are at least two different zip codes.
Typical rural New England confusion.
Shocking phone earlier here; MIL is gonna bag the annual trip to Florida this year, amazingly. I suspect it’s a bit much for her now and her new meds have her content and snug as a bug in a rug at her place on the middle coast of the lake, thirty miles south of here. We’ll see if she still plans to head up to northern New Brunswick this summuh.
“5 Things You Need to Know About the FCC’s Net Neutrality Plan”
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476350,00.asp
Looks complicated. Lots of weasel words. I don’t like complicated.
Oh my gosh. It’s March 5th and Barbara still isn’t back at work? At least you have a rather large supply of filled bottles.
“One Man’s Quest to Rid Wikipedia of Exactly One Grammatical Mistake”
https://medium.com/backchannel/meet-the-ultimate-wikignome-10508842caad
I am guilty of this. Hangs head in shame.
Imagine what you’d be paying if your electricity, land-line phone, natural gas, and so on weren’t subject to control by the PUC.
Umm, we have a totally deregulated electricity market here in The Great State of Texas. You can buy your electricity from Joe’s Bar and Grill should you wish. The deregulation has been good for the consumers as my cost of electricity for my home and business has dropped by over 20% in the last ten years.
The deregulation has also been good for the independent power producers since they can now contract directly with clients and just pay a transmission fee to get their power to them.
The deregulation has not been kind to my old employer, currently known as Energy Future Holdings or TXU Energy. They are currently in bankruptcy due to financial ineptitude and may shutdown some or all of their coal power plants due to the global warming people. This may be interesting as they provide some 30% of the power in Texas.
EMS might be more efficient, except that they are often granted a monopoly.
For a few years there was a private ambulance company operating in Knox county. They were in competition with the county contracted EMS service. This private company would monitor the police, fire and ambulance calls. In the case of an auto accident this private company would always show up, even if there were no injuries or ambulance required (or called for by the police).
This company would show up, be told they are not needed and would go away. A week or so later the people involved in the accident would receive a bill from the company for just showing up. Usually amounted to about $500.00. Unfortunately, the people had to pay as ruled by a local judge.
Even the local fire department would get involved. The city of Karns has a fire department that would show up at any accident no matter how trivial. The fire department would then send the people in the accident a bill even though they did nothing and were in fact told to leave by the people involved. Again a local judge ruled the people had to pay the fire department because a truck was on scene. No one called for the truck, they just showed up by monitoring the police radios. After some bad press I think that sort of went by the wayside.
When my aunt was in assisted living she had to take an ambulance a few times a half mile to the hospital. Each trip was about $800.
When she was in the nursing home she also made a few trips. On one of those adventures the bill was for $1200 (different ambulance service than assisted living). Medicaid would only allow about $800 for the trip. The ambulance company said I was responsible for the other $400 because I had the same mailing address as my aunt (her mail came to my house). I told them to pound sand and the ambulance company threatened me with collections. I told them go ahead but to realize the penalties for claiming an invalid debt were fairly severe and I had a couple of attorneys salivating to take on such a case (that was a lie). The company backed down.
Department of the Internet: Installation
“I’m sorry, lady, but you’re in their hands now.”
Can we say Astroturfing?
http://consumerist.com/2015/02/05/wireless-cable-industries-fight-net-neutrality-with-laughably-misleading-op-eds-video/
The telecom industry has no one but itself to blame for Title II reclassification.
Rick in Portland
Umm, we have a totally deregulated electricity market here in The Great State of Texas.
No you don’t. The transmission fee (which is analogous to your Internet feed) is regulated. Can you imagine what would happen if Comcast owned the transmission system? They’d constantly increase what they charge you and cause brownouts unless the power producer paid them a bribe. You have “net neutrality” for your power lines, which allows competition by the producers.
Rick in Portland
Thanks for that link, Mr. medium; I needed a good laff, and that was BOFFO!
My favorite line? “Oh that’s OK; your compliance is included.”
Perfect.
“I’m sorry, lady, but you’re in their hands now.”
If the Feds are involved, that is what it will happen. I love the guy with the toaster (not to mention the dot-matrix printer).
It was a well-done vid, I’d say. Very nicely produced and acted.
Uh-0h…I just went to look at it again and it’s now “unavailable.” Interesting.
It is available for me. There is little to no competition for broadband. Comcast bribes politicians and regulators to eliminate competition. They have some of the worst customer service of any company. They have given us some of the highest prices with some of the slowest speeds in the developed world. There is no free market.
About five years ago, we visited a friend who lives in a 600 year old stone house in a small town in France. His Internet connection was better than we have now in Portland.
Mahatma Gandhi is reputed to have said, when asked what he thought of Western Civilization, that it would be a good idea. Broadband competition would, similarly, be a good idea.
Rick in Portland
Comcast bribes politicians and regulators to eliminate competition.
In my little burg Comcast pays a franchise fee to the city. Supposedly it is for right of way use. However, the lines are strung on the power poles so there is no cost to the city. The fee is basically to keep competition out. U-Verse is not available because the city will not allow it thus keeping Comcast exclusive. Where my son lives near Nashville where there is competition the price Comcast charges for the exact same service is 30% cheaper.
Mr. OFD caught out snow shoeing again.
The fee is basically to keep competition out. U-Verse is not available because the city will not allow it thus keeping Comcast exclusive. Where my son lives near Nashville where there is competition the price Comcast charges for the exact same service is 30% cheaper.
I’m sure it was the city government that insisted on the exclusivity. Comcast is all in favor of competition.
Umm, we have a totally deregulated electricity market here in The Great State of Texas. You can buy your electricity from Joe’s Bar and Grill should you wish.
So does Joe string his own power lines to your house to deliver his electricity?
Google, Microsoft and Amazon pay to get around ad blocking tool
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80a8ce54-a61d-11e4-9bd3-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Qutsejvc
No you don’t. The transmission fee (which is analogous to your Internet feed) is regulated.
You are correct. The transmission and distribution networks are highly regulated by the Texas PUC. Except for the city owned T & D networks like Austin, San Antonio, and Grapevine. Most of the T & D networks in Texas are owned by Oncor (north and central Texas) and (south Texas) Centerpoint. My home bill does not break out the T & D fee but my business bill does. It is around 35% of the bill if I remember correctly.
“Mr. OFD caught out snow shoeing again.”
Dat must be my brothers; I ain’t been out doin’ dat yet. Saturday, though.
EMS might be more efficient, except that they are often granted a monopoly.
Mr. Ray’s experiences differ just a bit from our experiences here in Upper Alabama, but the results were similar.
I was just a young’n back in the early 60s, so I never paid much attention, but old timers all tell the same story about ambulance service in the good ole days.
These, of course, were the days before EMTs, box vans and Medflight. The novelty had still not completely worn off short wave dispatch. They were making do with a driver, attendant, and converted hearses in those days. Huntspatch had 3 (yes, 3 in a town of 60 some thousand in those days) competing private ambulance services monitoring the police bands–two of them were run by the two big funeral homes in town.
All listened religiously to the air waves for an accident call, since the first one on the scene usually got the assignment unless the victim was conscious and requested the other guy.
One day, there was a one-car accident and the race was on. Askew and Spry showed up at virtually the same time. While the patient was on the ground bleeding, the two drivers argued about who got there first, the argument degrading into an actual fist fight in the middle of the highway. The cops stepped in and tried to break up the fight about the time City Service showed up.
City Service quietly loaded the victim and left while the fight was still going on.
Rampant competition is not always a good thing.
Damn, that kinda messes up the advice I got as a young-un back in the late 70s, doing my Buford Pusser imitation, from a “mentor” officer: “Stop the bleeding and call an ambulance.” Haha.
Now minus-4 and headed to minus-12. That sorta cold that closes yer nostrils for ya and you can feel it hitting yer lungs in kind of bad way when you inhale. If you spit, it makes a little clinking sound when it hits the ice. Which covers the landscape now under the ten inches of snow.
But we got our woodstove cranking away pretty good and we’re snug as two bugs in a rug.
Big hot-chit Skype interview in the morning at 11, where I am to be grilled on my techie skillz, I guess. Whatevuh. If I get a bunch of stuff like I think I’m being unfairly grilled on, I will turn the tables immediately and start asking them about THEIR techie skillz. Been there, done that.
After a discussion of peak oil, complete with charts, statistics and other data, North seems to agree with our host on solar:
“If the developments in solar power continue at the rate that Ray Kurzweil has predicted, within two decades, solar power will provide all the power the world uses at low prices — basically, energy transmission prices. This is a radical prediction. It seems utopian. But I think there will be a lot more solar energy then than now. The question is this: at what price will the transition to solar power come? Will there be an oil price surge between now and then? I think there will be.
In the next recession, I think there will be an oil investing opportunity.
Peak oil is not a big deal if Kurzweil is correct. Then the key resource will be clean water. We hope that desalination processes will be cheaper due to cheaper energy prices. We may be at peak oceans now, but we can live with this.”
We are getting about 80% of our power (including powering two electric cars) from solar. Payback on the system is about six years, although that is with state and federal subsidies. Our local rates are about $.11/kwh.
Rick in Portland
OFD, an interviewing suggestion: If you feel the need to grill them, grill them on their managerial skills* rather than their technical chops. Bring up situations in which “the system” is interfering with things getting done and ask what they’d do when you pointed it out. Generally, ask about how the managers make it possible for the people doing the work to actually do the work.
I regularly do this, make sure the managers — who don’t directly do anything to get the product out the door — are doing their job in helping me get the product out the door. (The best advice I ever got for being a project manager was to ask myself every morning what one thing I could do today to help my team get their work done. Turns out I don’t like being a manager, but I pass the advice along to PMs who seem well-intentioned but not very good at the job.)
Three caveats: It offends many managers to realize that you’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you. (I can get away with it because I’m a medium-term consultant and can usually pick and choose from gigs.) A lot of managers lie about what they’d do or the environment there. And things change; the sharp-seeming manager might move on, or you end up on a different team, or top-level directives come down which screw things up.
* Assuming you’re talking to a manager, senior tech lead, or whatever.
Back when Enron and the rolling California blackouts were in the news, I read the stories about “unregulated” rates having been jacked up and jacked up again and people just couldn’t afford to pay their electricity bills. That sounded really bad, until…
Until I saw that the new, higher, unaffordable rates were 30% below what I was paying to the (monopoly and allegedly regulated) power company in upstate NY. And my rates were about to take a big hike.
And then I got a consulting gig at a power consulting company. They’d done a commissioned study on California’s power needs and advised them to put in a 300kV line from northern California (where the power was) to southern California (where the power was needed). Plans were made (by whom, I’m not sure — CA government or the power companies, presumably, but I don’t know for sure) for the trunk line … and the NIMBYs killed it.
I figure that collectively, they got what they deserved when the power went out. I’m not a big fan of collective guilt and collective punishment, but sometimes the schadenfreude is too strong to resist.
We are getting about 80% of our power (including powering two electric cars) from solar. Payback on the system is about six years, although that is with state and federal subsidies. Our local rates are about $.11/kwh.
Don’t you live in a houseboat now?
always a deja vu, yesterday radio, now, internet
http://earlyradiohistory.us/1963hw07.htm
“If the developments in solar power continue at the rate that Ray Kurzweil has predicted, within two decades, solar power will provide all the power the world uses at low prices — basically, energy transmission prices. This is a radical prediction. It seems utopian. But I think there will be a lot more solar energy then than now. The question is this: at what price will the transition to solar power come? Will there be an oil price surge between now and then? I think there will be.
There will need to be laws that I can add solar to my roof before I get it done here in the Land of Sugar. Not only would the Land of Sugar block it but so would my HOA. I have seen them block the new solar shingles already.
There is a federal law about satellite dishes on rooftops up to 36? inches. We need the same thing about solar. I would like to add solar to the roof of my garage as that is 700 ft2 of shingles doing nothing. My alternative is to build a trellis in the back yard along the fence and mount solar panels on it. But, the trellis will only be 50% effective as it will be on the north side of my home and blocked in the early morning and late afternoon from sunshine.
I really doubt that there will be any severe runups in the price of crude oil or natural gas. Nothing like 2008 where the price of crude hit $140/barrel and natural gas hit $14/mmbtu. There are so many natural gas well shut in right now, maybe even 50%. And they are starting to shut in crude wells. The minute the prices start going up, the wells will be opened and produced.
But, I suspect that we will see crude go back to $70 or maybe even the $80 range. The wild card in this is that Mexico is going to invite oil companies in to start fracking their side of the Eagle Ford shale. The Eagle Ford shale is half in Texas, half in Mexico. The Mexican side is untouched since Pemex has almost zero capital for investment. And, their offshore wells in the Gulf of Mexico might respond to fracking also since they are down to less than two million barrels per day.
Aren’t most or all of those measures and proposed activities simply shoveling sand against the tides? Pissing up a rope? Farting in a tornado? Just short-term, next decade or so, of keeping a thumb in the dike?
North thinks we’re right at Peak Oil this year and next year starts the slide downhill.
North thinks we’re right at Peak Oil this year and next year starts the slide downhill.
Depends on whether more fracking is allowed. If more fracking is performed then we are not even close to peak oil. All existing oil fields benefit from fracking. OK, except the ultra heavy oil fields in Venezuela and Canada. If your oil field uses a bulldozer to move the oil then fracking is useless for you.
So, any peak oil reached in the next twenty years will be artificial. Maybe the next two hundred years.
Most of the fracking articles that I have seen are claiming reservoir recovery ratios in the 80%. At least one author is claiming 90%.
How long can fracking go on? When does the fossil energy resource stop producing enough to still be profitable, easily enough?
And I wouldn’t put it past our lords temporal to rig up an artificial peak oil scenario, where only they can afford it, for themselves and their minions.
I’d rather for our purposes here to rely on wood heat and look into solar as it becomes less expensive and more efficient. But what will the many tens of millions do in all our gigantic metropoles?
How long can fracking go on? When does the fossil energy resource stop producing enough to still be profitable, easily enough?
I have seen over 100 fracking wells from a single drilling site. Fracking is actually a combination of directional drilling and fracking.
Some of the fracking experts are claiming that the fracked wells are good for many years, 20 to 100 years, as opposed to old style wells which were good for 3 to 10 years before needing reworking. We shall see.
I think Lynn is pessimistic. Peak Oil isn’t 200 years in the future. Maybe 2,000 or 20,000. But long before that burning petroleum will seem as archaic as burning whale oil.
That’s all assuming, of course, that we let the scientists and engineers do what needs to be done.
“…that we let the scientists and engineers do what needs to be done.”
Ah, therein lies the rub. We simply must include the very real possibility of statist interference and media lying and chicanery, as with nuclear power previously and currently.
If there is any hope at all of allowing scientists and engineers to work with these technologies successfully, the gummint will find a way to screw it up. And we Mundanes will pay the price.