I'm assuming the malice you're referring to is re: Princess Catherine. My guess is that the daily rags (Rupie and ilk) and some 'social media influencers' profit from this more directly.
Some 'influencers' get a share of ad money for ads placed that with/before/after their posts and a few even include sales pitches for products* within their posts. To me, this makes them part of the marketing chain for that brand therefore it'd be fair for these influencers to also be held liable for 'harms'. Pretty sure that the EU has some legislation on this for the social media channels but no idea whether the EU also has anything on the books re: private individuals who (also) profit from such 'social interactions'.
*Wonder whether any of the influencers that posted the really vile stuff about Kate lost any sponsors ... like what happened when major brands withdrew their ads from Faux News.
Re: Princess Catherine
That news was a shocker - hope her cancer therapy treatment goes well and she gets enough rest and time to recover before being put back into the spotlight.
]]>Probably especially late at night with lower visibility and more drunk drivers zigzagging their way through traffic.
I'm wondering how this bridge collapse will impact navy ships (Norfolk Va).
]]>Yes - according to this 8 minute long news video/interview it did.
'Baltimore bridge collapse: Master mariner explains what went wrong'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azoGQ_Rf65o
CBC is usually a reliable news source. The 'what went wrong' is an eye-grabbing headline but as this master mariner explains, there's going to be a lot of investigation including all comms before there's a definitive 'what went wrong'.
Hopefully the port authorities will also look closely at why the bridge pot-hole repair crew didn't make it out safely: this crew was on their premises (probably contracted by the port authority), therefore their responsibility.
A couple of other articles I scanned mentioned that the divers can see maybe a foot underwater making it very difficult to make out any bodies or all the sharp ends of the bridge.
I'm wondering whether any news outfit will look at and compare other recent shipping disasters (Suez Canal) to see whether there's a common pattern.
]]>Thanks for the info! (David L & AlanD2)
My impression was that ships/boats usually had anchors ready to drop whenever approaching a port. Less costly than losing the crew, cargo, and ship followed by paying a fine, various damages, increased insurance premiums, law suits, etc.
]]>A couple of questions:
Lots of bridges have posted limits for vehicles traveling on/under a bridge, why not have limits for ships - not just height but weight/m mass?
Airplanes go through a check of every system just before take-off, I'm guessing that ships don't - if so, why not?
I'm guessing that bridge designers/builders have some idea of how much and types of force these structures could handle. Similar to the Albert Bridge (I think?) sign telling soldiers to break step to avoid causing rhythmic oscillations that can tear apart the bridge.
Just because a safety precaution wasn't in use/needed ages ago doesn't mean that it should never be considered.
]]>Not according to that Nature article:
'Climate change is projected to accelerate the average upper-level jet stream winds. However, little is known about how fast (>99th percentile) upper-level jet stream winds will change. Here we show that fast upper-level jet stream winds get faster under climate change using daily data from climate model projections across a hierarchy of physical complexity. Fast winds also increase ~2.5 times more than the average wind response. We show that the multiplicative increase underlying the fast-get-faster response follows from the nonlinear Clausius–Clapeyron relation (moist-get-moister response).'
I'm guessing this will also complicate launching and retrieving satellites, rockets, air balloons, etc. NASA probably has real data on this right starting from the very first up to the most recent launch. Ditto other countries with space programs.
]]>Including wind speeds - this is especially important for aircraft. There was a cross-continent flight a month or so ago whose speed exceeded Mach 1.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/how-virgin-atlantic-flight-went-faster-than-speed-of-sound/
Air speeds are getting faster but the research in this CC/GW related area is not as extensive.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01884-1
Higher air speeds, faster formation, size and traveling speed of tornadoes and ocean waves also means that wind farms need to be tested under a wider and more extreme range and rapid change of environmental conditions.
Blades from China ... was wondering whether the Arctic Sea will become a more frequently used route esp. between northern countries. Distance- and fuel-wise it makes sense esp. since the Arctic Cap is disappearing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shipping_routes
More flight related stuff...
Temp extremes - thousands of flights in the US (esp O'Hare) were canceled because of winter weather. In Canada, there was more reporting of extreme cold causing flight cancellations because the air temp was too low for the de-icing solution to work.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-extreme-cold-operational-impacts-1.7083160
I think it's past time that reporters get into the specifics of CC/GW impacts with relatable everyday examples. Yeah - there's quite a bit of science-y terminology now and it's good to say that there's science/data behind this but if no one understands this specialized lexicon, it's useless for communications. Maybe we need a CSI/Numbers-type show focused on climate. Med/sci/police dramas made DNA a more understandable concept.
Wonder whether Sesame Street is doing anything specific to CC/GW yet. Because this franchise has a global reach, it's used to providing many more examples to cover and communicate the more likely specific problems for each region/country where it's aired. And if they also came up with a song on CC/GW because songs are great memory aids.
"Rainbow Connection" with Kermit the Frog, Choir! Choir! Choir!, and New Yorkers at Lincoln Center
]]>Same here - my 'landline phone' operates on the same optic fiber connection as my TV and laptop.
I've kept my mobile phone with a different provider -- just in case.
]]>Thanks - very interesting articles! Never heard of ground rent before either. DT's got another daughter whose husband is the son of a Nigerian billionaire - wedding took place at Mar-a-Lago.
]]>Decided to check GMAC further ... because why would GMAC (the auto financing part of GM Corp) buy Trump Tower?
They've changed their name/been absorbed by Ally Financial [per below] which is majority owned by institutional investors (i.e., anyone might be a part owner). 'Institutional investors' are subject to less regulatory oversight.
Here's the info on the acquisition- reads like a PR piece:*
*This url/site pitches itself as a financial analysis/trading tool, its example shows crypto trades.
Continuing down this rabbit hole, I learned about dark pools of liquidity, i.e., how to trade outside the usual routes.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/050614/introduction-dark-pools.asp
Back to the present ...
Examples of DT's fiddling with real estate valuations wrt Trump Tower.
https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/tto_release_properties_addendum_-_final.pdf
]]>Half wondering whether DT's real concern is that being forced to 'sell' this real estate would publicly announce that he actually already sold it years ago. [GMAC Commerical Mortgage is the owner of record as of 2021. Not sure whether this ever made national headlines or trended on social media.]
His son-in-law is supposedly very real-estate wealthy - why isn't he selling off any of his real estate to help his father-in-law?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushner_Companies#References
Two items I found particularly interesting in the conflict of interest section:
'In December 2017, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed Deutsche Bank records pertaining to Kushner Companies.[39] The New York Times reported in May 2019 that anti-money laundering specialists in the bank detected what appeared to be suspicious transactions involving entities controlled by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, for which they recommended filing suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department, but bank executives rejected the recommendations. One specialist noted money moving from Kushner Companies to Russian individuals and flagged it in part because of the bank's previous involvement in a Russian money laundering scheme.[40][41]
In 2020, ProPublica and WNYC reported that Kushner Companies received "a near-record sum" from government-backed lender Freddie Mac. The $786 million in loans helped Kushner Companies purchase thousands of apartments in Maryland and Virginia and appeared to come with "unusually good terms," raising conflict of interest questions due to Jared Kushner's role as Senior Advisor to the President of the United States. [42]'
]]>What -- and scare off the seagulls that would provide that special sauce/icing on his memorial!?! That special sauce would be the only economic and environmental good he has ever done.
Seagull poop has lots of phosphate, nitrogen, and potassium, i.e., good fertilizer. Providing seagulls a well-defined small area to release their poop would therefore also reduce the cost of harvesting (scraping off) this special sauce.
]]>Good grief! She sounds like what that Jan6 lawyer looks: vicious and contemptuous.
I did a quick search - since she's been officially arrested/has a record, the Canadian border guards would probably not allow her to cross into Canada.
]]>And in plain English, this means ...?
Not being snarky, would just like to understand since SciAm (which usually does a good job of plain speech explanations) is paywalled.
Thanks!
]]>So - how does someone from Canada get authorized to enter/drive through Texas?
Lots of Canadian retirees overwinter in the southern states with many of them driving there and back.
]]>