PSA to those in California

Zodiark1593 · October 10, 2019

Wow, I think Downtown Placerville was more busy during the outage than on a normal night. Got a few nice long exposure shots though. Can't edit them now though until I get power.

Donut417 · October 10, 2019

16 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Complaining about having to pay for shopping bags, is announcing you don't understand the whole point of the charge to begin with. Buy a few reusable ones and take them with you.

Agreed. We don’t get charged here in Michigan, but it hasn’t stopped my family from using reusable bags. While the one time use bags can be used for other things like small trash bags, in the end they end up in the land fill. What they need to do is go back to paper bags as I think they are easily recycled. And kill plastic bags period. So your options are to use your own or use paper.

bimmerman · October 10, 2019

I keep forgetting to bring my reusable bags with me, so more often than not I end up buying a bag or two. The cost isn't an issue at all.

The safeway bags here (Norcal) are actually really nice-- thick plastic so it's strong, pleated at the bottom so they can accommodate a lot of stuff. I don't mind buying them because I end up reusing them an awful lot. Example-- bag to keep clothes dry when biking to work, bag to chill in my trunk for when I need to carry something gross or loose or whatever.

Safeway also, apparently, will take back your bags and recycle them, or you can recycle them yourself. MUCH better than the flimsy one time use sorta oh wait it tore screw you bags of yesteryear.

Anomnomnomaly · October 10, 2019

4 hours ago, bimmerman said:

I keep forgetting to bring my reusable bags with me, so more often than not I end up buying a bag or two. The cost isn't an issue at all.

The safeway bags here (Norcal) are actually really nice-- thick plastic so it's strong, pleated at the bottom so they can accommodate a lot of stuff. I don't mind buying them because I end up reusing them an awful lot. Example-- bag to keep clothes dry when biking to work, bag to chill in my trunk for when I need to carry something gross or loose or whatever.

Safeway also, apparently, will take back your bags and recycle them, or you can recycle them yourself. MUCH better than the flimsy one time use sorta oh wait it tore screw you bags of yesteryear.

Yeah, I've done that before... but only a few times in about 4yrs... So an average of once a year, and I only end up getting a single bag... but also a reusable one. Just not the extra large/strong ones I have at home. Other times I'll stubbornly carry what I've bought in my arms back to the car if it's only half a dozen things.

It normally happens after I've done a big food shop and have left the bags in the kitchen after unpacking. So now I try to remember to place them by the front door so I put them back in the car next time I go out.

Another piece of advice to follow... clean out your reusable bags on a regular basis. You may spill something in one unknown... juices from meat and then put something in the bag that can get contaminated. So once a month I give mine a spray with some antibacterial cleaner and wipe them out.

Kisai · October 10, 2019

8 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Another piece of advice to follow... clean out your reusable bags on a regular basis. You may spill something in one unknown... juices from meat and then put something in the bag that can get contaminated. So once a month I give mine a spray with some antibacterial cleaner and wipe them out.

While I appreciate that everyone jumped on the "plastic bag fee" bandwagon to get people to use less bags, the problem is that this spreads disease now. You have people who bring in their cloth bags that they used to carry eggs or meat in, repeatedly back to the store, they set them down, they put stuff in the bag, they take stuff out of the bag, etc. Then you have people who try to reuse the plastic bags from the same store, or the thin film-wrap for meat and vegetables. Yuck.

Which isn't to say the solution should be to use more plastic, oh no, the solution is to have the stores "rent" durable denim cloth bags that they wash and sterilize before giving to the customer. The customer would then just return the previously used bags when they enter the store, like we used to do with plastic bags. Shop only with clean bags please. For meat and vegetables, they should actually sell reusable glass containers with appropriate lids for meat or vegetables that can be put directly in the fridge, then return them to the store like any other bottle, or put it in the municipal recycling. This would also solve the problem of cross-contamination with the bulk food/ingredients.

Those thin plastic bags also shed microplastics into your food, so all the more reason to stop using plastic with food.

Anomnomnomaly · October 10, 2019

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

While I appreciate that everyone jumped on the "plastic bag fee" bandwagon to get people to use less bags, the problem is that this spreads disease now. You have people who bring in their cloth bags that they used to carry eggs or meat in, repeatedly back to the store, they set them down, they put stuff in the bag, they take stuff out of the bag, etc. Then you have people who try to reuse the plastic bags from the same store, or the thin film-wrap for meat and vegetables. Yuck.

Which isn't to say the solution should be to use more plastic, oh no, the solution is to have the stores "rent" durable denim cloth bags that they wash and sterilize before giving to the customer. The customer would then just return the previously used bags when they enter the store, like we used to do with plastic bags. Shop only with clean bags please. For meat and vegetables, they should actually sell reusable glass containers with appropriate lids for meat or vegetables that can be put directly in the fridge, then return them to the store like any other bottle, or put it in the municipal recycling. This would also solve the problem of cross-contamination with the bulk food/ingredients.

Those thin plastic bags also shed microplastics into your food, so all the more reason to stop using plastic with food.

There's a trial going on some where in the UK at the moment... you can take your own containers and fill them up with certain dry goods, they get weighed and you pay by weight rather than by box/bag.

Zodiark1593 · October 22, 2019

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kcra.com/amp/article/pgande-possible-power-shutoffs-could-impact-200000-customers/29542154

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abc7news.com/amp/society/angry-reaction-to-possibility-of-more-blackouts-in-bay-area-this-week/5636454/

More outages for the Third World State of California. Bloody terrific. And PG&E has warned more such outages to be used through the decade. Our dear Governer is has less of a spine than a maggot. Any Californians here up for a Mass Exodus now?

Zodiark1593 · October 29, 2019

So quick update. Additional shutoffs begin today. Some people have been restored yesterday, though will probably be shut off again today. Others, myself included it seems, probably won't get a reprieve until Thursday or Friday (note, power was initially cut Saturday). Stocked up on ramen, jerky, small bottles of juice and breakfast drink, instant coffee and whole powder milk, etc. Could really use LTTs exercise bike PC though.

On a positive note, T-Mobile seems to have gotten it's act together. Hadn't dropped service once since Saturday. Also dropped $50 on a decent Sony bluetooth speaker, because a quiet, lifeless house is becoming maddening.

Should talk to landlord about installing gas for the house. Cold showers suck...

Mooshi · October 29, 2019

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

So quick update. Additional shutoffs begin today. Some people have been restored yesterday, though will probably be shut off again today. Others, myself included it seems, probably won't get a reprieve until Thursday or Friday (note, power was initially cut Saturday). Stocked up on ramen, jerky, small bottles of juice and breakfast drink, instant coffee and whole powder milk, etc. Could really use LTTs exercise bike PC though.

On a positive note, T-Mobile seems to have gotten it's act together. Hadn't dropped service once since Saturday. Also dropped $50 on a decent Sony bluetooth speaker, because a quiet, lifeless house is becoming maddening.

Should talk to landlord about installing gas for the house. Cold showers suck...

When I looked into this, apparently wildfires are being blamed. I live in Arizona. A *dry* state that also is prone to wildfires and that's not a thing here as a response for it. Entire thing comes off as bizarre.

Then you have the taxes..how does someone even live in California?

Lady Fitzgerald · October 29, 2019

6 hours ago, Mooshi said:

When I looked into this, apparently wildfires are being blamed. I live in Arizona. A *dry* state that also is prone to wildfires and that's not a thing here as a response for it. Entire thing comes off as bizarre.

Then you have the taxes..how does someone even live in California?

The reason we aren't getting outages here in AZ like they are in CA is our power grid is in much better condition than CA. I used to work for SRP (and collect a pension, etc. from them) so, whenever I travel, I'm always checking out what power companies have in the air (overhead transmission and distribution) and it's amazing how primitive most of it is in CA compared to what we have in AZ.

Zodiark1593 · October 30, 2019

7 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

The reason we aren't getting outages here in AZ like they are in CA is our power grid is in much better condition than CA. I used to work for SRP (and collect a pension, etc. from them) so, whenever I travel, I'm always checking out what power companies have in the air (overhead transmission and distribution) and it's amazing how primitive most of it is in CA compared to what we have in AZ.

I'm no electrical expert, but observation tells me it's a lot of a mixed bag here. A lot of the infrastructure here seems hardly bothered by the heavy winds on Sunday. Other portions appear to be in varying states of disrepair. Last year, a number of lines along Highway 99 wete swinging violently with thw wind, the poles sat askew by 30 or so degrees.

A lot of poles out here also got new levers on thw sides(mid way up the pole), presumably switches to facilitate shutoffs

FezBoy · October 30, 2019

11 hours ago, Mooshi said:

When I looked into this, apparently wildfires are being blamed. I live in Arizona. A *dry* state that also is prone to wildfires and that's not a thing here as a response for it. Entire thing comes off as bizarre.

Then you have the taxes..how does someone even live in California?

California's wildfires tend to be FAR more destructive than Arizona's. (According to Wikipedia,) the most destructive Arizona fire destroyed 426 structures, whereas California has had 11 fires that destroyed more than a thousand structures, with the Camp fire destroying 18 thousand.

Wildfires aren't being blamed for the outages, the outages are to prevent them. PG&E's electrical grid has been blamed for many recent fires, including the Camp Fire. Since those fires, people have gone lawsuit crazy and have sued PG&E out the wazoo.

PG&E is covering their ass so that they don't get another wave of lawsuits.

As for your question, as a Californian, I have no idea.

BuckGup · October 30, 2019

On 10/8/2019 at 10:18 PM, CircleTech said:

or basically any other "red" state. The midwest and deep south has some of the lowest cost of living in the US, yet nobody seems to want to live there for some reason I can't understand.

There's nothing to do besides drink and sit around

PhantomJaguarr · October 30, 2019

My customer said that our county would have a scheduled blackout but our county is pretty large with multiple zipcodes... We were complaining but all I had to do was mention what happened to Paradise in North Cali last year and we kinda went silent ..

Lady Fitzgerald · October 30, 2019

3 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I'm no electrical expert, but observation tells me it's a lot of a mixed bag here. A lot of the infrastructure here seems hardly bothered by the heavy winds on Sunday. Other portions appear to be in varying states of disrepair. Last year, a number of lines along Highway 99 wete swinging violently with thw wind, the poles sat askew by 30 or so degrees.

A lot of poles out here also got new levers on thw sides(mid way up the pole), presumably switches to facilitate shutoffs

Power lines should never whip in the wind (the technical term is galloping). Power lines can be equipped with vibration dampers to prevent galloping plus there are additional ways to prevent the lines from contacting each other, such as insulated spacers.

In AZ, power line right-a-ways are kept clear of trees whereas I've seen many in CA that have trees growing too close to the lines and even right under them. One recent fire in CA was caused by a tree branch being blown into a power line; that is simply inexcusable!

Frankly, the Feds should step in and take over CA power utilities to clean up their act. All of CA infrastucture (utilities, roads and highways, etc.) are in horrible shape.

Zodiark1593 · October 30, 2019

15 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Power lines should never whip in the wind (the technical term is galloping). Power lines can be equipped with vibration dampers to prevent galloping plus there are additional ways to prevent the lines from contacting each other, such as insulated spacers.

In AZ, power line right-a-ways are kept clear of trees whereas I've seen many in CA that have trees growing too close to the lines and even right under them. One recent fire in CA was caused by a tree branch being blown into a power line; that is simply inexcusable!

Frankly, the Feds should step in and take over CA power utilities to clean up their act. All of CA infrastucture (utilities, roads and highways, etc.) are in horrible shape.

If the Federal Government haven't intervened by now (deliberately shutting off power to millions is not a small blip by any stretch of the mind), I see little hope that they will do so for the foreseeable future.

I don't place the blame exclusively on PG&E here. The State government (however much Newsom wants to focus on PG&E) is very far from blameless. I'd very much like to hear the excuse for why the state had allowed PG&E to operate unchecked for so long, particularly given that California is no stranger to wildfires.

SpaceGhostC2C · October 30, 2019

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

The general issue is that a 1% point increase in the unemployment rate is NOT an across the board unemployment shift. It also fails to capture things like a reduction in hours someone is scheduled.

True. However, studies examining minimum wage changes do look at total hours worked.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

It's usually not the advantaged who suffer from minimum wage increases.

The missing evidence is for anyone suffering at all when considered as groups, beyond individuals' particular experiences.

Minimum wage increases tend to have no impact among those earning roughly twice the minimum wage or more, while increasing labor earnings of those below that mark.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

At some level, if you look at the bottom 20% of society, minimum wage increases create a winner takes all effect within this segment.

That's the argument put forward based on expectations of sizable increases in unemployment. The economic literature has failed to find evidence of that.

Needless to say, as long as there is some increase in unemployment, someone will experience a loss. Quantities do matter for the overall assessment of the policy, though.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

At the end of the day not every job is worth doing at every price. It's not a reflection on a person, it's a reflection of the job itself. I'm not magically worth 10x more as a person just because I now make more than 10x more per hour than I did a decade ago. My work definitely matters more though.

That is true. The idea that people are actually getting paid their marginal productivity, in classical terms, or collecting the full surplus of a job, in more modern labor market theory terms, is debatable at least, and hardly grounded on reality. More so in non-unionized jobs.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

(seeing this should give you some pause)

And seeing this one will blow your mind:

Spoiler

(to be honest, your picture didn't even show an obvious correlation)

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

At some level I see minimum wage work as a symptom of a broader issue - There are a lot of people who are not contributing to society at a high level.

That's debatable. Janitors and cleaning services don't get paid that much. I, however, dare the top 10% employees in Google, Apple, and Steve Job himself if he was around, to spend a month with no one performing those jobs in their companies.

"Contribution to society" isn't as easy to measure as people on the higher end of the income distribution would like to believe, certainly not in a highly specialized economy when almost no one is responsible for all of, or at least a substantial part of, a final good an service.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

The actual solution should be to try to work on employment matching and skills acquisition.

Society requires (as in desperately needs) many tasks that can't get much more skill added to them beyond a basic level.

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

Generally prices are driven by those who can throw money around, not the resource constrained. The bottom 20% isn't doing much to influence pricing.

I'd love to know what kind of monetary theory is that or where can one read its foundations... 9_9

On the real side of things (i.e., for relative prices between goods, rather than nominal price levels), the (neo) classical view is that market clearing determines prices, which would imply that the marginal buyer is more influential for prices. Which means the most price-sensitive buyer. Which typcally isn't exactly "throwing money around"...

On 10/9/2019 at 5:28 PM, comander said:

With that said, not all goods are created equally. Ramen and McDonalds hamburgers will likely be more sensitive to minimum wage increases than Lear Jets.

That is absolutely true. Which makes the rich guys even less relevant for prices, as they have a lot to say about jets (a price the vast majority of he population don't care about, and minimum wage earners won't suffer from) and very little about hamburgers (a price many more people, especially at low income levels, will care about).

Donut417 · October 30, 2019

6 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

the Feds should step in and take over CA power utilities to clean up their act. All of CA infrastucture (utilities, roads and highways, etc.) are in horrible shape.

Its not their problem. Michigans roads are shit too, you dont see the Feds stepping in and helping us.

6 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

power line right-a-ways are kept clear of trees whereas I've seen many in CA that have trees growing too close to the lines and even right under them

Agreeed. We have issues here in my area with that. People get pissed in DTE comes to trim trees or cut them down. We had a tree in our yard that they went to trim. My mom stopped them and said take the tree. No reason to trim it over and over when you can just cut it down.

22 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Should talk to landlord about installing gas for the house. Cold showers suck...

Earth Quakes and Natural Gas just dont mix. Even without the Earth Quakes it can be dangerous. Hell we had a store explode in a city north of where I live due to piss poor upkeep on the natural gas lines. DTE was in some serrous shit over that. They went thru my neighborhood and replaced all the gas meters and put them outside. I think they raised gas prices so they could replace the mains next.

Scheer · October 30, 2019

14 hours ago, BuckGup said:

There's nothing to do besides drink and sit around

You say that like its a bad thing.

I've never really understood why "big city people" think there is nothing to do in the Midwest. Then again, whenever I go to a larger city I don't find anything to do short of bar hopping or shopping.

BuckGup · October 30, 2019

2 minutes ago, Scheer said:

You say that like its a bad thing.

I've never really understood why "big city people" think there is nothing to do in the Midwest. Then again, whenever I go to a larger city I don't find anything to do short of bar hopping or shopping.

I mean it has it's pros and cons but having to drive 25 minutes one way to just get groceries gets old fast. But you can also just run around naked yelling lightning off firework mortars in the country opposed to getting arrested in the city

circeseye · October 30, 2019

pge is to blame for the old equipment but california is to blame for the trees and crap growing to close to the power lines....california politicians pretty much killed pge's ability to remove trees a shrubs because the whole "green act crap" and to even do any type of tree or brush removal had to jump through hoops to even get permission.

Zodiark1593 · November 18, 2019

Rather sadly, I'm reviving this bloody thread because of yet another outage possibly taking place this Wednesday in northern California, so if you don't have backup power, refrain from stocking refrigerated goods. Also, still no rain in sight on the ten day forecast, toward the end of November. Getting rather old.

One of the few news sites not behind a paywall.

https://www.kcra.com/article/pgande-power-shutoffs-possible-norcal-counties-november/29823534

amdorintel · November 18, 2019

On 10/7/2019 at 8:06 PM, Zodiark1593 said:

I hate this bloody state

yea lots of people hate cali but its warm there

mr moose · November 18, 2019

On 10/31/2019 at 5:57 AM, circeseye said:

pge is to blame for the old equipment but california is to blame for the trees and crap growing to close to the power lines....california politicians pretty much killed pge's ability to remove trees a shrubs because the whole "green act crap" and to even do any type of tree or brush removal had to jump through hoops to even get permission.

We have the same issue in Australia, just not with power fortunately, Under power lines or within 5 meters of a house you can cut any tree down*. The issues is in the bush, the damn greenies won't let anyone in or near them nor will they let anyone set off control burns, so now we have significantly denser forrest that is no longer managed and when it burns if fucking burns. These city dwelling ignorant fucks won't listen to the old farmers and indigenous leaders who have been managing the land just fine for the last 50K years.

*there are a few very rare cases where the tree is heritage listed, but you get government help with problems stemming from those trees.

Lady Fitzgerald · November 18, 2019

10 hours ago, amdorintel said:

yea lots of people hate cali but its warm there

It's even warmer here in AZ but we don't have nearly the problems CA does.

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PSA to those in California

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