MaxRedline

I Turned Down Solar City

They had an interesting pitch, noting that after 25 years, I'd own their rooftop panels free and clear. This raised a few questions in my little mind: what happens if I need roof repairs, for example? Obviously, the panels would have to come off for roof work. And as panel lifespan is around 25 years, that seemed problematic as well.

Then there's disposal: since solar panels contain gallium arsenide and other toxic substances, I, as the proud owner, would be responsible hazardous waste disposal. All in all, I saw more downside than upside. And there are other potential issues, as Walmart found out - which is why they're suing Tesla (which owns Solar City):

Walmart has sued Tesla, saying solar panels supplied by the electric carmaker were responsible for fires at about seven of its stores. The fires destroyed significant amounts of store merchandise and required substantial repairs, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket losses, according to a lawsuit filed in a New York court on Tuesday.

As of November 2018, no fewer than seven Walmart stores, including those in Denton, Maryland, and Beavercreek, Ohio, had experienced fires due to Tesla’s solar systems, according to the lawsuit.

“This is a breach of contract action arising from years of gross negligence and failure to live up to industry standards by Tesla with respect to solar panels that Tesla designed, installed and promised to operate and maintain safely on the roofs of hundreds of Walmart stores,” Walmart said in the court filing.

The world’s largest retailer started using solar panels made by SolarCity, owned by Tesla, in 2010 and the roofs of around 240 of its stores were fitted with solar panels made by the company.

Walmart really didn't look at all of the ramifications before signing up. In some respects, I'm an early adopter of technology - but I always research things thoroughly, and always look for worst-case scenarios before jumping in.

So now they not only have fire hazards at present - they'll also have to find a way to dispose of the panels in the next decade and a half or so as the things reach end of useful life. Well done, Walmart!

 

Fish Tales

Seattle company Whooshh has come up with an interesting way to transport fish over dams.

Mike Messina, a Whooshh representative, told me that the technology was originally designed as a way to transport apples from high branches without bruising. While field testing the devices, Messina said, the Whooshh team had “an ‘Aha!’ moment” when they kept seeing helicopters overhead that were moving fish over a nearby dam on the Columbia River—an especially dramatic version of the collect-and-transport strategy.

Whooshh’s machinery moves the fish through a pneumatic tube; the tube is made with a flexible proprietary material and filled with mist, allowing for a “frictionless glide” to ease the fish’s passage.

Transport past the obstacle takes one minute.

The newest models are full of whiz-bang; fish swim in and a computerized system photographs each fish, then directs each one to the appropriately-sized tube.  The system even notes whether it's a wild or hatchery fish. It's the first real change in fish transport technology in over half a century - and it really ought to irk the sea lions, too.

 

One Born Every Minute

This device magnifies your phone to a mini TV size.

Yes, well - ₹ 219.00 for a Fresnel screen seems a bit steep. You can make your own for far less cash.

Scams are ubiquitous these days, and Amazon peddles them too.

It can be a nasty world out there.

 

So Much For Saving The Planet In California

California’s largest operator of recycling redemption centers has shut down and laid off 750 employees. The Mercury News reported Monday that the company, Ontario-based RePlanet, has closed all 284 of its centers.

Advocates are urging the state to reform how it subsidizes recycling centers.

Subsidizing? Why do that? If you have to be subsidized, you've got a bad business model.

We have recycling centers here in Oregon; I just don't see any point in driving for five miles (there and back) to return bottles and cans..."carbon footprint", you know. I didn't mind taking the containers back to the store, but I'm sure not going to drive over to a recycling center and stand in line while the bums unload their stolen shopping carts to redeem one container at a time. Been there, done that, and don't any more. I have to pay for weekly recycling - whether I want to or not - so it's easier (and more "environmentally-friendly") to just dump the containers into the bin.

Whenever government gets involved, they invariably screw things up.

 

Oregon Quirk

The Blockbuster video rental store in Bend is no longer the last one in the United States.

It’s the last one in the world.

The computer system must be rebooted using floppy disks that only the general manager — a solid member of Gen X — knows how to use. The dot-matrix printer broke, so employees write out membership cards by hand. And the store’s business transactions are backed up on a reel-to-reel tape that can’t be replaced because Radio Shack went out of business.

Yet none of that has kept this humble franchise in an Oregon strip mall from thriving as the advent of on-demand movie streaming laid waste all around it. Blockbuster was a cultural phenomenon when it opened in the mid-1980s, as people flocked to its stores to rent movies. The company had more than 9,000 stores at its peak. But its popularity started to dwindle as online streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu became more convenient ways to watch movies. 

They used to be the last one in America, but the remaining Australian stores shut down in March of this year, so now the Bend location is the only one on the planet. Perhaps needless to say, this quirky fact has generated a Yuge shot in the arm for the local tourism industry.

Blockbuster sort of lives on, however - the corporation is part of Dish Network now. But Bend has the only remaining brick-and-mortar store remaining. They pay Dish for the right to continue to use the BB logo and related properties.

 

A VAT By Any Other Name

Is still a Value-Added Tax, and that's what Oregon's governor from Minnesota signed into law. To make matters worse, we voted the same thing down three years ago, so now she's taking steps to ensure that we can't get a measure on the ballot to repeat our past success.

On May 17, Gov. Kate Brown signed into law House Bill 3427, imposing a gross receipts tax on most Oregon businesses.

The new tax, $250, plus 0.57 percent of taxable commercial activity over $1 million, will have a significant impact on low-margin businesses, such as general contractors. This tax is on the gross receipts of a business, regardless of profitability, less only an amount equal to 35 percent of “cost inputs” or “labor costs.” Also, the tax is imposed on each step of the construction process (i.e., manufacturer, subcontractor, general contractor), resulting in taxation on the same economic value multiple times.

That is known as a VAT; not a "sales tax" as Democratics claim. The U.K. has the same thing; another tax added to each step of a production process.

It's one reason why a hamburger in the U.K. costs roughly three times what you'd pay for the same thing in an American fast-food joint.

Democratics here recognize that if allowed to vote on the matter, citizens would once again take it down in flames. So the only thing to do is to prevent Oregonians from putting it to a vote. Because they Know Better than You.

 

From Fixing Cars To Fixing People

Dr. Carl Allamby talks to a patient about their medical history in the emergency department at Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospital. Allamby recently started working as an ER resident at Akron General. He's a former mechanic and business owner who decided to become a doctor while in his 40s. July 8, 2019 (Gus Chan / The Plain Dealer)

Carl Allamby became an expert diagnostician after spending his childhood ducking his head under the hoods of Chevys and Fords with the older guys in his East Cleveland neighborhood. If a car whined and growled while turning, or if it squeaked on startup, he could run through a checklist in his head, zero in on the problem, and fix it.

Today, after a career overhaul, he does the same thing with people as an emergency medicine resident, having graduated from medical school this year at age 47.

Allamby said he laughed when people warned him about the long hours residents put in. “When you own a small business, an 80-hour week is like a vacation,” he said.

The story's pretty unnecessarily heavy on the racial aspect, but the man himself shines through it all - and he's impressive as hell. This guy's inspirational, regardless of race.

Well worth the quick read.

 

 

The Opioid Epidemic

Is apparently a home-grown issue:

Based on data that’s now been made public from the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS), it’s clearer than ever that Big Pharma, via its vast network of corporate distributors, drove an astounding 76 billion pills of oxycodone and hydrocodone into pretty much every zip code in America during the aforementioned six-year period, creating a nationwide addiction epidemic that’s killed at least 100,000 people.

Just six companies – McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS, and Walmart – distributed a whopping 75 percent of this opioid payload across the country. And just three companies – SpecGx, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt; Actavis Pharma; and Par Pharmaceutical, were responsible for manufacturing 88 percent of these opioids.

Now that we know who the drivers are, perhaps something should be done about them.

 

 

No News Not Good News

The newspaper industry has continued its relentless downward spiral, which started with the advent of the internet and accelerated during the Great Recession. The pace of the decline has not slowed. New research shows that over 2,000 newspapers have closed since 2004, a staggering figure given that the industry was once among the largest employers in America.

The industry implosion has left almost half of the counties in America (1,449) with only one newspaper, which is usually a weekly. As of the most recent count, 171 counties do not have a paper at all.

In-depth reporting is largely a thing of the past, as newsrooms have been forced to scale down and former dailies increasingly adopt tabloid formats; often publishing only three or four days per week.

 

Feel The Bern?

The Commie says $15 an hour should be minimum wage. Let's see how that works in the real world:

Researchers, for instance, discovered that in Seattle, the first city to raise its wage floor to $15 an hour, the average income for minimum wage workers has fallen, as jobs and hours have been cut. Sanders might not care about what happens to businesses, but the impact of Restaurants Unlimited, Inc., a Seattle-based company, filing for bankruptcy because “the cost of doing business has gone up,” will negatively affect workers.

But then, Bernie's never actually had a job, and has no business experience.