Podcasts about Pla

Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems worldwide. That's why many people avoid conventional plastics and prefer other alternatives, such as bio-based plastics. But is bioplastic truly biodegradable or is it another form of greenwashing? Bioplastics seem like an eco-friendly option for both consumers and manufacturers. However, this term can cause confusion and some dishonest companies take advantage of it to deceive their customers! Not sure if you should use this material? Keep reading to learn the actual definition of bioplastics and find out if they're biodegradable, sustainable, or bad for the environment! What Is Bioplastic? As you might already know, conventional plastics are made from petroleum. In the case of bioplastics, the prefix “bio” refers to the materials these plastics are made from. Unlike regular plastics, bioplastics are made (entirely or in part) from biological materials. You could think bio-based plastics wouldn't be as good as regular plastics, but the truth is that they look, feel, and behave just like them. Some common examples of bio-based plastics are the ones made from corn starch, sugar cane, and even food waste! Plastics made from renewable sources sound like the perfect solution to plastic pollution, don't you think? Unfortunately, it is not that simple. What Can Bioplastics Be Used For? Since regular plastics are losing popularity, companies are looking for other materials to use. For that reason, many of them are using bio-based plastics for different products, from grocery bags to sutures. PLA is the most popular bio-based plastic out there and it's made from polylactic acids found in plants like corn. This type of bioplastic is a great material for food packaging, bottles, and utensils. They can also be made from polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) engineered from microorganisms. These plastics are useful for medical applications such as sutures and cardiovascular patches. Although they're both versatile and bio-based, they still have some disadvantages. Are All Bio-based Plastics Completely Biodegradable? Now that you know bioplastics are made from biological materials, you're probably assuming that all of them are biodegradable as well. But here's the shocking part about bioplastics: “bio-based” doesn't necessarily mean “biodegradable”. Let's remember that this term describes how these plastics are made, not how long they last in the environment. In other words, not all bio-based plastics are biodegradable. And when they're, they might not break down in every environment! In short, only some bioplastics will biodegrade within a few months, but only under specific conditions. So, they could stay in the environment for years, sounds familiar? Are Bioplastics Good for the Environment? Many products use a prefix like “bio” or “eco” to attract and deceive conscious consumers. Bio-based plastics, for example, have some advantages over regular plastics. That said, it's important to see the whole picture: Advantages If discarded properly, biodegradable plastics could reduce plastic waste. They reduce greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production. Unlike regular plastics, they're made from renewable sources. They reduce the dependency on fossil fuels. Disadvantages When biodegradable plastics end up in landfills, they generate methane. This is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change! Biodegradable plastics need intense heat to biodegrade. So, most of them will only biodegrade in industrial composting facilities. If bioplastics make their way into the environment, they won't degrade on their own. As a result, they will affect wildlife and pollute nature just like regular plastics do! Some people worry about where and how bio-based plastics are produced. They think bioplastics could promote large-scale agriculture, lead to water shortages, desertification, and biodiversity loss. Is Bioplastic Sustainable? Are biodegradable plastics a good alternative to plasti...

Plačící nebo zamazané dítě, koupající se nahé batole. Nejen to jsou problematické fotografie, které rodiče sdílejí na sociálních sítích. Podle psychoterapeuta může takové sdílení ovlivnit vzájemné vztahy rodičů a dětí. Podle policie navíc hrozí, že se fotky nahých dětí dostanou na stránky s dětskou pornografií. „Téměř nikde na světě nesdílejí ženy tak ochotně fotografie svých dětí, jako je to v České republice,“ varuje policie. Poslechněte si další díl seriálu.Všechny díly podcastu Seriál Radiožurnálu můžete pohodlně poslouchat v mobilní aplikaci mujRozhlas pro Android a iOS nebo na webu mujRozhlas.cz.

Plačící nebo zamazané dítě, koupající se nahé batole. Nejen to jsou problematické fotografie, které rodiče sdílejí na sociálních sítích. Podle psychoterapeuta může takové sdílení ovlivnit vzájemné vztahy rodičů a dětí. Podle policie navíc hrozí, že se fotky nahých dětí dostanou na stránky s dětskou pornografií. „Téměř nikde na světě nesdílejí ženy tak ochotně fotografie svých dětí, jako je to v České republice,“ varuje policie. Poslechněte si další díl seriálu.

Pasaulis atsisveikina su Jungtinės Karalystės valdove Elžbieta II.Nuo šiandien ribojamos Rusijos turistų kelionės į Baltijos valstybes ir Lenkiją. Pasak vidaus reikalų ministrės, Lietuva svarsto drausti laisvai keliauti ir Baltarusijos piliečiams.Vilniuje protesto akcija dėl teisės mokytis gimtąja kalba atėmimo Baltarusijoje.Seime aptarta, kokių priemonių reikia imtis, kad mamos laiku sulauktų emocinės pagalbos ir nunugrimstų į pogimdyvinę depresiją.Generalinė prokuratūra siekia teismo keliu panaikinti Algirdo Paleckio iš kalėjimo įkurtą asociaciją. Organizacija turi paramos gavėjo statusą. LRT radijas išsiaiškino, kad paramą rinkti galinčių organizacijų turi ir Algirdo Paleckio bendražygiai, jų sutuoktinės bei vaikai. Plačiau Astos Martišiūtės tyrime.Ved. Liepa Želnienė

Par ko stāsta #DigitālāsBrokastis tehnoloģiju ziņu topā šonedēļ? Rīgas ostā plāno veidot lielāko saules paneļu parku Latvijā. Latvijas Universitāte piedalīsies kosmosa atkritumu problēmas risināšanā. Latvija piedzīvo pakalpojumu atteices uzbrukumu vilni. Videospēļu jaunumi no Sony, Nintendo un EA. Kopienu čati Messenger un repost funkcija Instagram.   Plašāk par tehnoloģiju jaunumiem lasi LSM portālā.

Balaguer celebra aquest cap de setmana la tercera edició del “Festival Llavors – Cultura en creixement” Les primeres actuacions tindran lloc aquest vespre al centre urbà de la ciutat, concretament a l’avinguda dels Països Catalans i a l’escenari exterior del Teatre Municipal, espais que acolliran les propostes de la Cia. Moveo i la Cia. Endiciembre per tal d’arribar a nous públics i apropar la dansa i les arts del moviment al conjunt de la ciutadania Altres companyies que conformen el cartell del Festival Llavors d’enguany són La Calíope, Matrimoni Moukhles – Sentís i el grup de música A Vore, que actuaran dissabte a partir de les 19.30 h al monestir de les Franqueses. L’informe hidrològic de la CHE podria obrir la porta habilitar, finalment, un alberg juvenil a l’antic Molí de l’Esquerrà. El paer en cap, Jordi Ignasi Vidal, es mostra optimista en aquest sentit tot i que també matisa que encara cal valorar i analitzar l’informe en la seva totalitat Menàrguens arranja diferents camins del terme municipal. Es tracta de camins tant del secà com de l’horta i han suposat un pressupost total de prop de 58 mil euros, subvencionats en part per l’Agència de Residus de Catalunya Sis consells, entre aquest el de la Noguera, assumeixen el transport escolar dels alumnes de nuclis agregats El Govern portarà l’Estatut dels municipis rurals al Parlament a principis del 2023. La proposta té com a objectiu adaptar la regulació del món local a la realitat dels entorns rurals Territori porta la seva aposta per la descarbonització a la Setmana de la Mobilitat que se celebrarà del 16 al 22 de setembre JARC exigeix modificar la llei estatal que prohibeix cremar restes vegetals. L’entitat la considera “inacceptable” i “inassolible” per al sector agrari i demana una moratòria en la seva aplicació Les últimes pluges permetran al Canal d’Urgell tancar la temporada de rec amb reserves. Els pantans de Rialb i Oliana sumen actualment 45 hectòmetres cúbics Un grup d’alumnes de 1r i 2n ESO de l’Institut Almatà de Balaguer ha guanyat un dels cinc premis del projecte Joves pel Demà per crear un bosc comestible al pati del centre Agenda Balaguer Aquest divendres es farà l’activitat Escape room: gestió emocional per a joves. L’activitat es gratuïta i es realitzarà al casal Lapallavacara El museu de la Noguera acull fins aquest diumenge dia 18 l’exposició ‘La Noguera mística, 432’ . Es tracta d’una mostra sobre les ermites que hi ha a la comarca. Precisament el Museu organitza una visita guiada a l’exposició Noguera aquest dissabte a les 12h Agenda comarca La 3a Trobada de plaques de cava i la 1a Fira d’Artesania i col•leccionisme prendran aquest diumenge al matí la Plaça Catalunya de Térmens Montgai celebra aquest diumenge la 12a Trobada d’Acordions. S’hi espera la participació de 18 acordionistes vinguts d’arreu del país Lluçars, poble pertanyent a Vilanova de Meià, celebra la seva festa major. En destaca la recuperació del tradicional dinar de germanor i de la passada de llevants amb la jovenalla del poble Aquest diumenge es realitza la segona de les caminades dels Amics de Tragó de Noguera, amb sortida des del monestir de Vallverd i fins a l’ermita de Santa Llúcia Diumenge es farà el tradicional Aplec de Montalegre per als Balaguerins/es. Es tracta d’un aplec de tradició centenària i que inclou una missa i un dinar popular Esports El Baxi Manresa jugarà contra el Baskonia de Vitòria a la pista del pavelló 1r d’Octubre aquest divendres a les 8 del vespre i amb entrada gratuïta El club esportiu Cansallebres de Vallfogona de Balaguer organitza diumenge la IX edició de la Cursa de la vaca, que ja té les inscripcions tancades en arribar al límit de participants previst Els millors especialistes mundials de gravel participen a les World Series de Ponts. Es tracta d’una prova de bicicleta classificatòria per la Copa del Món, amb distàncies que van des dels 66 als 160 km Aquest diumenge es disputarà la Rogaine de les Salines, una cursa d’orientació a l’entorn de Vilanova de la Sal El Balaguer Comtat d’Urgell organitza els dies 17 i 24 de setembre el quart Memorial Josep Farnell, en record de qui va ser el delegat de futbol sala a Lleida i impulsor de l’Escola de Futbol Sala del Balaguer Comtat d’Urgell El primer equip del Club Futbol Balaguer disputa aquest dissabte l’últim partit de pretemporada al Municipal, a falta de dos setmanes per l’inici de lliga. Serà a les 6 de la tarda contra El CatllarDescarregar àudio (48:40 min / 22 MB)

Divi salokāmie viedtālruņi! Samsung Fold4 un Huawei Mate Xs 2! Abi lieli, abi jaudīgi, abi produktivitātes dzinuļi. Locījām, baudījām un centāmies atbildēt uz jautājumu, vai tie ir parasti telefoni, kas arī lokās, vai joprojām salokāmi telefoni, kas cenšas kļūt par parastiem telefoniem? Noskaidro #DigitālāsBrokastis apskatā!   * Ierīces neatkarīgam un neatmaksātam testam sagādāja Samsung Electronics Baltics un Huawei filiāle Latvijā. Plašāk par tehnoloģiju jaunumiem lasi LSM portālā.

Tehnoloģijas ir neatgriezeniski izmainījušas veidus kā mūziķi rada mūziku un kā mēs to patērējam. Pasaules līmeņa hiti top dzīvojamā istabā. Instruments kļuvis sekundārs kontekstam! Un kādi parametri nosaka to, kāda mūzika dominē TikTok un Spotify? Digitālās mūzikas pasaules noslēpumus atklāj Arnis Račinskis, mūziķis grupā "Laika Suns", dziesmu autors un mūzikas producents, kā arī Latvijas Radio 5 galvenais mūzikas redaktors DJ Makree jeb Mārtiņš Makreckis.   Plašāk par tehnoloģiju jaunumiem lasi LSM portālā.

Kolejna rozmowa z serii wywiadów z naszymi podopiecznymi. Tym razem Agata, manager HR w jednym z wiodących banków w PL i Europie. Bezpłatna konsultacja językowa? Zerknij na stronę mojej szkoły: www.pla-school.pl Plan odcinka: - Kim jest Agata Roziel? - Jak długo Agata uczy się w PLA School? - Problemy Agaty przed nauką u nas - Dlaczego zdecydowała się na naukę w PLA? - Czy z wiekiem trudniej się uczy języków? - Co Agata robi, by uczyć się w sposób przyjemny między lekcjami? - Co się zmieniło w życiu Agaty po nauce w naszej szkole PLA School? - Opinia o nas, PLA School i o naszej mentorce Wiktorii - Problemy językowe managerów w Polsce okiem Agaty - Język angielski w biznesie - co Agata radzi innym managerom? - Używanie angielskiego w biznesie i bankowości - czy jest trudno? - Jakie Agata ma pomysły na przyszłość i jak pomogą jej języki? - Ból brzucha, krzywdy i terror szkół publicznych vs. nasze podejście do błędów - „Daj sobie prawo do błędów, robisz je nawet w języku ojczystym” - 5 interesujących słów od Agaty: 1. (hiszpański) chica - dziewczyna, dziewczę 2. to incorporate - ucieleśnić, wprowadzić, włączyć w coś 3. to trigger - wyzwolić, wywołać 4. it is crystal clear - "to jasne jak słońce" 5. hobby-horse - “konik”, hobby Serdeczności, Stasica www.mateuszstasica.pl www.pla-school.pl

Zinātne ir ārkārtīgi dinamiska nozare, bez tās sniegtā pienesuma mūsdienu pasaulē nevaram dzīvot, bet vienlaikus tā ir mūsu kultūras, tautsaimniecības un izglītības joma, ka prasa ilgtermiņa domāšanu. Vai politiķiem Latvijā tāda ir? Vai izpratne par zinātnes pienesumu un vajadzībām ir pietiekama un vai zinātnes finansējums ir galvenā problēma, kuru jaunajai Saeimai lūdz risināt zinātnieki? Kā jaunie nozares pārstāvji vērtē esošo zinātnes politiku un ko par zinātni saka partiju programmas? Raidījuma viesi: Latvijas Jauno zinātnieku apvienības valdes priekšsēdētāja Antra Boča un Organiskās sintēzes institūta vadošais pētnieks, Latvijas Universitātes profesors Kristaps Jaudzems. Vēlēšanu biļetenu nozīmīgums Vēlēšanu biļetens varētu šķist pavisam ikdienišķs papīra gabaliņš, un pēc viena konkrēta politiskā spēka izvēles pārējie biļeteni bieži vien nonāk atkritumu urnā. Tomēr biļetens ir laikmeta liecība, un tas spēj ietekmēt arī to, kādas izvēles izdara vēlētāji. Biļetenu vēsturei un izmaiņām laika gaitā šobrīd veltīta izstāde Cēsīs, kas vēlāk būs skatāma arī citviet Latvijā. “Vēlēšanu biļetens. Vienkāršs papīra gabaliņš vai varas instruments?” - tāds ir nosaukums izstādei, kas no 14. septembra skatāma Cēsīs. Vienkāršs papīra gabaliņš gan tas nav, biļetenu izmaiņas laika gaitā apliecina pārmaiņas arī sabiedrībā – tā skaidro šīs izstādes kurators no Zviedrijas Makss Valentīns (Max Valentin), ar kuru tiekamies pirms izstādes atklāšanas. Saruna norisinās brīdī, kad Latvijā ir aktīvs priekšvēlēšanu periods, savukārt Zviedrijā vēlēšanas jau noslēgušās, un beigusies arī cīņa starp labējo un kreiso spēku bloku par 349 parlamenta vietu sadalījumu. Bet nu tuvāk aplūkosim vēlēšanu biļetenus, kas ir apliecinājums aizklātām vēlēšanām. Maksam jautāju, vai vēsturē ir kāds atskaites punkts, kad šādi biļeteni tapuši, un, ja tā, tad kādā veidā cilvēki izvēli izdarījuši pirms tam - vienkārši paceļot rokas vai citādi. Stāsta Makss Valentīns. Izstāde ir rezultāts vairāku gadu ilgam darbam, meklējot materiālus dažādu valstu arhīvos, jo vēlēšanu biļeteni parasti nav tie papīra gabaliņi, ko mēs pēc vēlēšanām saglabātu. Vairums biļetenu izstādē skatāmi no parlamentārām vēlēšanām, bet atrodami arī daži piemēri no referendumiem. Izstāde līdz 8. oktobrim skatāma Cēsīs, kultūras namā CATA. No 17. oktobra līdz 13. novembrim tā būs redzama Rīgā, Latvijas Nacionālās bibliotēkas izstāžu zālē, bet no 24. novembra līdz Ziemassvētkiem - Daugavpils Novadpētniecības un mākslas muzejā. Plašāka informācija pieejama Ziemeļvalstu Ministru padomes biroja Rīgā mājaslapā.

Aquest dijous a les 9h en el programa Freqüència Social parlarem del Contracte-Programa dels Serveis Socials; de la campanya que ha iniciat el Consell Comarcal de la Noguera per captar col•laboradors i de la Fira d’Entitats del proper 25 de setembre. Ho farem amb el responsable dels Serveis Socials del Consell, Josep Lluís Bonet; amb l’Anna Solà, treballadora social i tècnica del Pla d’Acció Comunitària Inclusiva; i amb la Sonakai Rozas, tècnica del Punt de Voluntariat i del col•lectiu del poble gitano.Descarregar àudio (38:05 min / 17 MB)

Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

Kodėl nepavyksta apsaugoti žmonių nuo smurto darbe? Tarptautinės darbo organizacijos (TDO) konvencija Nr. 190 dėl smurto ir priekabiavimo darbo pasaulyje panaikinimo, Lietuvoje nėra ratifikuota. Laidoje diskutuoja profesinių sąjungų konfederacijos vadovė Inga Ruginienė ir Seimo socialinių reikalų ir darbo komiteto pirmininkas Mindaugas Lingė.Kaip klausytojai vertina savo kompiuterinį raštingumą, kaip atrodome lyginant su kitų šalių gyventojais? Plačiau šia tema - VDU Informatikos fakulteto Prodekanas Doc. dr. Artūras Mickus.Kai kurie senjorai, dvigubai išaugus medienos kainoms, malkas perka ir išsimokėtinai. Tuo tarpu, Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija teigia, kad šildymo kompensacijos pensiją gaunantiems žmonėms priklauso, nors senjorai apie paramą nieko nežino.Per Europą ritasi nacionalizmo banga. Kodėl vis daugiau palaikymo sulaukia kraštutinės dešinės politinės jėgos, svarsto Klaipėdos universiteto politologė Gabrielė Burbulytė-Tsiskarishvili ir VDU prof. Gintautas MažeikisLRT MEDIATEKOJE startuoja nauja Edvardo Kubiliaus rengiama laida „Nepaprasti žmonės“, kurioje bus daug visokių keistų, jautrių ir linksmų žmonių istorijų.Ved. Darius Matas

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Jeff Engstrom discusses in detail how the Chinese People's Liberation Army seeks to wage modern warfare. China favors a system of systems approach to warfare. They recognize that war is no longer a contest between particular units, arms, services, or even specific weapons platforms of competing adversaries, but rather a contest among numerous adversarial operational systems. Systems confrontation is waged not only in the traditional physical domains of land, sea, and air, but also in outer space, nonphysical cyberspace, electromagnetic, and even psychological domains. Research Question: Jeff believes that students should help assess the  lessons which the PLA is learning from Ukraine and elsewhere, and how these lessons are shaping China's understanding of systems and systems warfare. Resources: Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned #79 Mulvaney on China In Their Own Words Jeffrey Engstrom bio RAND Report: Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People's Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare Col John A. Warden III Warden's Five Rings PRC Defense White Papers 2015: China's Military Strategy 2019: China's National Defense in the New Era China Aerospace Studies Institute Science of Strategy (2020 ed.) Science of Strategy (2013 ed.) Science of Campaigns (2006 ed.) IPA Seeks Authors and Cognitive Security Thought Leaders Link to full show notes and resources https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-113 Guest Bio:  Jeffrey Engstrom is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on Asia-Pacific security and foreign policy issues; China's warfighting concepts and capabilities; coercion theory and use of coercive military force; and military intervention and security cooperation. Before joining RAND, Engstrom was a defense policy analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in McLean, Virginia, where, in addition to researching East Asian military capabilities, he also developed expertise in war gaming. Prior to his work at SAIC, Engstrom served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Engstrom received his B.A. in political science and international studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Com cada 11 de Setembre, la formació ha fet una ofrena floral al monòlit que hi ha a la Plaça de la Vila. La notícia ERC homenatja tots els que han mort o han treballat incansablement pels drets i llibertats de Catalunya s'ha publicat al web de Nova Ràdio Lloret.

Šonedēļ Kuldīgā svinīgi atklāja atjaunotās Adatu fabrikas telpas. Plašā un moderni iekārtotā ēka turpmāk būs mājvieta starptautiskās maģistra programmas Pakalpojuma dizaina studentiem no visas pasaules, arī  Kuldīgas biznesa inkubatoram un Kuldīgas Digitālo inovāciju centram. Telpas būs atvērtas izstādēm un izglītojošām nodarbībām, taču ceļš līdz mājas pārtapšanai un jauna satura radīšanai bijis garš.

Septembra pirmājā Tehnoloģiju šova #DigitālāsBrokastis ziņu topa augšgalā — iPhone atsakās no SIM kartēm, Watch Ultra debija un skaņu slāpējošākas AirPods austiņas. Latvijā radīts militārā automašīnas prototips VR-1 FOX. Hakeri Maskavā radījuši sastrēgumu. Latvijā testē 1Gbit/s ātru bezvadu optisko internetu. Nākamgad iznāks spēles Cyberpunk 2077 papildinājums. Plašāk par tehnoloģiju jaunumiem lasi LSM portālā.

Salokāms datora monitors? Neierobežota lieluma televizors? Salokāms portatīvā datora ekrāns? Pielāgojams sadzīves tehnikas dizains? Nesalaužams gaismas zobens! Tendences un aktuālais tehnoloģijās Arta un Riharda atskatā no IFA tehnoloģiju izstādes Berlīnē. Podkāstu aptauja: https://ej.uz/podkastuaptauja/ Plašāk par tehnoloģiju jaunumiem lasi LSM portālā.

La Paeria de Balaguer treu a licitació el projecte d’ampliació del col•legi Mont-roig, una obra molt esperada sobretot per la comunitat educativa del centre i els pares i mares dels alumnes. La redacció del projecte bàsic, el projecte executiu i la posterior direcció d’obra per l’ampliació de l’escola Mont Roig, de Balaguer, compta amb un pressupost de 175 mil euros El conveni que en el seu dia van signar el Departament d’Educació i la Paeria contempla que sigui aquesta la que tregui a licitació tant el projecte d’obres com l’execució dels treballs. Pel que fa al finançament de les obres, l’acord preveu que la ciutat avanci els diners, 2,1 milions d’euros, que la conselleria retornarà posteriorment en tres anualitats La ciutat de Balaguer celebra la Diada Nacional de Catalunya. L’acte institucional es farà dissabte a l’església de Santa Maria i rememorarà el centenari dels naixements de Joan Fuster, Gabriel Ferrater i Guillem Viladot. Comptarà amb la presència de Pau Minguet i Sánchez, director de Lo Pardal – Fundació Privada Guillem Viladot i comissari de la commemoració del centenari del seu naixement. Participaran el la part artística l’Orfeó Balaguerí, la Companyia de Comèdies Crisi Perpètua, l’Escola Municipal de Música de Balaguer, i la Xemeneia Espai de Dansa. I el diumenge 11 de setembre a partir de les 19 hores tindrà lloc una ballada de sardanes amb la Cobla 11 de setembre a la Plaça del Mercadal, amb la col•laboració de l’associació Balaguer Capital de la Sardana. L’ANC Balaguer organitza novament un bus per assistir a la manifestació de la Diada a Barcelona—Els pares de l’escola Els Planells d’Artesa de Segre porten els seus fills al centre i suspenen la protesta prevista per aquest divendres, després de constatar que el professor que rebutgen no ha assistit al centre en tota la setmana S’ha presentat ‘Treballem per Balaguer’, un projecte independent per les properes eleccions municipals del 2023. Durant la presentació s’ha explicat qui està dins del projecte, perquè l’han iniciat i quin és l’objectiu, al mateix temps que s’ha fet una crida a tots els Balaguerins i Balaguerines a sumar-se a aquest nou projecte D’altra banda, l’agrupació local de Junts per Catalunya a Balaguer ha aprofitat les xarxes socials per acusar el nou projecte electoral Treballem per Balaguer, de ser la marca blanca del Partit Demòcrata a Balaguer. Àger ultima les obres de millora de la carretera dels Masos de Millà per garantir-ne la seguretat. Aquest dilluns s’iniciaran les tasques d’aglomerat i a partir de dimecres hi haurà talls que afectaran als veïns El Departament d’Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural ha arribat a un acord amb els caçadors per garantir la seguretat en les batudes. L’Oficina Jove de la Noguera programa un taller sobre prevenció de conductes suïcides. Es realitzarà avui divendres al casal Lapallavacara i sota el nom de “Troba les ganes de viure”, anirà a càrrec de la psicòloga i psicoterapeuta Cèlia Camarasa La Fundació Marguerida de Montferrato presenta a les 8 del vespre, l’exposició Four elements de Xavier Escribà Castelló de Farfanya inaugurarà avui la restauració i reubicació dels grafits dels avions de la Guerra Civil de l’Església de Santa Maria. Serà dins d’un acte de memòria històrica anomenat ‘Dibuixant la guerra’ Ponts inaugurarà adissabte l’exposició ‘’Prehistart’’ sobre l’art de la prehistòria a la Noguera. Es tracta d’una iniciativa del Museu de Suport Territorial de la Noguera, i que té el suport de la Paeria de Balaguer Aquest cap de setmana celebren la seva festa major: Bellcaire d’Urgell, Térmens, Vilanova de Meià i Ponts Un any més, Balaguer comptarà amb un partit del més alt nivell: Baxi Manresa – Baskonia de Vitòria. Es jugarà a la pista del pavelló 1r d’Octubre el divendres 16 de setembre. Serà amb entrada gratuïta Aquest diumenge onze de setembre tindrà lloc la Cursa de la Diada a Térmens, amb les diverses modalitats que ofereix la competició: la Cursa de 10 kilòmetres, Cursa de Bombers, Cursa modalitat Plogging i Caminada. Cal afegir que aquest any s’incorpora la Cursa de la Milla Descarregar àudio (46:00 min / 21 MB)

Continued BS from DAs, BAs, PhDs and politicians as bodies pile up and questions are unasked or remain unanswered. The truth is slowly seeping out of the dark corners of an even darker world where a cabal of lunatics make their plans. But will enough people wake up? If they do, then what?In this episode, Doug Hagmann comes in hot and exits hotter as he addresses the "all hat, no cattle" stance by even most conservatives.- Fauci & the Binder Bimbo have 20 days to produce their "secret" communications- Gain of Function = weaponization by the CCP- War preps by the PLA against the USON THE GO? SUBSCRIBE TO HAGMANN'S PODCASTiTunes: (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hagmann-report/id631558915?uo=4)Spotify: (https://open.spotify.com/show/376mkckQHCPYTJssQN794g)iHeart: (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-hagmann-report-30926499/)Spreaker: (https://www.spreaker.com/show/hagmann-report)Email: studio@hagmannreport.comFOLLOW HAGMANN AT:Parler: https://parler.com/DouglasHagmannGab: https://gab.com/DougHagmannGettr: https://gettr.com/user/doughagmannTruth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@DougHagmannTwitter: Twitter is garbageNUPRO: https://www.nuprosupplements.com

Gyventojai nerimauja dėl augančių energijos kainų, o internete keliamas pasipiktinimas, esą žmonės apgaudinėjami ir iš tiesų Lietuva gali pasigaminti 4 kartus daugiau elektros, nei jai reikia. Žinute dalijasi šimtai žmonių. Kaip yra iš tiesų? Į šį klausimą atsakymo ieškojo LRT.lt portalo žurnalistė Jurga Bakaitė.Vyriausybė paskelbė taupymo planą. Ar mokėsime taupyti ir priimsime taupymo iššūkius?Energetikos viceministrė Inga Žilienė, Lietuvos savivaldybių asociacijos prezidentas Mindaugas Sinkevičius.Vilniuje pasaulio psichikos sveikatos ekspertai diskutuoja apie visuomenės psichikos sveikatos būklę bei kelius ją gerinti. Vilniaus miesto psichikos sveikatos centro direktorius gydytojas psichiatras Martynas MarcinkevičiusAktualus klausimas. Kaip vertinate tai, kad vyriausybė atsisakė vieno iš pačios siūlytų taupymo būdų – mažinti greitį keliuose taip taupant kurą? Komentuos Žurnalistų autoklubo viceprezidentas, žurnalo „Auto Bild Lietuva“ vyriausiasis redaktorius Vitoldas Milius.Ignalinos atominės elektrinės profesinės sąjungos vadovai tvirtina, kad iš elektrinės ketina išeiti pusė šimto darbuotojų, nes radiacinėmis sąlygomis jiems esą tenka reikia dirbti už 900 eurų. Europos komisija skyrė papildomus finansus algoms kelti, tačiau profesinė sąjunga tvirtina, darbininkams ir specialistams atlyginimai pakelti nuo 8 eurų iki 63, kai tuo tarpu vadovų atlyginimai pakelti nuo 650 iki 950 eurų. Ignalinos atominės elektrinės generalinis direktorius tvirtina, kad profesinės sąjunga sutirštino spalvas tiek dėl išeinančių darbuotojų, tiek dėl atlyginimų kėlimo. Plačiau Asta Martišiūtė.Studijoje Prezidento Gitano Nausėdos vyriausiasis patarėjas, vidaus politikos grupės vadovas Povilas Mačiulis.Beglobiais gyvūnais besirūpinančios prieglaudos susiduria su sunkumais - globojamų gyvūnų vis daugėja, o finansai jų priežiūrai - riboti. Didžiąją dalį jų sudaro žmonių parama, tačiau jos - trūksta. Siekdamas atkreipti dėmesį į beglobių gyvūnų ir jomis besirūpinančių prieglaudų problemas, Palangoje gyvenantis Martinas Kumža leidosi į žygi po šalyje veikiančias prieglaudas, kuriose kiekvieną gyvūną vaišino ir skanėstais. Vaikinas tikisi, kad tokia akcija paskatins žmones nelikti abejingais ir padėti likimo ir taip jau nuskriaustiems gyvūnams. Plačiau pasakoja Paulius Selezniovas.Komentaras – Autorius meteorologas Silvestras Dikčius.Ved. Edvardas Kubilius

Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

Plačevanje, vsakodnevno izkušnjo nas vseh, si vsak predstavlja in privošči po svoje Nekoč, pred niti ne tako davnimi leti, smo plačevali z bankovci in kovanci. Potem je prišla doba udobja in smo račune poravnali s čeki, s karticami, z mobilniki in virtualnim denarjem – kakšno razkošje izbire … A gorje tistim, ki se plačevanju niso prilagodili povsem, in nimajo pri roki vsega, kar nam prijazno vsiljuje finančni sektor. Nekje ne sprejemajo gotovine, spet drugje ne marajo kartic. Nekje si lahko pomagamo z bankomati, drugje samo z ATM avtomati, kjer nas dvig dražje stane. Če se banka tako odloči, nam ponekod ne omogoča dviga desetih evrov iz bankomata, čeprav imamo tik pred plačo še 19,99 evrov na računu. Bomo morali v vse hujši zmedi pri plačevanju najprej vsi postati Mice Kovačeve, da se ne bo vse urejalo mimo nas?

[1:38] Beijing's Goals and Signals[5:43] People's Liberation Army and Advanced Planning[7:20] A New Normal?[11:44] Learning from the Recent Drills[13:58] China's Interpretation of US Response[16:40] Mobilization, Confidence, and Capabilities[26:43] US Congress' Taiwan Policy Act and China's Reactions

18 de desembre del 2011. Banyoles, comarca del Pla de l'Estany. La propiet

Beveik pusė (47%) suaugusių Lietuvos gyventojų (18 metų ir vyresnių) sutinka su teiginiu, kad Lietuvoje yra geros sąlygos auginti vaikus (13% su tuo visiškai sutinka ir 34% greičiau sutinka), rodo LRT užsakymu atlikta bendrovės ,,Baltijos tyrimai” apklausa. Kita pusė mano priešingai. Kokie vienų bei kitų argumentai ? Nevyriausybinės organizacijos Vaikams konfederacija vadovė Elena Urbonienė ir Vilniaus universiteto profesorius Romas Lazutka.Meteorologas Silvestras Dikčius apie savaitgalio ir kitos savaitės orus.Aktualus klausimas. Ar reikėtų atsisakyti rusų kalbos mokymo mokyklose?Komentuoja Švietimo, mokslo ir sporto viceministras Ramūnas Skaudžius.Maistas, būsto išlaikymas, transportas – itin smarkiai piniginę kas mėnesį paploninančios išlaidos. Portalas LRT.lt skelbia naują projektą - „Gyvenu taupiau“ Jo metu žurnalistai pasakoja, kaip galime sutaupyti energijos, pinigų ir laiko. Plačiau apie projektą bei pirmąją jo temą - elektros taupymą, LRT.lt žurnalistas Jonas Deveikis.Vairuotojams – išmani perspėjimo apie laukinius gyvūnus sistema. Lietuvos automobilių kelių direkcija kartu su mokslininkais valstybinės reikšmės krašto kelio Kaunas–Zapyškis–Šakiai ruože nuo 41 iki 43 km (nuo Kauno) šiuo metu išbando naują informavimo apie laukinius gyvūnus kelyje įrangą. Pokalbis su specialistais ir gamtininku.Dainos premjera. Aktorė ir dainininkė Inga Jankauskaitė pristato dainą „Vasaros nebus“.Komentaras. Autorė žurnalistė Rita Miliūtė.Ved. Rūta Kupetytė

Season 2 Episode 49 “3d Printing the real-life Star Trek replicator” Today Chad and Wes talk about their love of 3d printing. Wes and his resin printer have been at it for a couple of years now where Chad just got a PLA printer. We talk about what we have learned so far and the ups and downs of each. We are no experts but be warned you may want to buy a printer after this episode. This episode brought to you by: Smoky Mountain Collector's Showcase  https://www.facebook.com/smokymtncollectorsshowcase/Grab our swag and merch: The Nerdy Old Men Podcast | TeespringSupport the show

Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunk.de, Das war der TagDirekter Link zur Audiodatei

Hennig, Silke;Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

No lāča bēgot, var arī lācim uzskriet! Latvijā dzīvo lāči, savukārt mums jāsadzīvo ar lāčiem. Kas jāzina un kā jāuzvedas, satiekot lāci, un ko jāzina par lāču dzīves veidu un paradumiem, interesējamies raidījumā Kā labāk dzīvot. Par lāču dzīvi stāsta labi lāču pazinēji - Latvijas Valsts mežu zinātnes institūta "Silava" pētnieks, doktors Jānis Ozoliņš, Līgatnes dabas taku vadītāja Inta Lange un Dabas muzeja pārstāve Polīna Šķiņķe. Iemesls sarunai par lāčiem ir ne tikai šo dzīvnieku populācijas pieaugums Latvijā, bet arī fotokonkurss "Lācis – mūsu kaimiņš", kuru kopīgi rīko Igaunijas un Latvijas kolēģi. Fotokonkursā līdz 3. oktobrim var iesniegt fotogrāfijas, kas ataino lāča dzīvi – ne tikai izcilus portretus, bet arī bildes, kurās redzamas meža karaļa darbības pēdas (skrāpējumi, izkārnījumi, miga, pēdu nospiedumi u.tml.) jebkurā vietā dabā. Konkursa rīkotājiem ir interese par visu, kas saistās ar lāci – gan bildes ar lāču mazuļiem, gan lāču papi, gan lāču dzīves dažādās ainas visa gada garumā. Tiek pieņemtas arī fotogrāfijas no novērošanas kamerām, kurās iemūžinātas aizraujošas lāču dzīves ainas. Labāko fotogrāfiju autoriem tiks piešķirtas balvas, tostarp viena nakts „ActivEst” lāču vērošanas slēpnī Alutagusē. Izlases darbu fotoizstāde Igaunijā tiks atklāta oktobra beigās, bet Latvijas Nacionālajā dabas muzejā – novembrī. Plašāk informācija par konkursu, kā arī iespēja iesniegt darbus ir Dabas muzeja mājaslapā. Brūnais lācis ir vienīgais Baltijā savvaļā sastopamais lāču dzimtas dzīvnieks. Tas izvēlēts par šī gada dzīvnieku Igaunijā, turklāt ideju par gada simbolu igauņi aizguva no Latvijas. Kaimiņvalstī gada dzīvniekam veltīts fotokonkurss notiek katru gadu un kļuvis par iecienītu platformu domu apmaiņai. Lai arī Latvijas sabiedrība varētu piedalīties konkursā un dalīties lāču fotomirkļu pieredzē, konkursa rīkošanā iesaistījies arī Dabas muzejs. Lācis ir ļoti uzmanīgs un gudrs dzīvnieks, kas zina, kā turēties tālāk no cilvēka. Daži jaunie lācēni ir drosmīgāki un mazāk baidās no cilvēkiem, bet īstie vecie lāči izvairās no cilvēka un tos var ieraudzīt tikai ar viltību un no speciāli izbūvētiem slēpņiem. Igaunijā ir ap 1000 lāču, tomēr cilvēku, kuri patiešām satikuši lāci, ir diezgan maz. Latvijā to ir vēl mazāk. Dabas aizsardzības pārvalde un citu dabas aizsardzības un izpētes institūciju speciālisti aicina ikdienā un fotomirkļu dēļ sabiedrību būt piesardzīgiem! Fotokonkursa dēļ nepievilināt lāčus, tos piebarojot, piemēram, atstājot ēdienu vai tā pārpalikumus, kā arī nenoslēgtās kompostkaudzēs nemest augļus un dārzeņus. Ja tomēr sanāk sastapt lāci, atcerēties, ka svarīgi ir: • tam netuvoties; • nemēģināt panākt un aiztikt dzīvnieku vai tā mazuļus; • iespējami ātri, bet neskrienot, dodies prom, paturot dzīvnieku acīs; • negriezt dzīvniekam muguru, bet atkāpies atmuguriski. Pēc 2022. gada Valsts Mežzinātnes institūta „Silava” monitoringa datiem Latvijā šobrīd dzīvo ap 60–70 lāču. Jānis Ozoliņš min, ka Latvijā vislielākā iespēja sastapt lāci ir pierobeža ar Igauniju, Krieviju un Baltkrieviju. Aizstāvoties, aizstāvot gan sevi, gan mazuļus, lācis var nodarīt cilvēkam pāri. "Ja tiešām zināt, ka ir liela varbūtība kādā reģionā lāci satikt, varbūt neejiet ogās un sēnēs vienatnē. Vienkārši ejiet divatā, uzvedieties normāli, kā mežā dara, kādreiz sasaucieties. Maizi neēdiet pārāk atklāti uz celma. Janu pēkšņi iekārojas vēl kādam. Nav zināms gandrīz neviens gadījums Eiropā, ka diviem cilvēkiem reizē lācis būtu uzbrucis," norāda Jānis Ozoliņš. Viņš gan min, ka ir bijuši gadījumi, ka lācis uzbrūk vienam, bet otrs iet palīgā. Ja lācis redz reizē vairāk nekā vienu cilvēku, viņš vairs nebūs tik pašpārliecināts.

Ar Michailas Gorbačiovas buvo istorijos herojus, ar nusikaltėlis – apie tai diskutuojama Lietuvos viešojoje erdvėje, tačiau menkiau žinomas faktas, jog paskutinis Sovietų Sąjungos vadovas paskutiniais gyvenimo metais buvo vis labiau smerkiamas pačioje Rusijoje. Istorikai atkreipia dėmesį, kad Rusijos propaganda, kuriai Kremliaus režimas pavedė užduotį šlovinti Sovietų Sąjungos laikus, galiausiai ėmėsi ir istorijos iškraipymo. Apie tai – LRT.lt portalo žurnalistės Jurgos Bakaitės reportažas.Prasideda Europos krepšinio čempionatas. Išskirtinis Lietuvos krepšinio federacijos prezidento Vydo Gedvilo interviu.Daugėja atvykstančių į Lietuvą ukrainiečių. Komentuoja Lietuvos Raudonojo Kryžiaus komunikacijos vadovė Luka Lesauskaitė.Dėl brangstančių dujų, Achemai paskelbus nuo rugsėjo laikinai stabdant veiklą, darbuotojai pasigenda aiškumo. Gresiant sumažėti pajamoms, daugėja svarstančiųjų savo noru nutraukti darbo sutartis. Plačiau tema domisi Kristina Karlonė.Turgavietėse ar prekybos centre surasti Lietuvoje užaugintą gėlę sudėtinga. Didžioji dauguma rožių, tulpių ar šiomis dienomis itin populiarių kardelių atkeliauja iš Olandijos, Lenkijos, nors šių gėlių auginama ir Lietuvoje. Lietuvos gėlių augintojai sako, jog konkuruoti su valstybės remiamais Olandijos gėlių augintojais sudėtinga, tačiau randa naujų būdų surasti lietuviškus žiedus vertinančių pirkėjų. Išsamiau Daumantas Butkus.Aktualus pokalbis. Studijoje Švietimo, mokslo ir sporto ministrė Jurgita Šiugždinienė.Ar pateisino save internetinė prekyba receptiniais vaistais? Pokalbis su Vaistinių asociacijos vadove Kristina Nemaniūte-Gage.Komentaras. Autorius žurnalo „Verslo klasė“ redaktorius Ramūnas Terleckas.Ved. Edvardas Kubilius

Dalis smulkiųjų turgaus prekeivių skundžiasi nebeišgyvenantys. Pavyzdžiui, Marijampolėje prekiaujantys žmonės sako, kad mažai klientų sulaukia net artėjant mokslo metams, kai vaikai ruošiami mokyklai. Kai kurie prekeiviai, teigia norintys darbą pakeisti, tačiau bijo, kad dėl vyresnio amžiaus gali nerasti kito, o ir technologijomis naudotis nemoka. Plačiau Kristijono Brusoko reportaže.Istorinis skrydis prasidės netrukus – didžiausia NASA raketa paruošta kelionei į Mėnulį. Praėjus 50 metų po paskutinės „Apollo“ misijos jos uždavinius pratęs „Artemis“ programa – šiandien planuojamas šios galingiausios NASA sukurtos raketos startas. JAV Nacionalinė kosmoso ir aeronautikos administracija siekia grąžinti žmones į Mėnulį pirmąkart nuo 1972 metais įvykusios paskutinės „Apollo“ misijos, o vėliau – nuskraidinti astronautų į Marsą. Didžiulė 98 metrų aukščio raketa „Space Launch System“ turi pakilti šiandien, rugpjūčio 29 dieną, 8 val. 33 min. vietos (15 val. 33 min. Lietuvos) laiku iš Kennedy kosminio centro Floridoje. Išsamiau apie tai Fizinių ir technologijos mokslų centro astrofizikas dr. Kastytis Zubovas.Lietuvoje pradėjo veikti karštoji linija nuo seksualinio smurto nukentėjusiems ukrainiečiams. Jiems bus teikiamos psichologinės, teisinės konsultacijos. Ukrainoje organizuojami mokymai teisėsaugos pareigūnams, kaip dirbti su karo metu atliktais seksualiniais nusikaltimais. Plačiau apie tai domėjosi Ieva Radzevičiūtė.Aktualus klausimas. Kaip ir kur praleidote šią vasarą? Komentuoja Vietinio turizmo specialistė, projekto „Surink Lietuvą” iniciatorė ir koordinatorė Lina Baublienė.Baltarusiškų cigarečių kontrabandą vagonuose aptinkantis rentgenas jau netrukus bus baigtas statyti. Kolega Marius Jokūbaitis aplankė šį objektą miškuose netoli Kenos geležinkelio stoties ir pakalbėjo su jį statančiais specialistais.Kaip nepriklausomi tiekėjai užtikrins fiksuotą kainą žmonėms, kai biržoje šitaip brangsta elektra? Kokia tiekėjų finansinė padėtis? Ar nebus taip, kad ir daugiau tiekėjų atsidurs ties bankroto riba, nes nebepajėgs įgyvendinti sutarčių kainą užfiksavusiems vartotojams? Dalyvauja trijų elektros tiekėjų bendrovių atstovai.Senstant visuomenei, auga geriatrijos paslaugų poreikis. Iš ES fondų infrastruktūrai ir geriatrijos paslaugų plėtrai yra gauta per 24 milijonus eurų. Tačiau darbus ir plėtrą pristabdė pandemija, o ir augančios statybos bei medicinos įrangos kainos. Kai kurios ligoninės geriatrijos skyrius atidarys jau šią savaitę, pavyzdžiui Alytaus, kitos po Naujųjų. Šia tema domėjosi kolegė Rūta Ribačiauskienė.Komentaras. Autorius Rytų Europos studijų centro vadovas Linas Kojala.Ved. Edvardas Kubilius

This episodes looks at PLA doctrine in 1950 and how it was used to surprise the UN forces on the Yalu River as well as looking at how deception is employed in contemporary PLA doctrine. Check out the show notes for the podcast for all of the information that we cover in this episode as well as the images and other details that didn't make it into the podcast.  

Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

Plaß, Claudiawww.deutschlandfunk.de, Das war der TagDirekter Link zur Audiodatei

Po žmogaus mirties artimieji kartais paveldi ne tik mirusiojo turtą, bet ir skolas, tarp jų ir būsto paskolas. Ką būtina žinoti?Paskutinė diena įmonės „Perlo energija“ klientams pasirinkti kitą elektros tiekėją. Ką dabar vėl daryti?Metų paukštis - Rudagalvė antis – ties išnykimo riba. Kodėl ir kaip keičiasi migracija dėl klimato kaitos?Lietuvoje vyraujantys karšti orai stabdo miško gėrybių supirkimo verslus. Grybų ir uogų supirkėjai Dzūkijoje nuogąstauja, jog šie metai gali būti nuostolingi. Plačiau Paulinos Juškevičiūtės reportaže.Ved. Gabija Narušytė

Army receives swarm drones, eyes light tanks to check PLA, Trump mixed top secret documents with magazines, other items: FBI, Munawar Faruqui's Delhi show denied permission by Delhi Police and other top news in this bulletin.

It's Trash Time For Your Computer - Autonomous Car Crash Kills - Which is better for your car? Buttons or a Screen? - Now we have a Chip Backlog! - Facebook tracking Your Hospital Appointments Hey, you know, it is probably time to do an upgrade on that computer of yours to Windows 11. Or maybe you're going to move over to the Linux world. That's what I did with my older computer. It's running Linux now. Much faster, but there's more to it than that. [Automated transcript follows] I send out my newsletter, my insider show notes every Monday morning. [00:00:22] Usually sometimes it's Tuesday, sometimes it's Wednesday depends on the week. This week I was at a client site over the weekend, actually, and Monday and Tuesday. Down in Atlanta. So I, I was busy down there. This is a DOD subcontractor. They just ship parts, but they are required by CMMC these new regulations I've actually been around for a while now to really. [00:00:49] Keep an eye on their cybersecurity. And so of course they bring me in and my team cuz you know, that's what we do. But I told you that because of my newsletter this week, I got some comments from a few people that the cybersecurity section in my newsletter was two articles from 2015. And , they both pointed it out. [00:01:13] I think it's great that everybody's paying that much attention. I actually, there's a few people that notice that, and it was my fault for not explaining what I was trying to do. And, and that's because I was in a hotel room and I was getting ready to go to the client site and do. Dates fix a couple of things, check the seals on computers and you know, all of those sorts of maintenance things you have to do clean them out. [00:01:38] I brought down a, a little blower and stuff. They, they were amazingly clean cuz we put them in a special cabinet that has these big air filters on them and stuff. Anyhow, the two articles this week on cybersecurity in my newsletter. Well, this is even in the free newsletter. Talked about two different things. [00:01:57] Lenovo was installing software and laptops and they apparently have still kind of done that. This was some years ago, like how seven years ago now, I guess. And they were putting it on there and you had no control over it. Okay. It was a real problem. And then the other one was. About your hard drives and what NSA did for years in modifying the firmware on the hard disk drives of a number of computers, many computers out there. [00:02:32] And in both cases, Lenovo and the NSA, the national security agency put software on the computers so that even if you erased your computers, you would still. Have their software on it, they would reinstall itself and Lenovo has been caught again, doing that. Okay. So there there's articles out there talking about just all of the stuff they've been doing. [00:03:00] So here's what I want to propose to you guys. And I did not make. This clear in the newsletter. And for that, I apologize, I was in a hurry and that was my intention and it just had never happened. Not, but not being in a hurry was my intention. But I, I, I intended to explain this a little bit better and I did on the radio a little bit this week as well. [00:03:22] And I'm doing it right now. My intention is to let you know that for decades now, bad guys have been able to embed malware into parts of your computer. So instead of just the operating system where they might have a. Replaced some sort of a library file. And now when your machine boots up, it's going to pull it in from that library file or one of the many other ways, uh, they, they will go beneath your operating system. [00:03:57] So they'll put things in the boot blocks of your computer. And as we just mentioned here, they will put things in the hard drive itself, not on the blocks of the hard drive, but in the control. Of the hard drive right there on the hard drive's board motherboard, if you will, for the hard drive and they can make it persistent. [00:04:21] Now we've tried to get around some of these problems. Apple came up with the T2 chip and what the T2 chip does is really lock things down on your apple. And that's always a good thing, right? And the apple TTU chip keeps track of passwords and makes things bootable and everything else. And apple has also really kind of spun things out a little bit here with their TTU chip. [00:04:51] They had some security problems. Uh they're in all of the newer apple computers. In fact, the one I use a lot is an older computer that doesn't. That T2 chip in it, but what Microsoft has done now, and this isn't really Microsoft, it's really the hardware vendors. They have something called a TP. And this TPM is there for security. [00:05:16] It's the trusted platform module. You want the version two or better, uh, as they come out, right. Kind of keep it up to date. But the T2, this trusted platform module is kind of like the apple T2 chip. It is nowhere near as. Complete, if you will, as the apple T two chip is, and it's designed primarily for booting your computer, which is really kind of cool. [00:05:47] There's a cute article over a medium. And it's saying that the authors of professor bill Buchanan, the author of this article says, uh, the TPM chip in your computer is perhaps a forgotten device. It often sits there not doing much and never quite achieving its full potential. You bought the laptop because it had one, but you just can't find a use for it. [00:06:09] The chip itself is rather jealous of the applet two chip and which does so much more and where people actually buy the computer for the things it bring. Few people actually buy a computer, cuz it has a TPM, but lots of people buy a MacBook and an iPhone because it is trusted to look after your sensitive data. [00:06:29] And he's absolutely right about that stuff. Now I've got clients who have been buying servers and other computers and the T2 chip has been. Option for them. I think that's probably almost gone nowadays. It is probably added in by default. These things are pretty cheap, cuz again, they don't really do much, but they are now a part of it because of what Microsoft has done. [00:06:58] Microsoft has made it so that you pretty much have to have one of. T2 chip or TPM chips, I should say the TPM 2.0 cuz you know, it's gotta be as good as apples T2 the TPM 2.0, which is a crypto processor so that you can run windows 11. Now, I don't want you to think that having this TPM chip in your computer, all of a sudden makes it safe, but it does do a few things that are very, very. [00:07:28] First of all, it has a random number generator, which is super important when we're talking about encrypt. And that random number generator is used to generate keys that are used for your disc encryption and potentially other things. So if you are encrypting the disc on your windows machine, you are really moving ahead in a very big way, because now if your computer is stolen and it boots up, they won't be able. [00:07:57] At any of that data, it'll all look like random trash. If it's done its job. Right. And it can also of course store the user's password in the chip. It has some what's called persistent memory. I told you all of the stuff because of what I want to tell you next. All of this stuff from Lenovo, from the NSA over the years. [00:08:20] And, and of course the bad guys, whether it's Russia, China, it can be really anywhere. North. Korea's been big on this. Iran's been doing this sort of thing. Uh, All of those guys may well have had access to your computer in the past, if you have an older computer. And because some of this software, some of this malware is persistent. [00:08:44] And because windows now is, as I said, pretty much requiring one of these TPM chips, the TPM 2.0 were better is what you want. I think that it's time to seriously consider buying a new windows computer. Now we're working with a client right now that has an engineer who has been continually upgrading his windows computer since I don't know, windows XP days, I think. [00:09:13] And every time he gets a new computer, he just goes ahead and migrates everything over. Doesn't upgrade. Doesn't update to the newest operating system. And for him, anyways, life is good. Well, it ain't so good folks because he has all kinds of nastiness, little turds. If you will, that are hiding all around his computer. [00:09:37] The registry is going to be scattered with these things. Some of them probably installed by some form of malware over the years, his disc is gonna be cluttered, everything. So I'm saying right now, Get a new computer and go ahead and make sure you reinstall windows. That's the first thing we do. In fact, what we do for our clients. [00:10:01] We have a version of windows that we have updated stream updated, and we don't have any of that bloatware on it. That the manufacturers get their 10 bucks from the various offenders, you know, to put the Norton antivirus and all this other useless stuff on your computer. So by reinstalling, just the windows. [00:10:23] And of course, since it's windows, you gotta install all of the drivers for your computer, too. But by doing that, you're getting rid of all of the bloatware. And then what you wanna do is either copy or restore your files onto the new computer. And then when you're done with that install, Your applications, the newest versions of your applications. [00:10:48] And I can hear people right now complaining, cuz I hear this all of the time. My gosh, I've had that application for 10 years and you can't even get it anymore. Blah blah. You know what? You should not be using that application. You need to get the newest version, or if that vendor's out of business, you need to make sure that you go one more step, find a compatible vendor or whatever. [00:11:12] We have to stop using old computers and old software. Uh, there's options here, but seriously, consider this because of what's been happening to us for years. Hey, visit me online. Sign up for my newsletter, Craig Peter son.com. [00:11:31] Well, autonomous cars are on the road and there was an accident in Germany. We don't have all of the details yet, but it's really concerning. And it's about the anonymous cars. Yeah. Autonomous cars. And, uh, we gotta study out. I want to talk about as well. [00:11:48] There are various levels of autonomy, I guess. Yeah. [00:11:53] That's the right word in these autonomous vehicles that we have and that we're looking forward to level one is kind of the gold standard, right? That's where we want to get. That's where the cars don't even need a churn pedals, your tension, nothing. They just drive themselves. We're not there. And you probably guess that. [00:12:15] And then there's level two where you, the driver's supposed to pay attention, but the car's pretty much going to drive itself. Well, there is an article here from the associated press talking about what happened in Germany. And, uh, this is a few weeks back and this is the first time I've seen this article, but they're saying. [00:12:41] Test car with autonomous steering capability, veered into oncoming traffic in Germany, killing one person and seriously injuring nine others. A spokesman for police in the Southwestern town of Roy. Again said the electric BMW. Nine with five people on board, including a young child swerved out of its lane at abandoned the road, triggering a series of collisions involving four vehicles after brushing an oncoming search, the BMW hit a Mercedes Benz's van head on resulting in the death of a 33 year old passenger in that. [00:13:27] The 70 year old driver, the Cien lost control of her car and crashed into another vehicle with two people on board, pushing it off the road and causing it to burst into flame Ruly. Again, police spokesman, Michael Shaw said four rescue helicopters and dozens of firefighters. Responded to the incident and the injured were taken to several hospitals in the region. [00:13:55] They included the 43 year old driver of the BMW three adults aged 31 42 and 47 and an 18 month old child who were all in the test vehicle. The article goes on, uh, is the police said in a statement, the crash vehicle was an autonomous electric test car, whether it was being steered by the 43, 3 year old driver or not is a subject of investigation. [00:14:24] So this is called a level two driving assistance system. It's already incorporated in production vehicles today. They can support the driver on when the driver turns them on according to BMW with the level two vehicles, the driver. Always retains responsibility. In other words, if that car gets into an accident while you are behind the wheel and responsible for it, it's your fault. [00:14:54] So that solves the problem of whose insurance covers what doesn't it? Yeah, it, it does it. Pretty well, because it's your fault is kind of the bottom line. So we are in the process of investigating the exact circumstances of the crash. BMW said, of course we are in close contact with the authorities. It's it's concerning very concerning and I am not ready yet. [00:15:23] Autonomous vehicles. Now we've seen, and we've talked about on the show before a number of problems with some of these different vehicles from Tesla and others, and they are on the roads in many states right now, even in the Northeast, not just the Teslas, but these fully autonomous test vehicles. And. [00:15:43] There are a number of things to be concerned about here. For instance, how can an autonomous vehicle determine what to do when there's a police officer in the middle of the road or a flagman? Or obviously it really can't determine it because it can't make out. What's what, in fact we might remember, and I'm sure they've made some adjustments here over at Tesla, but a Tesla car went ahead and, uh, struck and I think killed a lady who was crossing the road with her bicycle. [00:16:20] I think she was walking it across when she was hit. So how can they. How can they tell the difference between a car that's wrapped and has someone's face on it, maybe a politician full body on the back of a box truck as an advertisement. How can it tell the difference between that and a person that might be standing there? [00:16:44] It, it gets to be a real problem. We're already seeing that some of these autonomous vehicles go directly rear end fire trucks stopped at the side of the road with their lights on police cars stopped at the side of the road with the lights on just completely rear end them. We're seeing that. So how about when it gets a little more difficult than a fire truck parked on the side of the road? [00:17:10] Now these cars, apparently autonomous steering and, uh, lane detection and correction, all that sort of stuff. These vehicles are looking at things and trying to determine, well, what should I do here? And oftentimes what they determine is, oh, well, okay. That's just something that's fixed at the side of the road. [00:17:30] Like, like a sign post, like a speed sign. When in fact it's not. So we've gotta solve that problem. It, it still isn't solved yet. What caused this car to steer directly into oncoming traffic and, and head first into a Mercedes van? I, I don't know. They don't know yet. Anyways. I'm sure they'll find out soon enough. [00:17:57] There are real questions here. And then I wanna take it to the next levels. If the car is in, let's say level one where it's full autonomous, even if it's not, even if it's a level two, like this car was, or is, uh, what happens when the car is either going to hit a pedestrian or go over a cliff or into a brick wall? [00:18:23] That's even better. Cuz the car might not know the cliff is there. What decision should the car make? What kind of ethics should it be? You know, executing here. Can it even make an ethical decision? And this is the trolley testing in case you're not familiar with the whole trolley test thing. It's, let's say you are. [00:18:47] A trolley operator, you're going down a hill and there is a fork in the tracks. And all you can do is select track set a or track set B you can't stop the trolley. You can't slow the trolley down in track. Set a there's a group of seniors walking across the tracks that you will hit. If you go down tracks at a tracks at B there's, some young kids playing on the. [00:19:16] And if you choose B, you're gonna kill the kids. So ethical dilemma here, who do you kill? Cuz that's what the whole trolley test is about. Look it up online. There's a lot of different variations of this, but what about the car? What decision should the car make? Should the car make the decision to protect you the driver, or should the car be making the decision to protect the pedestrian? [00:19:43] If it's going to protect the pedestrian by plowing into that brick wall and potentially killing the occupants of the car. How about when there is the decision of the old people or the young. There is a lot to solve here. And some of these companies, including Mercedes have come out already with their decisions, Mercedes said they will protect the occupants of the vehicle. [00:20:11] now when you're driving the car yourself, of course, you're making that decision in a, a split second, maybe something you thought about, maybe not, you might make a rational decision. You might not. It's, you know, it's hard to say. And you'll find these articles in my newsletter this week at, uh, Craig peterson.com. [00:20:32] If you're not on the newsletter list, you can sign up. It's absolutely free. This is the free newsletter and you can see all my insiders show notes every week. But it's an issue, isn't it? The car veering into traffic hitting another one head first. How about later on when it's completely autonomous, what should it do? [00:20:58] By now you've seen one of these new cars with that big screen right there in the center of the console. I've got a few problems with this, more than a few problems with you people, right. To quote Seinfeld. Yeah. Let's talk about it. [00:21:15] Right here, you know, it, it's very cool to have that display in the center of the car console. [00:21:21] One of the major reasons that the automotive manufacturers are putting that console right there in the center is because we are demanding, uh, the apple car play the Android car functions in order to have some really cool stuff, right. Where we can just run our. And have all of this, uh, wonderful information. [00:21:47] What I really like about it and Android auto and, uh, the apple car both provide this. What I really like is you can use the navigation system that you prefer, that you like, that you want that's in your. I have switched over to apple maps. Now I used to use ways. And before that I would use Google maps and way before that map quest and, and others, my wife could tell you some stories of us trying to use some of the very first generation GPS stuff, having a, a laptop in the car and then having. [00:22:25] Keep pup on the dashboard to try and pick up at least three satellites. And, and, uh, if you went off course at all, went the wrong way, took the wrong. It would just insist on bringing you back to where you were when you went off course, as opposed to taking you from where you are, to where you want to go, which they do nowadays. [00:22:47] But I like that. Right. And, and I like the new features that are always coming out in these apps that we run on our smartphone. I do not like the fact that the cars have navigation in them. Eh, some of them are pretty cool. They're nice. Like in our car, if you use the in-car navigation, it mutes the music or the radio, whatever is playing on the driver's side speaker there in the front of the car. [00:23:17] And then it gives the driver the direction. So everyone else can just keep listening to whatever they were listening to before on the radio, et. You I'll need features like that. But what I don't like is they wanna get six or 800 bucks out of us in order to get new maps in order to get new software for the mapping system. [00:23:38] When we can get things like apple maps for free. Where they're not even using our data against us, like Google does right Android. Uh, very, very nice. I, I really like them. And the apple maps now is really good. I don't know if you remember how bad it was when it first came out, but Steve jobs brought all of the mapping, senior management into a room and asked them what happened. [00:24:05] Why is it so bad? You might remember that it took some people in Australia. Way off the beaten track out in the middle of nowhere with no water, with no fuel and they could have died out there, you know, Australia, everything's out to kill you and they might well have died and they didn't, which is good news. [00:24:27] But even in the us, it was just messing up. It wasn't very good. Wasn't taking you always to the right place and certainly not the best route. Now it's just gotten amazingly good. Very, very good. So I can choose, right. If I still want to use ways I can use it. If I wanna use apple, I can use it. Google maps. [00:24:45] I can use it some third party. I can use it, but if I've got the stuff that's built into the car, I'm stuck with the stuff that's built into the car, and maybe I can pay to upgrade it. A lot of people have found recently, Hey, guess what? That two G data network went. And that means now that your remote control for your card doesn't work anymore, you might have found your navigation doesn't work anymore. [00:25:13] I remember I had a garment that got live traffic updates, but it was using FM carriers on FM radio stations. And many of them dumped that. guess what your garment's no good anymore. At least that part of it isn't any good and garment charging for map updates. And I don't blame 'em for this stuff. Right. [00:25:33] But I would prefer to have my own device to use. So that's part of the problem. In fact, that's indicative of what I see to be the very big problem with these new in car systems, because that display in the computer behind it. Isn't just handling your navigation. It's controlling your seat, heaters, the radio, the music you're listening to the lights, the dimming, the headlights, almost everything in the car goes through. [00:26:08] Infotainment system, right? Yeah. Figured out where I'm going next. Cuz that infotainment system just like the maps on my car right now is going to become out outdated. And then what are you gonna do? And when I say out outdated, I don't just mean, oh, well I want the new features. It might be that you want the new maps. [00:26:34] Yeah. But what happens when it breaks? This leads us to a study that happened here. A Swedish publication had performed a test. They took 11 new cars alongside an older car, a Volvo C 70 from 2005. Now that Volvo had buttons and knobs, buttons and knobs, I've always liked that. And those 11 new cars all had these wonderful infotainment systems, all in one touch screens in the center of the console. [00:27:11] They tested this whole thing and they timed how long it took people to perform a li list of tasks in each car. So they included things like turning on that seat. Heater, turning up the temperature inside the car, the frost, adjust the radio, reset the trip. Computer, turn off the screen. Dim the instruments. [00:27:35] The old Volvo was the clear winner. . Yeah, indeed. So according to this article in ours, Technica, the four tasks were handled within 10 seconds, flat using buttons and knobs in the Volvo. So in the amount of time it took them to do all of the tasks, the four tasks that they were given out of that selection here, I just read the car, drove a thousand. [00:28:06] At 68 miles per hour. Now most of these other cars with that wonderful infotainment system required twice as long, or even more to complete those same four tasks. So some 30 seconds. So you're talking about traveling two or 3000 feet while you're messing around with that display in the central console. [00:28:34] Looks cool. Isn't this the neatest thing ever, but the problem is you have to hunt and now before you say, oh, well, Craig, these people weren't familiar with that console. Well, yeah. Okay. I'll give you that. But what they did with this test is. They let all of the participants play with the cars systems before they started the tests. [00:28:57] In other words, they knew the menus, they knew where things were and it still took that time. See, what we're really talking about here is muscle memory, the ability for your car or for you to know your. so you can reach out and you can turn that volume knob. You might have to glance real quick to make sure you got the volume knob, but you don't have to hunt and Peck through menus. [00:29:26] I like that. So as you can tell, I am not all that hot on these new, all touch interfaces. BMW has an interesting solution to this and that is that I drive system that little knob people didn't like it at first, but you get used to it, right? So, you know, if you need to turn on the seat heater, you just press a knob up, up right down. [00:29:52] And then TA your seat heater and you get to adjust it right there. That is muscle memory as well. So we've got some work to do here. Uh, there are some decent systems out there in Acura, MDX Mazda, CX 50, neither one of them uses a touchscreen infiltration inform attainment system. So that's good. We'll see how it all goes. [00:30:18] Make sure you're on my newsletter. So you can read this article and more. Craig peterson.com. [00:30:26] We've had a chip shortage. I'm sure you've heard of it. And it's been a real problem for everybody from car manufacturers through PC makers. Well, now we're seeing a sudden downturn what's happening now. The Congress has funded it. [00:30:43] Hey, surprisingly enough. Congress comes along to fix the chip problem with the chip bill, billions of dollars, tens of billions actually being spent on our chip plants here to help the chip industry make more chips, cuz we need chips, chips, chips, right? [00:31:03] Well, ours Technica has a great little article. They're actually taking it from the financial time searched waters. Uh, I subscribe the France for times for quite a while, but I don't anymore. And they're talking about how we went from a boom economy when it came to chips, these microchips, everything from, uh, Intel corporation out through the manufacturers of some of these much more common chip styles nowadays, the arm chips and how this new. [00:31:38] That's supposed to, uh, boost production is coming at a point where, okay, first of all, these manufacturers put billions of dollars into building new plants here in the us of a. So that's a good thing. And then Congress comes along sometime after the fact and gives him tens of billions more. And by the way, managed, and this apparently was Senator Chuck, Schumer's doing managed to remove a provision in the bill that said that none of that money for chip. [00:32:13] Plants could be spent in China. So yeah, there you go. China, you get billions more from us, potentially here as we build chip plants over there. But now what do we find out? Well, a bit of a turn here, because there is now excess inventory. Dan Hutchinson, who is the chief executive V L S I research. Who's been really watching the whole chip cycle since 1980s came out and said, quote, I have never seen a time when we had excess inventory and. [00:32:46] We had shortages. Okay. So the immediate cause of this is a rapid buildup and inventory in the chip supply chain since early the year 2022 here. So compared to February, there are enough chips on hand to support about a month and a half of production. Global inventory levels jumped up even higher and then even higher in July to almost two months. [00:33:13] So that's been an issue. And then on top of it, PC sales have been tumbling. Smartphone demand has dropped, and those have been the main causes as consumers are slowing their spending. Why are they slowing spending? Because they don't have the money they used to have because of the non inflation that's have. [00:33:33] Right now. So we've kind of got all of these things happening and to top it all off, as I said, they're taking tens of billions of dollars of our tax money and, uh, going to be spending it on all of this. It's just absolutely amazing. But the suddenness of this turn, again, according to financial times has, was when Intel stunned wall street with news that its revenue in the last quarter had fallen 2.6 billion. [00:34:02] 15%, which of course was short of what they were expecting on wall street. There. This is really quite amazing. They took an inventory adjustment that only hits like once a decade and Vidia man. They are about to, uh, to really get hit too. I don't, I don't think I talked about this, but. They're the largest maker of these GPUs, these graphics, processing boards, and supplemental chips that are on motherboards. [00:34:32] And a lot of computers used a lot in video graphics, machine learning, and of course, mining of cryptocurrencies and they have seen it fall dramatically 44% fall in these GPUs that have been used for gaming. Bitcoin and, and mining and, and other of these cryptocurrencies and micron, one of the largest makers of memory chip said it's free cash flow was likely to turn negative in the next three months after averaging $1 billion in recent quarters. [00:35:11] Isn't that amazing? So all of these problems have been. Also throughout Asia last, uh, month here over the last month, the chief executive of Chinese ship maker, semiconductor manufacturing, international corporation, S I C said that demand had slowed from smartphone and other consumer electronics makers. [00:35:32] And some of these manufacturers, electronics makers have stopped orders all together. So guess what happens when you do that? Think about what happened with. Down right. That really spurred this whole thing on a month before Taiwan, semiconductor manufacturing company, TSMC, which is like the biggest guy out there for making many of the chips we depend upon said it was expecting an inventory correction that would last until late next year. [00:36:05] So this has been a very abrupt slide. Chip makers in the us are trying to manage this decline at the very moment. They're laying the ground for huge increase in production because of the tens of billions they have spent. Plus the $52 billion bill that was signed into law here. What a month or two ago? [00:36:30] Uh, government support provided by the chips act. So on the same day that Congress passed the law, Intel expected to be the biggest beneficiary of all of these government grants of our tax dollars, sliced 4 billion summits, capital spending plans for the rest of the year. Now isn't that? What happens every. [00:36:52] Really isn't it. What happens every time? For instance, the, uh, build back better plan renamed the inflation causation actor, I think is what they might have called it. Um, that particular bill. Put money in for you to buy an electrical car electric car, like four grand, eight grand kind of depends, uh, across the board. [00:37:14] So what electronic electric car makers do they increase their prices? Yes, indeed. Buy, you know, Six or eight grand as much as 12 grand. Right? Because now we got government money. We don't have to have you pay for it. So we're gonna take a bigger profit and that profit's gonna come from the tax dollars that were taken from you and from me and from the widow down the street, right. [00:37:40] Yeah. That's what happens every time? Why do we have this whole thing about the loans for people who went to college? Well, why is college so expensive? Well, it, it continued to go up as government started providing grants and started backing loans. Right? All of the stuff the government was doing was ultimately driving up the cost of your schooling. [00:38:05] Now they've driven up the. Of electric cars because of the money they put in. And because of the money that they've put in for the chips act the 52 billion to make chips that, Hey, we got a glut right now. Yeah. Um, guess what. The manufacturers of chips, the companies that were spending the money in order to create plants, more plants, more chip factories, fabrication plants have decided they're gonna cut their spending. [00:38:38] Why not? Because they're gonna get money from you at the point of a gun, right? That's exactly what's happening. Oh man. So for now, again, according to the financial times, most chip supply chain experts predict a relatively shallow downturn provided that the global economy is headed first off landing something that's obviously not guaranteed, but it has really left them scrambling, trying to figure out what happened here, because it just fell apart so quickly. [00:39:13] Gartner group, you might know them. They put together a lot of studies on a lot of different industries had been expecting the growth in chip sales this year to have from 2020 ones, 26%. So it took its forecast down further to 7% and is now predicting a 2.5% contraction in 2023. Isn't that something, um, the, the Philadelphia semiconductor index, if you are an investor, you've heard of that before, and that comprises the 30 largest us companies involved in, in chip design manufacturer and sale fell back almost 40% as a stock market corrected this year. [00:39:57] After rising threefold after the early lockdown stock market slump, because people were working from home, they couldn't go in to work. Peop the kids were home, people were buying computers so they could play games or get on a video conference with the office, et cetera. It has really, really changed. Oh, and I mentioned Nvidia and how Invidia's been. [00:40:23] Pretty badly. And you'll find this article by the way, in my newsletter that went out on, um, Monday. And if you don't get my free newsletter, definitely get it to just app to date. Craig, Peter son.com/subscribe. It's it's all worth doing, but within video here's what's happening. One of the biggest cryptocurrencies out there has decided that they don't want to be part of this. [00:40:52] Energy problem that we have, you know, some of these minors for various types of cryptocurrencies have actually bought power plants, old coal PLA powered power plants that the states don't wanna buy power from anymore because it's, it's coal. Right. Kohl's evil. But the private sector came in and said, okay, well, if we run our own power company and we put these GPU's and special purpose made mining equipment into the power plant, we can save a lot of money. [00:41:27] That's how much power they need every. A whole power plant to run some of these mining operations. And remember the way you mine, the cryptocurrencies. In most cases, you have to solve very complex mathematical problems to prove that you did the work. That was needed in order to then, um, be awarded that Bitcoin or whatever it was that you were mining. [00:41:54] So pretty much all of the major cryptocurrencies are looking at how can we move away from this model? Because in, in some cases, you know, we're talking about electrical consumption, just for mining cryptocurrencies that serve passes, some countries entire need for electricity. That's how bad it is. And supposedly here, we've got one of the major cryptocurrencies that is changing. [00:42:24] The entire way you do mining, if you will. Very, very big changes. So expect GPUs and companies like Nvidia that make them to go way down in value here over the coming months. Hey, visit me online. Craig peterson.com. Subscribe to my podcast and find me at YouTube. Take care. [00:42:50] If Facebook, isn't the only company doing this, but there's an article from the markup. They did a study and caught Facebook. This is absolutely crazy receiving sensitive medical information. We're gonna talk about that right now. [00:43:06] This is really concerning for a lot of people. And, and for good reason, frankly, I've been talking about this. [00:43:13] I, I think the first time I talked about it was over a decade ago and it has to do with what are called pixels. Now, marketers obviously want to show you ads and they want show you ads based on your interest. And frankly, as a consumer, if I'm looking for a new F one. I wouldn't mind seeing ads from competing car dealers or, you know, used car places, et cetera, to try and sell me that Ford truck. [00:43:43] It makes sense, right? If I'm looking for shoes, why not show me ads for shoes, but what happens when we start talking about the medical business about the legal business things get murky and people get very upset. You see the way these pixels work is you'll put a pixel, like for instance, a Facebook pixel. [00:44:06] If you go to Craig peterson.com, I've got this pixel on there from Facebook. And what it allows me to do now is retarget Facebook user. So you go to my site to go to a page on my site, and this is true for, uh, pretty much every website out there. And. I know that you went and you were looking for this, so I can retarget you in an ads. [00:44:28] I'll show you an ad. In other words, on Facebook now I've never actually done that ever. Uh, I I'm like the world's worst marketer, frankly. Uh, and, uh, but I do have that on there because it gives me some other numbers, statistics, and, and really helps you to understand how the website's being used, which I think makes a whole lot of sense. [00:44:49] So there are marketers that are using this for obvious reasons. Now, I think you understand what the pixel is. It is literally a little picture that is one pixel by one pixel, and it tends to blend in, I think even in most cases, now these pixels from different. Places like Facebook are actually transparent. [00:45:09] So you, you don't even see it on the page, but the idea is now they have a foothold on a website that doesn't belong to them. In this case, Facebook now has access to information about a website that you visited that has nothing to do with Facebook. okay. So that's the basics of how these pixels work and they're almost impossible to get rid of because in reality, many websites, mine included will even grab graphics from other websites just because you know, it it's, I'm quoting another article I pull in their graphic. [00:45:50] Of course. I'm gonna point to that other site. Why would I take that picture? Put it on my side. I don't own the rights to it. But if he'll let me that other website will, let me go ahead and show that graphic on my website, cuz there's ways to restrict it. If they don't want me doing that, they could stop me from doing it. [00:46:09] Then I I'm going to just go to the original website so they can get the credit for it's their property still. I'm not violating any copyright laws, et cetera. Does that make sense to. So what's the difference between the Facebook pixel and a picture I'm pulling from another random website? Well, the obvious thing is it's coming from a Facebook domain of some sort. [00:46:31] So, so there are ways to stop it, but there's just as many ways to get around stopping it, frankly. Well, Let's move on to something a little more sensitive. We have had problems that I reported on years ago of people going to an emergency room in a hospital. Now, when you're in that emergency room, your phone has GPS capabilities still. [00:46:57] It knows you went in the emergency entrance to the hospital and you are. Opening it up. Maybe you're looking around, maybe you're reading articles, maybe you're plotting your trip home using Google maps. You are being tracked depending on what apps you have on your phone. If you have an Android versus an iPhone, what you've enabled, what you haven't enabled. [00:47:20] Right? All of that sort of stuff. well, this now has become a problem because as I reported there have been people who went to the hospital, went to the emergency room and started seeing ads from what you might call ambulance, chasing lawyers. Have you been injured? Is it someone else's fault? Call me right now. [00:47:45] Do he cheat him in. if that sort of thing showed up on your phone, would you get a little upset, a little nervous saying, what are they doing, trying to cash in on, on my pain, maybe literal pain. And it's not as though those ads are just showing up while you are in the emergency room, because now they've tagged you. [00:48:06] They know that you are in that emergency room. So off they'll. They will go ahead and track you and send you ads even after you leave. Hey, I wanna remind you if you want to get this, uh, this week's list of articles. I, I put out every week, my insider show notes. It has become very popular. Thousands of people get that every week. [00:48:32] Go right now to Craig peterson.com. I'll also send out a little bit of training. I do that. I have special reports. I send out. I've got more stuff I'm doing, but you gotta be on the email list. Craig peterson.com to get on my free email list now. What's happened here now is markup went ahead and looked at Newsweek's top 100 hospitals in America. [00:48:56] They went to their websites and they found about a third of the hospitals using what's called the Meel. That is the Facebook pixels referring to earlier. So it sends a little bit of data. Whenever someone clicks a button to let's say, schedule a doctor's appoint. Why does it do that? Well, because the Facebook pixel is on the scheduling page. [00:49:24] Let's say there's scheduling page for oncology on the website. I guess who knows that you are going to see an oncologist? Facebook? Why? Well, because the hospital has put a Facebook tracking pixel on that page. So Facebook knows, Hey, he was on the oncologist page. Maybe he has cancer. I should start showing him ads from other hospitals and from cancer medications, et cetera. [00:49:51] Cetera, that is happen. Right now, 33 of these top 100 hospitals in America. Th these are the top 100, according to Newsweek's list. Have that information. Now that data is connected to your internet. Address. So it's kinda like your computer's mailing address and they can link that back to usually to a specific individual or to a household. [00:50:20] So now they have a receipt of the appointment request. that's gone to Facebook now. They don't have everything you filled out on the page or anything, you know, you added in your social security number, maybe other medical information. Facebook didn't get all of that, but they do know that you visited the hospital's website and which pages you visited on that website. [00:50:47] So markup went ahead and contacted these hospital. So, for example, John John's Hopkins hospital, they did find a Facebook pixel tracking on the appointment, scheduling page. They informed John's Hopkins of how that is a leak of personal information. And after being contacted by the markup, they did not remove the track. [00:51:18] also, by the way, when the markup reached out to them, the hospital did not respond UCLA Reagan medical center. They had of course a pixel and they did remove it from the scheduling page. Although they declined to comment, New York Presbyterian hospital, all these hospitals have that pixel and they did not remove it. [00:51:40] Northwestern Memorial hospital. Again, they got the tracking pixel did not remove it after they were informed about the security problems, duke university hospital, same thing. Most of these, by the way, did not respond to them. University of Pennsylvania, Houston Methodist hospital, the university of Chicago medical center. [00:52:02] Uh, the last two of those did remove the pixel. Uh, Scripps Memorial hospital out in LA JOA, California. There are many Brigham and women's Faulkner hospital. They were informed that they had the tracking picture pixel on the, on the, uh, scheduling page. They did not remove it, but you know, the time of this article, a Tufts medical center, same thing did not remove it, uh, out in Sanford in San Diego. [00:52:29] Same problem. John's Hopkins Bayview medical center, John Jefferson health, Thomas Jefferson university, hospitals, Loyola. These are big name hospitals. I'm looking at these that goes on and on sharp Memorial hospital, Henry Ford hospital. Uh, let's see some more, I'm trying to, oh, Massachusetts general hospital. [00:52:51] They did not have the tracking pixel Brigham in women's hospital, no tracking pixel on the scheduling page. So some of these hospitals were already doing it right. They re they recognized that putting this face. Pixel on may help them with some of the marketing and understanding the market a little better, which is what I do, but it's also giving personal information, personal health information to Facebook and Facebook's advertisers. [00:53:23] So they didn't put it on so good for them. Again, mass general Brigham and women's, uh, Sanford Mount Sinai, university of Michigan hospital and, and others, of course. So very good news there in general. Again, don't be worried about a pixel on just a random website because it probably is being used to help with stats to know what's being used on the website. [00:53:49] And maybe, maybe just maybe using it to send a little ad to you on Facebook later. Of course, you're listening to Craig Peter son. You can get my insider show notes for absolutely free. And my little mini trainings. Oh three to five minutes every week@craigpeterson.com. Just sign up on the homepage. [00:54:14] You know, I've got it on my homeowner's policy. I have a special business policy for it. And it's something that you should seriously consider, but you need to understand first. So we're gonna talk about it. What is cyber insurance? Uh, that's what's up now? [00:54:31] Cyber insurance is something that many businesses have looked at, not all businesses have, which is kind of crazy. If you ask me according to the industry statistics right now, less than 1% market penetration for cyber insurance and is expected to. [00:54:52] Into a $20 billion industry by 2025. That is some serious money. So what is this cyber insurance? For instance, there's a rider on my home insurance for, for cyber insurance and I have special cyber insurance from a big company underwritten, but it is for anything that happens. In my business, that's related to cyber security and it also covers my clients because that's what we do for living is cyber security. [00:55:28] If they are following our guidelines. So it's pretty darn cool when you get right down to it, because these risks that we have in the digital world are really every. So if you're a large organization, if you're a small little enterprise, are you going to get hacked? You know, bottom line, anybody could potentially get hacked because the bad guys have gotten pretty good. [00:55:56] And most of us in business have gotten pretty lackadaisical because of all of this, but not everybody understands when we're talking about cyber insurance. What does cyber mean? Well, the idea is that cyber insurance is created to protect organizations and individuals against digital risks. So we're talking about things like ransonware malware fishing campaigns. [00:56:24] So for instance, I got a call just this week from a listener who again, had their operating account, emptied out, hate it. When that happens. And so they lost everything. They lost all of the money in the account and they're trying to get it back. I got an email this week and, uh, from a lady that I, there's not much I can do for her. [00:56:46] I pointed her in the right direction, but her father, I think it was, had his digital wallet of cryptocurrency completely emptied, completely stolen. Can you believe this sort of stuff, right? It's happening every day. You might have insurance that covers that, but you might not. Traditional insurance policies are only looking at physical risks, so they will take the physical risk things like damage to equipment, or maybe you have livestock or you have stock and inventory, a building different locations. [00:57:29] That's your standard stuff. But cyber insurance is to allow businesses to transfer the costs associated with recovery from the losses incurred when there's some form of cybersecurity breach. Now that's a pretty big deal. because the losses can be huge. It isn't just ransomware where maybe it, it costs you a million dollars in ransom payments. [00:57:58] Or if you're an individual, a retiree, maybe it only costs you 25,000 in ransom payments. And I know that's a lot, especially for retiree. But there is loss of reputation. There's loss of business, cuz you couldn't conduct business cuz you couldn't use your computers. Right? All of that sort of stuff. You got people that you have to bring in, you have to bring in a special team to try and recover your data. [00:58:23] Maybe try and figure out what had happened. Right. All of that sort of stuff. So be careful cyber insurance, a lot of people kind of mistake it for policy that pays off. Attackers to retrieve or unlock data. That's not what it's really for cyber insurance is something that allows you to, I guess the term in, in the industry is transfer risk when your online security controls fail and. [00:58:52] Basically all of them could fail. It, it, it depends, right? If you're a huge company, you can hire a bigger team for a security operation center, but at the same time, you also have more employees that are causing more problems. So look at it entirely business interruption, payments to experts to recover the data. [00:59:14] Compensation for bodily injuries, uh, depending obviously on the resulting damage and the particular policy and the rates are gonna vary based on the maturity of your cyber defenses. So this is something that I've been big on for a long time, the cyber security maturity CMMC and what that helps 'em to determine is. [00:59:39] What are your rates gonna be? So if you went out and you're just using the cable modem that they, that the, uh, company, your cable company provided for you, or you go to a big box retailer, and that's where you bought your firewall and switches, and you've got your wonderful little Lenovo PCs or Dows or whatever, and you're running, uh, Norton antivirus. [01:00:04] You are not well covered. You are not very mature from a cybersecurity standpoint. The other thing you need to be able to do is make sure you've got your asset management all in line, that you have policies and procedures in place for when things happen. You gotta have it all put together, but the average cyber insurance policy for a small to mid-size company in 2021 was about $1,600. [01:00:31] For $1 million in cyber liability coverage. Now that's not really bad at all. Now there are limits to what the provider will pay. They will often, if you do get nailed, They'll come in and double check that, everything that you said, all of those boxes that you checked when you were applying for your cyber security insurance, make sure you actually did all of them. [01:00:59] Okay. Yeah. Kind of a big deal. And you not only will they not pay out, if you didn't do everything that you said you were going to be. but the other problem is you might end up getting sued by. Okay. So expect a counter suit if you decide to soothe them. So don't lie on those fors people. Okay. All right. Um, cyber claims, unlike non-technical events, like again, a fire flood storm damage, the cyber insurance claim might be determined by means of attack and your ability or your effort to prevent it. [01:01:40] As I was saying, make sure you've got the checklist and this is something I think I, I should probably put a course together on to help you guys with, or maybe even a little bit of consulting for people. Let me know, just send an email to me, me@craigpeterson.com. And uh, if you're interested in more info about cyber insurance, you can either look at this week's newsletter that you can. [01:02:04] By again, going to Craig peterson.com and a link to this particular article I'm looking at, or you can tell me, Hey, listen, I'd love a little course or little support, a little help. Okay. I think it makes a lot of sense. So does your business qualify for cyber insurance? Well, some do some don't, uh, you might not see yourself as a target. [01:02:27] For the bad guys, but I'll tell you, my 85 year old father was conned by some of these cyber attack guys. Okay. And he doesn't have much money. He, he's not the bank of, uh, England bank of America. None of these big banks or anything. Oh. Is a retiree living at home trying to make ends meet. So the same, thing's true for you as a business, you as an individual. [01:02:57] You are vulnerable most likely to a cyber attack, but you've got to really manage your risk posture. You gotta do things, right. So that's the bottom line there. That's what we try and help you do. But you can find information about this again, you can just email me, me, Craig peterson.com and ask for the info on cyber insurance, or if you're already a subscriber to my newsletter. [01:03:23] That went out Tuesday morning. So just check your mail. Maybe it's in the spam box from Tuesday morning and you'll find a lot more information linked right from there. Craig peterson.com stick around. We'll be right back. [01:03:41] There are a lot of complaints about how some of these cryptocurrencies are very non green using tons of energy. And now the prices are going down. We're seeing a number of really weird things happening. [01:03:57] Cryptocurrency, as you probably have heard, has taken a tumble. Now, some of the cryptocurrencies, particularly of course, someone you might know most is Bitcoin use a lot of computing power. [01:04:11] You see, what they're trying to do is basically solve a very complex mathematical problem. And in order to do that, they need a lot of computing. Now you can certainly run it on your little desktop computer, that program to compute those things. It's called mining. So you're mining for Bitcoin. You're, you're trying to solve these mathematical problems and there's a theoretical limit to how many Bitcoins could actually potentially be mind looking right now. [01:04:45] They're saying that circulating Bitcoin right now. Is about 19 million Bitcoin that are out there. And Bitcoin is worth about $20,000 right now, down from its huge, huge, huge high. That was, uh, more than two and a half times. What it's worth right now. So, how do you mind? Well, if you take that computer and you run the software, it's gonna do some mining and it is probably going to cost you more in electricity nowadays to mine. [01:05:21] One Bitcoin than that Bitcoin is worth. In fact, it certainly will cost you more. Now. That's why the people that are professional Bitcoin minors have taken a different tact and what they've done. Is they found places where they can get cheap electricity. For instance, Finland, where they're using geothermal produced electricity. [01:05:46] They're also using the cold air outside in order to cool down. The computers themselves as they're trying to compute this, but there's another thing that they've been doing. And that is well, how about we buy a coal plant? That's been shut down and that's happened. So they take that coal plant. They bring it back online. [01:06:08] They burn the coal, they produce electricity at a cheaper rate than they could buy it. but behind all of this is the computing power. And what miners found a long time ago is it's better to have thousands of compute units working on solving these problems than it is just having. I don't know how many CPUs are in your computer. [01:06:32] Four. Com, um, CPUs. How many? Well, I, how far can you get with those? Yeah, they're fast, but we need thousands of computers. So what they found is that GPU's graphical processing units. Kind of met their goals. You see a GPU is actually composed of thousands of computers, little compute units. Now they can't do real fancy math. [01:07:01] They can't do anything particularly fancy. They're really designed to move. Pixels around on a screen. In other words, they're designed to help gamers have a nice smooth game while they're playing. They can be used. In fact, they're used all of the time in desktop computers, just for regular display of a webpage, for instance, or if you're watching a video, all of that is part of what they're doing. [01:07:30] With graphic processing units. And if you've been paying attention, you probably have noticed if you particularly, if you're a gamer that the price for GPUs has gone way up, not only has it gone way up and it isn't just due to the lockdown and the supply chain problems. but they're very, very, very hard to get now. [01:07:53] Yeah. Some of that is due to supply chain problems. No doubt about it. But most of these GPUs, according to some of the numbers I've seen, have actually been bought by these professional mining companies. In fact, many of them have gone the next step and they have what called custom silicone. These are completely customized process. [01:08:19] sometimes they're using Asics. Sometimes they're using other things, but these custom processors that are really good at solving that problem that they have to solve in order to mine, a bit Bitcoin or one of these other currencies. So you, you see how that all works. There's a number of GPU manufacturers and something else interesting has happened because of the drop in value of pretty much all of the cryptocurrencies. [01:08:51] And that is these GPS are going byebye. Right. Do does a company that is now no longer trading. That's no longer operating. Uh, we've seen at least two of these crypto mining companies just completely disappear. So now all of their hardware is going up for sale. You'll find it on EBA. So I, I wanna warn you, if you are looking for a GPU of some sort for your computer, maybe if you're a gamer, be very, very careful. [01:09:28] We've got a buyer beware situation here because you're not just buying a GPU. A graphics processing card, uh, that has been lightly used. It was sitting in a terminal. Maybe it's a GPU. Like I use them where, when I'm doing video editing, it does use the GPU, even some of the audio editing. It uses the GPU. [01:09:50] I'm looking at it right now and I've got some, uh, GPU utilization going on. I've got about, uh, 6% of my GPU in use right now on this computer. So. What the problem is is that these minors who are selling their old GPUs have been running them full Bo 24, 7. That's hard on anything. Isn't it. So what, uh, what's happening here is that you are seeing a market getting flooded with GPUs. [01:10:25] You really don't wanna. All right. Does that make sense? Uh, you know, there we've lost more than 50% this year already in some of these, uh, cryptocurrencies that are out there coin base has had an interesting year Celsius, a major cryptocurrency bank, suspended withdrawals, uh, just here in the last few. [01:10:52] Coin based crypto exchange announced a round of layoffs. Also here, they paused their hiring a month or two ago. It it's not going very well and prices for new and used graphic cards are continuing to fall. The peak price was late in 2021, a little bit early in 2022, but now you can go to Amazon new egg, best buy and buy current generation GPUs for prices that really would seem like bargain six months ago. [01:11:26] And pricing for used GPUs has fallen even further, which is the caveat Amour URA thing here that I'm warning everybody about. You need to proceed. With caution. So there's a lot of scams, a lot of bait and switches. You know, that's been kind of normal for some things over the years on eBay. I'm afraid, but I've had pretty good luck with eBay, but any high value eBay purchase CPUs have been mining cryptocurrencies at full tilt for months or years have problems in new GPU. [01:12:02] Would not have had, you know, this heat that they generate, the dust that gets into them, that the heat is messing with can really degrade the performance and degrade the usage of that GPU here over time. Dust can also, uh, cause problems with the thermal paste that's in them could be dried out thermal paste because of the heat and that causes them to crack and causes other problems. [01:12:30] So if you buy a used GP that looks dirty or runs hot, removing and cleaning the fan and heat sink, reapplying, fresh thermal paste. Could potentially restore loss performance, and maybe you can even get that new Sony PlayStation because GPS are becoming available. Again. Visit me online Craig peterson.com and get my weekly insider show notes right there. [01:12:59] Self-driving is relatively new technology. And, uh, our friends at Tesla just fired an employee who posted videos of a full self-driving accident. Uh, he's done it before. [01:13:15] Tesla has a very interesting background. In fact, Elon Musk has gotten more interesting over time. [01:13:23] And particularly lately the stuff he's saying, the stuff he's doing, but his companies have really made some amazing progress. Now, one of the things that Elon did pretty well pretty early on was he decided he was going to start selling. A self-driving feature for his cars. And back in the day, you could buy it. [01:13:49] This was before it was ready at all for, I think it was 5,000 and, uh, it was good for whenever they came out with it. And then it went up to 7,000 and then I think it went to 12,000 and now it's you pay him monthly, but in reality, There are no fully self-driving qualified Teslas on the road today. It will be a little while before that happens. [01:14:19] So this ex Tesla employee by the name of John Burnell is quoted in ours Technica saying that he was fired for posting YouTube videos about Tesla's full self-driving beta. Now this is called F S D. And if you know, Computers, you know what beta is? Beta means, Hey, you know, should work, could work, probably has some problems. [01:14:44] And that's exactly what it is. Now. Tesla told California regulators that the full self-driving beta lacks true autonomous features. And that's probably how they got by getting with putting this car on the road, these cars on the road. So this ex employee. Says that Tesla also cut off access to the full self driving beta in the 2021 Tesla model three that he owns. [01:15:17] Now. He said that he paid for it. He had it legitimately, and yet Tesla cut him off from, and I guess. Anybody can try and sign up for it. I don't know all of the details behind getting that beta code. If you wanted to, you probably could investigate a little bit further, but the video that he posted on February 7th provided a frame by frame analysis of a collision of his Tesla with a Ballard, a a Ballard. [01:15:48] Those are those stanchions, those, uh, cement pillars. They usually have. Plastic on the outside that you'll see, you know, protecting sidewalks or in this case it was protecting a bike lane in San Jose. So he said, no matter how minor this accident was, it was the first full self-driving beta collision caught on camera. [01:16:13] That is irrefutable. And he says I was fired from Tesla in February with my U YouTube being cited as the reason why, even though my uploads are for my personal vehicle off company, time or property with software, I paid for. And he has a, um, channel called AI addict that you can find over there on YouTube if it hasn't been taken down yet. [01:16:38] Right. Uh, he said that he got a notice that his full self-driving beta was disabled be based on his recent driving data, but that didn't seem to fit because the morning I got fired, he says I had zero proper use strikes. On my vehicle. So yeah, I, I can't say as I really would blame him, uh, him being in this case, Elon Musk for firing this guy, but it's an interesting little video to watch. [01:17:08] It's like two and a half minutes. You'll see. And it, the guy has his hand on the steering. Well, and the car is steering. Itself down the roadway and there's no other traffic really on the road. I don't know when this was like a, a Sunday or something, but you can see on the screen, it is detecting things like the, the little, uh, construction pillars that are on the side of the road. [01:17:36] And he's in a left. Turn only lane and his Tesla turns, left the steering. Wheel's kind of going a little back and forth, right? As it tries to make up his mind what it's going to do and he's driving down, he just passed a ups truck. Although I would not have passed personally, the way he passed, which is the. [01:17:56] The car decided it was going to, um, get closer to that ups truck. I, I would've purposely gone further away. And then what happens is he goes around another corner where there's some Ballards. That are in the roadway. And of course the idea behind them is so the cars don't go in and accidentally strike a cyclist. [01:18:20] But around that corner where there is a crosswalk crossing the street, there's no Ballard. So people don't have to kind of get around them. And then the Ballards start off again. So the Tesla got kind of confused by this and looking at the screen, it doesn't show the, these Ballards. Being recognized. So the driver of the car grabs the stern wheel takes over at the very last second, but did actually hit the Ballard. [01:18:52] Uh, no two ways about it here. He hit it and the car is stopped and

Episode Notes Episode summary Andre and Margaret talk about a lot of things. They talk about recycling/reusing/remelting plastics, turning them into fuel, setting up solar power systems, setting up DIY internet, intranets and mesh networks as well as some concepts dealing with solar punk and hydroponics, and of course how most things can be easily analogized to baking a cake. Guest Info Andre can be found at www.anarchosolarpunk.substack.com, or on Twitter @HydroponicTrash or on TikTok @HydroponicTrash. Host Info Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Andre on Solar Power, DIY Internet, Mesh Networks, and Solar Punk Margaret 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret killjoy. And I use 'she' and 'they' pronouns. And I am very excited about this week's episode, which I guess I probably say, most weeks. But, I'm excited to be talking to Andre, who is someone I first ran across his work because someone was just I think someone sent it to me or was showing me these, these pictures of someone who had 'hydroponic trash' as the user name, and was talking about making off grid internet through mesh networking. And I was like, "Yeah, this is up my alley," but not my alley that I've actually explored. It's a alley that I'm interested in. So I'm very excited. I think you all will be very excited. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show in the network. 01:45 Jingle Margaret 02:23 Okay, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then maybe kind of a little bit about yourself about the kind of stuff that we're going to be talking about today. Like how you got into it or what you do? Andre 02:34 Yeah, for sure. My name is Andre, my pronouns are he/him. I go by Hydroponic Trash on Twitter and Tik Tok. I focus a lot on upcycling things that people would normally kind of regard as like trash, like recycling plastic containers to make indoor vertical hydroponic gardens. I'm a hacker, a gardener, a woodworker, I kind of tend to do a lot of random shit. So. I also write speculative solar punk fiction on combining technology, both low and high tech, with social change, and balancing that with the ecosystem. With that being said, I've been also kind of focusing in on infrastructure, and how people can build passive and active systems to meet their basic needs like food, water, shelter, communications, electricity. Right now, what that kind of looks like is making off grid intranet networks, off grid solar power, and some other passive projects that kind of deal with DIY off grid stuff. Margaret 03:47 Yeah! You basically just listed all of my interests. This very exciting to me. I'm going to ask at the end of the episode as well, but do you want to say where people can find like, say, for example, your speculative fiction, like, I know that you write about a lot of the stuff that you do, and you also write fiction. Where can people find that? Andre 04:03 Yeah, so mainly, I post my long form stuff on anarchosolarpunk.substack.com. So mainly post my like, long form writing on Substack. But, I post a lot of written form content and other stuff to my Twitter, HydroponicTrash and Tik Tok, I posted videos whenever I can make videos about a whole bunch of various different topics or projects that I'm working on. Margaret 04:29 That's cool. Okay, so I was gonna start with off grid internet. But first, I want to ask you about recycling plastic trash, because I'm really excited about ways to...recycling is like fake, right, these days, you know, like market based recycling? It seems like most, I don't have the numbers in front of me or whatever. But it seems like more and more if you put something in the recycling bin, it just gets thrown in the landfill. And so I'm really excited about ways that people can directly recycle. So, what does that look like that you're recycling plastic trash. Is this like melting it down? Or are you just like repurposing it or what's happening? Andre 05:03 So, at the moment, it's mostly repurposing, but I am going to start doing actual plastic recycling by melting it down and making it into other objects. But um, so right now repurposing plastic, it really started when I, like, just saw how many plastic containers there were just out in the world, I've been picking up trash in like my local park for a little bit. So, while picking up trash, it was like, it makes you really, really aware of the type of pollution that's out there in the world, because you're picking it up out of like waterways and in parks and stuff. So. it got me thinking of like, okay, well, plastic to-go containers, for instance, how do we actually like reuse these types of things. So, what I started doing was taking old Tupperware, that was just kind of sitting in my cabinet, sitting in my kitchen. And I drilled holes for it to put in net cups, which are usually used for hydroponics, and I just started growing plants in it. So trying to find some creative and different ways to not only like reuse plastic in a safe manner, but not only to reuse the plastic, but to find a new use for it. So that way, it didn't just end up going into the landfill. And it was also kind of doing something productive as well. Margaret 06:24 Yeah. Yeah, I, I got really excited when I, I people think people might have already heard me talk about this, but I'm really excited about the idea of basically like, setting up mutual aid recycling in the same way that I think that neighborhoods can compost with each other. Like, some of the infrastructure, it seems like is better put at a neighborhood level, like a small community level than like a, you know, an individual level. But I'm curious when you start repurposing it....Okay, so the things that I've come up with for plastic--I haven't done any of these things.This is all just me falling down rabbit holes on YouTube and stuff.--The main things is people taking certain kinds and making DIY 3D printable plastic. Other ones are like literally just melting it down and putting it into forms and molds. And then the one that I'm like, kind of the most excited about, although it's sort of terrible is that apparently you can make diesel fuel out of plastic DIY? I don't know, like, what do you? What are your aspirations? Or what are you thinking on for your DIY recycling? Andre 07:22 So, all of that pretty much entire, all the stuff that you just said, is pretty much what I want to do. So I'll go into some more repurposing stuff and talking about specifically about additive manufacturing and recycling inputs into stuff. So yeah, like, recycling, plastics is a really big thing. So recycling PLA plastic or recycling...there's a whole bunch of plastics that will melt and be able to remelt that you can make in certain different things. And I think that recycling plastics specifically for 3d printing is going to be kind of like the next frontier of additive manufacturing, because not only are you taking plastics...so say, for instance...it's a full cycle...So, we could be not only cleaning up the environment of plastic waste, but using that plastic and re-melting it down and making it into new objects, when otherwise that plastic would have just been floating in some water in a creek or sitting, you know, not deteriorating in a landfill. Margaret 08:29 Yeah. Andre 08:30 And so from there, it kind of opens up a whole new space of thinking about the things that we use and thinking about manufacturing in general, because we're moving away from mining the earth and using natural resources and exploiting the natural resources to make the inputs for the stuff. And instead, mining the trash and mining the stuff that we've that we've thrown away and regarded as trash and mining that. So, I kind of think of it as like a closed loop, circular ecosystem of removing trash from the environment, repurposing it. And then not only that, kind of changing our social relations when it comes to how we deal with objects, changing our conceptions of things of like disposability, changing our conceptions of how we treat objects, and moving away from disposal into like modularity or repurposing stuff. So yeah, I think it's really interesting to think of it in that way of like, instead of making these new things, taking what we've already polluted the earth with and making things out of that. Margaret 09:45 Yeah, no, this is...I'm just gonna basically over and over be like, "Yeah, this is this is my alley. This is the shit that I love." Yeah, one of the things that I notice is that, you know, from living off--I don't currently live off grid, but I've spent a lot of my time living off grid--is you start noticing every single object that comes into your purview, right? Because 'what are you going to do with it at the end?' becomes this very important thing. If you don't have trash pickup, if you don't have a way to just easily make the thing go away, then you have to be like, "Okay, I'm going to compost this, I'm going to, you know, compost that." I was just thinking of cardboard. And I was like, "Oh, I used to burn all my cardboard, but I'm gonna try and move to composting it," you know. And, you know, just like thinking, "Okay, I'm responsible for all of these objects, I've chosen to caretake." And this isn't me trying to be like, "Oh, recycling is gonna save the world," or whatever, because it's like, but for me, it's more about when we think about when we start thinking of small scale systems, based on all of the things involved, I think that puts us in a better position to imagine better futures. Because we actually have to think to ourselves like, "Well, if I don't want, if I want to use plastic, what the fuck am I going to do with it afterwards?" And I mean, I don't actually particularly, I used to sort of hate plastic. And now I'm kind of like now that I think of mining the trash for plastic. I sort of like it, you know? Andre 11:05 Yeah, I could talk more about turning plastic into fuel. Margaret 11:09 Yeah, please, do I only know the like YouTube level of it. Andre 11:15 Yeah, so another part of that is...okay, so, even if we were to say, for instance, like in the future, get everything that we wanted, have the big 'R' Revolution, you know, have the utopic vision that we have come to fruition, there's still going to be the problem of trash, there's still going to be the problem of yeah, like, what do we do with plastic, even after it's like, use has kind of gone through, and we can't reuse anymore? Like, what do we do with it?Like, another option of that, too, is using the plastic as a fuel source. So you can do stuff like pyrolysis, where basically, you're heating up plastic, condensing that, and basically making it back into a form of burnable fuel. And like, you know, personally, I absolutely hate combustible fuels, obviously, for their, for their, their impact to the environment. But then again, there are a lot of things that are absolutely necessary to run. So say for instance, you know, if we are using renewables only to power things, one issue is, say, for instance, solar, if you don't get a lot of sunlight, you don't get power, pretty much. And you could supplement that with other, you know, renewable energies. But there might be times especially in say, like a natural disaster, when like, you absolutely need power to power like medical equipment to power to power hospitals, or to power equipment that we need up and running. And so that would be a time when, like, using these fuels would really make a lot of sense. On the flip side of that, too, talking about like fuel and stuff like that, there's also making hydrogen fuel using electrolysis. So, using electricity, to basically separate the hydrogen from water, and then using that hydrogen as a fuel. So, that's another, you know, way of approaching it and way of approaching energy, not thinking of extracting it from the earth, but trying to figure out new ways and different ways of finding energy that's really all around us. Margaret 13:34 Yeah, my, my favorite, I looked into it at the last place I lived because was on enough of a hill, I got really into storing electrical power through gravity. You know, like, you could do this thing where I've seen people do it where you like, you set up...okay, you set up a water...a rain barrel at the bottom of your house. And then you also set up a rain barrel at the top of your house. And you use your solar while it's running, instead of to power a lithium battery, which is obviously not a renewable resource, you know, which is the thing that people often forget. Well, I mean, whatever, it's better than some things. But, you know, the battery storage is one of the weakest parts of off-grid power, right? And so you put your rain barrel at the top of your house, and then while there's power, you pump the water up to the roof. And then when there's not power coming through the solar, then the, the rainwater comes back down and it charges...like I mean this charges like a cell phone, this is not a you know, but people are talking about doing it on these industrial scales where you can do it like water towers, you can do it, you know, dammed areas, whatever.. I'm not presenting it as like the perfect solution, but just like interesting to me that there's all of these different ways that we can store power that we don't traditionally think of. I don't know. Andre 14:54 Yeah, exactly. And it's one of those things where like, it isn't necessarily profitable too, to do stuff like that. So it just isn't being done right now. But if we were to look at living in a post capitalist world, obviously, we want to pick solutions and pick things that not only like are detrimental socially, but not detrimental ecologically as well. So like stuff like that is just so perfect in taking the energy that we have just all around us and using it in responsible ways. So yeah, Margaret 15:29 Okay, so this isn't even what we were going to talk about today. I just got really excited about that. The the main thing I wanted to talk to you about today is, is off-grid internet is mesh networking is DIY internet. And I'm wondering if you could explain what that kind of concept is? Andre 15:45 Yeah, for sure. So I'll kind of go into a little bit of background on like, why, or what really got me started in thinking on this train of thought. So like, I live in Texas. And living in Texas has made me very aware of kind of the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Margaret 16:06 Whaaat?! [Sarcastically] Andre 16:07 Yeah, I know, "What?" a private grid run by a corporation that seems to fail, even though there's no regulation, "What?Oh." And a big wake up call was winter storm Yuri, which like completely, absolutely fucked up Texas. It was a week long ice storm with snow. And, it just like completely destroyed the homes of just thousands of people. Thousands of people lost their lives because of the storm. And it just kind of pointed out the fact that ERCOT's mismanagement of the power grid and the effects of that were just like, really big. So, it kind of got me thinking of ways to do communication and electricity, that didn't rely on the crumbling infrastructure around me. So, after thinking about that kind of got me thinking about emergencies and building resilient systems, and communication was like really, really up there. Especially when it comes to communications during natural disasters. There's, you know, there's obviously Ham radio and handheld radios that people use during natural disasters. But, when it comes to actually sharing information, say, for instance, sharing books, sharing videos, communicating with a massive amount of people that doesn't require specialized equipment, like radios, that's a whole nother realm, you know. So, that's what kind of got me thinking about making an emergency like community internet was so that way people in my neighborhood could have access to like, a chat server ebooks with like info on surviving different natural disasters, a media server to stream videos, either for educational content, or for just like, if the power's out, you're bred you know, you have nothing to do, sooo. And music is another big thing. Margaret 18:08 That was one of the things that before, before Covid, I was like, running around doing all my preparedness stuff. And I went out and got a hard drive and filled it with movies that I obtained legally. And I was kind of even as I was doing it. I was like, "What the hell disaster am I going to be in? What version of the apocalypse has me like bored watching movies?" And then COVID hit. And I like, and I was off grid, and I like, didn't have good internet, you know? And I was like, "Oh, this, this is the crisis for which I prepared." And, you know, whatever public domain television shows got me through, got me through the worst of it. Anyway, I didn't mean to completely derail you, please continue. Andre 18:54 No, no, no, that's completely on topic, you know, especially because like, these kinds of systems allow people to communicate without needing to be face to face. And so what a lot of people don't like think about are people who are immunodeficient who can't like, go face to face in front of people or people with disabilities who it would be harder for them to physically go out and get a radio from somebody and start using it. So, you know, resilient systems that like keep everybody in mind that can access it like really big. But yeah, like COVID was a perfect...not really perfect, but you know, it definitely pointed out some some, some stuff that maybe we were all thinking about, but didn't really want to think about, but...So, from thinking about all this stuff, what I kind of landed on was making a solar powered internet with like a Raspberry Pi as the server that ran all the services and a Raspberry Pi is a single board, like small computer that runs off of USB power. So it requires really, very little power. But, from there, you know, it's fine to have your own small kind of like local network. But, I really wanted to come up with ways to try and expand that network. So, basically make like beacons to connect back to the main network to spread out the signal. Margaret 20:25 Cool. Andre 20:27 So, in a way, this kind of started off as just like a small off-grid, solar powered system. But, now it's kind of grown out to be more of almost like a community wide Internet where like, we can add more routers to the network and spread the connections out from there. Margaret 20:44 How...How do? [Pause] How does that happen? Like, like are thre resources that, you know...how complicated is it? How expensive? Is it? How...it seems like it's scalable, so you can kind of up the complexity and the expense as you want? But yeah, what's involved? Andre 21:04 So I, when I wrote the article, and like, was thinking about this, I really wanted to start from like the bare minimum, and try and convey the bare minimum of information that somebody would need to do this. So, starting off, I wanted to make sure to use things that were first of all easy to find, second of all, easy to work on, like the average person with some technical skills could pick it up and like, know what to do with it, and wasn't something super proprietary, where maybe only a handful of people in a city would even know how to work it. So, it has to be, you know, easily picked up by your average person. So, that's kind of where I wanted to start from was using the most basic hardware, the most basic software, and from there, you can build up to it. So, for example, like in the article that I wrote, that kind of goes by like step by step on how to make it, it's more of like a recipe book almost. So, breaking it down into like, its fundamental parts, with core ingredients to make it what it is. So like, you know, a cake has core ingredients that you know, make it a cake, but you can add and subtract on top of it to make it work for whatever you need it to work for. Margaret 22:34 Well other people can. Andre 22:35 True Margaret 22:38 Whenever I try to make a cake...I can make muffins and brownies. Anyways I'm that useful wit cakes yet. Andre 22:49 Well, yeah, as long as you can find somebody to make it. That's the biggest thing. Yeah. Margaret 22:54 Okay, what are some of those core ingredients? Andre 22:57 So, the core ingredients are basically a client, a router, and a server. So, that's pretty much it, which sounds really really reductive. But, when you boil it down, and kind of like, look at the core concept, that's the three things you have. So, a client is a computer. Really, any computer. A router determines like what addresses computers in the network have, and it directs traffic. And a server is basically another computer that hosts the data for your clients to access. So. I'll kind of walk through some of that stuff, too. So, like I said, A client can be really like literally any computer, it could be like a brand new MacBook, it could be a single board computer, like a Raspberry Pi, you could even use like a smart fridge to do this. It can literally be anything that...it can literally be any computer that can access the internet, you can use as a client to go onto the network, right? Yeah. And so next you have routers, which are basically like little boxes that can direct traffic and determine like, what addresses computers on the network have. So think of it as like mailing addresses almost. So, if I wanted to send information to somebody down the street, I would have an address and they would have an address, and the router is basically like a mailman who delivers that information from me to the address that I wanted to send it off to. And I'm obviously kind of like making this way more simpler than what it is, because in reality there's like so many networking things in the middle that makes this happen but routers basically do that. Margaret 24:44 Okay, can this router in this case be like, like I have a router right now I believe that is connecting between my modem and my computer or something, right? Can Can. It sounds like this router is the most custom piece of this whole puzzle or is it something that you can also repurpose out of an existing like Wi-Fi router or something? Andre 25:06 You can repurpose it out of any Wi-Fi router, which is awesome. Margaret 25:10 Hell yeah, cause it's in every house. Andre 25:12 It's in every house. Every house has internet access, you have a router. All you have to do is change the networking settings to be able to basically connect back to whatever network you make. So, it doesn't require you to go out and buy something. You probably already have it in your house already. Margaret 25:29 Yeah. Okay. I mean, you probably have to destroy the one you have, or you have to reprogram the one you're having you have so you wouldn't be able to use it and your regular internet? Andre 25:42 Excatly. Margaret 25:43 Yeah, you would need to go find one in an abandoned house. Andre 25:45 Yeah. Margaret 25:45 Okay. Cool. Andre 25:49 You could, you could. Yeah, I mean, like internet squatting is a, I guess, a new thing now so.... But the last kind of part of that is the server. And that's like, again, really any computer that's running software to share data. So, with those three pieces, a client, a router, and server, if you scale that up like a million times and add in fiber optic cables from the bottom of the ocean to connect routers and to data centers together, and then boom, you have the 'Internet,' right? So, like network engineers are probably going to be listening to this and be really mad about what I'm saying. But, the internet is basically just a giant combination of intranets. It's a big intranet that's been connected to other intranets, through a bunch of other networking equipment, protocols, datacenters, all that kind of stuff. Margaret 26:43 An an intranet is a is an internet, but a local one, a one that exists within like a building or a neighborhood or something is an intranet. It's a network that is not part of the larger internet. I mean, it can be part of that. You can access it from the larger internet, but it's sort of walled off. Is that a decent way to explain intranet? Andre 27:03 Yeah, exactly. So, if you add your client, a router and a server, you basically made an intranet right there because it isn't connected back to the major, actual internet. But, that's what the Internet is. It's this gigantic intranet. So, it kind of takes a lot of the black box magic out of the Internet, because really, you're just distilling it down to these core pieces and understanding, "Okay, well, if I can do this at like a super small level, and I spread this out, we really could create, you know, a local, a regional, or even a gigantic people own Internet with our own hardware." Margaret 27:48 So, basically, if we build this entire shadow internet...Are there other people who have done this? Are there already existing like large networked intranets all networked together? Do they control like, the giant space laser or whatever? Like? I mean, what are the? Yeah, how much is this already done? Andre 28:08 Yeah, so not exactly when it comes to like making it almost like an alternative internet, it's mainly done to actually provide internet access to people who can get it. So, a good example of that is NYC Mesh. And they're are a group in New York City who basically are doing this exact same thing. They're making an a mesh network to broadcast out a Wi Fi signal. And then they have nodes that pick up that Wi Fi signal and keep basically building out the range that the network can can hit. So, what they're doing is finding areas that internet service providers won't bring in the necessary equipment to give people internet access, or people who can't afford internet access. And so, they're basically making these mesh networks to get the Wi Fi coverage over to the people who need it. So, we can do basically the same thing with a system like this. So, you can make a network like this that works in tandem with the Internet. So say for instance, if power or Internet access gets shut off, for whatever reason, you have a backup, basically like community internet. But, you can also connect, say, for instance, like your main router that you're kind of using to run the network or just any router on the network, connect that to the internet, and then you can share Internet access across the secondary internet. So, basically, you can make a mesh intranet network, and you can have it walled off from the wider internet and still have it work without electricity. grid electricity and without internet access, but when you have electricity and internet access, you can actually supply Internet access to the network and give other people access to the internet. So, it kind of serves two purposes too so that way, it's not just like, "Oh, this is only in an emergency network." But also, you know, there's some resilience resiliency built into it. Margaret 30:25 That's cool. I like that it has a purpose, sort of during crisis, and also even just like during the crisis that is, you know, poverty and lack of access and stuff like that. The other thing that I like about this, I mean, it's funny, I don't like it personally, because I live rurally, but, but one of the things that comes up is that so much of the prepping stuff that gets talked about, especially under the name 'prepping,' rather than 'preparedness' focuses on rural folks, right? It focuses on access to, if not financial resources, it often focuses on access to space, like physical space to store things, or even kind of what you can do with low population density. Right? It's a lot easier for someone to have five acres here in West Virginia than it is for some of the five acres in the Bay Area or something, right. And the thing, that's kind of interesting, because you're pointed out that the you know, a lot of this work, people have been doing it New York City, and I'm like, h, it the higher population density you have like, the more bang for your buck, it seems like this kind of thing would have. And that's cool, because I think that we way too often think of high population density as like, 'bad.' Whereas actually, in terms of like, efficiency of living, in terms of even like small ecological footprint, higher population densities can be really fucking good. So, I like that. For my for myself, I'm like, oh, well if I set it up, it would just be on my like, you know, like, where I live with some people or whatever and it would just be the like, "Well, if the power goes down, you can access the the movie server and the off-grid, Wikipedia," or the, you know, I do a download of Wikipedia every, whenever I remember, it's usually about once a year as like part of my preping is I do the download of Wikipedia or whatever. Without the images. I don't have enough money to pay for that kind of terabytes of data for the images. But yeah, I don't know, the larger. I don't know, I'm just getting lost thinking about the possibilities of something like this. What distinguishes a mesh network from just a simple intranet? Is a mesh network, because it's all wireless. Like what what makes it a mesh network? Andre 32:32 Yeah, so mesh network differentiates itself because you're basically able to connect networking equipment back to each other. So, you can do a mesh network, a quote unquote, 'mesh network' with like, hard wired Ethernet cable, but really what network mesh networks do is use certain protocols to connect routers or network equipment together. So, in this case, what we're doing connecting our main router to our beacon that will, you know, propagate that network is using a protocol called WDS, which is called 'wireless distribution system.' And basically, what that lets you do is it lets you connect other routers, as if they were connected with an ethernet cord together, but it's completely wireless. So, you can get another router, turn on WDS, join in the network, and then this new router that joins in becomes a beacon and extends the range of the network. Margaret 33:37 Okay. So, you don't have to, you don't have to as the alternative internet engineer, you don't have to walk around and physically set up each and every beacon. It's a it's a thing where basically people by joining are making the network better? Andre 33:53 Exactly.. As long as they can get power. Anybody can turn their home router, and either use WDS to connect their routers together, or basically putting the routers into what's called AP mode or basically making it an-- 34:12 An 'access point.' [Not getting the joke] Yeah. Margaret 34:12 [Interuptting] Advance Placement. Margaret 34:15 No, I was lying. Sorry, I was trying to make a bad joke. Andre 34:21 See, I'm not smart enough to have taken an AP classses High School. Yeah, I my terrible ADHD like stopped me from going into AP classes. So. Margaret 34:32 Yeah, fair enough. I took AP English. Did not did not pass it to the college level. In my defense, the only they only taught, they only taught books written by men in my AP English class. I think all white men. Now there might have been I feel like.... Andre 34:54 Yeah, what English class isn't just full of just like old white dudes? Margaret 34:58 Yeah. Although actually, it was before....This is just completely tangential. English class is how I like learned about like Langston Hughes and stuff in 10th grade and like, so that was good. That's all I remember. Andre 35:14 My introduction to de-schooling was actually through an English teacher. So I guess, yeah, English teachers, English classes, thumbs up, you know? Margaret 35:25 Yeah, Totally. Many of them, many of them. Okay, so before we started thinking about our English teachers, okay, you mentioned that if you have power, right? But and I'm I'm under the impression, a lot of what you've also done is work on trying to figure out how to make sure that people within this network would have access to power during a crisis or whatever. What does that look like? Andre 35:54 Yeah, so I mean, obviously, we can't run electronics without power. So trying to think about, what are some ways that we can generate power locally, and be able to supply power to people who need it. So, getting into talking about power kind of connects it to other areas of infrastructure to, and all those other areas of infrastructure connect into building mutual aid networks, but so we'll start with power first. So, with powering nodes, basically, what we're talking about here is creating almost like micro, community micro grids using solar. So, basically making like small power stations that use solar energy to charge batteries and supply power to your neighbors. And so, this can turn into a form of mutual aid, right? So if we're making these small scale solar power stations that we can attach to like dollies, or attach to wood and like, roll them out when need be. Now we're talking about giving people the autonomy and giving people the tools to make their own power and help each other survive in a way that's beneficial to everybody in the community. But also is helping to power, you know, the devices that will connect back to the network, the network itself, but also help power medical devices and stuff like that, that you know, people need to survive and live off of. So, talking about making community micro grids, we'll start from like, the small scale and then start building up, because again, like, all of this is modular and able to scale with however many resources you have, or however big you need it to be. But, the key part is to understand that like at every level, it's the same idea, just with, you know, some parts switched out. So. And there's also two, there's also different kinds of solar power, too. There's solar photovoltaics using like traditional solar panels is what we think of, but also passive solar as well, because there's energy, you know, the sun is fucking hot. The sun rays have a lot of energy. So, there's other ways to produce energy and talk about that sort of stuff. So, there's high tech and low tech, solar, but we'll start in and start small with small scale, kind of micro community micro grids. Right? So by solar in this case, I'm talking about photovoltaic cells to generate electricity from the sun. So you can make stuff like this, or you can buy like premade systems to kind of cut down on the amount of work that you need to do, but there are some like major downsides to getting like a premade solar system kind of like an all in one package, because most of the parts are proprietary. So, in the middle of an emergency, you're not going to be able to like mail your solar charge station if the power plug breaks. So, a DIY method allows you to kind of have modular off the shelf parts that if something breaks, you can easily fix it. And all of these parts are easy to find too. So once I start talking about the parts that are involved with it, you can think of a whole bunch of places where you can find this stuff that's just sitting out there. Margaret 39:32 Just by the side of the road. Andre 39:35 Yeah, honestly Like literally, I found solar panels in the middle of forests, just kind of like smashed solar panels in the middle of a forest before so like yes search on the side of the roads. You could find some cool shit. Margaret 39:52 Yeah. Andre 39:53 But yeah, so like when you start talking about solar power and solar power generation it's really daunting, because like what we're used to is seeing solar panels on roofs, or electricians installing this stuff. But, really, it's really simple once you break it down into the core ingredients, just like before, just like making a cake, once you know the core ingredients, you can scale things up, add, subtract to whatever you need, to whatever scale you need. So. Margaret 40:21 Yeah, that you have to like...you do when you scale solar power...I don't know that much about mesh networking. But I've installed a bunch of different solar systems and lived off solar systems of different types. And, it's a really good point about the modularity that can pull pieces out and put them back in. But, it's annoying that every time you're like, Oh, I'm going to go from 400 watts of solar power to 800 watts of solar power. Now, I need to change out every piece of the entire thing. Because it's, it's like baking, if in order to double the ingredients. You also had to like, buy a different bowl and spoons, you know? Andre 40:58 Exactly, exactly. You're like these look exactly the same, but like I have to pay like an extra $500 For this one that can handle like, oh, a little bit more power. What the hell? Margaret 41:07 Yeah. Yeah. And it is it is more like baking than than cooking. You know? it's...because it is very like, "Okay, do this. Exactly. And it'll be great and safe and right." Andre 41:24 Yeah, add these ingredients in together in a safe way, and you'll be good. Margaret 41:30 Yeah, exactly. Which is not to try and scare people off of it, it really can be done safely. Like, I didn't know shit about electricity when I first started doing this, I, when I first installed my first 12 volt battery, I was like terrified of it. You know, I was like putting the cables on it. And I was afraid it was gonna like shock me and my friend just like went up and grabbed both terminals and was like, "It's fine. It's 12 volts." And like, and then he was immediately like, "But if you dropped a wrench and connected the two poles, then you might die. But..." Most use case scenario....anyway. Sorry, I have a lot of I have a lot of thoughts about solar. But please, please continue. I'm sorry. Andre 42:13 No, no, no, no. But like, yeah, like you just said, with anything to do with solar power, obviously, there's gonna be some safety things to keep in mind. But, you know, if you practice basic electrical safety, you can make these systems pretty well, at least at a small scale. Once you're talking about like, multiple megawatts of power generation, then we're talking about kind of things that are kind of outside of this. But, for small scale, like, say, for instance, right now I have 400 watt solar panels charging a battery bank right now, like that's easy to handle for most people. And for producing power for, say, for instance, like a couple of different families at different houses or different apartments, that, that that'll work. It sounds small, but like 400 watts of solar power, and like a decent amount of storage will get you really far, especially in emergencies when you're only powering a couple things at a time, but. Margaret 43:15 It's not going to run your AC. And it's not going to run your electric heater. And it probably it's not gonna run your fridge. But, it'll run a tiny electric cooler, it'll keep your phone's charged, it'll keep the lights on, it'll keep a fan going. Especially if it's not...box fans use an ungodly amount of power. I mean, that said, I did keep a fan going on 400 Watts, 24 hours a day for like a year once. So, you know, Andre 43:41 Yeah, I can't be done. But like, okay, so in terms of like the core ingredients of a solar system, you've got really basically four parts, you've got your solar panels, a charge controller, batteries for storage, and an inverter if you're going to be doing specific stuff. So, adding those four things together, you can make either like a super small system more, say for instance, like you're talking about earlier, running some pretty basic household appliances. But you can also change all this stuff to fit the needs that you have. So, using this as an example, for like a really, really micro community micro grid, we could basically take like furniture dollies, tie some wood to it, put a charge controller, a battery, or two, strap it on to that, and an inverter, and then attach those to a solar panel, and then basically what you're doing is just generating power on a really small scale. And then, say for instance, you want to make a bigger one well, get more solar panels, add a different charge controller, add more batteries in series to your battery bank, and add a bigger inverter, and then you could power refrigerators and AC units and stuff like that at a bigger scale. But, the key is just knowing kind of the core parts to it. I go through step-by-step on an article on my Substack called "DIY Off Grid Solar Primer." And it kind of walks through like all of the steps that you go through to make either a really small solar system or a pretty big one, that'll power a lot of things. And so it's kind of like, it's one of those things where it's, it's like a black box, and not a lot of people really, like understand the stuff that goes behind it. And not a lot of people understand that it's not that crazy to do this type of stuff. Margaret 45:53 Yeah, I guess that is the...you know, when I, I don't know, the fact that this is actually doable, like, from, you know, I won't do...I'm not going to do a house level install. I'm not going to do grid tied solar myself. I feel like, that reaches a level where, I mean, you're actually putting the safety of the like, the electrical workers at risk if you do grid tie stuff, right? So, I understand the need for people with specialty training for that. But yeah, the the actually doable part, I think, is just what people...what I want more people to understand. Andre 46:34 Yeah, because there's so much information out there that just seems so out of reach for most people. But it's really enriched, it's just the fact of like, knowing what to do, knowing, even knowing what you don't know, is like the key to really getting started with it. Margaret 46:49 Yeah, but I will say though, in defense of the, the all-in-one boxes, I've used both, and I've like talked with a lot of people who are living off grid about which is better in which circumstance. And for people who are like, "I live in this cabin, I want my life in here to be good," Build it yourself, or work with a friend who knows what they're doing, but get the actual pieces and build it modularly. But, for people who are kind of like, "This is my truck camper, I sleep in two months of the year," and like, or, "This is my cabin for now. But I kind of don't really see myself being living here in a year," you know, or "I have a really limited budget, and I just need to get my cell phone charged." There's like, there's, I think there's purposes for the all-in-one boxes there in that you just don't have to fuck with it. It's like it takes less specialization, like one of the one of the infrastructures I've lived with...sorry, there's very few topics I get to like be I get to be really excited about and have like more like some experience on compared to, you know, when I talk to someone about. But, one of the ways that I had it going at one point was like I built a solar power setup, and I built it modularly partly actually, because I didn't have enough money to go out and get the size of box I wanted. On the other hand, in the end, I probably paid more for my system,because I kept upgrading it, because I kept being like...but you can kind of you can kind of do it. 100 bucks here, 100 bucks there as compared to going out and buying this $1,200 all-in-one box or $400 all-in-one box. They come in all different sizes. And, what I found that most people didn't bother with was using the all-in-one boxes hooked up to solar panels. What I found, what we ended up doing was, you know, the the barn on the property with the solar setup that I built, everyone would just bring their boxes over and charge them. You know, and so it's not a very proper way to do a grid. But, in some ways, that's how we did our grid is that there was like a central charging station and everyone would bring their boxes and then go plug their boxes back into their shacks or whatever, you know, Andre 48:58 That's really cool. Because like, I mean, that technically is a grid, because I mean, you're transferring power from one generation into, you know, a place where you're actually going to use it. So like, but people don't consider that a grid only because, you know, it's just kind of so used to just like, oh, the grid is just the shit on the lines that just exists. Yeah, but like there's so many other ways to think about it. Margaret 49:23 Yeah, I had another friend who, another off grid project I know of, a friend of mine has a cart, a trailer pulled behind a car, very light, one very small, one size of a teardrop or smaller and it's just full of old iron, lithium, whatever the cheap old batteries, the car batteries. And well they're AGM. They're just not lithium ion. And we just drive them into town like once a week. Just attach it to the car, drive it into town. Charge it at the Anarchist social center in town. And then drive it back out. And then power everything on the land project for like a week or whatever with these, you know, big battery banks. Andre 50:10 Yeah, I mean, that's that's definitely one way to do it. Like I did the same kind of thing where like, I was running a whole bunch of stuff off of this, like little RYOBI portable inverter thing for like my power tools, and like just charge the, the, the batteries and then just like take the batteries with me and then use it like that. So like yeah, it's same concept. Margaret 50:37 Yeah, I use my battery tool batteries as my cell phone charger for a long time before I got all the solar stuff set up. Yeah. Andre 50:45 It works. You have power. So, that like ultimately, that's what it comes down to is like figuring out ways to take energy, store it and then transport it somewhere else where somebody else can use it. So like, who cares if you're using like, a drill battery attached to a little inverter to power the router for the network? It's still powering it. So there you go. Margaret 51:08 That's cool. That just makes it cooler. Because then also anyone could just take it and charge it on it. You know, like everyone has a charger for that thing. Well, then you can have the Ryobi versus DeWalt class war, but the person with the Makita will chime in and be like, "No!" Andre 51:31 But yes, so I mean, like, so we've gone from making like small internets into making a larger mesh network. I also want to like, I also wanted to run back and talk about what you brought up earlier, when it came to the differences between kind of urban and suburban areas and doing this in rural areas, or areas that might not like be as accessible. So, when it comes to rural areas, you can do the same thing. So making this mesh network. The biggest thing is going to be actually getting that signal out. So, then we're talking about like, kind of more high powered antennas, and talking about, like, how to broadcast signals, like a far distance. And there's some interesting stuff out there. So, I saw this guy on YouTube who made a giant parabola, and made it out of wood and chicken wire, and then put a Wi-Fi card in the middle of that parabola. So, you know, like the curve, almost like a satellite dish, but made out of chicken wire. And, he was able to broadcast Wi-Fi through the jungle for about six miles, just just using chicken wire in a parabola shape. And, you know, a simple like off the shelf network card. So like, line of sight, with some really simple DIY shit like that, like making parabolas out of chicken wire, or even using old satellite dishes to bounce that signal off, And at least get it over to maybe if you, you know, have a neighbor six miles away from you, then they could be the next node in the network. And they could just bounce signal around there. So like, in mountainous regions, it's really hard to get internet access. Margaret 53:37 I'm Aware. Andre 53:42 Mainly because, you know, internet service providers are, you know, they don't think it's profitable to spend the money for the infrastructure to bring it out there. But, it's also really hard to do it period. So, in that case, you know, you could set up a mesh network with your own DIY antennas to basically like bounce up and down mountainsides to supply internet access to other people. So, it works not just from like urban suburban areas, but also rural areas, but it just requires a, again, like a different, like thought process behind it. Margaret 54:17 Right, but out here, it would be more possible for me to like, you know, talk to the person who does own the next ridge over and be like, "Hey, can I put up like this old satellite dish and some solar panels on your property, you get free internet, and so does everyone on the other side of the hill," you know? I mean, presuming the friendliness of the person who has the...owns the top of the mountain or whatever, but no, that's okay. Yeah. Andre 54:48 And that can be a really good intro point to establish a mutual aid networks in rural areas, because it's really hard especially like in In rural areas to like, talk to your neighbors if your neighbors are like six miles away, but if you come to the people and say like, "Hey, we can mutually benefit each other," in a way that like, you know, they can completely understand and like be on board with, then you have, then you're talking to your neighbors, even though your neighbors live like super far away from you. So yeah, it's a really good in to like starting to build relationships locally. Margaret 55:29 Yeah. No, that's interesting. So one of the things that you talked about, you mentioned earlier about how this all ties into general infrastructure and how infrastructure as a way to build mutual aid networks, is that something that, you know, basically, because most of what I've talked to people about mutual aid networks, which is incredibly valuable, but a lot of mutual aid networks are around community health, or food access, or, you know, defense against sweeps of encampments of people who are living out. And, you know, the idea of like, providing internet and power it obviously makes sense, as part of it, it's just part that doesn't get talked about as much because I think it probably more of my friends know how to cook than know how to program routers, you know, although then again, 10 years ago, it was probably the opposite. Well, when I was a teenager was definitely the opposite. But yeah, so I'm curious if you have thoughts about sort of general infrastructure, how this ties into infrastructure, mutual aid networks. Andre 56:32 Yeah. So, when we were talking about like, hierarchical, well, we talked about like, systems like capitalism, hierarchical systems, states, the way that they cement power is basically by controlling our access to like our basic needs. So, if we can build our own infrastructures, either both like within the system, but also alongside and out of the system, then we can much more easily separate from capitalist and hierarchical systems, and create our own networks, and our own infrastructure in our own worlds alongside of things. So, that kind of touches into, you know, ideas of building dual power of like building the systems that we want to use and building the world that we want to see now, not just working within capitalism, sometimes you'll have to say for like legal issues and stuff like that, but building systems that work outside of capitalist and hierarchical systems. So, taking back control of the infrastructures that really rule our lives. So like, the infrastructures that can underlie everything that we do, you know, we kind of have the main, the big three, food, water shelter. But, I'd include a couple more things in there just because like, you know, our modern times things have like changed, technology has changed. On top of that, I put communications, so that would include like stuff like radio and Internet, electricity, which includes things like air conditioning and a lot of regions that like you will literally die without air conditioning, and care work as the kind of like main parts of infrastructure Margaret 58:38 That, that tracks. And those do seem to be...I mean, those are the things that we kind of focus on with mutual aid with this special edition of communication and power. I'm into it. Andre 58:58 But like, so, I'll go into a scenario of how building community micro grids and building communication networks can like, tie back into mutual aid efforts and like other revolutionary things, so you know, starting out, you decided to do this, you get a foldable solar panel, you use that to make your own small network with your server, you get a Raspberry Pi or like an old laptop and use that as a server. And then use an old router that you have or your the router that you have in your house right now. To just start, to start the network. And from there, you're like, Okay, well, let me you know, if I want to build this network out, then I'll start making small micro community micro grids to share with my neighbors. So, let's say if you live in an apartment building, then you're like, Okay, I'll go to the people in my apartment building, make one of these things, you know, make one of these, like solar power carts or something. And then just like talk to my neighbors and say like, "Hey, would this be valuable to us?" And so then like, you're starting to provide, basically free electricity to your neighbors. And by doing that, you know, you're starting to build relationships, starting to talk to people, and with talking to people, and kind of showing people what can be done with just like solidarity and working together, then, you know, you start talking some more and some more. And let's say like, you, through these relationships that you have with the people in your apartment building, you're like, "Okay, well, what if we like formed a tenant's union? I don't know, that might be a good idea?" And in trying to form that, you'll need some ways of communicating that's going to be secure. So, you can either meet in person, but not everybody is going to be able to meet in person. So, how do we make secure communications with each other to do stuff like organizing tenant unions are organizing unions within our workplaces. And so, you can do stuff like this, where you're making the services, the infrastructure available to people to be able to talk to each other in secure ways. So you could on your server, put up like encrypted messaging, and then use that as a method of organizing the tenants union or whatever, you know, use that as a method of organizing. So, you're going from like, starting out with just kind of like wanting to build your own solar power stuff into now you're talking to your neighbors, and now you're organizing stuff. And this kind of snowballs. As you add on to it, as you talk to more people as things kind of, like, move along, there's a snowball effect and to just like, being able to make the infrastructure for things to happen. And like that's the big thing. Margaret 1:02:09 I like it. I am sold. I...there's that joke, "I would like to subscribe to your newsletter..." But in this case, people should subscribe to your newsletter, or Substack or whatever. Okay, well, we're kind of coming up on time. There's a lot of stuff that I want to talk to you about that we didn't even get into about you know hydroponics. It's what's in your username, and I want to turn my basement into a place that produces food, 24 hours, or 12 months, a year, whatever. You know, I live in a climate with a real winter. And I'd like to be able to still have fresh vegetables and hydroponics seem cool. But that's not what we're going to talk about today. But, that might be what I bug you about sometime in the near future. Is there any kind of final thoughts on the stuff that we've been talking about today that you want to bring up? Andre 1:02:50 Yeah, I mean, I guess ultimately, it just comes down to if there are things out there that you want to do, try and figure out like, the core concepts and build on that. And just like just fucking try it. Like there's, there's so many things like all this, like building this off grid, internet building, off grid power systems was all just kind of like, I want to do it. I'll try and find the information and condense it for other people to use and they can build it themselves too. But like, that was the key was just like, fuck it. Let me just get started and try it. So, it's the same thing with like mutual aid networks. It's like if there isn't one around you, fuck it, try building it. Margaret 1:03:31 Yeah, totally. No, that's so good. That is...Yeah. The secret is to really begin. I can't remember what this from, some insurrectionist tract, but I really like it. You know, just the like, well we actually just got to do it. We you know, like, I don't know, I feel like I would have more clever way to say that, but I don't Andre 1:03:54 No. That was good. Margaret 1:03:57 All right. Well, if people want to subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on the internet, how should they go about it? Andre 1:04:03 Yeah, you can find me on Substack. It's anarchosolarpunk.substack.com. And then I'm active also on Twitter and Tik Tok at 'hydroponictrash.' Margaret 1:04:18 Cool. Yeah, we didn't even talk about solar punk. That was like on the list of things that we should talk about. We will talk again soon, I assume and people will get to hear from you again. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Andre 1:04:30 Awesome. Thanks for having me. Inmn 1:04:37 Hi, I am not Margaret. But, I am here to thank you for listening, because Margaret forgot to record an outro, which is short for our introduction, in case anyone was wondering. Okay, I stole that joke from Margaret. Sort of. So now it's kind of like you're getting her. I'm Inmn, and I do some of the behind the scenes work for Live Like The World is Dying, to make sure that it comes out every two weeks. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go tell someone about it and rate and review and like and subscribe or, you know, whatever the algorithm calls for, feed it like a hungry God. You could also post about it or tell people in person. It's the main way that people hear about the show and honestly one of the best ways to support it. However, if you want to support us in other sillier ways that don't involve feeding a nameless and mysterious entity, consider supporting our publisher, Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness, of which I am also a member of. Strangers is a publishing collective committed to producing inclusive and anarchistic radical culture. We currently have one other podcast called simply "Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness," where you can hear me talk about our monthly featured zine, along with narrated audio versions, the monthly feature and an interview with the author. Speaking of the monthly featured zine, if you subscribe to our Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail to you a zine version of our monthly feature every month, anywhere in the world. But, also you can read it for free on our website. Our monthly feature ranges from fiction to poetry to zines about plants and hopefully soon history and folklore. These features are submitted by listeners like you and we are always looking for more submissions. We're looking for stories that don't know where they fit in, for people that don't know where they fit in. So, if you'd like to write and think your story would find a home in this tangled wilderness, consider submitting it and perhaps we'll buy it. You can support us for now at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness and find more submission info at tangledwilderness.org. Just to plug some other things that Strangers and our members have going on since no one is here to stop me: Margaret's new short story collection is currently on preorder from AK press. "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow" comes out September 20th. So, check it out and look for her soon on her book tour. Our first book as the new version of the Strangers Collective will be available for preorder on September 1st. Try anarchism for life by Cindy Barukh Milstein, a thrilling exploration of art and social relationships and worlds soon to emerge, featuring amazing art by 25 incredible artists. Look for it on our website, and also look for Milstein on the Strangers podcast as the September featured zine. A dear friend of the Strangers Collective also has a book out for preorder right now. Nourishing Resistance: stories of food, protest, and mutual aid, edited by Wren Awry along with a foreword by Cindy Milstein. The preorder is currently live at PMpress.org. So please go check it out. Wrenis an incredible writer, editor and archivist. As you heard on our last episode of Live Like The World Is Dying, we are about to start playtesting or TTRPG. Penumbra City. Listen to the last episode on composting to hear more. And check out the next episode of the Strangers podcast where I talk to Margaret and Robin about the game after we listen to Margaret's new short story, "Welcome to Penumbra City: part one." Find it wherever you get podcasts on August 31st. One last shameless plug: By the time this episode airs, we should have t shirts live on the Strangers website. You can get both a Strangers' t shirt and a Live Like The World Is Dying shirt. Both have art created by our art director Robin Savage, and we're printed by the CREAM print shop and our seriously soft, cozy, and beautiful. That's all my plugs. Except for a very special plug. A shout out to these wonderful people who have helped make this podcast as well as so many other projects possible. Shawn, SJ, Paige, Oxalis, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Natalie, Kirk, Michaiah, Sam, Chris, and Hoss the dog. And here's a special thank you to Bursts, our audio editor who has an incredible anarchist new show called The Final Straw, which is also on the Channel Zero Network. Thanks so much for your support. It means so much to us and us has allowed us to get so much done as a collective. See you next time on August 9th for another roundtable segment of "This Month In The Apocalypse" with Margaret, Casandra and Brooke. Let us know if there's anything you want them to talk about. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co