$3 a rose is what I expect to pay in the middle of February around Valentines Day. I'm rarely disappointed in that regard.
Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Forum rules
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
The smile on my wife's face and her happy mood all day was worth more than I paid for the flowers. I was disappointed that the high priced flowers wilted so soon but it's not the first time that happened to me. It is the first time here in O'Fallon and I already had my suspicions about the shop I dealt with. Just one florist by itself is a yellow flag. It's not that they don't have competition from the grocery stores, but they do have a monopoly in their own right. LOL I also asked the person selling me the flowers if they were members of FTD because I have relatives in other states who might use them for delivery. She "thought" they were members but wasn't sure. My guess is she had no clue what FTD is because I didn't see any signs or postings in the shop saying they were members. We have had flowers FTD-ed to us already and they came from Illinois. ILLINOIS? Well, yes. Apparently that was the closest shop. We are 33 miles from the border so that I can only imagine what the sender paid for shipping.
$3 a rose is what I expect to pay in the middle of February around Valentines Day. I'm rarely disappointed in that regard.
$3 a rose is what I expect to pay in the middle of February around Valentines Day. I'm rarely disappointed in that regard.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
There are many rules to become an FTD Florist, and most of today's florists can't meet their qualifications, so they join someplace like Teleflora. But these days, most people just call a florist direct and charge it to a credit card cutting out those middle agencies. The thing with FTD is they had books that showed exactly what you would be getting so there was no surprise at the other end. You local FTD florist would have the prices shown at your local area rate in dollars and cents, but the actual FTD order was sent using Florins. And a florist had to make it for that price without cutting corners.
After I moved south and saw what they called Sweetheart Roses down here, compared to what they were in the mid-west, I was shocked. They have cluster roses they use and call them sweetheart roses. A totally different variety.
A cluster rose is nothing more than a normal rose they didn't remove the suckers, so you get 5 to 7 smaller roses in a grouping on a single stem. Lazy man's roses is another way of putting it, and we sold them super cheap. A cluster of roses cost the same as a single stem rose, because that is all it really was, only the buds were much smaller due to them not being suckered.
Long stem roses have 2 different grades and 4 different quality levels. Masek's roses were always grade A top quality.
Most of the roses we raised our self were also Grade A, but a much lower quality. We only used those in funeral arrangements, never as gifts in bouquets or vases of roses. Not worth getting bad publicity over.
Many florists use specialized designer flowers. We were more like a mainstay in the industry, and used the most common flowers people expect to see. Basically, Mum's, Pompons, Carnations, Daisies, and something unique that we raised. Again no surprises to the customers. I will say we had the largest Mum's of any that could be bought from wholesale row. Unless of course we sold them some of our crops which we often did. And when we did they always fetched top dollar.
About the only thing we bought were Gladiolus. Mainly because we could buy them cheaper than it cost us to raise them ourselves. We used to raise them, but when big agro-farms began raising them, the cost dropped considerably.
After I moved south and saw what they called Sweetheart Roses down here, compared to what they were in the mid-west, I was shocked. They have cluster roses they use and call them sweetheart roses. A totally different variety.
A cluster rose is nothing more than a normal rose they didn't remove the suckers, so you get 5 to 7 smaller roses in a grouping on a single stem. Lazy man's roses is another way of putting it, and we sold them super cheap. A cluster of roses cost the same as a single stem rose, because that is all it really was, only the buds were much smaller due to them not being suckered.
Long stem roses have 2 different grades and 4 different quality levels. Masek's roses were always grade A top quality.
Most of the roses we raised our self were also Grade A, but a much lower quality. We only used those in funeral arrangements, never as gifts in bouquets or vases of roses. Not worth getting bad publicity over.
Many florists use specialized designer flowers. We were more like a mainstay in the industry, and used the most common flowers people expect to see. Basically, Mum's, Pompons, Carnations, Daisies, and something unique that we raised. Again no surprises to the customers. I will say we had the largest Mum's of any that could be bought from wholesale row. Unless of course we sold them some of our crops which we often did. And when we did they always fetched top dollar.
About the only thing we bought were Gladiolus. Mainly because we could buy them cheaper than it cost us to raise them ourselves. We used to raise them, but when big agro-farms began raising them, the cost dropped considerably.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
When I was an avid gardener I grew Gladiolus for several years. i got my hands on some especially exotic bulbs and the flowers were amazing. Because of the way the stalks grew they didn't take up much space in the garden, but they didn't seem to last long. There was always an empty space for most of the summer where I had the Glads planted. Also, apparently the bulbs are not winter hardy. I was told to dig them up each year and replant them. I guess that extra work was worth the show, but apparently I wasn't doing things right. They did not last forever like the other bulbs. Once they died off I didn't bother to replace them.
If I were sending you a bouquet of flowers I'd do what you suggested and directly call a florist local to your neighborhood. I do like the FTD catalog for the reasons you say; you can see exactly what you are sending. However, local businesses have a vested interest in providing good service to the natives. I doubt that they would disappoint even if I didn't see what they were arranging.
I think I've been raising roses for around fifty years now. Some day I may get it right. LOL Just about everywhere I lived there was at least one rose bush and most of the time there were several. It's hard to recall being able to consistently grow long stem roses like the ones I can buy in a shop. I suppose it's a special breed of flower, but there is a great variety and would seem to be prolific and available to the amateur grower. I'm certain I've lucked out and came up with a few single flowers on a long stem, but most of the time they branched out or never grew to any great length. Now I have what you call cluster roses on several bushes. These roses blossom three or four times during a Missouri summer. The downside is those bugs, mites and beetles, that I mentioned elsewhere. Up north the biggest problem I had with roses was fungus and aphids. It could be me, but it seems as if roses no long have a fragrance, or not much of one. That particular characteristic seems to have been bred out of anything I can buy. I know they exist because that is what they use for funeral arrangements. I just haven't found any for growing my own.
If I were sending you a bouquet of flowers I'd do what you suggested and directly call a florist local to your neighborhood. I do like the FTD catalog for the reasons you say; you can see exactly what you are sending. However, local businesses have a vested interest in providing good service to the natives. I doubt that they would disappoint even if I didn't see what they were arranging.
I think I've been raising roses for around fifty years now. Some day I may get it right. LOL Just about everywhere I lived there was at least one rose bush and most of the time there were several. It's hard to recall being able to consistently grow long stem roses like the ones I can buy in a shop. I suppose it's a special breed of flower, but there is a great variety and would seem to be prolific and available to the amateur grower. I'm certain I've lucked out and came up with a few single flowers on a long stem, but most of the time they branched out or never grew to any great length. Now I have what you call cluster roses on several bushes. These roses blossom three or four times during a Missouri summer. The downside is those bugs, mites and beetles, that I mentioned elsewhere. Up north the biggest problem I had with roses was fungus and aphids. It could be me, but it seems as if roses no long have a fragrance, or not much of one. That particular characteristic seems to have been bred out of anything I can buy. I know they exist because that is what they use for funeral arrangements. I just haven't found any for growing my own.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Naturally the glads we raised we did so for cut flowers. So they got cut off right before blooming.
Then we would let the stalks die, and dig them out before winter set in.
These were stored in an underground bulb cellar away from light and kept dry.
Bulbs were sorted by size in the spring and the baby corms were planted in a different area.
Basically we started at one end of the field with the largest bulbs, and worked our way across the field to the medium bulbs. The small bulbs were planted in a different are not good for much of anything else.
The small ones would still produce tiny glads that bloomed, which we used in small bouquets.
But then all the bulbs wound up back in the bulb cellar. When they reached a certain size, we sold the bulbs dry to customers so they had a showy garden. But once the bulbs get too big, they are all stalk and the flowers don't last long.
If you want a showy display of roses in a garden or on a trellis, you really want to use Floribunda Roses. They more or less take care of themselves with the least amount of work, but you won't get cut flowers off that type.
Long stem roses become long stem roses because you cut almost everything off except the single stem.
Most folks don't want to cut off all those new rose shoots to get a single large bloom though.
If they are in a small garden plot, you usually want to have as many roses bloom as possible.
I have a couple of Crepe Myrtle bushes in my yard that I have trained in a unique way.
Normally you keep CMs cut back to a lower bush, then let it grow a few years and cut it back again.
I do that too, but I left the straight tall center trunk on a couple and never cut it back.
I only trim the rest of the bush around it. So now I have a 20+foot tall center CM tree in the center of the low cut bush.
A couple of my neighbors who saw it decided to try it themselves, and when theirs got tall, they completely removed the lower bush part, which sadly caused the tall trunk to die on them. A few started over and left the bush part hi hi.
Then we would let the stalks die, and dig them out before winter set in.
These were stored in an underground bulb cellar away from light and kept dry.
Bulbs were sorted by size in the spring and the baby corms were planted in a different area.
Basically we started at one end of the field with the largest bulbs, and worked our way across the field to the medium bulbs. The small bulbs were planted in a different are not good for much of anything else.
The small ones would still produce tiny glads that bloomed, which we used in small bouquets.
But then all the bulbs wound up back in the bulb cellar. When they reached a certain size, we sold the bulbs dry to customers so they had a showy garden. But once the bulbs get too big, they are all stalk and the flowers don't last long.
If you want a showy display of roses in a garden or on a trellis, you really want to use Floribunda Roses. They more or less take care of themselves with the least amount of work, but you won't get cut flowers off that type.
Long stem roses become long stem roses because you cut almost everything off except the single stem.
Most folks don't want to cut off all those new rose shoots to get a single large bloom though.
If they are in a small garden plot, you usually want to have as many roses bloom as possible.
I have a couple of Crepe Myrtle bushes in my yard that I have trained in a unique way.
Normally you keep CMs cut back to a lower bush, then let it grow a few years and cut it back again.
I do that too, but I left the straight tall center trunk on a couple and never cut it back.
I only trim the rest of the bush around it. So now I have a 20+foot tall center CM tree in the center of the low cut bush.
A couple of my neighbors who saw it decided to try it themselves, and when theirs got tall, they completely removed the lower bush part, which sadly caused the tall trunk to die on them. A few started over and left the bush part hi hi.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Timing is everything. Where the heck where you when I needed your sage advice back in the 80's? LOL Well, I wasn't doing web sites in those days and you were 300 miles away from me, but it would have been a pleasure to have you as a neighbor. The irony is amazing. I now have access to all your experience and story telling, but no application for it all other than the enjoyment of a vicarious experience. The neighbor I did have back in those days was a retired farmer from Wisconsin. He marveled at what I was doing in my vegetable garden and I even shared some of my harvest with them. But, unlike you, he wasn't able to contribute much new knowledge or expand on what I was reading in those organic gardening magazines. We did spend a lot of time gossiping over the fence that separated our homes. LOL
I guess I did have a lot of Floribunda roses way back when. Of course it was a pleasure when we could enjoy flowers we cut from our own garden, but most of the time they were grown just for show. The only plants I put some training effort into were some honeysuckle bushes I found out back in the forest. I brought them up to the house and planted them outside the bedroom window to act as a screen. Those babies grew to at least ten feet tall before I topped them off. They also had a marvelous fragrance when they were in bloom. The screen effect, however, was only good when the bushes had greenery on them. Our neighbors weren't very close in that house so that we really didn't need to stop people from peering into our house. It did make my wife feel more secure however.
I had to look up crepe myrtle because I thought I knew it was more of a tree than a bush. I guess they come in several varieties but the ones I've seen seemed to be a bit more than a mere bush. In any case they are a beautiful sight when they flower.
I guess I did have a lot of Floribunda roses way back when. Of course it was a pleasure when we could enjoy flowers we cut from our own garden, but most of the time they were grown just for show. The only plants I put some training effort into were some honeysuckle bushes I found out back in the forest. I brought them up to the house and planted them outside the bedroom window to act as a screen. Those babies grew to at least ten feet tall before I topped them off. They also had a marvelous fragrance when they were in bloom. The screen effect, however, was only good when the bushes had greenery on them. Our neighbors weren't very close in that house so that we really didn't need to stop people from peering into our house. It did make my wife feel more secure however.
I had to look up crepe myrtle because I thought I knew it was more of a tree than a bush. I guess they come in several varieties but the ones I've seen seemed to be a bit more than a mere bush. In any case they are a beautiful sight when they flower.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
To make a very long story very terse, my great-grandfather is who actually started our flower business, or should I say his wife. Although we were farmers, just like almost everybody was back then, since folks had to provide for themselves and their sustenance first, then sell what they could to make some money. In our case, there were very few raising flowers, so my great-grandmothers garden kept getting bigger and bigger, and the sale of flowers kept growing and growing.
Then when my grandfather joined in the daily workload, he added small greenhouses.
After his dad died, he built larger greenhouses, the first few were around 1880 to 1890. He made enough money to build all the greenhouses, and the very first two he built were totally hydroponic, although he called it nutrient culture since the word Hydroponics was not invented until 1934. But then after grandpa died, they more or less quit using hydroponics because they were now heavily into selling potted plants. Even so, they still raised a few things hydroponically.
Now, although we were selling flowers and had greenhouses since the 1870s, we were not officially a Florist until 1913 when my grandfather changed the sign on the big pillars from The Wayside Market to The Wayside Florist, and he incorporated.
My dad planted Pyracantha Bushes around the sides of the house with basement windows, and where windows to the kids rooms were as well. Pyracantha has LARGE Thorns and nobody would dare try to get past them into one of the windows.
You see a lot of Crepe Myrtle in store parking lots, usually trimmed so all you see is branches, and they keep them topped at around 8 to 10 feet high.
Not that people like Dandelions, most want to kill them off, especially if they are in their lawn, hi hi.
But we raised a few Dandelions and allowed them to turn into trees. Sold many after they reached ten feet high.
But if you didn't want a mess on your hands, and a lot of angry neighbors, you had better bag them after they bloom to keep the seeds from growing and getting everywhere. My great-grandpa started this because he just happened to like Dandelion Wine, hi hi.
When I lived in an apartment, I had some Dwarf Marigold's that were not supposed to get more than about 6 to 8 inches high, shoot up to over 8 feet high. I used to have pictures of them because people wouldn't believe it without proof. I will say it really messed up my decorative garden display when they did this. I also had some Zinnia's that did the same thing in another area of my yard. I figured it was because they were planted around the base of a tree and were stretching toward the light. But seeds I saved from them did the exact same thing out in full sun.
Take my Brockman's Golden Arbor Vitae I planted across my front yard. It was not supposed to get over 3-1/2 feet high. They are now over 15 feet high, and I did cut them back a couple of times already. Now they are old and probably should be taken down, because they have decided to spread way out on me. Had to remove two, one from either side of the driveway, because even cutting them back a foot past the edge of the driveway, they still filled back in again over the driveway. At my age, I'm just going to leave them.
Ironically, I bought a little wooden bridge to put in between a couple if one should die. None ever died. So the little foot bridge is still in a box in my crawl space I dug out.
Then when my grandfather joined in the daily workload, he added small greenhouses.
After his dad died, he built larger greenhouses, the first few were around 1880 to 1890. He made enough money to build all the greenhouses, and the very first two he built were totally hydroponic, although he called it nutrient culture since the word Hydroponics was not invented until 1934. But then after grandpa died, they more or less quit using hydroponics because they were now heavily into selling potted plants. Even so, they still raised a few things hydroponically.
Now, although we were selling flowers and had greenhouses since the 1870s, we were not officially a Florist until 1913 when my grandfather changed the sign on the big pillars from The Wayside Market to The Wayside Florist, and he incorporated.
My dad planted Pyracantha Bushes around the sides of the house with basement windows, and where windows to the kids rooms were as well. Pyracantha has LARGE Thorns and nobody would dare try to get past them into one of the windows.
You see a lot of Crepe Myrtle in store parking lots, usually trimmed so all you see is branches, and they keep them topped at around 8 to 10 feet high.
Not that people like Dandelions, most want to kill them off, especially if they are in their lawn, hi hi.
But we raised a few Dandelions and allowed them to turn into trees. Sold many after they reached ten feet high.
But if you didn't want a mess on your hands, and a lot of angry neighbors, you had better bag them after they bloom to keep the seeds from growing and getting everywhere. My great-grandpa started this because he just happened to like Dandelion Wine, hi hi.
When I lived in an apartment, I had some Dwarf Marigold's that were not supposed to get more than about 6 to 8 inches high, shoot up to over 8 feet high. I used to have pictures of them because people wouldn't believe it without proof. I will say it really messed up my decorative garden display when they did this. I also had some Zinnia's that did the same thing in another area of my yard. I figured it was because they were planted around the base of a tree and were stretching toward the light. But seeds I saved from them did the exact same thing out in full sun.
Take my Brockman's Golden Arbor Vitae I planted across my front yard. It was not supposed to get over 3-1/2 feet high. They are now over 15 feet high, and I did cut them back a couple of times already. Now they are old and probably should be taken down, because they have decided to spread way out on me. Had to remove two, one from either side of the driveway, because even cutting them back a foot past the edge of the driveway, they still filled back in again over the driveway. At my age, I'm just going to leave them.
Ironically, I bought a little wooden bridge to put in between a couple if one should die. None ever died. So the little foot bridge is still in a box in my crawl space I dug out.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
I'm reminded of a book I read when I was first hired by Motorola. Several years before I applied for a job there some biographer was hired to chronicle the birth of the company and the biography of the company's founder. Apparently it wasn't on the NYT best sellers list and they had more than a few books left over. Every employee got one free. LOL Since I was too late for that hand out I actually purchased my copy in a bookstore, which was the first time I ever heard out it. I was then told I could have got it free if I went into HR and asked for one. I think I read it all, or most of it, in one sitting. I was fascinated by how it all happened. If such a book does not already exist regarding your family history and the flower business, I think it would be a wonderfully interesting read.
You probably did it unwittingly, but once again you told me something I never knew was possible. Dandelions can grow into trees. I've seen some with roots that had to be dug out with a shovel but never noticed a stalk that could become a tree. I also know people who would scavenger for dandelions out in the wild just to ferment it. And, I've seen dandelion salads. Never dandelion trees unless they go by another name when they grow up. Amazing.
I've grown zinnias to about 48 inches tall but never realized a marigold could grow taller than that. I'm kind of liking the idea of a giant flower garden speckled with dandelion trees. I wonder if people would pay to come see it, kind of arboretum style.
You probably did it unwittingly, but once again you told me something I never knew was possible. Dandelions can grow into trees. I've seen some with roots that had to be dug out with a shovel but never noticed a stalk that could become a tree. I also know people who would scavenger for dandelions out in the wild just to ferment it. And, I've seen dandelion salads. Never dandelion trees unless they go by another name when they grow up. Amazing.
I've grown zinnias to about 48 inches tall but never realized a marigold could grow taller than that. I'm kind of liking the idea of a giant flower garden speckled with dandelion trees. I wonder if people would pay to come see it, kind of arboretum style.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
I actually started writing one, an auto-biography but started before me with the family itself. Never got back to it though, but it does have a good start with a lot of details. I got side-tracked when I obtained more genealogical information about my paternal ancestors going all the way back to the Holy Roman Empire. So I spent a lot of time verifying the data. It also got me in touch with some parts of the family who still had many of the original documents and stories. It took a while, but they were sending me photocopies of things they had, and I really was surprised to find the stories from different family lines all agreed with each other.
I have a hog weed by my office door I let grow. Right next to it is a smaller one that is called the same thing.
They have the same stalk and leaves, but the seed casings they put out look quite a bit different from each other.
Although they are only a weed, I decided to let them grow, just to see. One is now over 8 feet tall and the other is 3 feet tall. Unfortunately, I should have cut them down, because now each joint has a cluster of very sharp thorns.
I'll leave it until it freezes and dies. I was actually waiting to see if they bloomed. Most plants do, even if nondescript.
If you have a Dandelion sprout in the corner of your yard, out of the way, leave it be and watch to see how tall it grows. But don't forget after it blooms to get rid of the seed pod right away, hi hi. The life you save might be your own, hi hi.
In the flower business, we've seen some plants do some mighty weird things.
Out of about 10,000 Ivy Plants, which are vines, there will be one that stands up vertically and builds a trunk instead of a thin vine. This happens more often in older plants that have been in a flower bed for years, but they usually end up getting trimmed to keep the flower bed looking nice.
We used to take all the vines that grew vertical naturally and move them to a back greenhouse.
Sometimes we had to stake them for a year or more if they got too top heavy and revert back to a vine.
But we usually gave them about three years before we started shaping the top into an ivy ball and keeping the trunk and any base runners trimmed off. When they were 4 to 5 years old, we would move some to the sales house to sell. Naturally we had to get around 25 bucks for them, to cover the cost of raising and training them. Today that would be more like 150 bucks the way costs for everything have gone up.
Back in the late 1960s, the average cost for a square foot of greenhouse space, which included greenhouse maintenance, heating and electric, it only cost about 5 bucks per square foot of space. By 1970 the cost was up to 8 bucks a sq. ft., and by 1980 the cost was already over 12 bucks a sq. ft. And this did not include water, or pesticides, or anything else associated with the actual cost of raising a crop. They say inflation is only about 3% per year. That's bologna! The cost of everything might be going up at 3% per year, but there are many things combined which drives the cost much higher.
Heating went up at the rate of about 12 to 15% from 1970 to 1980. Water nearly tripled, and sewer fees went up like over four times. Although we normally used clay pots, most greenhouses switched to plastic pots to save money. Plants do not grow as well in plastic as they do in clay pots. But many crops we raised which were seasonal, like Poinsettia's and Lilies, we too switched to plastic to keep our prices competitive.
Shortly before we closed down, we built 6 new insulated greenhouses to help cut heating costs and keep maintenance down. Unfortunately the cost to build that type of greenhouse was in a way self-defeating. It would take over 20 years to recoup the cost based on lower heating costs, because everything else stayed about the same and went up like normal.
I have a hog weed by my office door I let grow. Right next to it is a smaller one that is called the same thing.
They have the same stalk and leaves, but the seed casings they put out look quite a bit different from each other.
Although they are only a weed, I decided to let them grow, just to see. One is now over 8 feet tall and the other is 3 feet tall. Unfortunately, I should have cut them down, because now each joint has a cluster of very sharp thorns.
I'll leave it until it freezes and dies. I was actually waiting to see if they bloomed. Most plants do, even if nondescript.
If you have a Dandelion sprout in the corner of your yard, out of the way, leave it be and watch to see how tall it grows. But don't forget after it blooms to get rid of the seed pod right away, hi hi. The life you save might be your own, hi hi.
In the flower business, we've seen some plants do some mighty weird things.
Out of about 10,000 Ivy Plants, which are vines, there will be one that stands up vertically and builds a trunk instead of a thin vine. This happens more often in older plants that have been in a flower bed for years, but they usually end up getting trimmed to keep the flower bed looking nice.
We used to take all the vines that grew vertical naturally and move them to a back greenhouse.
Sometimes we had to stake them for a year or more if they got too top heavy and revert back to a vine.
But we usually gave them about three years before we started shaping the top into an ivy ball and keeping the trunk and any base runners trimmed off. When they were 4 to 5 years old, we would move some to the sales house to sell. Naturally we had to get around 25 bucks for them, to cover the cost of raising and training them. Today that would be more like 150 bucks the way costs for everything have gone up.
Back in the late 1960s, the average cost for a square foot of greenhouse space, which included greenhouse maintenance, heating and electric, it only cost about 5 bucks per square foot of space. By 1970 the cost was up to 8 bucks a sq. ft., and by 1980 the cost was already over 12 bucks a sq. ft. And this did not include water, or pesticides, or anything else associated with the actual cost of raising a crop. They say inflation is only about 3% per year. That's bologna! The cost of everything might be going up at 3% per year, but there are many things combined which drives the cost much higher.
Heating went up at the rate of about 12 to 15% from 1970 to 1980. Water nearly tripled, and sewer fees went up like over four times. Although we normally used clay pots, most greenhouses switched to plastic pots to save money. Plants do not grow as well in plastic as they do in clay pots. But many crops we raised which were seasonal, like Poinsettia's and Lilies, we too switched to plastic to keep our prices competitive.
Shortly before we closed down, we built 6 new insulated greenhouses to help cut heating costs and keep maintenance down. Unfortunately the cost to build that type of greenhouse was in a way self-defeating. It would take over 20 years to recoup the cost based on lower heating costs, because everything else stayed about the same and went up like normal.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
The electric company has a small junction box at the southwest corner of my lot. It's 12-18 inches away from my neighbor's fence on one side, which makes it difficult, nay impossible, to get at with the grass cutter. Dandelions and several other weedy type plants love to grow there. For some reason sodded grass doesn't like that corner of my lot. When I feel the urge two or three times a year I get out the weed whacker and go after those wild out of the way weeds. There are some HOA and city ordinances about how tall the grass is allowed to be. I've not looked into it yet, but I would be surprised if they have a specification for weeds. That might be the loophole that would allow me to experiment with weed growth; the legal kind of weed of course.
That percentage stated as the rate of inflation is an average based on the consumer price index. Some things actually go down in price over the years, but the CPI measures certain common items to come up with a number. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the cost of living in this country never has decreased. It is constantly increasing, and hopefully at a controllable pace. The main reason for the increase in prices is the increase in demand often spurred by an increase in population. The good news is that income also increases along with those things subject to inflation. I know you can give me a good argument about income not keeping pace with inflation when it comes to SSA benefits. No argument from me there. In general, however, things tend to even out. Lately the minimum wage has been pressured into going up to $15/hr. While that is a great benefit to the people getting a raise, it will add to the rate of inflation. When there is more money available people spend more. The more they spend the greater is the pressure to raise the costs. Sounds like Catch-22 doesn't it?
That percentage stated as the rate of inflation is an average based on the consumer price index. Some things actually go down in price over the years, but the CPI measures certain common items to come up with a number. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the cost of living in this country never has decreased. It is constantly increasing, and hopefully at a controllable pace. The main reason for the increase in prices is the increase in demand often spurred by an increase in population. The good news is that income also increases along with those things subject to inflation. I know you can give me a good argument about income not keeping pace with inflation when it comes to SSA benefits. No argument from me there. In general, however, things tend to even out. Lately the minimum wage has been pressured into going up to $15/hr. While that is a great benefit to the people getting a raise, it will add to the rate of inflation. When there is more money available people spend more. The more they spend the greater is the pressure to raise the costs. Sounds like Catch-22 doesn't it?
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Every place I have ever lived, easements were to be maintained by the homeowner.
In some cases, you are not taxed a property tax on the part that is an easement.
Such as from your front property line to the street. The roadway easement.
But you still have to mow it. They say it is because you get to use it, but can't put anything on it, other than a bush or tree, hi hi. Which they can take down if they want to since it is on an easement.
My ancestors who still lived in Germany, suffered massive hyper-inflation, twice.
The hardest hit by inflation are the seniors who can no longer work.
The particular things they must buy normally goes up in price much more than the current rate of inflation.
Debi and I have tried for like six years to get our property taxes frozen. This freeze is only good for one year, so you have to apply every year. We have never been able to get it frozen because they say we make too much money.
I think they are lying to us though, because they know we cannot afford to fight them over it.
What they show we cannot make more than in their publications, we make less than half of that.
And they still say we make too much!
Raise Wages and the price of the items they sell has to go up to cover that added labor expense.
And believe me, prices go up much faster than SS goes up. In fact, SS increases were frozen many years during the Obama disaster. He claimed there was no increase due to inflation, which everyone knew was a lie.
If there was no inflation, then why did the cost of Medicare go up each of those years?
In some cases, you are not taxed a property tax on the part that is an easement.
Such as from your front property line to the street. The roadway easement.
But you still have to mow it. They say it is because you get to use it, but can't put anything on it, other than a bush or tree, hi hi. Which they can take down if they want to since it is on an easement.
My ancestors who still lived in Germany, suffered massive hyper-inflation, twice.
The hardest hit by inflation are the seniors who can no longer work.
The particular things they must buy normally goes up in price much more than the current rate of inflation.
Debi and I have tried for like six years to get our property taxes frozen. This freeze is only good for one year, so you have to apply every year. We have never been able to get it frozen because they say we make too much money.
I think they are lying to us though, because they know we cannot afford to fight them over it.
What they show we cannot make more than in their publications, we make less than half of that.
And they still say we make too much!
Raise Wages and the price of the items they sell has to go up to cover that added labor expense.
And believe me, prices go up much faster than SS goes up. In fact, SS increases were frozen many years during the Obama disaster. He claimed there was no increase due to inflation, which everyone knew was a lie.
If there was no inflation, then why did the cost of Medicare go up each of those years?
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
I'm pretty sure the electric box is on an easement. I've not looked at the plat of survey since we closed on the house, and even then I wasn't very interested in the details. You are correct about being required to maintain the land even if I must share it with public services. Be that all as it may, the ordinances and covenants various people impose upon me must be considered. Allowing a dandelion to grow into a tree is an interesting situation that would test out the validity of any restrictions. Is that dandelion a weed and therefore must be kept below a certain height, or is it a tree that can grow as tall as ... well, a tree? Good question, but they would get me on the fact that I put a tree so close to the electric utility. LOL
The government of any country has all the power, or to put it another way all the control over money. We can only hope the leaders of a country have enough foresight to comply with the laws of economics and keep things under control. Hyper-inflation is an out of control situation and affects those with fewest resources the most. In some cases when there is a change in government nobody is safe from the losses of hyper-inflation, but that is a rare situation indeed.
When a country is experiencing a depression, such as officially was the case in the United States from December 2007 to June 2009 there is no inflation. In fact exactly the opposite, deflation, occurs. The recovery from a deflationary period looks as if it is a period of inflation, but is it really? I don't feel well informed enough to explain to you why the cost of Medicare increases when there is zero inflation
. That is all part of how the SSA operates and you did a lot more research on it than I ever will.
The government of any country has all the power, or to put it another way all the control over money. We can only hope the leaders of a country have enough foresight to comply with the laws of economics and keep things under control. Hyper-inflation is an out of control situation and affects those with fewest resources the most. In some cases when there is a change in government nobody is safe from the losses of hyper-inflation, but that is a rare situation indeed.
When a country is experiencing a depression, such as officially was the case in the United States from December 2007 to June 2009 there is no inflation. In fact exactly the opposite, deflation, occurs. The recovery from a deflationary period looks as if it is a period of inflation, but is it really? I don't feel well informed enough to explain to you why the cost of Medicare increases when there is zero inflation
. That is all part of how the SSA operates and you did a lot more research on it than I ever will.Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
I forget the type of wild bush it was. But my dad pruned and trimmed the darn thing until he was able to form a two seat chair next to his mailbox. Come to think of it, I think it was a wild honeysuckle bush. Then he trained it into an arch over the mailbox, and eventually a canopy over the chair. That was a mistake because of the sap that fell from it. But it looked neat. In what should be called the backyard, but not in his case since he was bordered by three streets, he had a jungle jim he covered with Ivy. After no one used the jungle jim anymore he planted grape vines in the center and trimmed it in such a way it had only eight vertical branches, of which he trained the side branches so they were parallel with the steps on the old jungle jim. I should mention the jungle jim had four corners formed like a ladder, then cross rails between them.
As he trained the vines to replace them, he removed the cross rails, then the ladder steps, and eventually the entire steel structure. From the street it still looked like the old jungle jim, especially in winter. But it was nothing more than a single grape vine that had grown as thick as a small tree trunk in the center. It looked neat and nobody really noticed the jungle jim was long gone. I think the birds got all the grapes hi hi.
I worried when the government made Silver Certificates invalid. I had a whole savings drawer full of Red Seal two dollar bills. I got worried I would lose them, so like an idiot I sold them and filled the drawer up with Green Seal two dollar bills.
I did luck out and sold them to a coin shop for 5 to 10 cents extra for each bill. Basically they gave me a dime for those in sequential order and still in the bank bands, and only a nickel for all the rest. So I did come out ahead. They probably stored them for 20 years and sold them for a bundle.
I had to cash in all of my two dollar bills to cover the late wife's medical expenses, along with all of my other assets.
You are right about the depression, but even so, tell me something considered a necessity that did not go up in price during that time.
As he trained the vines to replace them, he removed the cross rails, then the ladder steps, and eventually the entire steel structure. From the street it still looked like the old jungle jim, especially in winter. But it was nothing more than a single grape vine that had grown as thick as a small tree trunk in the center. It looked neat and nobody really noticed the jungle jim was long gone. I think the birds got all the grapes hi hi.
I worried when the government made Silver Certificates invalid. I had a whole savings drawer full of Red Seal two dollar bills. I got worried I would lose them, so like an idiot I sold them and filled the drawer up with Green Seal two dollar bills.
I did luck out and sold them to a coin shop for 5 to 10 cents extra for each bill. Basically they gave me a dime for those in sequential order and still in the bank bands, and only a nickel for all the rest. So I did come out ahead. They probably stored them for 20 years and sold them for a bundle.
I had to cash in all of my two dollar bills to cover the late wife's medical expenses, along with all of my other assets.
You are right about the depression, but even so, tell me something considered a necessity that did not go up in price during that time.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Well, since you asked, the price of crude dropped from a historic high of $166.32/bbl in January of '08 down to $54.83 in February of '09. Admittedly that didn't last long and the price at the pump did not fall that dramatically, but oil suffered the effects of deflation. https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude- ... tory-chartYou are right about the depression, but even so, tell me something considered a necessity that did not go up in price during that time.
The honeysuckle I have experience with would lend itself to training and pruning. Out back in the woods some of the branches on the older plants were as thick as my arm. It was really wild back there in that several grape vines grew among the honeysuckle. It was a sight to see such intermingling of the species, but ugly as all Hell. LOL The grapes on those wild vines were green and beautiful looking but too sour to eat. I don't know how many bushels of grapes I put through the shredder the year I cleaned things up, but it was quite a few.
Your dad was one heck of a guy. The Jungle Gym was a perfect frame for ivy. I can imagine growing morning glories on such a matrix. Now that I think about it, I don't believe I've seen any morning glory plants down here in Missouri. I've not seen fireflies or squirrels either, but people tell me both exist. There is something weird about O'Fallon and I haven't figured it out yet. I'm going to have to read the HOA covenants again. Maybe they ban certain critters from inhabiting our subdivision.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
When I first started driving, gas was like 15 cents a gallon, but by the time I got my drivers license it was already up to 33 cents per gallon. However, most of that increase was due to more taxes added to fuel.
Like everything else, fuels went up in price over time, but then suddenly started jumping up in price in leaps and bounds, hundreds of times greater than inflation.
So I see the depression you are talking about here as simply getting the fuel prices back down where they belonged in the first place, to cut out the price gouging that was going on by the oil industry.
The price for fuel is actually quite reasonable right now, the higher prices at the pump are almost all taxes added to the fuel. They claim it is to maintain the roads. But based on the amount of money collected in fuel taxes, our roads should be immaculate and well maintained, but they are not. Bureaucrats eat up all the money for themselves. Most tax money never goes to the purposes intended.
Squirrels virtually destroyed my attic after they chewed a hole in the soffit to get in. Knocked down insulation, chewed up electrical wires, etc. They did one heck of a lot of damage.
If you don't weed eat around your fences Morning Glories will pop up and vine around on the fences. They are considered a weed, hi hi.
We have lots of squirrels here, and to keep them out of the bird feeders, I put an elevated tray of food out for them too. Most know not to mess with the bird feeders because I pop them with a little low power BB pistol, less than 200 fps, and not accurate at all. But it does scare them away from the bird feeders and they leave it alone.
Some of the older squirrels who eat off the tray have learned I don't bother them, so even when I appear with the little pistol, they just stay there knowing I'm not after them, just the one on the bird feeder, hi hi.
You can almost hear him snickering at the other squirrel, see I told ya so, hi hi.
Like everything else, fuels went up in price over time, but then suddenly started jumping up in price in leaps and bounds, hundreds of times greater than inflation.
So I see the depression you are talking about here as simply getting the fuel prices back down where they belonged in the first place, to cut out the price gouging that was going on by the oil industry.
The price for fuel is actually quite reasonable right now, the higher prices at the pump are almost all taxes added to the fuel. They claim it is to maintain the roads. But based on the amount of money collected in fuel taxes, our roads should be immaculate and well maintained, but they are not. Bureaucrats eat up all the money for themselves. Most tax money never goes to the purposes intended.
Squirrels virtually destroyed my attic after they chewed a hole in the soffit to get in. Knocked down insulation, chewed up electrical wires, etc. They did one heck of a lot of damage.
If you don't weed eat around your fences Morning Glories will pop up and vine around on the fences. They are considered a weed, hi hi.
We have lots of squirrels here, and to keep them out of the bird feeders, I put an elevated tray of food out for them too. Most know not to mess with the bird feeders because I pop them with a little low power BB pistol, less than 200 fps, and not accurate at all. But it does scare them away from the bird feeders and they leave it alone.
Some of the older squirrels who eat off the tray have learned I don't bother them, so even when I appear with the little pistol, they just stay there knowing I'm not after them, just the one on the bird feeder, hi hi.
You can almost hear him snickering at the other squirrel, see I told ya so, hi hi.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Taxes on gasoline do indeed add a lot to the price at the pump. I'm pretty sure, but not positive, that taxes on a product do not go into the Consumer Price Index calculation. Even if they do, the price at the pump for gas did come down during the depression in question. $40 a barrel is probably a fair price when the Arabs aren't manipulating the supply. The decrease in demand due to COVID brought prices down recently but OPEC has a vested interest in keeping the prices low. They want to put the competition, American frackers, out of business. From what I understand that is exactly what is happening as I write this. We the consumers are benefiting from lower prices, but America is becoming less independent because the break even point for fracking is around $70/bbl. My point here is that increases in prices, especially oil, are not always due to inflationary pressure. In this case producing our own oil is about twice as expensive as what we can get imported.
I've never had a problem with squirrels nesting where I don't want them. Way back when I bought my first house the raccoons in the neighborhood often did more damage than any squirrel can do. I had a family of 'coons that decided to live in the rafters of my garage, which was detached from the house. They didn't do any damage to the structure, but they did stink a lot. LOL I couldn't get any advice about how to evict them, other than burning down the garage. I might have tried it but the insurance company would not pay in that case. So, I had an idea and bought some mothballs. You can't believe how hard it is to find them, but I did. I tossed them up where the critters were residing and they promptly figured out how to toss the back. That didn't remove the odor entirely and I just kept tossing more and more up there. It took about a month and they left never to return. I don't know if it was the moth balls or if they just found more luxurious accommodations.
I've never had a problem with squirrels nesting where I don't want them. Way back when I bought my first house the raccoons in the neighborhood often did more damage than any squirrel can do. I had a family of 'coons that decided to live in the rafters of my garage, which was detached from the house. They didn't do any damage to the structure, but they did stink a lot. LOL I couldn't get any advice about how to evict them, other than burning down the garage. I might have tried it but the insurance company would not pay in that case. So, I had an idea and bought some mothballs. You can't believe how hard it is to find them, but I did. I tossed them up where the critters were residing and they promptly figured out how to toss the back. That didn't remove the odor entirely and I just kept tossing more and more up there. It took about a month and they left never to return. I don't know if it was the moth balls or if they just found more luxurious accommodations.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
We also have major oil fields ourselves that are not yet tapped.
There is a reason we are not tapping into our oil supplies yet.
The idea is to use up other countries oil first, and when they eventually run low, we can begin to tap our reserves and sell it to them at prices much higher than we ever paid them for oil, mainly because inflation continues to drive all prices upward.
Yes Fracking to squeeze the oil in the rock out, is an expensive way to get the oil out. But much of this is to empty the old oil fields more than was able by simple pumping it out.
I've read many times that the U.S. has more oil than all the rest of the oil producing countries combined.
Whether that is true or not is anybodies guess.
Then too, we may be hoarding our oil so the Chinese get it all when they take over our country, hi hi.
Ah yes, raccoons. They got into one of my storage buildings back home and destroyed over 20,000 shipping boxes. They are worse than rats when it comes to the damage they did. It took me a few months to even figure out how they were getting in. There were no visible signs of entry anywhere around, under, or over the building. It took months of their going in and out to leave any tell-tale evidence of their ingress and egress point, and even then it was still hard to spot.
There was vertical steel siding on the outbuilding that matched the siding on the house. It was flat for about six inches then a bump for about 2 inches, and at the edges of the sheets where they overlapped and connected.
Inside the outbuilding was an electric box mounted to a sheet of plywood, which left a three inch gap behind it, and where most of the wiring ran upward to the rafters. On the outside was the meter basin a little higher than the electric box inside. Where the conduit came in that area was well sealed.
Down at ground level, about half way between the interlocking seams of the siding, in the middle where one of the bumps in the siding was located, those raccoons learned they squeeze behind the siding pushing it out momentarily. Once behind the siding they could move up to where there was a seam in the intermediate board, where they chewed their way through leaving a hole. But this hole was behind the plywood the electric box was mounted on, so was out of sight. And under the electric box was old steamer trunks filled with junk and raised from the concrete floor on 4x4s. So all they had to do was push the siding out far enough to squeeze in, come through the hole behind the plywood, drop down behind the steamer trunks and come out from under them to get to anywhere else they wanted to go in the outbuilding.
They were sneaky enough not to leave any mess near their ingress and egress, but really did a number on my thousands of shipping boxes that were stacked in there with the edges facing upward.
There is a reason we are not tapping into our oil supplies yet.
The idea is to use up other countries oil first, and when they eventually run low, we can begin to tap our reserves and sell it to them at prices much higher than we ever paid them for oil, mainly because inflation continues to drive all prices upward.
Yes Fracking to squeeze the oil in the rock out, is an expensive way to get the oil out. But much of this is to empty the old oil fields more than was able by simple pumping it out.
I've read many times that the U.S. has more oil than all the rest of the oil producing countries combined.
Whether that is true or not is anybodies guess.
Then too, we may be hoarding our oil so the Chinese get it all when they take over our country, hi hi.
Ah yes, raccoons. They got into one of my storage buildings back home and destroyed over 20,000 shipping boxes. They are worse than rats when it comes to the damage they did. It took me a few months to even figure out how they were getting in. There were no visible signs of entry anywhere around, under, or over the building. It took months of their going in and out to leave any tell-tale evidence of their ingress and egress point, and even then it was still hard to spot.
There was vertical steel siding on the outbuilding that matched the siding on the house. It was flat for about six inches then a bump for about 2 inches, and at the edges of the sheets where they overlapped and connected.
Inside the outbuilding was an electric box mounted to a sheet of plywood, which left a three inch gap behind it, and where most of the wiring ran upward to the rafters. On the outside was the meter basin a little higher than the electric box inside. Where the conduit came in that area was well sealed.
Down at ground level, about half way between the interlocking seams of the siding, in the middle where one of the bumps in the siding was located, those raccoons learned they squeeze behind the siding pushing it out momentarily. Once behind the siding they could move up to where there was a seam in the intermediate board, where they chewed their way through leaving a hole. But this hole was behind the plywood the electric box was mounted on, so was out of sight. And under the electric box was old steamer trunks filled with junk and raised from the concrete floor on 4x4s. So all they had to do was push the siding out far enough to squeeze in, come through the hole behind the plywood, drop down behind the steamer trunks and come out from under them to get to anywhere else they wanted to go in the outbuilding.
They were sneaky enough not to leave any mess near their ingress and egress, but really did a number on my thousands of shipping boxes that were stacked in there with the edges facing upward.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
The main reason raccoons were a problem in the old neighborhood is because food for them was easy pickings. Most people had detached garages and along one side of the garage is where they kept the garbage cans. In most cases that kept the cans out of sight. The raccoons became experts at tipping the trash and knocking the covers off. At that point the party began and all the 'coons in the neighborhood came to feast. I think the critters you encountered were brilliant above and beyond the average critter's intellect. LOL
I don't know about hoarding oil reserves. There certainly is a lot of the stuff off shore. The Arabic lands have proven reserves that would outlast this country's desire to hoard so that I don't see the strategy you mention working very well. The seller doesn't determine the price of a global commodity such as crude oil. If we charge one customer twice the prices as everyone else, guess where they will be buying their oil. Anyway, my thinking at the moment is that oil will become obsolete as a fuel in the not too distant future. There will always be commercial needs, and I don't see them desert dwelling Arabs doing a lot of heavy manufacturing.
I don't know about hoarding oil reserves. There certainly is a lot of the stuff off shore. The Arabic lands have proven reserves that would outlast this country's desire to hoard so that I don't see the strategy you mention working very well. The seller doesn't determine the price of a global commodity such as crude oil. If we charge one customer twice the prices as everyone else, guess where they will be buying their oil. Anyway, my thinking at the moment is that oil will become obsolete as a fuel in the not too distant future. There will always be commercial needs, and I don't see them desert dwelling Arabs doing a lot of heavy manufacturing.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
We rarely have anything edible in our trash cans.
Almost all foodstuffs not consumed go down the garbage disposer, where it decomposes on its route to the wastewater plant.
Not much paper either, since we shred nearly all paper products to use as mulch.
And recyclable plastics we take to the recycler along with aluminum foil, trays and cans.
About the only thing organic that ends up in our trash are big things like watermelon rinds and corn husks and cobs.
Very little oil is used by the plastics industry, especially in plastic films. The majority of plastics used as wrapping material comes from Natural Gas.
When I worked for MRTC who pipe natural gas, every year they had to prove they could supply gas at the current rate of increase for the next 20 years. I started work for them prior to 1968, and at that time, they projected their smallest gas field might be depleted in around 250 years, and they had three other much larger fields they owned.
In other words, they will never run out of natural gas for many reasons.
Just like the home heating industry has moved from burning wood logs, to coal, to oil, to natural gas, and is in various phases of using electric generated by hydroelectric, to coal fired steam plants, to nuclear plants, to windmills, and solar cells.
As time marches on. Just like we never ran out of coal and it fell into disuse, heating oil has pretty much fell into disuse. Some day fuel usage will also fall into disuse except for commercial manufacturing.
We have had hydrogen cars, and electric cars already. Those electric cars require lithium batteries at present, and lithium requires major mining, in some cases worse for the environment than mining oil for fuel.
Heck, I even had an adapter on one of my cars to use Natural Gas as a fuel, but it still had to use some gas, as natural gas does not have much octane.
I honestly think something better than battery powered electric cars will be on the near horizon.
They may still be electric, but I'm thinking along the lines of a small power plant, possibly hydrogen, to generate the electric to drive the vehicle, and perhaps even use some type of super capacitor in place of the batteries.
Diesel trains run on electric, but they use diesel engines to generate the electric.
I assume they determined years ago that converting the diesel horsepower to electric via a generator provided the greatest cost savings over using diesel alone to power the train.
This is why I'm thinking cars will do something similar, get their electric from a fuel powered motor instead of batteries.
But what fuel is the question. Perhaps they will use gasoline at first, then slowly inch their way over to hydrogen. Unless something better is discovered along the way.
Almost all foodstuffs not consumed go down the garbage disposer, where it decomposes on its route to the wastewater plant.
Not much paper either, since we shred nearly all paper products to use as mulch.
And recyclable plastics we take to the recycler along with aluminum foil, trays and cans.
About the only thing organic that ends up in our trash are big things like watermelon rinds and corn husks and cobs.
Very little oil is used by the plastics industry, especially in plastic films. The majority of plastics used as wrapping material comes from Natural Gas.
When I worked for MRTC who pipe natural gas, every year they had to prove they could supply gas at the current rate of increase for the next 20 years. I started work for them prior to 1968, and at that time, they projected their smallest gas field might be depleted in around 250 years, and they had three other much larger fields they owned.
In other words, they will never run out of natural gas for many reasons.
Just like the home heating industry has moved from burning wood logs, to coal, to oil, to natural gas, and is in various phases of using electric generated by hydroelectric, to coal fired steam plants, to nuclear plants, to windmills, and solar cells.
As time marches on. Just like we never ran out of coal and it fell into disuse, heating oil has pretty much fell into disuse. Some day fuel usage will also fall into disuse except for commercial manufacturing.
We have had hydrogen cars, and electric cars already. Those electric cars require lithium batteries at present, and lithium requires major mining, in some cases worse for the environment than mining oil for fuel.
Heck, I even had an adapter on one of my cars to use Natural Gas as a fuel, but it still had to use some gas, as natural gas does not have much octane.
I honestly think something better than battery powered electric cars will be on the near horizon.
They may still be electric, but I'm thinking along the lines of a small power plant, possibly hydrogen, to generate the electric to drive the vehicle, and perhaps even use some type of super capacitor in place of the batteries.
Diesel trains run on electric, but they use diesel engines to generate the electric.
I assume they determined years ago that converting the diesel horsepower to electric via a generator provided the greatest cost savings over using diesel alone to power the train.
This is why I'm thinking cars will do something similar, get their electric from a fuel powered motor instead of batteries.
But what fuel is the question. Perhaps they will use gasoline at first, then slowly inch their way over to hydrogen. Unless something better is discovered along the way.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
It's been proven time and time again that money = power. Just about everything you read in terms of current events has money as a root cause, and thus the associated power and influence. All this emphasis on how money makes the world go round is misleading. The true power belongs to those who have the energy resources. A lot of money and power is associated with crude oil, but it boils down to what that oil is used for. it's an energy producer. In the final analysis the last nation standing will be the one with the greatest energy resources.
People like the idea of "free" energy from the sun, the wind, and the flow of water, but we know it's not truly free. We don't have to mine it because they all exist out in the open for all to access. But all those free energy sources need to be converted to a usable form of energy. Heck, even a sail boat needs the canvass to covert the wind to movement. I'm certain alternatives to the current method of moving around will be found. Some of the space craft being prototyped these days involve using the force of radiation against a surface to create movement. Some of that movement would approach the speed of light. Then there is that quirk of quantum physics where a particle can move from point-A to point-B without going through the middle. That puts things like teleportation on the table of possibilities.
I think there is an abundance of energy that can sustain mankind on this planet for eons. Mining, converting, and controlling that energy seems to be destroying the planet, unfortunately. We may run out of terra cotta before we run out of energy.
People like the idea of "free" energy from the sun, the wind, and the flow of water, but we know it's not truly free. We don't have to mine it because they all exist out in the open for all to access. But all those free energy sources need to be converted to a usable form of energy. Heck, even a sail boat needs the canvass to covert the wind to movement. I'm certain alternatives to the current method of moving around will be found. Some of the space craft being prototyped these days involve using the force of radiation against a surface to create movement. Some of that movement would approach the speed of light. Then there is that quirk of quantum physics where a particle can move from point-A to point-B without going through the middle. That puts things like teleportation on the table of possibilities.
I think there is an abundance of energy that can sustain mankind on this planet for eons. Mining, converting, and controlling that energy seems to be destroying the planet, unfortunately. We may run out of terra cotta before we run out of energy.
Re: Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
Here is some food for thought concerning solar panels. Especially when they build 30 to 60 acre areas of nothing but solar panels.
Could they possible either cause like a nuclear winter, or just the opposite, overheat our upper atmosphere.
Why do I say that?
OK, the sun striking the earth provides many benefits. It warms the earth, makes the plants and trees grow, and allow them to perform their air filtering and production of oxygen.
Now, with all these glass panels covering large areas, and reflecting the sunlight back up again, preventing it from heating the earth, but instead heating the clouds, or our outer areas when no clouds.
Heating the clouds would prevent them from cooling and dropping rain. Hence it could create a drought situation.
I have no idea what would happen if we heated the layers around the earth to protect it. Could go either way.
Or the sunlight could reflect back down causing some areas to be overheated, again cause desert like conditions.
Plus all that heat pointed back skyward, as those solar collectors are pointed back toward the sun, how many are aligned perfectly, meaning many of them could form a single beam of light, enough to roast a bird flying over the array.
Probably kill as many birds as the windmills are doing.
Birds are used to spread seeds, and they help fertilize as well.
Just like they banned Freon because of the damage they claimed it was doing, although it wasn't.
I'll be some day they will ban solar collectors to help prevent global warming due to damage to our upper layers.
Pretty soon, fossil fuels will start looking like the better alternative again.
Speaking of water power. I don't know if you are familiar with how the old hand crank cisterns used to work, not the kind with pumps, the old hand crank with a chain and cups on it.
My brother and I took a long chain and cut many basketballs in half and connected them to this long chain.
We took the apparatus we made and brought it to the river and mounted it on the end of his dock, which went out over the water almost to the main stream in the river.
We used a 4 to 1 gearbox connected to an automotive generator and was able to obtain enough electric to light 4 of the light bulbs in his cabin. When we tried a 5th light bulb, it was too much for our little riggings.
I think what happened was the load slowed down how fast the alternator could turn, and actually held back the basketballs from keeping up with the flow. Not sure about that since they were under water.
I once bought a vertical rooftop turbine, it did not have propeller blades, but did have vertical veins along a center shaft.
We never had enough wind where I lived for it to be of any real use. It was enough to power the two garage lights when the wind was blowing about 4 to 6 mph, so that was basically all it was ever used for, until it broke. It was still on my roof when I sold the house.
I actually got more electric out of a long hog fence I added insulators too down on the farm my grandfather worked at.
Just enough to light up a row of LEDs on top of each of the fence posts.
Could they possible either cause like a nuclear winter, or just the opposite, overheat our upper atmosphere.
Why do I say that?
OK, the sun striking the earth provides many benefits. It warms the earth, makes the plants and trees grow, and allow them to perform their air filtering and production of oxygen.
Now, with all these glass panels covering large areas, and reflecting the sunlight back up again, preventing it from heating the earth, but instead heating the clouds, or our outer areas when no clouds.
Heating the clouds would prevent them from cooling and dropping rain. Hence it could create a drought situation.
I have no idea what would happen if we heated the layers around the earth to protect it. Could go either way.
Or the sunlight could reflect back down causing some areas to be overheated, again cause desert like conditions.
Plus all that heat pointed back skyward, as those solar collectors are pointed back toward the sun, how many are aligned perfectly, meaning many of them could form a single beam of light, enough to roast a bird flying over the array.
Probably kill as many birds as the windmills are doing.
Birds are used to spread seeds, and they help fertilize as well.
Just like they banned Freon because of the damage they claimed it was doing, although it wasn't.
I'll be some day they will ban solar collectors to help prevent global warming due to damage to our upper layers.
Pretty soon, fossil fuels will start looking like the better alternative again.
Speaking of water power. I don't know if you are familiar with how the old hand crank cisterns used to work, not the kind with pumps, the old hand crank with a chain and cups on it.
My brother and I took a long chain and cut many basketballs in half and connected them to this long chain.
We took the apparatus we made and brought it to the river and mounted it on the end of his dock, which went out over the water almost to the main stream in the river.
We used a 4 to 1 gearbox connected to an automotive generator and was able to obtain enough electric to light 4 of the light bulbs in his cabin. When we tried a 5th light bulb, it was too much for our little riggings.
I think what happened was the load slowed down how fast the alternator could turn, and actually held back the basketballs from keeping up with the flow. Not sure about that since they were under water.
I once bought a vertical rooftop turbine, it did not have propeller blades, but did have vertical veins along a center shaft.
We never had enough wind where I lived for it to be of any real use. It was enough to power the two garage lights when the wind was blowing about 4 to 6 mph, so that was basically all it was ever used for, until it broke. It was still on my roof when I sold the house.
I actually got more electric out of a long hog fence I added insulators too down on the farm my grandfather worked at.
Just enough to light up a row of LEDs on top of each of the fence posts.