"Access to telephone landlines could be in jeopardy for some California residents depending on an upcoming decision by the California Public Utilities Commission. AT&T is required to provide service as the states “Carrier of Last Resort,” providing basic telephone service in a particular area. AT&T wants to end that obligation. If approved, and another company doesn’t volunteer to provide service, it would affect customers in certain service areas throughout the state"
It's pretty much all those little less- or non-profitable corners, typically forested or hilly, where a carrier of last resort is the only carrier. There's no cell service and typically no Internet. You know, the exact reason the regulation existed until now?
Personally, after what they did to solar power in California over the last two years, I do not trust Newsom's PUC to do the right thing.
Amazon is as I said, a data dealer as much as a retailer and cloud provider. People will flock to $9 services and gladly sign over their personal medical histories because health care has become so unaffordable for so many people. It's trivial for Amazon to structure this so that data has to go through a non-HIPAA entity first, so long as customers agree to it, and they will agree to it. It's the ethics of that situation that I object to. Also, Amazon will be entering into an unregulated area, wedging themselves between patients and traditional caregivers. That lack of regulation will render this sort of healthcare as safe as "banking" with dot-com not-banks who have a cool app.
"Fast Car wins country song of the year – 35 years after its debut"
We met once, very briefly in the early-mid 90's; she was one of the nicest, most grounded celebrities I've ever met. As the short conversation drifted we ended up chatting about how different paint colors affect mood & how subjective that is.
From this article:
"At 124.5 meters long, the [helium filled] Pathfinder 1 dwarfs the current Goodyear airships and even the massive Stratolaunch plane designed to launch orbital rockets. It’s the largest aircraft to take to the skies since the gargantuan Hindenburg airship of the 1930s."
"An MRI can’t function without some 2,000 liters of ultra-cold liquid helium keeping its magnets cool enough to work. But helium — a nonrenewable element found deep within the Earth’s crust — is running low, leaving hospitals wondering how to plan for a future with a much scarcer supply."
@Frances_Larina Essentially. Mind you, where I live electric cars are mostly powered by coal because it’s what produces the better part of our electricity. And as demand from electricity goes up from an increase in electric cars we will need even more coal-produced power because we’re already struggling with too much demand from the grid. I see birds fly, squirrels run their entire lives, all without coal, oil or nuclear power. Yet we claim we are the most intelligent.
"It also said that transgender people can be godparents and witnesses to weddings. People in same sex marriages can also be witnesses but cannot be godparents."
Aaaand there you have it; we can get baptized and so on, but we would have to accept that in their eyes we will always only be the sex/gender we were assigned at birth.
Never trust the Church. The media is going to run with this as some sort of acceptance of trans people when it very much is not.
"Danica Roem Becomes Virginia’s First Out Trans State Senator"
She was a state rep before, also a first for Virginia. I'm happy for what this means for trans representation and as a message of acceptance. She defeated Gov. Youngkin-endorsed Bill Woolf who ran on an anti-trans platform.
I'm still holding the tiniest of grudges though, for the harm she's done to neurodiverse kids by legally pushing taxpayer funded conversion therapy for autistic students into the Virginia public school system.
Hundreds of adult autistics tried to politely & respectfully educate her before her bill even went anywhere, but she actively refused to even engage with them/us, saying we'd have to make an appointment to see her in person in her office rather than via email or social media.
So, yay - big victory for trans people & LGBTQ people nationwide, but not such great news for neurodiverse people in the state of Virginia.
On Nov 1st, astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara were carrying out handy work outside the ISS when they accidentally let a tool bag float away. The bag is now a +6 magnitude satellite, visible ahead of the ISS with the help of binoculars.
Do you think there's friendly heckling on the ISS?
"Hey Loral - hand me a pliers, will ya? Oh, that's right, you left them outside."
(points to the window at the bag floating ahead of the station)
To be fair, if I was outside the ISS I'd probably forget to hang on and become a satellite myself.
American Ornithological Society (broadly paraphrased):
"If we can't name birds after racist people, we won't name them after any people at all. In fact, we're going to un-name all of our birds named after people."
ie, Voters - including those in traditionally GOP counties - are voting yes for:
"Establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion"
This means the state Legislature cannot pass laws that violate or negate it. Even rural GOP counties that would normally be deep red are 50-50.
To nobody's great surprise, Youngkin's state of Virginia settled with the ADF-backed wedding photographer, allowing him to discriminate as much as he pleases against LGBTQ people.
I find it...upsetting, to say the least, that conservatives decided to leak Aiden Hale's notebook photos just as organizations are announcing their Transgender Awareness Week (next week) and Trans Day of Remembrance (Mon Nov 20th) events. It feels like Steven Crowder & the right wingers who are promoting the leak are trying to stir up violence. Maybe riding the emotions surrounding Israel-Palestine.