Category: Essays and Insights

Ocean rise accelleration will cause long term flooding for 38% of US population by 2050.

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Water from the Greenland ice sheet flows through heather and peat during unseasonably warm weather on Aug. 1, 2019. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Above photo Greenland Ice Sheet Melting InsideClimateNews.org Bob Berwyn

We’ve been doing a lousy job of predicting the effects of climate change on our planet.

We underestimate anticipated damage and have insufficient relief available on a national scale. 

Data from NOAA.gov and the US Census tells us that 127 M/334 M  or 38% of US Citizens live in coastal counties.

They are in serious danger of coastal flooding in the near future. 

In 2023 New York State is leading the nation on per capita Gross Domestic Product with $87,457. MA follows with $84,651 and WA with $80,708. In comparison, FL Per Capita GDP was reported as $49,053, and TX  $58,102.  (reported by worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/gdp-by-state).

The Great Depression of 1929-1939 was an economic apocalypse on a worldwide scale.

People were starving and homeless. The USA Work Program was created to give people paid jobs. People who joined the WPA improved public infrastructure while learning valuable skills. They built state parks, schools, and roads. 

We should have a New York State work/training program that educates people, creates infrastructure, and offers paid jobs.

We are sorry that rich people in NYC’s wealthy suburbs voted against creating ADU-type housing during this climate change crisis. A work-training-infrastructure program at our state or national level can make our future much brighter.

Phys.org (The American Geophysical Union) predicts that the collapse of the Greenland Ice sheet is truly imminent.

It will raise the sea level by 23 ft when completely melted.

Let’s Plan on Preparing

  Last April, Harold Warnless of the Guardian, anticipated a two-foot rise by  2040 and a 3-foot rise by 2050. I bet most people are NOT prepared for this! We must be ready by moving away from the coast and by having national and state programs that will help us maintain a healthy economy and provide self-sufficiency and adequate education and infrastructure.
Let’s do better!
by Linda Kaidan

Micron’s 100 Billion $ Investment Leads to Land Grab in Central NY

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Land Grab
Housing Shortage in Central NY May be causing Land Grab

by Linda Kaidan

On Aug 25, 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order to implement semiconductor funding in the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 Chip manufacturer Micron considered two candidate states for its new facility: Texas and NY. Just one week after  Hurricane IAN struck Gulf  Coast  Fort Meyers FL on October 4, 2022, Micron Announced its $100 Billion Megafab Manufacturing Facility would be built in central NY.

Texas has been troubled by significant flooding, drought, and tornados making it unattractive in terms of climate change safety! It is anticipated that the new Micron facility in Clay New York will bring 50,000 new jobs to New York State. US-based supply chain safe DRAM production reduces risk while improving our local economy.
 
There is limited availability of homes nationwide! Even before IAN caused massive devastation in Florida, Pewtrusts.org reported that it might take 10 years to catch up on housing shortages. Massive construction of housing projects in NYS will be needed to provide homes for those who move here!
 
Greedy investors are motivated to grab available properties in Central NY. Some may use street gangs to harass vulnerable owners into moving! If you feel that this is happening to you don’t give in or you will be giving up your personal goldmine! We recommend an easy solution that is totally legal. Try Halt II Dog Repellant. Legal in New York State it repels dogs of all kinds 🙂 Also, take lots of photos and post them on YOUTUBE. Use hashtag gangBgone#. Giving up your nest egg is idiotic and will result in far more economic insecurity for your family!
 
Be brave and keep safe. You CAN do it!
 
 
 

No Money or Time for College? Train for IT Careers Online for $39 a Month!

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Learning a good skill is the best way to have job satisfaction and financial stability. College and student loans are incredibly expensive as so many of us know. We are lucky that there are alternatives most can afford!

I’m learning Data Science and Python online right now and building a portfolio of my own. So far I have completed 7 Coursera IT courses and I know that they empower me to do better work writing and researching my own projects. In 2018 I updated my web development skills by taking CSS3, HTML5, Responsive Web Design, JavaScript, and PHP at Coursera U Michigan.  It was totally inexpensive and fun!  Remembering the great instruction quality there,  I returned to complete all of Dr. Charles Severence’s Python4E Certificate courses at the University of MI Coursera in January 2022. 

Coursera helped me update my data visualization and analysis skills with  UCDavis Tableau Data Visualization and Coursera IBM and Google courses in Intro to Data Science.

The reason I took so many (9) University of Michigan courses was that they had the most meticulous instruction. Their course material was clear, useful, and well organized. Instructions for downloading, installing, and using requisite software were easy to understand and accurate always.  Quizzes had the correct answers always!

The more you know the more you can do. Unlock your own creative future. You’ll find lots of information at  Coursera | Build Skills with Online Courses from Top Institutions. You can take these classes at your own pace. Also, scholarships are available.

Linda Kaidan

 

 

 

Mind Control Exists: What Can You Do About It?

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By Linda Kaidan

Can you be mind-controlled and if so what can you do about it?  Even my SciFi Author husband is skeptical that mind control exists. Yet legitimate publications by MIT Sloan Management Review, Scientific American, and University of West Australia Professor Kristyn Bates indicate that it does.

Mind control is likely to have originated in research laboratories of various defense contractors. It may have initially been justified as a means to provide assistive technology for the hearing impaired, vision impaired, mentally ill, or as part of super-effective defense communication systems. While there may be much ethical justification for use of mind control, it can easily be a deadly weapon used to achieve monetary or political gain. Greed and selfishness are common human motivators and as such the lack of checks and balances in this technology’s use likely indicates that much harm is already being done with this tech!

Our wonderful brains transmit signals with electricity which in itself is a blurry form of precise signals that can be more effective. Mind control technology uses light to precisely target the brains’ neuroreceptors. An implant on the skull receives signals and converts them to neurological instructions which can directly control physical bodily functions including our sense of touch, taste, hearing, vision, and even our emotion! The horrible result can be enslavement, coercion, terrorism, and death.

Essentially those affected by this tech cannot be certain whether their motives are their own or someone else’s. Perhaps too, their memories can be erased and replaced with another’s. In a general sense, this tech positions our brains as part of a network connected to other people, software, and data sources. Just as we have security measures on our own devices, we should implement security measures on our brains. We should always assume that illegitimate use is likely.

In a brute force approach, we can disable wireless communication using signal blockers currently available online for under $150.

Convince yourself that this is a real threat by reading some of these publications:

Business Scents: The Rise of Digital Olfaction Two emerging branches of digital olfaction technology have the potential to revolutionize a range of industries. April 29, 2021 | Mark Purdy, Max Klymenko and Mia Purdy | DATA, AI, & MACHINE LEARNING MIT Sloan Management Review

Mind Reading and Mind Control Technologies Are Coming We need to figure out the ethical implications before they arrive By R. Douglas Fields on March 10, 2020 Scientific American

Brain-to-brain interfaces: the science of telepathy By Kristyn Bates Updated March 9, 2015 The Sydney Morning Herald

Mind Control exists but it will be years if ever for laws regulating its use to be enacted.  You can protect yourself from being mind-controlled today with simple, effective, and inexpensive (though somewhat annoying) means 🙂

We CAN Save Our Planet!

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by Linda Kaidan

Youth everywhere are feeling tremendous anger at previous generations for destroying our planet. Just this morning I heard a kid complaining that going to school is a waste of time because the world is going to end anyway. Joining the chorus of defeatist chants are some scientists who say we cannot fix the weather.

Fight destructive actions. Solve problems. While climate change disasters and destruction caused by reprehensible humans are daily occurrences all over the planet, amazing discoveries and technological advancements are happing all the time.

Right now there is a race to colonize Mars and the Moon. Neither have an atmosphere we can breathe or gravity that humans can tolerate long-term. On the moon, temperatures range from -280 F to 260 F. On Mars, they range from -220 F to + 70 F. Very thin atmosphere enables space debris to hit the surface with high impact because there’s no resistance.

Is it really easier to survive in space than on Earth? Despite major obstacles, NASA’s 2021 space budget is 23.3 billion.  This year NASA awarded $2.9 Billion to SpaceX to build a Moon Lander. The Space  Foundation reported that the nearly half a trillion-dollar global space economy grew by 4.4% in 2020. This kind of investment shows strong confidence that humans can live elsewhere in our solar system and beyond. We should have equal faith in life on Earth!

Can we fix our climate? You bet we can! On Earth, we have all the basics that we need for survival. These include oxygen, water, and the mineral base life on our planet evolved with. There is limitless energy potential. We can stop our planet from burning by reducing the amount of sun that reaches our atmosphere. We can protect our communities from wind and flood with intelligent building technologies.

Saying and doing are not the same things. Hope and plans must be accompanied by action! No matter what your age, find a way to contribute. Learn as much as you can and create your own team of activists to help your community whether global or local.

Be the inventors, investors, and contributors you need to be to save your future and the future of all life on our planet!

Herkimer Soars As Americans Migrate From Coasts

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Stephen Ames Berry

Herkimer’s soaring into a brave new world, as people migrating from our coasts to climate and pandemic safety zones such as upstate New York move here, contending briskly for homes. A house in our cute conveniently located village seems to sell every 90 seconds, even as prices continue ever upward. The sharp-eyed will have spotted license plates from as far away as Alaska and Washington state, California and Texas, with the Carolinas and Florida well-represented. 

There are a phenomenal number of people scoping out our once forgotten area. Linda Kaidan’s photos of the Mohawk Valley, centered on Herkimer, have had over 4 million views. In the last 30 days, The Herkimer Post has enjoyed almost 15,000 page views, 90% of them from new visitors. We have a well-earned reputation for telling it as it is. And you do want to know how it is there before you commit to someplace new. (“We Publish What They Won’t” proclaims our masthead. We are not “The Herkimer Happy Hour.”)

Herkimer Post 30 Day Page Views as of 5.4.21
Herkimer Post 30 Day Page Views as of 5.4.21

When the eviction moratorium ends, we’ll probably see more houses for sale here as nonpaying tenants are moved on and battered owners decide to wash their hands of what was once a safe, reliable investment. Even then there won’t be enough housing stock to meet the press of the demand.

Historically in boom times, undeveloped land is the next to go. Given the rapid growth of chip manufacturing in Upstate, notably Cree in Utica, this region may become the new Silicon Valley. Hopefully, New York will impose strict controls on growth. I hope we won’t see our magnificent countryside crammed with houses and choked by traffic. 

Climate change projected to improve Herkimer NY economy

 

Vaccinated? Prove It. New York’s Covid-19 Vaccination Passport

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Stephen Ames Berry

“In every well-ordered society…the rights of the individual may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.” Justice John Harlan 1905

Responding to vaccination resistance during a smallpox epidemic, the US Supreme Court found in 1905 found that Americans do not have an inalienable right to sicken others. 

Criminals are producing forgeries of the CDC Covid-19 paper vaccination card. Hopefully, the Feds will eventually create and mandate an encrypted card verifiable in real-time from a federal database. Until, then New York again leads the way, with its unhackable pass from IBM. Excelsior! indeed. I ❤ New York.
 
Walmart will be issuing digital passports to those vaccinated in its stores, possibly as a way to restrict access and encourage vaccinations. Not being able to shop at the fabled Supercenters should encourage even the most selfish to be vaccinated.
 
Get vaccinated, please. If not for yourself, for your kids: Covid-19 variants are rapidly spreading and sickening children.
 

Beyond-Barcode Scanning Chaos at Walmart Herkimer NY

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Linda Kaidan

Yesterday when shopping at the Herkimer New York Walmart, I had to call for assistance 4 times at the self-checkout, as the software failed to recognize some scanned items, including fresh produce and cat food. My daughter had a worse experience that same day, trying to use her  EBT card. After 30 minutes of shopping, her purchase was canceled and all items returned to the shelves due to a single item recognition failure.

The cashier guessed that it was because she used her EBT card to purchase organic carrots. It is normal for humans to attribute cause to action, but the untrained Walmart clerk’s analysis was wrong: In New York, organic food products can be purchased with SNAP benefits. My daughter noticed that many carts ladened with food were being returned to the shelves by employees.

Walmart’s Deficient Image Capture Checkout Software

It’s apparent that Walmart’s point of sale software is using image capture to verify checkout items. When the barcode or customer-identified item does not agree with the image, the item is rejected by the checkout system. For an EBT purchase, the entire purchase is terminated. This is demoralizing and disrespectful to customers. The Walmart staff is obviously not trained to handle this situation, easily triggering a conflict between the staff member and the frustrated customer.
That my order, purchased with a debit card, wasn’t canceled but my daughter’s SNAP-based purchase was, indicates a value judgment by Walmart staff that SNAP benefit recipients are inherently suspicious.
(When my daughter objected to the cancellation of her order and the rudeness of the customer service rep, the checkout employee called security and store management.)

A better approach would be to publicly identify certain Point of Sale self-checkout machines and let the customer decide to use them as a part of an announced beta test of the software. Customer time should not be wasted because Walmart software doesn’t work. Employees should not speculate about invalid items and should be trained to treat all customers with respect.

Walmart is generally the least expensive and best-stocked place to buy food. Walmart is a leader in Business Intelligence and is planning to fully automate stores, as is Amazon. Change can be challenging–those considering a career in retail should look to other occupations that aren’t so easily automated.

 

 

Welcome Herkimer Newcomers! But Beware

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Stephen Ames Berry

Welcome Herkimer newcomers! It’s obvious you’re here–there are but a paltry handful of houses for sale in our pinch-its-cute-little-cheeks village. (Locals are over their shock and quickly fixing up properties.) The good stuff quickly vanishes even as realtors scramble for listings. Same throughout the Mohawk Valley. And Utica! Talk about a renaissance. That grimy old rustbelt city looks like someone swung wide its top and is pouring in the hidden horde of Bernie Madoff. After years here in the trenches and predicting this, it’s exciting and gratifying. 

If you’ve been reading our blog, you know much about the hidden Herkimer we stumbled into 7 years ago. #HereBeDragons And yet still you came.

But as many of you came bearing license plates from as far away as California, Texas, Alaska and Washington (“The Evergreen State” their plate read hopefully), you may not know of the false promises of our New York weather. Today, for example, holds the promise of an early spring. As with many things Herkimer, appearances can be deceiving. Fulfilling our civic duty to warn, below’s a pictorial guide to New York weather. (Tip: Now’s a great time to buy a snowblower.)

Again, welcome aboard. The world and Herkimer are changing around us. Don’t know how it’ll all shake out, but just by moving here, you’ve infused new life and possibilities into our cynical old village. Going to be good days ahead. Stay safe.

Herkimer weather unmasked

 

Fast 3D-Printed Housing in New York State: A Simple Solution for a Complex Time

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Linda Kaidan

PERI, a German technology company, has been the first to create a 3D printed multistory building that is fully German certified. The BOD2 3D printer can construct a 3 story building of 10,000 square feet.

With construction supplies in short demand, it’s a relief to see the debut of a new construction methodology that can decrease construction prices by 50% or more. 3D printing robots have become more functional than ever, and now can be used to create buildings of up to 3 stories. This multi-story functionality is especially important, as it can reduce urban sprawl.  We need never again create another San Fernando Valley of congestion, unbreathable air, and unaffordable homes.

Upstate New York has experienced a massive shortage of housing in the last year. Few homes are available for sale. Housing unavailability is also driven by many who see central and northern NY as an ideal location for remote work and home offices at a more reasonable price than their current homes in more urban areas. Statistics published by the New York State Association of Realtors for the 12 month period ending January 2021 indicate that sales increased by 16.7% and inventory dropped by 26.7%.

Constructiondive.com reports significant increases in basic building material costs over the past year, much of it the result of Covid-19 disruption:

Material % change Jan. 2020
to Jan. 2021
Iron and steel 15.6%
Steel mill products 7.4%
Softwood lumber 73%

SOURCE: Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of BLS data

3D Printing to the Rescue!

3D printed homes are constructed from concrete paste, typically mixed from local materials. Floors and walls, both interior and exterior, are extrusion printed by giant robots which are programmed to manufacture predesigned and tested structures on site. This construction can often be completed in a matter of days and includes whimsical curves that are far more enchanting than right angles and parallel planes. Home construction robots can cost $250,000 and up, but careful research and selection of a manufacturer will help to quickly build cost-efficient, high-quality housing. We certainly hope to see some local 3D printed housing soon spring up here in Upstate New York.

Recent 3D print housing projects in the US include gorgeous $10k Austin TX homeless housing and a home in Millbrook, NY listed for sale on Trulia for $300,000. Don’t be shy! Buy a nice abandoned farm and turn it into an attractive, affordable 3D printed home community. Help house our future😊