Interesting Links for 28-07-2019

[andrewducker]

Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

(tags:windpower Texas USA renewables )

Boris Johnson 'absolutely' rules out election before 31 October Brexit deadline

(tags:politics UK elections Europe doom )

Thousands without mobiles (or, worse, signal) could be frozen out of online payments

(tags:security phones banking UK europe )

US border official testifies that a 3-year-old might be a national security threat.

(tags:OhForFucksSake children immigration )

In case anyone was wondering what to get me for my birthday

(tags:penis walking )

Why are violent brawls breaking out on cruise ships?

(tags:alcohol holidays ocean ship )

"My (25M) subs (23F, 26F, 22M, 28M, 28M) have unionized"

(tags:relationships bdsm funny unions )

HS2: hated by some, halted in parts, but still making progress

(tags:hs2 trains transport uk )

Comments

My subs have unionized

[snippy]

Since the individual relationships were presumably negotiated at their starts, why can't the dom negotiate again? If the given relationship isn't meeting one of the parties' needs, it's going to break down anyway.

About the Cruise Ship Messes

[dewline]

This report makes me relieved to not be earning enough to be Expected to take such cruises during my life. Otherwise, I might be Expected to behave in such fashion as to get myself into fights like that.

Texas Wind

[danieldwilliam]

Texas has pretty good wind energy resources and lots of arable land that can be used for wind turbines.

It will be interesting to see how the politics of wind power shakes out in the US. Lots of Republican states have good renewable resources, both wind and solar. This means lots of opportunities for business and employment in those industries in those states. Texas, Wyoming, Kansas (I think) Utah, Colorado, Montana, the Dakotas and so on. There's no particular reason for those states or those electorates to back coal power and they have some gains to make in terms of local employment, lower electricity costs and their own intra-state balance of payments. Their interest in renewable energy is separate from any climate change considerations.

Re: Texas Wind

[andrewducker]

Ohio, on the other hand...
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/7/27/8910804/ohio-gop-nuclear-coal-plants-renewables-efficiency-hb6

Re: Texas Wind

[danieldwilliam]

I saw that. That's special that is.

Ohio does have a lot of coal reserves and shale gas and some oil.

It's not crazy that they might agnostica about renewables.

Re: Texas Wind

[nojay]

From memory (it was a little while back) I read that Texas got a lot of investment in wind power from a gas tycoon who realised that moving away from coal and connecting a lot of intermittent renewable energy generators to the grid would necessitate burning a lot of backup gas which he was in a position to supply. I didn't read the Fine Article; did it mention how much gas Texas burns to generate electricity these days?

Britain these days burns very little coal to generate electricity. Yay! However we burn a lot of gas instead and we're probably going to need to burn a lot more gas in the future as we decommission our ageing AGR reactors (the two Hunterston reactors have been shut down for over six months now, they may never restart) and move more and more to electric vehicles which will need charging with gas-derived electricity rather than being fuelled with oil products.

Re: Texas Wind

[dewline]

Complications of the turnover process being acknowledged as such, I still have to say that seeing Texas industry moving along the road to better methods like this is a psychologically helpful thing right now.

[drplokta]

Banks shouldn’t even be using SMS messages to authenticate users — the NIST in the US recommended against that in guidelines issued three years ago. It’s too easy to hijack someone’s mobile number. They should be freezing out everyone who doesn’t have a smartphone that can run an authenticator app (or a dedicated authentication device, which the banks should be sending to customers without smartphones).

[andrewducker]

Yup. Should be TOTP.

[drplokta]

These days it should be OATH (which includes TOTP as a subset).

[andrewducker]

I shall go and do some reading!

[channelpenguin]

Do you mean OAuth ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth

[andrewducker]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative_for_Open_Authentication?wprov=sfla1

[channelpenguin]

I am a tad confused as to if OAuth is an implementation of OATH or not: "OAuth is also distinct from OATH, which is a reference architecture for authentication, not a standard for authorization. "

Frankly I loathe having to do with authentication, but it is EXACTLY what I am working on rigth now, making our backend automatically use refresh tokens as appropriate (Or maybe inappropriate - I wish I knew enough to say for certain in this particualr case...)

[andrewducker]

I don't think so.

Take a look at the standards at https://openauthentication.org/

[drplokta]

No, I mean the unrelated (other than that they both concern authentication) OATH.

[skington]

One of the more depressing bits in the cruise ship article: “Bartenders, who make a earning solely on gratuities and tips”.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it's awful.

I learned yesterday that Apple Store employees aren't paid commission, which made me very happy, as there's no pressure to upsell.

[skington]

There's no pressure from that source, maybe. I occasionally get “tell us about your customer experience” emails when I've been to the Apple Store, and they ask me things like “did the person you spoke to tell you about insert list of various Apple schemes”. And there's no place on the form to say “no, and I'm very happy that they didn't”.

[andrewducker]

True. They are asked to mention stuff to us - and she did ask if we wanted an upgrade. But there wasn't any pressure like there can be with people on commission.

[dewline]

That is indeed a survey response option that's needed by customers and store employees alike.