Articles for Fri 22.Apr.2022 [a selection from today's news items]

Montreal Gazette: Montreal Canadiens legend Guy Lafleur dies at 70

Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur, 70, has passed away after a battle with lung cancer, his family announced on Friday.

WashPo: Why Japan Wants You to Fork Out More for Fried Chicken

For the first time in a generation, there’s a hint of inflation in the air in Japan. It smells a lot like fried chicken.

The 10% price hike for convenience-store chain Lawson Inc.’s “Karaage-kun” fried chicken wouldn’t normally make headlines. Then again, in most countries such a product wouldn’t have gone 36 years without prices rising once. It’s the the latest example of what’s been called Japan’s “price-hike rush,” as the weak yen and war in Ukraine have raised the cost of inputs and imports. Japanese companies are starting to bow to the inevitable and passing those along to consumers.

The introductory anecdote about the wide availability of high quality, low cost prepared meals is interesting too.

WashPo: How the Ukraine war and avian flu are driving up food prices

Drought, a chicken illness, war in Ukraine and politics at the border are adding to pandemic-era supply-chain disruptions.

Most consumers also know this is being driven by worker shortages, higher fuel costs and lingering supply-chain snarls from the pandemic. But other factors have emerged in recent weeks to push up that grocery bill. Here are four hidden reasons food prices have skyrocketed.

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Earlier this month, in hopes of limiting the spike in gas prices since Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration announced it would allow high-ethanol gasoline to be sold this summer. High-ethanol gas is usually not allowed in summer months because of air pollution. But while the decision may ease some of the pain at the pump, it also contributes to rising food prices.

Such a bad decision overall, probably driven by midterm election politics.

The Avian Flu

Two months into the outbreak, growers have “depopulated,” or killed, 29 million affected birds, around three quarters of them egg-laying hens, said Courtney Schmidt, a sector analyst in Wells Fargo’s Food and Agribusiness Industry Advisory group who focuses on protein and dairy. The U.S. Agriculture Department’s price for eggs has tripled since November and turkey breast prices are at a record high, she said.

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Border truck jams

This month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ® increased inspections of commercial vehicles crossing into the state, largely to protest the Biden administration’s immigration policies. He later withdrew the additional requirements — but the delays they caused continue to reverberate.

CleanTechnica: Instant Long Duration Energy Storage: Just Add Carbon Dioxide

Energy Dome estimates it can beat Li-ion on costs by a mile, delivering up to 6 times that duration at half the cost.

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“CO2 is the perfect fluid to store energy cost-effectively in a closed thermodynamic process as it is one of the few gases that can be condensed and stored as a liquid under pressure at ambient temperature,” Energy Dome explains. “This allows for high density energy storage without the need to go at extreme cryogenic temperatures.”

The New Yorker: Transforming Trees Into Skyscrapers

In Scandinavia, ecologically minded architects are building towers with pillars of pine and spruce.

Mjøstårnet—the name means “Tower of Mjøsa”—stands at two hundred and eighty feet and consists of eighteen floors, combining office space, residential units, and a seventy-two-room hotel that has become a destination for visitors curious about the future of sustainable architecture and of novel achievements in structural engineering. It’s the third-tallest tower in Norway, a country whose buildings rarely extend above ten stories. Although Mjøstårnet dominates the Brumunddal skyline, it is a tenth the height of the world’s tallest structure, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. Its scale is similar to that of New York’s Flatiron Building, which, when completed in 1902, topped out at just over three hundred feet. (Three years later, it was capped with a penthouse.)

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Buildings are among the worst contributors to greenhouse gases. The Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction has reported that twenty-eight per cent of global emissions are generated by building operations—heat, lighting, and so on. An additional eleven per cent comes from the manufacture of materials and from the construction process.

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…the Mjøstårnet development cost approximately a hundred and thirteen million dollars, about eleven per cent more than an equivalent development would have cost in concrete and steel.

Vancouver is already on-board but no news from right-leaning Ontario so far.

NYT: Editorial Board: Can Sanctions Really Stop Putin?

It is undeniable that the United States and its allies were — and still are — right to use sanctions to try to end this war.

Yet as the Biden administration weighs the next phase of this conflict, Americans should be cleareyed about the limits of what sanctions are likely to achieve.

Another interesting article about a complex subject.

MotorTrend: Somebody summoned their Tesla at an airport and it crashed into a $2 million jet

Marvel to the spectacle of a driverless Tesla as it rolls across an airport runway and hits the back of a jet, causing it to pivot around. So far, there are no details about who owns the self-crashing vehicle, or if the Tesla owner also owns the jet, which is valued at $2 million.

Globe: John Ibbotson: It’s time for Ottawa to seriously study how a guaranteed basic income could replace outdated layers of sclerotic support programs

23.Dec.2021

A private member’s bill advancing a guaranteed basic income for Canadians has no hope of passage, but it contains a good idea that the Liberal government should steal.

Bill C-223, introduced in the House of Commons by NDP MP Leah Gazan last week, would direct the Minister of Finance to “develop a national framework for the implementation of a guaranteed livable basic income throughout Canada for any person over the age of 17.” Within a year of the bill’s passage, the minister would be required to present a framework for a basic income to Parliament, and then regularly report on progress in implementing the framework.

I believe it could be a good path forward but this argument that it’d be more efficient would carry more weight if he weren’t advocating increased taxes to pay for it!

AppleInsider: AirTag data crucial to recovery of man’s lost luggage

One man used his Apple AirTags to track his missing luggage and make a compelling argument for the airline that lost it to get involved.

Elliot Sharod traveled to South Africa for his wedding in April. However, when he arrived back in Dublin, the starting point of his trip, his bags had mysteriously vanished.

The three missing bags contained sentimental objects from his wedding — handwritten notes from guests, wedding invitations, itineraries. However, they also each had another item — an AirTag.

WashPo: Mark Meadows was simultaneously registered to vote in three states

Voter-list maintenance is one of the dividing lines in American politics. Republicans argue that if voter-registration records are not regularly purged and updated, election fraud can take place. Democrats push back that too many voter-list purges are conducted haphazardly, removing eligible voters who don’t learn they are no longer listed until they show up to vote.

Now it turns out that until last week, Meadows was simultaneously registered to vote in three different states — North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina — according to state records obtained by The Fact Checker.

WashPo: Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene both have some explaining to do about Jan. 6

On Thursday night, audio surfaced of McCarthy, during a call with other Republican leaders, pushing the idea that President Donald Trump should resign in the wake of the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol. McCarthy, who is angling to be speaker, earlier had denied a report that he did this. What will Trump have to say? We could find out today.

Greene, meanwhile, is fielding questions about her role leading up to that day during a court hearing in Atlanta where activists are challenging her right to appear on the ballot this year. Early on, Greene declined to say whether unlawfully interfering with the counting of electoral votes in a presidential election would make someone “an enemy of the Constitution.”

NowThis: Lucky Charms Investigated by FDA

Iconic cereal Lucky Charms is allegedly making hundreds of people sick with vomiting and gastro issues — so what’s going on?

Apparently no-one knows.

NowThis: Canadian Doctors Can Now Prescribe Patients Passes to National Park Systems

Doctors and therapists in Canada can now prescribe their patients access to the country’s national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas, if they believe spending time in those places can help the individual(s)’ health.

The development comes as a result of a partnership between Parks Canada and the organization PaRx, and it’s modeled off of a similar “national nature prescription program” in the U.S.

iPhone in Canada Blog: Agatha Christie Collection of 30 Books Currently Free on Amazon for Kindle Users

The Agatha Christie: The Collection features the following 30 novels from the famed English writer of murder mysteries and more:

  • The Mysterious Affair At Styles
  • The Secret Adversary
  • The Murder On The Links
  • The Man in the Brown Suit
  • The Secret of Chimneys
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan
  • The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
  • The Adventure of the “Western Star”
  • The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
  • The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
  • The Adventure of the Cheap Flat
  • The Mystery of the Hunter Lodge
  • The Kidnapped Prime Minister
  • The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb
  • The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman
  • The Case of the Missing Will
  • The Chocolate Box
  • The Veiled Lady
  • The Lost Mine
  • The Affair at the Victory Ball
  • The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
  • The Cornish Mystery
  • The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly
  • The Double Clue
  • The King of Clubs
  • The Lemesurier Inheritance
  • The Plymouth Express
  • The Submarine Plans
  • The Market Basing Mystery

You’ll need a Kindle e-book reader to check these out, and some bundles are on sale right now. Existing Kindle users can purchase this collection, and they’ll download wirelessly automatically to registered devices with Wi-Fi connections.

Now $1.99 Cdn but, okay.

SMH: Why intermittent fasting isn’t a magic diet trick after all

It’s the diet beloved of A-listers and Silicon Valley tech bros. One that doesn’t involve luminous green juices or cartloads of cabbage, but something simpler: spending more time each day without food.

Yet time-restricted eating (TRE) - consigning your daily consumption to a six or eight-hour window - has this week been debunked as an effective weight-loss method.

In a year-long study by Southern Medical University in China, 139 participants followed a low-calorie daily diet (1,200-1,500 calories for women; 1,500-1,800 for men) over either eight hours in every 24, or the entire day. All lost just over a stone on average, whichever strategy they followed. From waist circumference to blood glucose levels, body fat, insulin sensitivity and blood pressure, no notable distinction was found between the fasters and fast-nots.

So has intermittent fasting - on which a whole industry has been built - been exposed as a meaningless fad?

Not conclusive but intriguing.

9to5Mac: Video shows teardown of Apple’s Thunderbolt 4 Pro Cable

Apple’s new Thunderbolt cable features a braided design that coils without tangling and makes it more durable. But while it may look like just a regular cable on the outside despite its 5 millimeter diameter, the inside of the cable reveals some interesting details.

Patrick McKenzie (Twitter): Dads’ meta-hobby

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a dad, upon reaching a certain age, will find himself possessed by an urgent urge to have a hobby, and to quickly develop a meta hobby about outfitting a physical space to provide a more efficient working environment for the hobby.