The problem is deregulation. Now that power producers and powerlines are separate entities, things happen. Power producers do NOT want to produce more power – the less power to go around, the higher the electricity cost. Thus, there is no incentive to build out a new power plant – instead, the incentive is to keep the old plant going as much as possible so the rate goes as high as possible. Add a power plant, and suddenly the added supply forces the rate to go down, that’s not good. Thus, the grid ends up fragile – someone needs to take the power plant offline for maintenance, everyone else takes up the load, but they can’t, so the rate jumps even higher. There’s no incentive to make a robust power grid! There’s all incentive to make it as starved as possible to keep prices high.
Happened both ways, unlike cats. Likely some wolves were not as scared of humans as other wolves typically are, and they started hanging around humans (because they tossed out bones with lots of meat still on them, so wolves got a free meal). Then they started hanging around the humans and helping them catch prey which would give them lots more meat to eat. This symbiotic relationship evolved with humans feeding the wolves except they quit helping us forage for food. As a consequence we’ve also started dressing them up in costumes and other things. FYI, wolves are huge – even compared to “mostly wolf-like dogs” like huskies and eveb wolf-dog hybrids, a wolf is nearly twice the size.
I leave all spiders alone. Inside spiders stay inside, outside spiders get put outside. Spiders eat insects, including annoying ones like mosquitoes and flies. Thus, the only deal I have with them is they can put their webs up, as long as it’s not in my way. One year, I found an empty wasp nest, and I seem to remember there being a lot more spiders hanging around the trees. I guess I knew what happened to the wasps.
There are plenty of news articles on it. And yes, people have tried to sue, but it’s hard to win when you’re clearly trespassing on someone else’s property to willfully damage property. That generally negates any damages claimed because they intentionally tried to run their car through a snowman on your property. Lawsuits are plentiful – there are people who knock over mailboxes suing people who build a reinforced post for their mailbox post, likewise people who run over a rock on your property, etc. Courts look down at people trespassing to damage property and then suing for damages.Plus, lawsuits are public information. Not quite sure if you really want to make yourself personally identifiable as the one who damages property on purpose.
Well, Vancouver had its obligatory day of snow, so we’re done with the worst of winter (hate shoveling). And now almost all the snow is gone a week later.
Dogs communicate in may ways. One of the key ways is “marking” where they’d leave scent markers on things. These markers communicate a lot of information to other dogs (usually through things like pheromones and such). Yes, a lab can analyze and find those scent molecules, and they have. What the lab cannot tell you is what those scent markers mean.
The comic part of this is that “normal peeing” is the same as “scent marking” (which it isn’t). But dogs use their urine marking as well as their poop to communicate with other dogs. (Yes, their poop communicates a lot as well, which is why you might get side-eye from your dog when you pick it up). The marking might communicate a postcard, the poop an long letter.
The problem is deregulation. Now that power producers and powerlines are separate entities, things happen. Power producers do NOT want to produce more power – the less power to go around, the higher the electricity cost. Thus, there is no incentive to build out a new power plant – instead, the incentive is to keep the old plant going as much as possible so the rate goes as high as possible. Add a power plant, and suddenly the added supply forces the rate to go down, that’s not good. Thus, the grid ends up fragile – someone needs to take the power plant offline for maintenance, everyone else takes up the load, but they can’t, so the rate jumps even higher. There’s no incentive to make a robust power grid! There’s all incentive to make it as starved as possible to keep prices high.