So there were honest civil servants in the government in the end. Glad he was able to escape with his honor intact.
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In the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Fukushima, TEPCO* (Tokyo Electric Power Company) is facing severe strain on its power supply capacity due to damage sustained by its power plants in the region. They anticipate demand reaching 97% of capacity tomorrow morning around 6-7am and so are calling on people to make drastic reductions to electricity usage tonight and tomorrow. The government has also declared a first ever Electric Power Supply Strain Warning.
*TEPCO serves most of eastern and northern Japan.
In addition, the Tohoku Bullet Train (connecting Tokyo to Hokkaido), will not be fully operational again until April 20, though the section up to Koriyama in southern Fukushima Prefecture is now up and running.
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Update: It has been an unseasonably cold day in Tokyo (they have had snow in the region), and TEPCO is warning that a widescale blackout is a real possibility tonight, though they have no plans to initiate rolling blackouts just yet. They are saying that, if blackouts occur, they will start from around 8:00pm and continue until at least 11:00pm.
Power usage reduction efforts have not been enough, and the power usage rate hit 106% of capacity at 1:00 this afternoon. Both TEPCO and the government are calling on supermarkets and restaurants, etc. to turn off some of their lights, and rail companies are turning off a lot of their electronic displays (i.e. the LCD televisions posting schedule and operation information).
ETA: The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced that the danger of blackouts has passed for tonight, but strain on the power supply is expected to continue until power plants go back online around the end of the month.
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I’ve got my eye on a JS synth library that would allow adjustable instruments rather than file playback. When I get the moog mood, I’ll give it a try.
Anything on the Internet, even if not on a main port, will have someone checking the windows and rattling the door handles soon enough. So I added a little logging.
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
<gevent._socket3.socket at 0x74baf838 object, fd=6, family=2, type=1, proto=0>: Invalid http version: 'OPTIONS / RTSP/1.0\r\n'
<gevent._socket3.socket at 0x74baf688 object, fd=6, family=2, type=1, proto=0>: Invalid HTTP method: '\x05\x04\x00\x01\x02\x80\x05\x01\x00\x03\n'
<gevent._socket3.socket at 0x74baf688 object, fd=6, family=2, type=1, proto=0>: Invalid HTTP method: '\x04\x01\x00\x16\x7f\x00\x00\x01root\x00'
<gevent._socket3.socket at 0x74baf688 object, fd=6, family=2, type=1, proto=0>: Invalid HTTP method: '\r\n'
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
<gevent._socket3.socket at 0x74baf988 object, fd=10, family=2, type=1, proto=0>: Invalid HTTP method: '\x0e\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00bbbb0100000001'
[home] IP 141.105.66.213
(Moscow is an approximation, the corporate HQ.)
Discovered open port 22/tcp on 141.105.66.213
Discovered open port 8126/tcp on 141.105.66.213
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More on the company, building on previous allegations. Google is under investigation for violating fair employment policies and engaging in racist practices that could result in a class-action case:
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that’s super neat. now i want to use it… for something. who knows what 
the amount of traffic that must be out there just scanning for things is pretty wild. and then people, who are just watching for notifications, and investigating – i guess that’s a hobby in and of itself. and probably a business or governmental job or two
An update on Brittney Griner, who is still being detained in Russia:
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I am glad that she’s not being tortured or starved or anything, but this is so egregious that I do worry for her.
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More on this case, which is making me think I need to review the language in financial account agreements again:
Now this reminds me of more than the themes in I Care a Lot and Britney Spears’ case. Wells Fargo has a terrible track record with fraud, and account paperwork with language like this would give them a lot of control:
The bank previously told the court its agreement with Williams allowed it to “pause or reject instructions for a proposed transaction” if the company suspects “financial exploitation, dementia, or undue influence,” according to Williams’ petition.
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And EVERYONE seems to be conveniently forgetting about the alarm bells before the crash of 2007/2008, when WF was strongly suspected to be steering black customers into sub-par mortgages… 
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More details in the thread below, but basically, Lauren Hough lied:
- Book is “nominated” - this just means you or your publisher pay the entry fee and submit the copies. It’s not any sort of honor, it’s paperwork.
- Finalists are selected by the judging committee and announced/promoted by Lambda Literary
- Winners are announced by Lambda Literary at the beginning of June.
LH’s book was never named a finalist! And may or may not have been under other circumstances. Lambda Literary just said they would decline to evaluate the book for a finalist position because of the bad, anti-trans behavior.
So LH basically lied and used general confusion about an award process/terminology to make it look like she had something taken from her that she never even had in the first place.
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More on this story about Mason, TN (and other actions to seize or control land in areas with majority Black populations in the US):
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This is - if it’s anything- a tax avoidance beef?
Shouldn’t the Republicans be supporting him then?
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He’s not wearing the correct team jersey. /s
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The thread is closed now, but some of you might remember that in the ‘how to fold plastic bags’ thread I mentioned I had a friend who knits plastic bags into waterproof sleeping mats for homeless people. Well, I’m afraid that some algorithm ‘heard’ me say that on this site, and look what showed up in my feed tonight:
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