#Advisory Council

[tenth-sentence]

"I demand the right to represent my people," Tasslehoff said proudly, "and take my place on the advisory council."

"DragonLance Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night" - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

[vicforberger]

Lab test subjects as employees

In late 2022 and early 2023, a few folks started contacting me about being disqualified or having to repay unemployment benefits they received during the Covid-19 pandemic because of their participation in lab testing studies. Then at the July 2023 Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council meeting, a coalition of lab testing companies and Rep. Gundrum asked the council to support a change in the…

[thesarahfiles]

On October 31, 2013, Sarah joined the newly appointed Advisory Council for the Challenger Center.

[nicholascnelson1]

Nicholas C Nelson - Pest Control Industry

At the age of 32, Nicholas C Nelson  established his own pest control company, Guaranteed Pest Control & Fertilization. Since a young age, he had learned the ins and outs of pest control from his grandfather and uncle. From the age of eighteen until starting his own business, Mr. Nelson worked for his uncle at Coral Springs Pest Control in Broward County, Florida. Mr. Nelson is a prominent figure in his community.

[itsmissing]

design comm for a bargain mage

[dolores-slay]

Freaky deaky that I have been with Dragon Age since I was 16-17 years old and we waited 10 years for this game never being sure it it's even coming, only to have fandom influencers who got to play it for some unclear reason saying they will spoil the game's story as if that's a normal thing to do and telling US to get off social media if we don't want to see it. What is going. on.

[arlathen]

if it's gonna be october can we go after the 12th. it's away games the rest of the month after that.

[baronetcoins]

Context: it is 8 gazillion degrees outside (95 f)

[sith-shenanigans]

it continues to delight me that Krovos dresses less fancily as a Dark Councilor than she did as a lord

no more robes. she’s going to wear a jumpsuit because nobody can call her on it

[xtruss]

A bulldozer works to maintain Chicago's underground. More frequent and intense storms pose danger to aging infrastructure like these tunnels. Photograph By Keith Ladzinski, National Geographic Image Collection

Here’s What Worries Engineers The Most About U.S. Infrastructure

Water and sewer systems built in the mid-19th century weren't meant to handle the demands of modern cities, and many bridges and levees have aged well past their intended lifespan.

— By Alissa Greenberg | July 17, 2023

Christine Kirchhoff’s family were preparing to move into a new house when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017. Then the massive storm dumped 50 inches of rain on the area in just a few days, leaving two nearby reservoirs so full that their operators were forced to open the floodgates. Kirchhoff’s family had to be evacuated by boat. Both their original and new houses were inundated.

As an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Pennsylvania State University, Kirchhoff spent a lot of time thinking about water even before it swallowed her family’s livelihood. She is part of the legion of professionals behind the complex, often invisible systems that support American life: dams, roads, the electric grid, and much more.

For the last 25 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers has been sounding the alarm on the state of that infrastructure across the country. In their most recent assessment, for example, transit scored a D- and hazardous waste a D+. It’s an expensive problem to ignore. The ASCE estimates current infrastructure conditions cost the average family $3,300 a year. “Everyone is paying whether they know it or not,” Kirchhoff says.

Train derailments, highway and bridge collapses, and dam failures have become increasingly common. But which areas are civil engineers most concerned could cause imminent catastrophe, and what can we do about it? Kirchhoff and other infrastructure experts weigh in.

Water Contamination Crises are Already Here

The engineers we talked to agreed: our water systems are in trouble. Both those that protect us from water as a hazard (stormwater, dams, levees, bridges) and those that help us manage water as a resource (drinking water, wastewater, inland waterways) are in grim shape.

Streets were flooded after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017. Photograph By Ilana Pancih-Linsmam, The New York Times/Redux

The United States’ 2.2-million-mile drinking water and 800,000-mile sewer system was developed in part in response to the widespread waterborne diseases of the mid nineteenth century, Kirchhoff says. Maintenance has lagged woefully behind since then; some older areas, including some cities in the northeast, still use century-old wooden pipes. And many more of our pipes nationwide are still made of lead.

A water system designed for yesterday’s climate and to filter yesterday’s contaminants is especially problematic in a world of increasing demand, fiercer and more frequent storms, and “forever” chemicals. The result: boil orders, water main breaks, and sewer overflow, plus 15 percent of our water treatment plants working at or over capacity. These issues, combined with the toxicity of lead pipes, lead to water crises like the one that continues to plague Flint, Michigan.

Amlan Mukherjee, the director of sustainability focusing on infrastructure at WAP Sustainability Consulting, recommends focusing on these pipes—swapping lead for PVC or other materials and fixing the leaks that spill some 6 billion gallons of treated water a day—as one high priority fix.

Our coastline is also dotted with facilities storing hazardous oil and other chemical waste cocooned in donut-shaped earthen structures, adds Bilal Ayyub, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park—structures that, he notes, could be made of concrete. Because of soil’s vulnerabilities, he worries that dramatic rainfall or a storm surge could destroy these structures, resulting in a release of toxic chemicals “bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill by orders of magnitude.”

His worst-case scenario has already happened at least once, when floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey ate through the earthen container at the San Jacinto River Waste Pits, releasing noxious waste into a nearby river.

Physical Collapse is Happening Now

Meanwhile, the number of high-hazard-potential dams in the United States now tops 15,000. Many were built during or before the WWII era and have been widely neglected since then. And when it comes to bridges, “there are cautionary tales all over,” says Maria Lehman, president of ASCE and vice chair of the Biden Administration’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council. “Every county in the country has a list of bridges that, if they had money, they would replace tomorrow.”

Our 617,000 bridges include not just those spanning mighty rivers but also every highway overpass and minor link across a stream—and close to one tenth of them are significantly compromised. “If you have to think in terms of catastrophe, we’re already there,” Mukherjee says. In 2007, the collapse of an I-35W bridge in Minnesota killed 13 people and injured 145. More recently, a six-lane bridge over the Mississippi was closed for three months in 2021, disrupting interstate travel and shipping because an inspector missed a significant crack. Americans drive 178 million trips on structurally deficient bridges each day.

Every day, millions of Americans travel across bridges and overpasses, like the Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee, that may be structurally deficient. Photograph By Keith Ladzinski, National Geographic Image Collection

Yet the US spends only 1.5-2.5 percent of its GDP on infrastructure, proportionately less than half of what the European Union spends, Lehman says. This long-term lack of funding has run out the clock on many solutions. Many of our bridges were built to last 30-50 years, but nearly half are at least half a century old. The average age of our levees is also 50; our dams average 57.

Now, extreme weather is intensifying just as structures fail. We’ve already seen consequences in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for example, when collapsing levees inundated 80 percent of New Orleans, killing hundreds, or in the failure of an under-inspected dam in Edenville, Michigan, which flooded the region and destroyed thousands of homes in 2020. The trend is set to continue: after Superstorm Sandy engulfed New York City transit, Ayyub helped study similar risks in Washington, D.C and Shanghai. His models showed widespread flooding that could swamp D.C. metro stations and in severe cases even reach “the backyard of the White House.”

The Future of U.S. Infrastructure

Mukherjee is optimistic about the use of new technology to solve some of these issues, though adoption has been slow. Drones can provide human inspectors with up-close views of areas they can’t reach themselves and reduce chance of human error; a drone on an unrelated project captured footage of the Mississippi bridge crack two years before its discovery.

Ayyub has also worked with North American freight railroads to find weak links using computer modeling, combing through thousands of stations to “identify exactly which point if it fails will have the biggest impact,” he says. Why not do the same with our power grid and waterways?

One piece of good news: in 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides $1.2 trillion over five years for the ailing systems that help American society run, the largest federal investment in US history. It was a major victory. “Every president for the last eight presidents said we should spend a lot of money—like a trillion dollars—on infrastructure, and none of them delivered,” Lehman says.

Unless it is renewed regularly, though, this funding will barely stop the bleeding. And meanwhile, across the country, families like Kirchhoff’s (who after a difficult year were able to rebuild both the destroyed houses) struggle to recover from a relentless march of disasters, many of them preventable. It’s time for the US to learn the lessons drawn from of a century of neglect, Lehman argues, and begin maintaining the systems that makes so much of American life possible while they’re still in working condition.

“If you have a leak in your roof, you go up there, find it, replace the shingles, put on a little tar” she says. “If you let it go, it’s not going to be a little fix: it’s going to be a replacement.”

[gwydionmisha]

Tallahassee Mayor Nixes LGBTQ+ Advisory Council Meeting During Pride Month

[azeutreciathewicked]

I kind of don't care about blame at this point. Our house is going to be set on fire soon, and it's gonna be shitty. It's already broken, and the people trying to patch it up are getting kicked out.

Right now, I care about who is going to give a fuck about doing actual work to help fix things.

Because it's not enough to avoid any possible "bad thing" to qualify to be a "good person." You actually have to do good stuff.

So for the people who refused to make the right decision, guess what? You're stuck with a shittier situation now, the house is going to be set on fire, and you're gonna burn if you don't pitch in to help.

It'll soon become clear who is wiling to do the hard work, and who is going to just cry and be self-centered on some arcane "moral purity." Back in my day, it was only the religious types who did that, but now we have secular Puritans who don't even have the excuse of being raised with religious brainwashing.

Judgement of one action doesn't absolve you of further moral obligation to act. You get to make hard decisions again and again and again. So if you want to keep sitting around and tantruming, go right ahead. But at least move out of the way so the fire crews can go to work. I don't have the emotional energy to waste being angry at people who've written themselves out of society and history.

Because we have a lot of work to do, and we're in this together.

"I don't want to see anyone blaming abstaining voters for this!"

Of course you don't. The entire idea of abstaining was that you could pretend this didn't involve you. Not getting blamed was more important to you than doing any kind of damage control, more important than protecting any of the people you said you wanted to protect. And in this moment, I don't really care what you want. Of course, this isn't entirely your fault. Of course other people made this worse. But if you're going to pretend you had nothing to do with this, forgive me if I ignore you.

[bitcoinversus]

Politics: Donald Trump Proposes Crypto Advisory Council

President-elect Donald Trump is moving forward with plans to establish a “crypto advisory council” aimed at reshaping U.S. cryptocurrency policy. Major industry players, including Ripple, Kraken, Circle, Paradigm, and Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm a16z, are actively seeking positions on this council, which is expected to operate under the National Economic Council or a similar White House…

[experiencespermile]

Exploring the Future of Automotive Technology with the EPM Podcast

In today’s rapidly advancing world, the automotive industry stands at the crossroads of innovation and transformation. As electric vehicles, autonomous driving, connected cars, and in-vehicle experiences shape the future of transportation, staying updated with the latest trends is essential for automotive enthusiasts, engineers, and industry professionals alike. One valuable resource for exploring these changes is the EPM Podcast, a leading show that delves into the depths of automotive technology, offering listeners an insightful look into the evolution of the in-vehicle experience and much more.

What is the EPM Podcast?

The EPM Podcast is part of the Experience Per Mile (EPM) initiative, a platform dedicated to exploring the vast and dynamic world of automotive technology. The podcast serves as a hub for in-depth discussions about the cutting-edge advancements in automotive design, engineering, and the overall driving experience. Hosted by industry experts and thought leaders, the show brings together the latest insights on how technology is revolutionizing the way we drive and interact with our vehicles.

The EPM Podcast has become a valuable tool for those interested in the future of mobility, providing discussions that range from the role of artificial intelligence in automotive design to how the user experience within vehicles is evolving. Each episode is packed with knowledge, bringing together experts from various fields, including automotive engineers, designers, and tech innovators, to shed light on the latest trends and breakthroughs.

In-Vehicle Experience: The Heart of Automotive Technology

The in-vehicle experience, also known as IVX, is at the center of the transformation happening in the automotive industry. Once solely focused on the mechanics of a vehicle and its basic functionality, the modern in-vehicle experience now extends far beyond simple transportation. Today, it encompasses everything from infotainment systems and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) to the integration of connected technologies that personalize and enhance the driving experience.

As the automotive industry focuses more on user experience, EPM Podcast episodes have frequently addressed how technology is playing a crucial role in shaping IVX. These technologies range from augmented reality dashboards and voice-activated controls to seamless connectivity that allows drivers to interact with their vehicles like never before.

With the increased integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, automakers are focusing on making the in-vehicle experience more intuitive, personalized, and user-friendly. In this context, the EPM Podcast offers deep dives into how these innovations are being integrated into vehicles, improving not just the drive but also enhancing safety, comfort, and convenience for the driver and passengers.

Automotive Technology in the Spotlight

The automotive technology podcast landscape is vast, but the EPM Podcast has established itself as one of the standout shows, offering a unique blend of expert insights and real-world applications. The podcast covers a wide range of topics relevant to anyone interested in the future of the automotive industry.

One of the standout features of the EPM Podcast is its focus on the emerging technologies that are redefining the automotive landscape. The show frequently explores topics like:

Electric Vehicle (EV) Technology: With the global shift towards more sustainable transportation solutions, the EPM Podcast often highlights the latest developments in electric vehicle technology. From innovations in battery efficiency to the infrastructure needed to support EVs, the show provides an in-depth look at the challenges and opportunities facing the industry.

Autonomous Driving: Another hot topic covered in the EPM Podcast is the rapidly evolving field of autonomous vehicles. From Level 1 to Level 5 automation, the podcast breaks down the technology that is enabling self-driving cars, as well as the regulatory, ethical, and practical challenges that come with it.

Connected Cars: The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) has led to an increasing number of connected cars on the road. These vehicles can communicate with other vehicles, infrastructure, and the cloud, allowing for a more seamless and integrated driving experience. The EPM Podcast delves into the technologies behind connected cars, focusing on data security, privacy concerns, and the future of in-car connectivity.

Sustainability in Automotive Design: As consumers demand more environmentally friendly solutions, sustainability has become a key focus for automakers. Episodes of the EPM Podcast regularly discuss how manufacturers are addressing sustainability through green manufacturing processes, materials, and the overall lifecycle of vehicles.

Through the EPM Podcast, listeners gain a clear understanding of how these technologies are shaping the future of mobility. The show also explores how automakers are leveraging these innovations to create more sustainable, efficient, and enjoyable driving experiences.

How the EPM Podcast Enhances Your Understanding of Automotive Trends

For anyone looking to stay on top of the latest automotive trends, the EPM Podcast serves as a fantastic resource. Here’s why:

Expert Interviews: One of the key strengths of the EPM Podcast is its roster of expert guests. Industry leaders, engineers, designers, and tech innovators regularly share their insights into the latest developments, challenges, and opportunities in the world of automotive technology.

Real-World Applications: The EPM Podcast doesn’t just discuss theory; it connects the latest technologies to their real-world applications. For example, when talking about autonomous driving, the podcast explores how different car manufacturers are testing and implementing self-driving systems in real-world environments.

Diverse Topics: While the primary focus is on automotive technology, the podcast also covers a range of related topics that impact the automotive industry, including artificial intelligence, smart cities, and urban mobility. This makes the podcast an invaluable resource for anyone looking to understand how various sectors intersect with the automotive world.

Insight into the In-Vehicle Experience: The EPM Podcast places significant emphasis on how technology can enhance the in-vehicle experience. This focus on user experience is increasingly important in the automotive industry, as consumer preferences evolve to demand more advanced, interactive, and personalized features in their vehicles.

Keeping Pace with Innovation: The pace of innovation in the automotive industry is fast, and the EPM Podcast keeps listeners informed about the latest breakthroughs. From hydrogen fuel cells to next-generation in-car entertainment systems, the podcast ensures that listeners are always up to date.

Conclusion

As the automotive industry continues to evolve, the EPM Podcast provides a comprehensive and engaging platform for understanding the transformative role that technology plays in shaping the future of mobility. Whether you're interested in the latest advancements in electric vehicles, autonomous driving, connected car technology, or the evolving in-vehicle experience, the EPM Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and expert opinions.

By regularly tuning into this automotive technology podcast, you’ll stay ahead of the curve, gaining valuable insights into the trends and innovations that are driving the industry forward. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the EPM Podcast and discover the exciting future of automotive technology and the in-vehicle experience.

[sw5w]

Perhaps with Merely Your Presence, the Mystery Surrounding This Threat Will Be Revealed

STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:09:40

[azeutreciathewicked]

There are so many local advisory boards that have spots to be filled by members of the community. Seriously. Those are one place to start. Precinct officer positions also always need filling. Those are key to mobilizing voters in the community. If you want to support a third party, start there.

School boards, utilities district, and other low level elected positions are so important as we are finding out. Get on those, support good candidates for those.

I would say vote if you can tomorrow and then no matter who wins, get involved in your local community.