Day: August 1, 2017

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worst U.S. interstates, due to terrain

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worst U.S. interstates, due to terrain

I have to agree strongly with Interstate 68 through Cumberland, Maryland. That is a cluster -- you drop from 70 MPH and make a hard 40 MPH left turn after descending a steep hill. Then throw in a bunch of city traffic merging on and exiting the interstate. It's so bad they've built massive concrete walls, so that when big rigs crash, they won't hopefully burn all of the downtown.

Earlier Sunsets in August

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Days are getting steadily shorter in Albany …

Tonight the sun will set at 8:14 PM with dusk at 8:46 PM.
Next Tuesday, the sun will set at 8:05 PM with dusk at 8:36 PM.
Saturday August 12th, the sun will set at 8:00 PM with dusk at 8:30 PM.
Tuesday August 22nd, the sun will set at 7:44 PM with dusk at 8:15 PM.

And on Thursday, August 31st, the sun will set at 7:30 PM with dusk at 7:59 PM.

Dusk

Foxconn’s corporate welfare deal will cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than 3 billion dollars / Boing Boing

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Foxconn’s corporate welfare deal will cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than 3 billion dollars / Boing Boing

"The recent trumpist trumpeting about the plans of Chinese manufacturer Foxconn to open a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin omitted a few key details -- like the fact that Foxconn is being given a sweetheart tax-break that's topped up with 15 years' worth of guarantees of up to $200m/year in cash subsidies at taxpayer expense -- a record-setting taxpayer subsidy that exceeds the previous Wisconsin record-holder by a factor of fifty."

"The total bill for this incentive package that Wisconsin is giving the super-profitable Chinese manufacturer? Three billion dollars."

"But there's more! Wisconsin cities will also have to provide incentives, including hundreds of millions more in infrastructure, and exemptions on environmental rules that will allow Foxconn to pollute watersheds, drain water habitats, and reengineer Wisconsin's freshwater sources, up to and including Lake Michigan."

I-35W Mississippi River bridge

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I-35W Mississippi River bridge

"The I-35W Mississippi River bridge (officially known as Bridge 9340) was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. During the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, it suddenly collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The bridge was Minnesota's third busiest, carrying 140,000 vehicles daily."

"The NTSB cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets, and asserted that additional weight on the bridge at the time of the collapse contributed to the catastrophic failure."