
perestroika
Experiments of frequency steering are scheduled until evening. There is a new frequency reserve market and participants need to test out their systems (synchronous compensators, battery banks, etc). So for a known time, frequency will be driven low (and response measured), and then frequency will be driven high, and response measured.
Local perspective: seems to be going smoothly.
Some people were appropriately concerned, but some were a bit too worried (and I’ve had to explain power grid basics to folks who depend on electrcity, but know nothing). If one writes an article saying some lines will be disconnected, some folks automatically assume it’s a power cut. :) Perhaps a lesson about journalists needing to use simple and clear wording if the matter needs to be understood by everyone.
The biggest risk that was taken into account was risk of well-timed sabotage, so more important installations are better guarded for the transition period.
Since Ukraine did it’s synchronization with the European grid while under fire, and also managed - I think that nothing worth mentioning will happen here.
As a minimum, this will slow down the biggest data breach in US history.
In the best case, those who organized the data breach could find themselves facing some charges.
An article about where - statistically - USAID funds were going in financial year 2023.
https://www.statista.com/chart/17610/countries-receiving-us-foreign-aid/
The biggest receiver of USAID in 2023 was Ukraine, where war is ongoing and very intense. All the top aid-receiving areas were either affected by war, or countries next to war zones where refugees are being accommodated by the million (e.g. Jordan accommodates lots of refugees from the Syrian civil war).
In short - yes. People will suffer. Preventable deaths will occur in considerable numbers. A small number may even occur in Ukraine (example: kids who miss vaccination and catch some illness) despite its considerably greater medical capability and having other sources of assistance. But most of preventable deaths will occur in remote land-locked places with limited connections and limited local capability - imagine for example South Sudan.
A right-wing MAGA influencer called the “direct file” tax program a "far left /…/
Here in Estonia, the castle of “far left” in Europe (shh, don’t spoil the joke, comrades, we want them to think we’re dark red here ;) )…
…for something like 15 years already, you file your taxes like this:
- some day in February, your internet bank reminds you to send a report to the tax office
- you click “send”
- some day in February, you read in a newspaper that “you can file your taxes now”
- you open up emta.ee, log in with your ID card, and see a pre-filled declaration
- if you’re lucky (99% are), it’s been filled correctly and you click “confirm”, otherwise you click “edit”
- you get to see if you have returns or need to pay extra
- if you have returns, you can choose if you want the money (typically if it’s big, you do) or want to donate the small change to a non-profit
It typically takes about 15 minutes.
If it’s a bad year and the automatically filled declaration was incorrect, things will differ of course - then you wait until next winter for a court to resolve the dispute. If you can write a complaint in legalese, it costs about 20 €, but if you need a lawyer, you shell out real money. I’ve had a bad year once. Most people never have one.
To get the answer to that question, we need to read the Ukrainian constitution, not listen to any administration’s diplomats.
My limited understanding:
- in a “situation of war”, elections are suspended
- a ceasefire may be grounds for ending the situation of war
- the situation of war is ended by a vote of the Rada (parliament)
- quite obviously, that’s done if a ceasefire holds and Russia seems to have followed through with promises
Speculation is a bit fruitless when no agreement has been reached, nothing has been done, and nobody knows if a hypothetical agreement would be respected or not.
All the flap about Greenland is a clear admission that serious climate change is coming, though.
He just believes his supporters aren’t capable of reading that out.
Narrator: “they heard him - and replaced it”.