Truckers Offer Help as Official Response to I-95 Traffic Chaos Falters | Rolling Stone

January 5, 2022January 4, 2022 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As truckers, it’s second nature for Emily Slaughter and Michele Rusher to keep tabs on bad weather and road closures. But as the drivers, who work for the shipping company New Prime, Inc., headed southbound on Interstate 95 early Tuesday morning, Jan. 4, no radio updates or electronic road signs suggested they were about to hit the worst traffic jam imaginable.

At around one or two in the morning, Rusher and Slaughter joined a mass of cars stuck on the snow-covered, ice-slicked roads of Northern Virginia. A sudden winter storm the day before had blanketed this stretch of highway outside of Washington D.C., and many drivers (including U.S. Senator Tim Kaine) were stranded overnight in their cars with no food or water in freezing temperatures, trying to stay warm while conserving gas.

This new solar shingle from GAF Energy gets nailed right onto a roof | Fast Company

January 4, 2022January 3, 2022 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The concept seems obvious: Why put solar panels on a roof when you could just make the roof out of solar panels? But Tesla’s attempt to design a solar roof didn’t go well: The solar tiles turned out to be challenging to install, and the final price for customers has sometimes become tens of thousands of dollars higher than they were quoted. But GAF Energy, a spinoff of the world’s largest roofing company, launched a new solar roof today that it believes can succeed—and that could help radically speed up the adoption of home solar.

“The potential for solar is enormous, but we haven’t come close to meeting it,” says Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy, which is part of parent company Standard Industries, which also owns GAF. “When you have a heritage in roofing, and you see solar panels going up the same way in 2020 as they were put up in 1990, yeah, you realize there’s an opportunity for innovation.”

Does fully vaccinated mean boosted? Yes, say these companies | Fast Company

January 4, 2022January 3, 2022 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests eligible people should consider getting a booster shot starting at about six months after the date of their original COVID-19 vaccine regimen. For many Americans, that date has passed. Factor in more heavily mutated variants like omicron, and you can see why proof of vaccination is hurtling toward showing you’ve also received a booster shot. Around the country, a number of private businesses have already started rolling one out, and some local governments are beginning to do the same.

The federal government hasn’t signed off yet on booster shot mandates. Ground zero for them, then, might seem like it would be progressive states. But so far, it’s a mixed bag pulling the trigger:

Apple puts Indian iPhone factory ‘on probation’ | BBC News

December 30, 2021December 29, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Apple has placed an iPhone factory in southern India “on probation” following protests over food poisoning and living conditions.

An audit by Apple found that remote dining rooms and dormitories used by workers did not meet requirements.

Around 250 women who worked at the Foxconn plant were affected by food poisoning, with more than 150 ending up in the hospital, local media reported.

Foxconn apologized and said it was investigating the situation.

6 things in cybersecurity we didn’t know last year | TechCrunch

December 29, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The past twelve months in cybersecurity have been a rough ride. In cybersecurity, everything is broken — it’s just a matter of finding it — and this year felt like everything broke at once, especially towards the end of the year. But for better or worse, we end the year knowing more than we did before. Here we look back at the year that’s been, and what we learned along the way.

1. Ransomware costs businesses because of downtime, not ransom payments

WHO Director: Booster Shot Programs ‘Will Likely Prolong The Pandemic’ | Forbes

December 23, 2021December 22, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned Wednesday that “blanket” vaccine booster shot programs could “prolong” the pandemic, as the United States urged citizens to get their third shots and Israel introduced a fourth dose.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said booster shot programs could extend the pandemic by “diverting supply to countries that already have high levels of vaccination coverage,” allowing the coronavirus to spread and possibly mutate in countries where few citizens are vaccinated, according to CNBC.

New Legislation Would Streamline EIDL Small Business Loan Application Process | Small Business Trends

December 22, 2021December 21, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The Streamlining EIDL Act is a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate to improve the application process of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) as well as combat fraud in the program. The goal is to simplify the process so small businesses can quickly and effectively get answers to their applications.

New Legislation Would Streamline EIDL Small Business Loan Application Process

The need to come up with such a bill speaks to the level of bureaucracy that exists when small business owners fill out their EDIL applications. According to Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), small businesses in his state are struggling to get the answers they need on their EIDL applications from the SBA.