Make a Power Move?

[cathy63]

OK, back on the OP's threat to leave CA because of the power outage (post #1), and his calming down and decision to stay for now (post #191)...

There's a lot on the Web about people leaving California, and that has been going on for a while, not just now. The main reason has been the cost of housing.



Will the power outage and the wild fire accelerate this trend? We will have to see.

But, but, but here's something that's interesting. That is, from 2007 to 2016, the period reported above, California's population increases from 36.19 million to 39.21 million according to the US Census Bureau. That's a net increase of 3.02 million.

Where did that increase come from? Birth rate? It's then a birth rate of 4.02 million out of 36.19 million in 9 years. That's 1.2%/year.

Birth rate in the US is about 1.2 per 100 per year, and that shows California birth rate is just average.

The numbers mean California is still getting more crowded, even with the out migration.

Population increase in California is mostly driven by foreign immigration, not the birth rate.

Also, California doesn't actually have as much out migration as you might think. The state ranks 50th of 51 (including DC) in percentage of households that move to other states. It's 27th in net domestic migration, losing less than 2 households per thousand each year.

source: https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-population-migration-census-demographics-immigration/

 

[marko]

In some societies, the common worker is expendable and easily replaced, especially when the leaders give lip service to employee health and safety issues and the available workforce numbers in the 100's of millions.

I've spent more than my fair share of time in China and Asia/Japan in general. One day in Shanghai, a colleague's cab hit a woman on a bike; she was likely dead, splayed out on the street. The driver kept going and my 'local' explained that if the driver stopped, he'd have to pay for .... the bicycle!

And then there's the barefoot window washer, sitting on a wooden plank; no hardhat, no safety harness, 22 floors up waving to me in my St Regis hotel room.

Back to pollution, we used to call it "the three day sore throat" for new arrivals. Whether China, Taiwan, Korea or, yes, even a fully developed country like Japan, after three days you got a sore throat from the pollution.

All kinds of junk floating around in the air; after a week the sore throat went away so you must've gotten used to it.

 

[NW-Bound]

Was that in Phoenix?

Yes.

I read a bit more about TCE, and its history is fascinating. I learned that it was once used for general anesthesia, and food preparation such as extraction of caffeine from coffee beans, extraction of vegetable oil, etc... Then, millions of pounds of it were used in industrial production.

Now, they say this toxic solvent has to be lower than 5 parts per billion in drinking water.

Population increase in California is mostly driven by foreign immigration, not the birth rate.

Also, California doesn't actually have as much out migration as you might think. The state ranks 50th of 51 (including DC) in percentage of households that move to other states. It's 27th in net domestic migration, losing less than 2 households per thousand each year.

source: https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-population-migration-census-demographics-immigration/

The above source says that birth rate in CA is 1.17%. That's very close to my guesstimate of 1.2%.

However, I forgot to include death rate, and also immigration rate. Perhaps these two cancel each other out. Death rate in the US is 0.9%.

 

[Music Lover]

It's incompetence and ignorance. Most reporter's knowledge of science is is equal to their knowledge of religion and economics - that is they are ignorant, and living examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Thus we hear some rather amazing (in an idiotic sort of way) things coming out of their mouths.

There was a time when I used to think that it was just errors but they've made too many "errors" on plainly obvious things for me to believe that any more.

 

[NW-Bound]

Back to pollution, we used to call it "the three day sore throat" for new arrivals. Whether China, Taiwan, Korea or, yes, even a fully developed country like Japan, after three days you got a sore throat from the pollution.

All kinds of junk floating around in the air; after a week the sore throat went away so you must've gotten used to it.

And any country including the above has a countryside that is sparsely populated. People flee rural areas to move to urban centers in order to get amenities, such as healthcare and food and good distribution. Not just in Asia, but traveling through Europe one can still see open and unused land. But there's no job, and nothing to do to make a living. And so people crowd into cities.

The trend towards urbanization is not going to stop anytime soon. People who do not have to work for a living like posters here have a choice, and can go to where there's room to breathe.

California is such a large state, and there's still a lot of land. It's too bad the electric grid still ties communities together, and that's why T-Al lost power even though he is not in a crowded place, nor where it's dry to have to worry about wild fires.

I would find a large enough lot with some open space, put up a mini-solar farm for myself and go back to enjoying my surrounding.

 

[homestead]

Originally Posted by NW-Bound View Post
I recalled working with TCE, which is trichloroethylene, in a factory in a part-time job when I was in college. One of my jobs was to dunk temperature-compensated Zener diodes into tanks of TCE at different temperatures, from way below freezing to way above boiling, while measuring their voltage.

These expensive diodes were individually tested, not sample-tested, and individually serialized! I saw the purchasing companies on the orders; these diodes were destined to go into space, hence their meticulous testing. Wow!

Anyway, I did not know about the danger of TCE then. A few years later, read about a Motorola semiconductor plant in town getting into trouble for having leaked TCE into the ground water. And I was breathing that TCE fume, and getting it onto my fingers despite wearing gloves. Yikes. And they paid me peanuts.

Some poor Chinese or Indians are still doing similar kinds of work with chemicals, I am sure.


PS. Come to think more about this, perhaps I was assigned to do this dirty work with hand-testing parts with TCE because full-time employees shunned this work. I was a hungry student on a part-time job, and I did not know better.

I worked at the Motorola Semiconductor Products Division plant in Phoenix in the mid 70's while I was going to ASU. They were dunking their High Reliability power transistors in that stuff for testing purposes in the QA dept. Glad I didn't have to work with the stuff.

 

[catii]

I worked at the Motorola Semiconductor Products Division plant in Phoenix in the mid 70's while I was going to ASU.

Might have met you. In 1970, I worked as a Senior Engineer for Jack Takasui in SPD, until my draft notice came (number 2!), & I went into the Air Force. Yeah, I remember the TCE - you couldn't walk 20 feet without smelling it.

 

[ERD50]

I worked at the Motorola Semiconductor Products Division plant in Phoenix in the mid 70's while I was going to ASU. They were dunking their High Reliability power transistors in that stuff for testing purposes in the QA dept. Glad I didn't have to work with the stuff.

In the mid-late 1970's we had little cans of Tri-Chlor all over the lab, and out in production. IIRC, they were in tins with weighted, self-closing lids. That at least kept the fumes down some. A few years later, they were all gone, I guess that's when they found out it was bad stuff. Though here we are, some 40 years later.

I don't recall what the replacement was - just Isopropyl alcohol ?

We also had Freon tanks for cleaning boards. Those had refrigerated coils about 2/3rd of the way up the tank, to condense the fumes and return them to the tank. Later, the resins were all water soluble.

-ERD50