Wow! What a reputation: Alaska number one in sexually transmitted diseases? (Anchorage: rental, violent crime)

[riceme]

Wow, I'll have to look that up.

People might find this odd since I live around Fairbanks, but I have never been in the water at Chena Hot Springs, because I got the willies about how many people get in the water, and it being dirty.

I am by no means a germaphobe, I have been in lots of hotsprings in all sorts of different places, been in public hot tubs,... I have no day-to-day fear of germs, and have a general belief that you need to "keep your levels up" in order to stay healthy. But, the water at Chena Hot Springs is a no-go for me.

Maybe I was right to be hesitant.

Now you have me curious about geothermal power plants, which I know nothing about. I'll have to look that up tonight. If they're anything like a household system, the cost of installation is huge, but it eventually pays for itself.

[pittsflyer]

Originally Posted by riceme

Well, this can't surprise anyone.

I always find it interesting that wood burning is the solely named source of the problem, as if the fossil fuels we're burning for heat, electricity, and in vehicles aren't huge contributors.

Meanwhile, we still don't have a natural gas line. Well, even if we did, I'm not sure who could afford it.

Dont the coal plants and boilers in major commercial buildings require scrubbers? If not then thats a pretty easy fix. The harder fix is wood burning and diesel trucks.

I am not even sure why fairbanks even still exists. There is starting to be alot of push back to why UAF even exists (outside of a few graduate level labs and classes, not whole programs). The entirety of programs should be at Anchorage where all the people are and only have a few niche classes (not whole programs) for arctic study or what ever. The refinery is shut down and the military base personel is now very small.

I have to hand it to the city of fairbanks and UAF, they must have some MAJOR political pull to keep existing. Military bases can exist without the city's existence, lots of remote bases around the world. With oil companies doing almost nothing these days I cant see there being much oil field support out of fairbanks either. Maybe one or two offices with a few people to handle the barely existent work loads?

If I had to wager money, fairbanks is full of alot of socially mal adjusted end of the roaders.

[Metlakatla]

Besides it just being a ****ty thing to do, the Karls could have lost everything in a lawsuit if someone had become ill or worse as a result of them willfully failing to maintain minimum sanitation standards.

CHS is pretty filthy all over. We got a room there that literally stunk, but fortunately, Angel Creek was able to take us in. No way I would ever get in the water at CHS. I did like their greenhouse, though.

Here's a youtube Karl made awhile back. It supposedly talks about his geothermal stuff, but I couldn't get beyond the first two minutes of bloviating and yelling. ETA I wonder if his wife is drunk. She's slamming the beer and looking at the ground.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjT4DonndlM

[pittsflyer]

Originally Posted by riceme

Wow, I'll have to look that up.

People might find this odd since I live around Fairbanks, but I have never been in the water at Chena Hot Springs, because I got the willies about how many people get in the water, and it being dirty.

I am by no means a germaphobe, I have been in lots of hotsprings in all sorts of different places, been in public hot tubs,... I have no day-to-day fear of germs, and have a general belief that you need to "keep your levels up" in order to stay healthy. But, the water at Chena Hot Springs is a no-go for me.

Maybe I was right to be hesitant.

Now you have me curious about geothermal power plants, which I know nothing about. I'll have to look that up tonight. If they're anything like a household system, the cost of installation is huge, but it eventually pays for itself.

Costs are huge when you have to outsource everything, if the state actually sat down and figured out what it took to build a geothermal plant and then started building up the infrastructure to manufacture the key components and developed the talent in state it would not be that much money.

Ship in commodity parts (piping, fittings, etc stuff you can order in bulk for cheap) and set up shops to fabricate our own specialty parts. The specialty parts and flying up people from out of state is where you get price gouged. If the state acted as the general and subed out what was needed it would save HUGE amounts of money.

My guess is the state govt is grossly lacking in competence, they are so incompetent that they cant even start putting together a plan. Or more likely so intensely greedy they just want to extract as much money as possible before leaving office.

Then you have the native angle, anything that happens the natives always want a cut for sitting around doing nothing, there is always some native land or right of way or 8A status or some angle they always manage to play so that they can get paid to sit around. Look at the mineral rights angle they are trying to play with ANWR, they will have things so wrapped up in red tape that drilling wont happen for a decade if at all. Hopefully the feds abrogate the ANCSA, I have written to trump about it, its a major obstical to getting anything done in Alaska.

This is why we cant have nice stuff. And I cant blame out of state companies for charging a premium to deal with all this when they come up here to try to install something. We have a really bad reputation.

[Metlakatla]

Now I remember why Karl reminds me of a snake oil salesman. He's always perpetuated the myth that the Japanese visit Alaska in winter to conceive under the Northern Lights. I used to believe that too until I looked into it and found out it was pure BS spouted by ignorant North Americans. He's braying about it in that video.

Here's the truth:

Are thousands of Japanese tourists really going to Yukon each winter for sex under the northern lights? | National Post

[riceme]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

Dont the coal plants and boilers in major commercial buildings require scrubbers? If not then thats a pretty easy fix. The harder fix is wood burning and diesel trucks.

I am not even sure why fairbanks even still exists. There is starting to be alot of push back to why UAF even exists (outside of a few graduate level labs and classes, not whole programs). The entirety of programs should be at Anchorage where all the people are and only have a few niche classes (not whole programs) for arctic study or what ever. The refinery is shut down and the military base personel is now very small.

I have to hand it to the city of fairbanks and UAF, they must have some MAJOR political pull to keep existing. Military bases can exist without the city's existence, lots of remote bases around the world. With oil companies doing almost nothing these days I cant see there being much oil field support out of fairbanks either. Maybe one or two offices with a few people to handle the barely existent work loads?

If I had to wager money, fairbanks is full of alot of socially mal adjusted end of the roaders.

Well, I was going to say something mean, but I've been trying to be a better person lately, so I'll leave it to your imagination and simply say that your statement applies to much of the entire state. But I don't know what your malfunction is with Fairbanks, considering where you live.

Ask GVEA about how easy it is to retrofit or upgrade a coal plant. They would educate you on the subject.

[riceme]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Besides it just being a ****ty thing to do, the Karls could have lost everything in a lawsuit if someone had become ill or worse as a result of them willfully failing to maintain minimum sanitation standards.

CHS is pretty filthy all over. We got a room there that literally stunk, but fortunately, Angel Creek was able to take us in. No way I would ever get in the water at CHS. I did like their greenhouse, though.

Here's a youtube Karl made awhile back. It supposedly talks about his geothermal stuff, but I couldn't get beyond the first two minutes of bloviating and yelling. ETA I wonder if his wife is drunk. She's slamming the beer and looking at the ground.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjT4DonndlM

I couldn't get 60 seconds in. I will not tolerate being preached at.

[riceme]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

Costs are huge when you have to outsource everything, if the state actually sat down and figured out what it took to build a geothermal plant and then started building up the infrastructure to manufacture the key components and developed the talent in state it would not be that much money.

Ship in commodity parts (piping, fittings, etc stuff you can order in bulk for cheap) and set up shops to fabricate our own specialty parts. The specialty parts and flying up people from out of state is where you get price gouged. If the state acted as the general and subed out what was needed it would save HUGE amounts of money.

My guess is the state govt is grossly lacking in competence, they are so incompetent that they cant even start putting together a plan. Or more likely so intensely greedy they just want to extract as much money as possible before leaving office.

You don't say?

Sounds like a fantastic project for you to work on in your downtime, Pitts.

[Frostnip]

Originally Posted by pittsflyer

I have to hand it to the city of fairbanks and UAF, they must have some MAJOR political pull to keep existing.

Fairbanks is the hub for the entire interior, so it has more economic clout than the population would suggest. I also think you underestimate just how much rural Alaska dislikes Anchorage. Fairbanks isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

As far as the university system goes, like it or not, a diploma from UAF has more cachet in almost every field than a diploma from UAA. UAA does not have a strong academic reputation - it's essentially considered an overgrown junior college. Heck, some of UAF-CTC's programs are commonly looked on more positively than UAA equivalents. Whether that rep is fair or not (certainly UAF's admission standards aren't high), I'm not inclined to debate, but nevertheless, UAF is by far the most developed of the three main branches, despite being in the boonies. UAF is also the only campus that actually functions as a campus, which helps attract students who aren't townies. And, UAF has physical room to expand (research facilities in particular) that UAA does not.

The UA system definitely needs to continue consolidation efforts (particularly in administration and e-learning), but they're not going to kill their flagship school in favor of its meh younger brother.

[Frostnip]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Now I remember why Karl reminds me of a snake oil salesman. He's always perpetuated the myth that the Japanese visit Alaska in winter to conceive under the Northern Lights. I used to believe that too until I looked into it and found out it was pure BS spouted by ignorant North Americans. He's braying about it in that video.

Here's the truth:

Are thousands of Japanese tourists really going to Yukon each winter for sex under the northern lights? | National Post

Yeah, from my own conversations with East Asian visitors, they're just coming to look at the pretty lights like any other ecotourists. It sounds like it's considered romantic, and therefore good for a honeymoon, but not in a, like, folkloric mystical way.