02/18 - Thoughtless Thursday!

[savvy]

its raining. it's cold. there is thunder and lightning? I don't really know what's happening anymore.

 

[LumosDC]

Title: 1-2 minute academic marketing survey, February 18th, 2021. | Accept Requester: EC [A3OJEF4P7JEB0K] Contact TV: [Hrly=$11.84] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Excellent] [Rej=0] [Blk=0] TO: [Pay=3.32] [Fast=4.79] [Comm=3.50] [Fair=4.52] [Reviews=42] [ToS=0] TO2: No Reviews Reward: 0.25 Duration: 30:00 Available: 9 Description: Very short academic marketing survey including 10-15 multiple choice questions. Qualifications: Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 1000; HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 98; Location EqualTo US

 

[heaps]

good morning turkers

 

[Skittles]

its raining. it's cold. there is thunder and lightning? I don't really know what's happening anymore.

 

[charlie]

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-56106967

Up north advice to Texas:

Those Windmills Can Come With Heaters!

However, the problem seems worse than that.

With demand high and market pressures raising costs, wholesale power prices "were more than $9,000 per megawatt hour late Monday morning, compared with pre-storm prices of less than $50 per megawatt hour," Reuters reported.

Considering at least one fossil fuel plant was also problematic the few windmills we have here were and are not the only issue. There are several problems but the worst of them is the mismanagement by ERCOT that goes back well over a decade. In 2011, ERCOT was warned that the grid needed to be winterized, upgraded, etc. That, for those who don't remember or don't know, was the Super Bowl weekend that was the ice storm from hell. ERCOT did not do anything. It has also come out in the last 48 hours that there were to have been manual aka physical aka in-person inspections across the grid in 2020. Those didn't happen. ERCOT is a 50 year old governing board that has grown too powerful and hardened and needs serious reform.
The financial mess you quote is disgusting. the PUC, which oversees ERCOT, allowed the wholesale prices to go up. What that article from Reuters does not mention is that wholesale providers here all notified their customers that they should switch providers right away to something cheaper because they have no idea when the costs will go down again. I've never heard of that happening before.
Now, aside from the ERCOT issues, remember that Texas does not build to the same conditions that anyone up north would. We do not build homes to withstand single digit temps; they are built and insulated against 110 degree temperatures. We do not keep fleets of snow plows around. Why should we? We don't get this every year. Every decade perhaps. It is a waste of money for any city in Texas to maintain a fleet of vehicles that might get used once a decade. We don't have the same winter gear that one would find in a northern state. Trust me. I've tried to find said gear locally. Even the chain sports and hunting stores like REI and Cabellas don't carry the heavier winter gear here. The Academy Sports store a few miles from me is already replacing its cold weather gear such as it is with spring athletic and hunting gear.
I am 46 years old. I am a native Texan. The only winter in which I was not in Texas (really only 1/2 winter) was in 1996 when I was in Rome for my junior spring semester in college. We have had severe winters in my lifetime. We have even had snow on the Gulf Coast in relatively recent years. Most winters in Texas average in the 40s or 50s with maybe a day or 3 of near freezing temperatures and some rain with the occasional tornado. On a normal winter day in Texas, temperatures range from the 40s in the Panhandle to the 80s or 90s in South Texas. Demand for electricity is not anywhere near what it has been in the last week. We have never had a winter where all 254 counties were under some sort of warning (windchill, winter storm, ice storm, blizzard, etc).
Yes, as you alluded, the problem is much worse than pricing. The pricing issue is just the icing on the largest and coldest ice cream cake one has ever seen. one piece of good news, Oncor has just announced that it is ending the "controlled outages" at the direction of ERCOT. That's some good news but won't do anything to assuage the pain felt by those families and friends of the 21 (so far) who died as a result of these "controlled outages."

 

[charlie]

Slow start this morning. 33 cents for the win bleh.

 

[jan]

POOH!

Dog needs routine vet care - NO vets will see him unless I sit in the car and let him go in w/their staff.
He's a big dog, (older now) and not well trained (sorry, I didn't do it, my bad - but what's done is done).

I don't even think he'll walk in the door with them - much less poke and prod him w/o me.
I have called everywhere........

 

[alk69]

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-56106967

Up north advice to Texas:

Those Windmills Can Come With Heaters!

However, the problem seems worse than that.

With demand high and market pressures raising costs, wholesale power prices "were more than $9,000 per megawatt hour late Monday morning, compared with pre-storm prices of less than $50 per megawatt hour," Reuters reported.

And guess who is gonna pay for that price increase? Plus a profit for the faulty company.

 

[LumosDC]

Title: Short Qualification Survey(~ 5 minutes) | Accept Requester: SurveyComet [A3NC2P2SPK9QQ] Contact TV: [Hrly=$20.73] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Excellent] [Rej=5] [Blk=0] TO: [Pay=4.11] [Fast=4.56] [Comm=4.01] [Fair=4.72] [Reviews=576] [ToS=4] TO2: No Reviews Reward: 1.25 Duration: 20:00 Available: 18 Description: survey Qualifications: Exc: [272051992-276356] DoesNotExist ; CR Research Group #1 GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100

 

[LumosDC]

Title: Take a brief survey for academic research!(~ 4 minutes) | Accept Requester: Alex Shaw [A3JX46EIC38SJG] Contact TV: [Hrly=$11.36] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Excellent] [Rej=0] [Blk=0] TO: [Pay=3.73] [Fast=4.24] [Comm=4.08] [Fair=4.34] [Reviews=62] [ToS=1] TO2: No Reviews Reward: 0.30 Duration: 45:00 Available: 10 Description: Read a brief scenario and answer a few questions Qualifications: Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100; Exc: [-1356427842-276342] DoesNotExist ; CR Research Group #2 DoesNotExist ; HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 95; CR Research Group #1 GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100; Location In US

 

[Skittles]

Title: complete a survey with various tasks we use in research (~30 minutes, see description for restrictions) | PANDA Requester: Francesca Gino [A2V4OCAP4XYFG9] (Req TV): $28.73/hr/hr (TO): [Pay: N/A] [Fair: N/A] [Comm: N/A] [Fast: N/A] Description: In this study, you will answer questions as if you were working in a group doing behavioral research. You can only participate if you are 18-40 years old. Time: 2 hour(s) HITs Available: 1 Reward: $4.00 Qualifications: Employment Status: Employed full time (35+ hours per week) EqualTo 1; Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 500; HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 97; Location EqualTo US;

 

[LumosDC]

Title: Quick study rating music and pictures (~1 mins) | Accept Requester: Positly [A20SRJ4UG9W0H0] Contact TV: [Hrly=$16.63] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Excellent] [Rej=3] [Blk=0] TO: [Pay=2.62] [Fast=3.57] [Comm=2.27] [Fair=3.51] [Reviews=72] [ToS=0] TO2: No Reviews Reward: 0.15 Duration: 6:00 Available: 7 Description: In this quick study, you will simultaneously listen to some music and see a video montage of pictures, and then answer some quick questions about them. The study only takes 1 minutes. Please only complete it if you can listen to audio. Qualifications: 80412233201bcb15666b2ac446860a99b1c3bf42 DoesNotExist ; Total approved HITs GreaterThanOrEqualTo 500; HIT approval rate (%) GreaterThanOrEqualTo 96; 34ee50c9eacb4e076cedf82013242ddbbbff8013 NotIn 0; Location EqualTo US; ab5c70a2a750f5b115e550db4b754b92dfd32213 DoesNotExist

 

[cassius]

And guess who is gonna pay for that price increase? Plus a profit for the faulty company.

You, the tax payers, probably all of us, are going to pay for it. It happened here also in Ohio, only at kickbacks at the unmentionable area, but guess who gets to pay for those kickbacks.

 

[PandaThief]

Slow start this morning. 33 cents for the win bleh.

Mornings have been absolute trash this year so far

 

[jan]

Title: Short Qualification Survey(~ 5 minutes) | Accept Requester: SurveyComet [A3NC2P2SPK9QQ] Contact TV: [Hrly=$20.73] [Pay=Good] [Approval=~24 hrs] [Comm=Excellent] [Rej=5] [Blk=0] TO: [Pay=4.11] [Fast=4.56] [Comm=4.01] [Fair=4.72] [Reviews=576] [ToS=4] TO2: No Reviews Reward: 1.25 Duration: 20:00 Available: 18 Description: survey Qualifications: Exc: [272051992-276356] DoesNotExist ; CR Research Group #1 GreaterThanOrEqualTo 100

 

[SisphyeanTurker]

Good morning and good luck today! I'm looking forward to shoveling more snow today as we are getting another 5 to 9 inches here.

 

[charlie]

ugh.
Requestors, if you're lurking, take note:
Just because Qualtrics has the functionality doesn't mean you should employ it.
There is no reason to force a full screen on a 2 minute survey that does not actually need a full screen.

It's akin to using all the toys in Powerpoint when you don't need any of them.

 

[charlie]

Good morning and good luck today! I'm looking forward to shoveling more snow today as we are getting another 5 to 9 inches here.

yuck. i'd almost rather have the ice we have than the snow y'all get. good luck.

 

[SisphyeanTurker]

yuck. i'd almost rather have the ice we have than the snow y'all get. good luck.

Thanks. Getting pretty tired of it here. We've had several feet of snowfall in the past two weeks and I'm shoveling two houses because my neighbor's son had shoulder surgery, so he can't do his mom's place. At this point, I'm thinking of driving down to Punxsutawney and having a chat with Phil.

 

[charlie]

Thanks. Getting pretty tired of it here. We've had several feet of snowfall in the past two weeks and I'm shoveling two houses because my neighbor's son had shoulder surgery, so he can't do his mom's place. At this point, I'm thinking of driving down to Punxsutawney and having a chat with Phil.

I think we in Texas would be grateful. I love winter. I don't love winters like this.