Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica registered important eruptions of gases and ashes that have reached up to 800 meters above the crater and 4,140 meters above the sea level (13,579.2 ft.).
The first eruption of importance took place at 5:30 a.m. this Thursday morning, and reached 500 meters above the crater, a second and stronger eruption occurred at 8:25 a.m. of 700 meters above the crater and the biggest eruption was registered at 3:23 p.m.
The wind is carrying volcanic ash mainly to the west-southwest, and nearby communities register a mild smell of sulphur.
Turrialba Volcano entered an active period in 1990 and since 2010 it has had episodes of explosive activity; currently, the volcano has frequent strombolian eruptions (relatively mildly explosive eruptions) that shoot fragments of hot rock to a distance of as much as 500 meters.
According to experts, the volcano will continue with frequent eruptions for a long period until the magmatic body crystallizes and cools off.
Access to the volcano is restricted in a radio of 2 kilometres sometimes with an extension to 5 kilometres when required.
The spectacle of the active volcano can be appreciated from a safe distance in the surrounding areas.
Countries around the world are racing to go cashless. India, South Korea, Sweden. Governments have myriad reasons to want to do so. Cashless paradigms can stop crime. Drug dealing would become harder. Tax evasion would become difficult. Terrorism would be stifled. Without untraceable cash, trafficking in illegal weaponry would become extraordinarily difficult.
"We wanted to minimise the risk of robberies and it's quicker with the customers when they pay by card," says Victoria Nilsson [in Sweden], who manages two of the bakery chain's 16 stores across the city. -- BBC
So why would the Swedes be rushing to give banking institutions control of one of the last areas of total autonomy available to modern man, fungible cash? Apparently, naivete is a Swedish trait.
"Swedes tend to trust banks, we trust institutions... people are not afraid of the sort-of 'Big Brother' issues or fraud connected to electronic payment."
Somewhat paradoxically, Sweden's decision to update its coins and banknotes, a move announced by the Riksbank in 2010 and fully implemented this year, actually boosted cashless transactions, explains Prof Arvidsson. -- BBC
Somewhat paradoxically, Sweden's decision to update its coins and banknotes, a move announced by the Riksbank in 2010 and fully implemented this year, actually boosted cashless transactions, explains Prof Arvidsson. -- BBC
India had a barely modern system of records just a few years ago.
Before 2009, half of all Indians didn’t have any form of identification, not even a birth certificate.
Without a form of identification, citizens couldn’t access services like banking, insurance, or even get a driver’s license. As such, many opportunities like starting a business were not available to them. -- Business Insider
Yet, India may be poised to become the first cashless country on the planet. Prime Minister Modi's administration acted "to ban 85% of the currency in circulation" in 2016. Indians were given an Aadhaar number.
Aadhaar is a biometric database based on a 12-digit digital identity, authenticated by finger prints and retina scans.
It became the largest and most successful IT project ever. As of 2016, 1.1 billion people (95% of the population) had a digital proof of identity. -- Business Insider
That is an amazing -- no, actually, a frightening -- turnaround. From backward technology to leader of the pack, almost overnight. The system is total and complete in scope. India added another system using Aadhaar, called India Stack:
India Stack allows citizens to open a bank account or brokerage account, buy a mutual fund, or share medical records anywhere in India with just a fingerprint or retinal scan from Aadhaar.
Put simply, India Stack could be the framework for a new digital society. -- Business Insider
As Business Insider pointed out, if this could happen to India in just a few years, this process can be replicated anywhere in the planet.
The Swedes seem to be in a race with India.
Puerto Rico's example does pose a problem, though. What do people do when the grid comes down, due to hurricane or disaster? Do all transactions have to stop until the grid is back up?
The powers-that-be see the potential of blockchain technologies, and want to hijack it to their own ends. Of course, they will improve the convenience of it as it becomes universally accepted. It will offer the appearance of fungible transactions -- individuals can transact when the grid is down. So it will seem like cash. However, identity will not be kept anonymous. In cases like Puerto Rico, once the grid is back up, the authorities will have a record of every transaction made in the interim; and by whom it was made. The last aspect will not be touted to the public.
The state/banks will have almost total control of the individual's life when that occurs. Of course, someone will say that smart devices can be stolen. Yes, they can; and that will occur, mind you. But the authorities already have a solution to prevent such theft.
And he [the final dictator] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. -- Rev 13:16-17
Even now, people are already lining up to be chipped.
At first blush, it sounds like the talk of a conspiracy theorist: a company [Three Square Market] implanting microchips under employees’ skin. But it’s not a conspiracy, and employees are lining up for the opportunity. -- NY Times, July 25 2017
Using India as our example, this transition can be effected rather rapidly. Using Sweden as an example, much of the population will actually welcome it.
The only opposition to this will be common sense -- always in short supply -- and the Christian religion, which made a point of warning against such a tyranny. But, Christianity has been attacked for decades.
We are only one crisis away; and the public has been prepared to accept what is coming. They will welcome it. And, thanks to companies like, Three Square Market above, the authorities will be able to boast that the technology has already been tested, and that it is safe and user-friendly.
Who but knows? Maybe the crisis of the cashless in Puerto Rico will be the impetus for official adoption of blockchain technologies. If not, another crisis will present itself. Then the authorities will offer a complete "solution." And, the leader who imposes it will be heralded as the savior of mankind.
As India and Sweden show, we may be only a year or two away.
Mysterious metal towers are popping up at local tunnels, and soon they’ll start appearing at bridges, too.
But even people on the MTA board in charge of the towers can’t say why they’re being used or what’s in them.
New York’s public transportation system has come under fire for spending a whopping $100 million on mysterious metal towers that have popped up at the entrances of tunnel.
But not everyone knows the purpose of these towers, including folks on the MTA board.
The 30-feet-tall MTA Gateway Towers are a part of Gov Andrew Cuomo’s $100 million vision to redesign the MTA’s bridges and tunnels in the city.
‘I don’t actually know what those are,’ Neal Zuckerman, an MTA boardmember, told Politico.
The towers will soon start appearing at bridges, and by the time the project is completed there will be a total of 18 across the city.
New York resident, Jose Lugo, told CBS that the towers started to appear after the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel toll booths came down.
But, he said, ‘we don’t really know what’s the purpose of this’.
Reinvent Albany, a New York-based watchdog group, believes the towers are just for decoration.
‘It’s a bit mind-boggling that the MTA is approving $100 million for what appears to us to be big, decorative pylons,’ John Kaehny, the leader of Reinvent Albany, told CBS.
‘What we’re asking for is transparency from the MTA,’ he added.
Earlier this month, Reinvent Albany asked the Authorities Budget Office to investigate whether the ‘MTA board was fully informed, before approving contracts’ related to the governor’s program on bridges and tunnels.
The group is trying to figure out if the MTA board knew what it was doing when it approved a series of contract amendments up to $47 million worth of expenses for the towers that currently sit at the entrance to the Battery and Queens Midtown Tunnels.
But the individuals in charge are staying tight-lipped about what the towers actually do.
Cedrick Fulton, the head of the MTA’s bridges and tunnels, refused to comment and the MTA chaiman Joe Lhota said he wasn’t ‘at liberty to discuss’ details of the project.
However, Lhota did tell CBS that the towers include ‘whatever fiber optics are necessary for those Homeland Security items’.
Shams Tarek, a spokesman for the MTA, told Politico that the towers ‘host cameras, traffic monitoring and other equipment related to homeland security that would otherwise have been hosted by the former toll booth structures’.
According to the initial plan that was laid out last October, Cuomo’s vision is to reimagine New York’s crossings for the 21st century.
‘The plan will institute state-of-the-art automatic tolling at all MTA bridges and tunnels – reducing traffic congestion and decreasing emissions to improve the overall travel experience for millions of residents and visitors in New York State,’ the press release said at the time.
‘At the Governor’s direction, the state will also deploy cutting-edge technology and security personnel to high-profile crossings in New York to enhance public safety and fortify anti-terror efforts.’
So despite residents and MTA boardmembers feeling left in the dark about these towers, it seems to be clear that they will partly be used as anti-terror technology.
Cuomo announced Wednesday that cashless tolling will start this weekend for the last two New York City bridges with toll booths that still accept cash.
He said the cashless tolling will be implemented starting at 3am on Saturday at the Bronx-Whitestone and Throgs Neck bridges.
Americans have found themselves being inundated with the implementation of a number of Big Brother-like technologies in recent years.
One of the most egregious has been the incessant rise of facial recognition technology in everyday life, often with seemingly innocuous reasoning. Snapchat and Facebook have both rolled out his tech “entertainment” options utilizing high tech versions of what was surely once a government-proprietary concept. Furthermore, the iPhone X will rely on facial recognition software to merely unlock the device for use…something that has worried a number of privacy advocates in the days following Apple’s unveiling of the $1,000 cell phone.
Now, in New York City, a number of bizarre metal towers are being constructed around the city, particularly near bridges and tunnels. While the techno-henges have been linked to the Big Apple’s transit authority, those responsible for their installation have been completely hush-hush beyond that, prompting concern from privacy-coveting citizens in the city that never sleeps.
“Mysterious metal towers are popping up at local tunnels, and soon they’ll start appearing at bridges, too.
“But even people on the MTA board in charge of the towers can’t say why they’re being used or what’s in them, CBS2’s Dave Carlin reports.
“’We don’t really know what’s the purpose of this,’ he told Carlin.
“It’s a $100 million MTA project shrouded in secrecy, with 18 of them for tunnels and bridges. So what are they exactly?
“The MTA’s man in charge of the bridges and tunnels, Cedrick Fulton, dodged Carlin’s questions Wednesday.
“’I said no comment,’ he said.
“Some MTA board members, including New York City Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, say they know too little about the towers – even with half the money already spent and some of the towers already up.”
Of course, theories about the mystery towers are abound in the enormous city, with a great many believing that they are somehow linked to the Department of Homeland Security.
Terrorism has long been a concern of New York, New York, and for obvious reasons. Not only have New Yorkers faced the tragic and bombastic attacks of 9/11, but the city has been a target for terrorists long before that fateful day. The sheer American symbolism that litters the Big Apple draws radical Islamic jihadists in like a moth to the flame, hoping to inflict severe psychological damage by obliterating staples of the American image.
1 comment:
Does NYC know something that Christ alone is aware of?
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