My local NPR station is pretty bad. They are airing less and less time on local programming. Yet they somehow have money to buy its primary competing NPR station in the next town. They weren't getting any of my money before and that is unlikely to change any time soon.
I download all of the NPR programming that I listen to (aside from top-of-the-hour news) in podcast form. I give money to the stations that produce those programs.
It was lot easier when I lived in an area with an NPR station that I had no problem giving money to.
HERE was only "pro-Microsoft" in the sense that it was part of Nokia and Nokia was sold out to MS by Elop. These days, HERE is not even part of Nokia anymore. It was sold to a consortium formed by Mercedes, Audi and BMW last year.
When was the HERE maps app exclusive to Nokia and Windows Phone? During the Apple Maps fiasco, the HERE maps app was available for iOS.
I was relatively late to iPhone. I stayed with my Nokia N95 (despite Symbian) until I misplaced it and replaced it with an iPhone 4. I have used the Nokia Maps app (which became HERE) on the N95 and the HERE app for iOS. The nice things about HERE is that it would cache maps; I frequently travel places with no (or insanely expensive (i.e., AT&T in Canada)) cellular data coverage, so map apps that need to download maps on the fly don't work for me. But I don't recall the HERE maps being any better than Google Maps' maps.
My Syma X5 lasted maybe 10-15 flights before one of the motors started failing. I bought and installed a replacement motor and almost immediately two more motors started failing. "Toy-grade" is right.
A guy in the US came up with Robot Wars. A US record company funded it. As it was coming together, the relationship between the guy and the record company fell apart and ended in legal acrimony. The record company licensed it to a UK production company. The folks who were going to put it on in the US put together BattleBots. It think that the US folks worked on it first, but the UK folks got it on TV first.
FWIW, I prefer BattleBots (except for that bogus rule interpretation on the prohibition of capture devices in the early rounds).
They do mention that the disks had about a 160 Kb capacity, which was fairly standard for Shugart 5-1/4" floppy drives of the time.
That's why they're still readable. The disks with the lowest density (barring really early and crappy 8" formats) are your basic 5.25" floppies. 360k PC floppies would regularly remain readable for much longer than we actually used them, and if you're only using one side then you do even better.
Someone that I know who is familiar with this effort reports that the filesystem layout was custom and software had to be written to sort through it and separate the files from the metadata as well as converting file formats to something that could be used by the Roddenberry folks.
If I am out of signal range with no WiFi the last thing I want is to have a device that can't run my applications. That goes double if I'm lost in the woods and need a compass app or I'm looking to tune my guitar, for example.
Exactly.
As it is, too many apps depend on being connected to the network to perform basic functionality. It seems like the folks who design this stuff spend their lives in Cupertino or Mountain View or SF and don't get to places even a short distance from where they live and encounter places with poor connectivity.
I live about 10 miles from downtown Seattle and there are plenty of places between here and there (including places where people live) with no cellular data coverage (or so spotty to be unusable). I have been in towns and on roads not far from my house and been surprised to find no connectivity so Apple Maps or Google Maps were useless in helping me figure out where to turn to get back to civilization (versus going deeper into nowhere). An hour west of my house, my phone has no service at all until I almost reach the Pacific Ocean.
The cellular data coverage in the US is not yet complete enough for web apps to work here.
A sound and logical move for Volkswagen. They have stuck themselves in a really deep shit pit and the only way out is to make a big move, a really big move and going all electric for future car development, for a car manufacturer would be the biggest move they could make.
Or, they could leave the US market. Out of the 12 million cars affected, only half a million were sold in the US. As bogus as it seems, the magic air flow correction intake tube fix and software changes seems to work to address the diesel emissions issues outside of North America. With Piech gone and presumably so his goal of having VW Group become the world's #1 automaker by sales gone, they could probably save money by leaving the US market.
Then VW could shut down their Chattanooga factory and then the right-wing would have a concrete example of emissions regulations costing good jobs and something to get the people who don't pay attention to what is going on in the world worked up over.
Say what you want about Lessig's campaign, but it raised more money and polled higher than Chafee and I think was on par with O'Malley, but the DNC set up the rules and then changed the rules to keep Lessig out of the debates.
Howard Dean's DFA (Democracy For America) group voted to endorse Sanders this week, so the timing of this move by the DNC against Sanders is interesting.
Clinton has already been anointed as the party's candidate by the DNC. They just have to make sure that the other candidates and the voters realize this.
But is an autonomous vehicle going to understand the motions of an officer, and drive the wrong way on several streets?
With proper use of beacons, signs and temporary signals, I don't see why not. For example, officers could be supplied with special batons, similar to those used by ground crews at airports.
Are you saying that autonomous vehicles can only work in redirected traffic if the people redirecting traffic have special batons? So, let's say there is a landslide and the road is partly obstructed and a good samaritan starts playing traffic cop because the real traffic cops can't get through the back up. Or, how about movers or home construction workers or anyone else dealing with an impromptu traffic redirection? How do autonomous vehicles not being able to determine how to follow directions from a person outside of the vehicle not make things worse in these conditions?
I bought a typewriter this year. I became interested in how they work and did research on what models were considered the best portable manual typewriters in their day. I found one (Smith Corona Silent Super) at a rummage sale just before summer. It was $35. The local typewriter repair shop (yes, there is a local typewriter repair shop around here) estimated $160 to go through it, clean it up and replace the ribbon. The shop had a backlog of job, so they had it for two months. When they were done, they found that my typewriter was in better shape than expected, so the repair cost was closer to $120. And I was able to get 5 ribbons for $10 on eBay.
Two side notes:
1. The plastic-cladding on later Smith Corona typewriters take so long to remove (to reach the guts of the typewriter to do the actual servicing) that it raises the repair costs to the point of making repair uneconomical these days.
2. The most common way that typewriters get damaged is by kids randomly hitting keys and bending the rods and levers inside the typewriters
As far as film... I worked in a photographic darkroom for years. I have a bunch of B&W film in the bottom of my refrigerator and powder mix for developer and fixer. I taught my oldest kid how to develop film and I will do the same with my younger kids as they get old enough to appreciate it. To me, there is some cool about making pictures with chemicals.
As far as the Max Max future.. I am more concerned about film going away than typewriters (or typewriter ribbon) going away. Ribbons can be re-inked and many typewriter repairs are as simple as straightening a bent rod. Film photography, particularly color photography, require special chemicals that are hard to create without your own chemical factory.
I am sure that Apple and others want people to buy new smartphone hardware every couple of years, but, over a couple of years, the faster processor speed, better graphics capability, larger storage capacity and/or new features are things that people will actually make use of and not just buy because it is new.
I hung onto my iPhone 4 for a long time, but, when I finally gave in and got a iPhone 5S last year, it works so much better that I was wondering why I had put it off for so long.
And, as hard to repair as they are now, I think that it is easier now. The first gen iPod touch had a soldered on battery that was tricky to replace without overheating components adjacent to the connector. I replaced the battery on a newer one recently and it was so much easier. Then again, part of why it was easier was better tools are available, including stuff from iFixit.
Unfortunately, I can't watch it because Jonah Ray is on it. I politely corrected something that he said on the Nerdist podcast and he went off on me. I tried to apologize and he just raised the level of his bile. Nerdist is one of my favorite podcasts, but I don't listen if he is on it.
The VW diesel issue only impacts Porsche and Audi because a) the two additional execs who are leaving were at VW when the diesel issue started and b) the Audi A3 used the same EA189 engine.
People continue to post stuff here like this issue effects all VAG diesels, when the problem is just the EA189 engine and not the more expensive engines that use urea to reduce NOx emissions. Do you homework before you post.
The CEO of VW can start cleaning out his desk, and a bunch of executives will be headless in the coming weeks, as well. That serves them right. However, in typical corporate fashion, VW will end up firing ordinary, innocent workers, who had nothing to do with the fraud at all.
Written by someone who does not understand the on-going boardroom drama at VW.
The VW Group CEO (Winterkorn) recently came out ahead in a boardroom battle in April. I have to wonder if his Winterkorn's opponent (Piech) knew that this was coming.
Well, the entire synopsis is pretty bad, but that is often the standard on/., isn't it?
Why does the synopsis spend so much time comparing what VAG has done with malware (huh?), but doesn't mention key info like how this issue applies only to diesel-engined cars and their nitrogen oxide emissions?
As far as I been able to tell, the source of the "recall" story seems to be the NY Times story. All I have seen from the EPA is the Notice of Violation. According to the Notice, the investigation is continuing and the issue has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that the recall talk is premature at this point, though it will likely happen at some point. I think VW would need time to develop software and certify its compliance with the Federal standards before any vehicles could be recalled. BTW, one source indicated that, according to the statutes, the fine for this violation is $37500/vehicle, or over $18billion for the number of vehicles involved.
In the USA, a recipe can't be covered by copyright because it's a collection of facts and directions, but theoretically it can be patented as a process and/or composition of matter. It's very difficult to get a recipe past prior art and obviousness, but it is considered patentable subject matter.
No. No one wants it. It is junk, like most storage places. Why people want to keep junk around I'll never figure out. Some of those manuals are for vacuum tube stuff. Vacuum tubes aren't making a comeback. If someone needed it, it would have been referenced in the last 20 years and it would have been saved.
And it is attitudes like this that demonstrate why anyone who has been in the computer industry for a while keeps seeing reinvention of the wheel and bogus patents that don't recognize prior art. I guess that is one way to create internet billionaires, but it isn't helpful for the industry in general.
I recently picked up a Nokia N9. I love that phone.
The big problem with it is that many apps don't work because they make references to web sites and services that no longer exist. Not even the Twitter and Facebook apps can talk to home. You can't even put it into developer mode because it needs to download packages from now-non-existant servers. Plus, it is really slow on Wifi networks.
Now that I have used the N9 and Meego, I think that it is a big shame that Elop and MS killed it off. Makes me a bit angry.
At least I was able to get the terminal app onto the N9, so I have a shell prompt. The package files are out there and there is a Sailfish OS port, so I can play with things and try to get it working better.
I have read the NTSB Executive Summary. As far as I have seen, the full report has not yet been made available.
The claim made by the report is the accident was the result of human error because one of the pilots unlocked the feather prematurely and that the actuators that control movement of the feather were overcome by aerodynamic forces (while going through trans-sonic speeds) and the feather moved. Deploying the feather is a two-step process, unlocking, which one pilot can do, and commanding it to move, which require both pilots to take action.
What I didn't see in the Executive Summary was whether Scaled Composites expected the actuators to be able to control movement of the feather while the vehicle was going trans-sonic.
Just after the accident, there were statements attributed to Scaled that the actuators should have been able to hold the feather in position after it was unlocked. If the people working on and with the vehicle thought this, how could it be human error for the feather to be unlocked when it was?
If it turns out that those earlier statements were incorrect and Scaled knew that it was a bad idea to, say, unlock while going through trans-sonic, then the Executive Summary should have indicated that. I just find it odd that it doesn't say anything about what Scaled had communicated to its pilots about the capabilities of the actuators for the feather once it was unlocked.
This comment is modded Insightful? It is more like clueless.
The purpose of this campaign is right on the Kickstarter page (and it isn't to raise money that would otherwise not be in their budget):
Kickstarter gives a wide audience the chance to be a part of this project. We're inviting you to go behind the scenes and be a part of the process – from fundraising through conservation to display.
Lots of people want the opportunity to be involved with stuff like this.
Given that a lot of the coverage of the New Yorker article leads with stuff like "Seattle will be devasted", yes, hyperbole. Things will suck in Ocean Shores and Seaside and other coastal locations that don't have large populations. Unless the Seattle Fault is triggered, there won't be a tsunami in Seattle. The USGS projections show damage in central Puget Sound as moderate.
What I would like to know is what is new about this story? There is nothing new about it. Could they not find someone to play up asteroid or Atlantic mega-tsunami risk? NYC publications seem to have a Seattle hang-up, so maybe they couldn't find someone to do another story about the damage that could be done by a lahar if Mt. Rainier goes.
"In 2009, Dougherty told me, he found some land for sale outside the inundation zone, and proposed building a new K-12 campus there. Four years later, to foot the hundred-and-twenty-eight-million-dollar bill, the district put up a bond measure. The tax increase for residents amounted to two dollars and sixteen cents per thousand dollars of property value. The measure failed by sixty-two per cent."
The average house price in Oregon is $246,000. I assume in this area due to proximity to the ocean it will be higher, but let's just use the average. That "measly" $2.16 is $531.36 a year. The average American leaves home at 21 (and thus, even if renting, is in some way exposed economically to those taxes) and dies at 79. That's 58 years exposed to property taxes. Assuming an average interest rate of 3% over all that time, that school cost the average citizen $369,826.56.
I am happy to see, however, that 62% of people in that city know that $2.16 can actually cost them almost $370k.
Do you really not know how bonds paid off through property levy work? I supposed that you think that when someone takes out a loan to buy a car that he has to make that monthly loan payment for the rest of his life.
Given the constant bad press that Spotify gets about how little money artists get from their work being streamed on Spotify, how does the analyst expect them to be able to get away with paying the source of their content less?
Slashdot Mirror
My local NPR station is pretty bad. They are airing less and less time on local programming. Yet they somehow have money to buy its primary competing NPR station in the next town. They weren't getting any of my money before and that is unlikely to change any time soon.
I download all of the NPR programming that I listen to (aside from top-of-the-hour news) in podcast form. I give money to the stations that produce those programs.
It was lot easier when I lived in an area with an NPR station that I had no problem giving money to.
HERE was only "pro-Microsoft" in the sense that it was part of Nokia and Nokia was sold out to MS by Elop. These days, HERE is not even part of Nokia anymore. It was sold to a consortium formed by Mercedes, Audi and BMW last year.
When was the HERE maps app exclusive to Nokia and Windows Phone? During the Apple Maps fiasco, the HERE maps app was available for iOS.
I was relatively late to iPhone. I stayed with my Nokia N95 (despite Symbian) until I misplaced it and replaced it with an iPhone 4. I have used the Nokia Maps app (which became HERE) on the N95 and the HERE app for iOS. The nice things about HERE is that it would cache maps; I frequently travel places with no (or insanely expensive (i.e., AT&T in Canada)) cellular data coverage, so map apps that need to download maps on the fly don't work for me. But I don't recall the HERE maps being any better than Google Maps' maps.
My Syma X5 lasted maybe 10-15 flights before one of the motors started failing. I bought and installed a replacement motor and almost immediately two more motors started failing. "Toy-grade" is right.
A guy in the US came up with Robot Wars. A US record company funded it. As it was coming together, the relationship between the guy and the record company fell apart and ended in legal acrimony. The record company licensed it to a UK production company. The folks who were going to put it on in the US put together BattleBots. It think that the US folks worked on it first, but the UK folks got it on TV first.
FWIW, I prefer BattleBots (except for that bogus rule interpretation on the prohibition of capture devices in the early rounds).
They do mention that the disks had about a 160 Kb capacity, which was fairly standard for Shugart 5-1/4" floppy drives of the time.
That's why they're still readable. The disks with the lowest density (barring really early and crappy 8" formats) are your basic 5.25" floppies. 360k PC floppies would regularly remain readable for much longer than we actually used them, and if you're only using one side then you do even better.
Someone that I know who is familiar with this effort reports that the filesystem layout was custom and software had to be written to sort through it and separate the files from the metadata as well as converting file formats to something that could be used by the Roddenberry folks.
Suppose Ford patented the steering wheel?
Then he would have had to deal with prior art claims. The steering wheel was pioneered by Panhard et Levassor.
If I am out of signal range with no WiFi the last thing I want is to have a device that can't run my applications. That goes double if I'm lost in the woods and need a compass app or I'm looking to tune my guitar, for example.
Exactly.
As it is, too many apps depend on being connected to the network to perform basic functionality. It seems like the folks who design this stuff spend their lives in Cupertino or Mountain View or SF and don't get to places even a short distance from where they live and encounter places with poor connectivity.
I live about 10 miles from downtown Seattle and there are plenty of places between here and there (including places where people live) with no cellular data coverage (or so spotty to be unusable). I have been in towns and on roads not far from my house and been surprised to find no connectivity so Apple Maps or Google Maps were useless in helping me figure out where to turn to get back to civilization (versus going deeper into nowhere). An hour west of my house, my phone has no service at all until I almost reach the Pacific Ocean.
The cellular data coverage in the US is not yet complete enough for web apps to work here.
A sound and logical move for Volkswagen. They have stuck themselves in a really deep shit pit and the only way out is to make a big move, a really big move and going all electric for future car development, for a car manufacturer would be the biggest move they could make.
Or, they could leave the US market. Out of the 12 million cars affected, only half a million were sold in the US. As bogus as it seems, the magic air flow correction intake tube fix and software changes seems to work to address the diesel emissions issues outside of North America. With Piech gone and presumably so his goal of having VW Group become the world's #1 automaker by sales gone, they could probably save money by leaving the US market.
Then VW could shut down their Chattanooga factory and then the right-wing would have a concrete example of emissions regulations costing good jobs and something to get the people who don't pay attention to what is going on in the world worked up over.
Other TWO campaigns??? Martin O'Who???
There was also Lessig and Chafee.
Say what you want about Lessig's campaign, but it raised more money and polled higher than Chafee and I think was on par with O'Malley, but the DNC set up the rules and then changed the rules to keep Lessig out of the debates.
Howard Dean's DFA (Democracy For America) group voted to endorse Sanders this week, so the timing of this move by the DNC against Sanders is interesting.
Clinton has already been anointed as the party's candidate by the DNC. They just have to make sure that the other candidates and the voters realize this.
But is an autonomous vehicle going to understand the motions of an officer, and drive the wrong way on several streets?
With proper use of beacons, signs and temporary signals, I don't see why not. For example, officers could be supplied with special batons, similar to those used by ground crews at airports.
Are you saying that autonomous vehicles can only work in redirected traffic if the people redirecting traffic have special batons? So, let's say there is a landslide and the road is partly obstructed and a good samaritan starts playing traffic cop because the real traffic cops can't get through the back up. Or, how about movers or home construction workers or anyone else dealing with an impromptu traffic redirection? How do autonomous vehicles not being able to determine how to follow directions from a person outside of the vehicle not make things worse in these conditions?
I bought a typewriter this year. I became interested in how they work and did research on what models were considered the best portable manual typewriters in their day. I found one (Smith Corona Silent Super) at a rummage sale just before summer. It was $35. The local typewriter repair shop (yes, there is a local typewriter repair shop around here) estimated $160 to go through it, clean it up and replace the ribbon. The shop had a backlog of job, so they had it for two months. When they were done, they found that my typewriter was in better shape than expected, so the repair cost was closer to $120. And I was able to get 5 ribbons for $10 on eBay.
Two side notes:
1. The plastic-cladding on later Smith Corona typewriters take so long to remove (to reach the guts of the typewriter to do the actual servicing) that it raises the repair costs to the point of making repair uneconomical these days.
2. The most common way that typewriters get damaged is by kids randomly hitting keys and bending the rods and levers inside the typewriters
As far as film ... I worked in a photographic darkroom for years. I have a bunch of B&W film in the bottom of my refrigerator and powder mix for developer and fixer. I taught my oldest kid how to develop film and I will do the same with my younger kids as they get old enough to appreciate it. To me, there is some cool about making pictures with chemicals.
As far as the Max Max future .. I am more concerned about film going away than typewriters (or typewriter ribbon) going away. Ribbons can be re-inked and many typewriter repairs are as simple as straightening a bent rod. Film photography, particularly color photography, require special chemicals that are hard to create without your own chemical factory.
I am sure that Apple and others want people to buy new smartphone hardware every couple of years, but, over a couple of years, the faster processor speed, better graphics capability, larger storage capacity and/or new features are things that people will actually make use of and not just buy because it is new.
I hung onto my iPhone 4 for a long time, but, when I finally gave in and got a iPhone 5S last year, it works so much better that I was wondering why I had put it off for so long.
And, as hard to repair as they are now, I think that it is easier now. The first gen iPod touch had a soldered on battery that was tricky to replace without overheating components adjacent to the connector. I replaced the battery on a newer one recently and it was so much easier. Then again, part of why it was easier was better tools are available, including stuff from iFixit.
Yay, MST3K is coming back.
Unfortunately, I can't watch it because Jonah Ray is on it. I politely corrected something that he said on the Nerdist podcast and he went off on me. I tried to apologize and he just raised the level of his bile. Nerdist is one of my favorite podcasts, but I don't listen if he is on it.
The VW diesel issue only impacts Porsche and Audi because a) the two additional execs who are leaving were at VW when the diesel issue started and b) the Audi A3 used the same EA189 engine.
People continue to post stuff here like this issue effects all VAG diesels, when the problem is just the EA189 engine and not the more expensive engines that use urea to reduce NOx emissions. Do you homework before you post.
The penalties and lawsuits will quickly exceed VW's $126bn valuation.
No it won't. VW is a vital piece of the German economy and is part owned by the German government.
Lower Saxony (a German state) is part owner (13% of shares, 20% of voting rights). The majority owners are the Porsche and Piech families.
The CEO of VW can start cleaning out his desk, and a bunch of executives will be headless in the coming weeks, as well. That serves them right. However, in typical corporate fashion, VW will end up firing ordinary, innocent workers, who had nothing to do with the fraud at all.
Written by someone who does not understand the on-going boardroom drama at VW.
The VW Group CEO (Winterkorn) recently came out ahead in a boardroom battle in April. I have to wonder if his Winterkorn's opponent (Piech) knew that this was coming.
Well, the entire synopsis is pretty bad, but that is often the standard on /., isn't it?
Why does the synopsis spend so much time comparing what VAG has done with malware (huh?), but doesn't mention key info like how this issue applies only to diesel-engined cars and their nitrogen oxide emissions?
As far as I been able to tell, the source of the "recall" story seems to be the NY Times story. All I have seen from the EPA is the Notice of Violation. According to the Notice, the investigation is continuing and the issue has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that the recall talk is premature at this point, though it will likely happen at some point. I think VW would need time to develop software and certify its compliance with the Federal standards before any vehicles could be recalled. BTW, one source indicated that, according to the statutes, the fine for this violation is $37500/vehicle, or over $18billion for the number of vehicles involved.
In the USA, a recipe can't be covered by copyright because it's a collection of facts and directions, but theoretically it can be patented as a process and/or composition of matter. It's very difficult to get a recipe past prior art and obviousness, but it is considered patentable subject matter.
Unless that recipe is called "software"
No. No one wants it. It is junk, like most storage places. Why people want to keep junk around I'll never figure out. Some of those manuals are for vacuum tube stuff. Vacuum tubes aren't making a comeback. If someone needed it, it would have been referenced in the last 20 years and it would have been saved.
And it is attitudes like this that demonstrate why anyone who has been in the computer industry for a while keeps seeing reinvention of the wheel and bogus patents that don't recognize prior art. I guess that is one way to create internet billionaires, but it isn't helpful for the industry in general.
I recently picked up a Nokia N9. I love that phone.
The big problem with it is that many apps don't work because they make references to web sites and services that no longer exist. Not even the Twitter and Facebook apps can talk to home. You can't even put it into developer mode because it needs to download packages from now-non-existant servers. Plus, it is really slow on Wifi networks.
Now that I have used the N9 and Meego, I think that it is a big shame that Elop and MS killed it off. Makes me a bit angry.
At least I was able to get the terminal app onto the N9, so I have a shell prompt. The package files are out there and there is a Sailfish OS port, so I can play with things and try to get it working better.
I have read the NTSB Executive Summary. As far as I have seen, the full report has not yet been made available.
The claim made by the report is the accident was the result of human error because one of the pilots unlocked the feather prematurely and that the actuators that control movement of the feather were overcome by aerodynamic forces (while going through trans-sonic speeds) and the feather moved. Deploying the feather is a two-step process, unlocking, which one pilot can do, and commanding it to move, which require both pilots to take action.
What I didn't see in the Executive Summary was whether Scaled Composites expected the actuators to be able to control movement of the feather while the vehicle was going trans-sonic.
Just after the accident, there were statements attributed to Scaled that the actuators should have been able to hold the feather in position after it was unlocked. If the people working on and with the vehicle thought this, how could it be human error for the feather to be unlocked when it was?
If it turns out that those earlier statements were incorrect and Scaled knew that it was a bad idea to, say, unlock while going through trans-sonic, then the Executive Summary should have indicated that. I just find it odd that it doesn't say anything about what Scaled had communicated to its pilots about the capabilities of the actuators for the feather once it was unlocked.
This comment is modded Insightful? It is more like clueless.
The purpose of this campaign is right on the Kickstarter page (and it isn't to raise money that would otherwise not be in their budget):
Kickstarter gives a wide audience the chance to be a part of this project. We're inviting you to go behind the scenes and be a part of the process – from fundraising through conservation to display.
Lots of people want the opportunity to be involved with stuff like this.
Hyperbole?
Given that a lot of the coverage of the New Yorker article leads with stuff like "Seattle will be devasted", yes, hyperbole. Things will suck in Ocean Shores and Seaside and other coastal locations that don't have large populations. Unless the Seattle Fault is triggered, there won't be a tsunami in Seattle. The USGS projections show damage in central Puget Sound as moderate.
What I would like to know is what is new about this story? There is nothing new about it. Could they not find someone to play up asteroid or Atlantic mega-tsunami risk? NYC publications seem to have a Seattle hang-up, so maybe they couldn't find someone to do another story about the damage that could be done by a lahar if Mt. Rainier goes.
This jumped out at me:
"In 2009, Dougherty told me, he found some land for sale outside the inundation zone, and proposed building a new K-12 campus there. Four years later, to foot the hundred-and-twenty-eight-million-dollar bill, the district put up a bond measure. The tax increase for residents amounted to two dollars and sixteen cents per thousand dollars of property value. The measure failed by sixty-two per cent."
The average house price in Oregon is $246,000. I assume in this area due to proximity to the ocean it will be higher, but let's just use the average. That "measly" $2.16 is $531.36 a year. The average American leaves home at 21 (and thus, even if renting, is in some way exposed economically to those taxes) and dies at 79. That's 58 years exposed to property taxes. Assuming an average interest rate of 3% over all that time, that school cost the average citizen $369,826.56.
I am happy to see, however, that 62% of people in that city know that $2.16 can actually cost them almost $370k.
Do you really not know how bonds paid off through property levy work? I supposed that you think that when someone takes out a loan to buy a car that he has to make that monthly loan payment for the rest of his life.
Cut royalty costs to the music industry
Given the constant bad press that Spotify gets about how little money artists get from their work being streamed on Spotify, how does the analyst expect them to be able to get away with paying the source of their content less?