Speaking of bloat on Wikipedia. I sometimes will get bored and spend some time clicking the random article link just to see if I can find anything new and interesting to read. And honestly the number of pages devoted to athletes, and athletic league seasons is mind boggling. The only subject that seems to compete on number of pages is moth species.
High School Seniors usually ran a game every year at my school that I think they called Assassin. Although one of the standard rules was that it couldn't be played on school grounds, more because it would make the game too easy than for fear of getting in trouble. I've heard of other schools having similar traditions and it's hard to believe that all of them ruled out school grounds. I remember at least one teacher who regaled us with stories of his senior classes game decades after it happened.
Sure, it is something we can in theory do something about. However we're also genetically predisposed to conserve energy and avoid discomfort. That has played to our benefit as a species as we've progressed from being hunter gatherers fighting and scavenging for survival to where we are today.
The other problem is that people are bad at understanding long term risks.Most of the risk in being obese is very long term and nebulous. It is easy for a person to look at those risks and weigh them as essentially inconsequential compared to the immediate costs or burdens involved in changing their weight now.
I'm pretty sure we're genetically pre-disposed to being fat as a species, when high calorie food is so affordable and easily accessible. It wasn't all that long ago that malnutrition was a common problem even in the USA. The other really obvious factor is that people are just far less active than they used to be. Our genetics haven't adapted yet to either of those factors. There are likely plenty of other factors but I think it's silly to discount such obvious things.
Twitter and Facebook both essentially require the user to use an electronic device which is capable of far more broad usage than just Twitter and Facebook. Essentially if you can access either one of those sites then you have access to stuff that is good enough for carrying on a relatively normal life. There is also nothing keeping you from creating your own similar service where you set the rules for acceptable behavior.
I've never understood the attraction of using Twitter outside of celebrities/politicians and their sycophants. I can see how it'd be useful for issuing emergency alerts and such but there are already many systems in place for that kind of thing that are purpose built and so superior.
The cards we use are apparently $60+ per card, and they like to push the point that you've been careless. Additionally all our cards are issued out of one central office which is chronically understaffed and probably supports 3000+ people. If you need to go to that office you have to call ahead for an appointment and hope they can see you in the next few days. I'm pretty sure this is all pretty deliberate to motivate people to take very good care of their cards, and I guess it works, it's just stressful. The one time I lost track of my card it turned out the family cat had dragged my lanyard outside and left it in the backyard, I only ended up losing a half day of work while I searched for it.
Businesses and governments have been using these things for decades now. The RFID chip usually acts as a username and you still have to enter a PIN or password to actually access anything. I'm pretty sure there are also more complicated setups using encryption for query and response.
The newest thing I've observed myself thought that largely negates people scanning it covertly is that the RFID chips transmit antenna being made weaker. Older chips had out sized antennas and could be ready from a foot or more away. The newer ones you have to put your chipped card up flush against the reader, and positioned directly over the spot where its antenna is. This could be further complicated I suppose by using a directional antenna in the chip so that a reader would only work from as specific side or angle.
Using cards on lanyards is actually likely to be less secure. People don't carry them on their person all the time so they end up left unattended for extended periods of time. You could likely "borrow" one for most of a weekend without the owner realizing it and have a lot more time to actually crack any security involved.
First of all the implant is stuck into the loose bit of skin between the thumb and forefinger, just under the skin. It would be trivially easy for you to remove on your own and patching it up would probably involve some antiseptic, super glue, and a band-aid. Sure it's probably safest to have a doctor remove it since they'll have clean implements and local anesthetic, but by no means required.
If I was offered to have an implant like this I'd very likely take it. As it stands if I misplace or lose my RFID chipped access card I could end up having to take a week or so of leave. I've only ever lost track of it once in the last decade but I'd be much happier just not having to worry about it at all. The bracelet is no better than having a card, it's a physical item you have to keep track of at all times.
The one realistic downside I can think of is that you might have to remove the chip prior to having an MRI. But like I said, taking it out is trivial.
The only other downside that some might worry about at all is the potential to use it to track you outside of work. And that concern is relatively easy to mitigate by designing the RFID chip to transmit with an exceptionally weak signal. Some of the cards I work with can be recognized by the door readers from nearly a foot away or through thick materials. The newer chips have to be placed almost flush to the part of the reader that has the antenna in it. You could possibly make them even more difficult to read from a distance by making the antenna directional and implanting the chip such that it can only be read from a specific angle.
I always make a point to thank the janitorial staff when they come through my work area. I've worked places that had bad janitorial contracts and it sucked. The bathrooms were always disgusting, the carpets caked in FSM only knows what, and common areas were places you just didn't want to be if possible. As an employee it was a constant drain on morale. I can only imagine what visitors thought of the place. Where I work now the janitorial staff cleans the restrooms at least twice each workday. All the waste baskets are emptied daily if not twice. Carpeting gets vacuumed regularly, and hard floors get the mop.
My primary objection to classifying it as a "real" car is that there is no way it meets the safety standards for a car. It is likely being classified as some other vehicle type with weaker safety standards. Despite that it is being sold for the same price as an actual full function car. I in general like the idea of having a tiny, enclosed, and efficient vehicle for commuting and such, being electric is a nice bonus. But I'm not going to pay a price premium to give up so much safety and functionality. This is essentially the same problem the Corbin Sparrow had, while the price here is lower it's still exorbitant.
For me a big part of the problem is that our society routinely refuses to hold law enforcement responsible for wrongs when they are caught red handed. Some large parts of the population justifiably have a deep rooted mistrust of law enforcement. So I'm leery of granting broader powers to the police when they frequently have shown they can't be trusted with what they do have.
I generally agree but there are always caveats. Is the car already paid for? Is it more car than you need? I've known people that struggled to put food on the table but were driving giant trucks or late model sports cars. You can buy a 10-20 year old Toyota Corolla or something similar that'll get you where you need to go reliably for a couple grand, and as a bonus you get better fuel economy and cheaper insurance rates. If your vehicle is unnecessarily expensive sell it, use part of the money to buy the small car, and use the extra to survive until you find another job.
The car bits that melted were aluminum or maybe magnesium, which is 300 C cooler than for steel. Granted that is still 1200+ C, which is plenty hot. But there are building and maintenance methods that can greatly reduce the danger from external fires. Roofing materials should be non-flamable and not directly attached to wood to prevent flying embers from starting a fire there. Walls should be covered in sheathing that is hard to ignite like fiber cement board, metal siding, brick, or various types of concrete.
The key thing though is maintaining the area immediately around the house. You shouldn't have anything that can act as fuel for a fire too close to the house. Grass should be kept cut, bushes shouldn't be against the house or other buildings. And brush in general should be cleared as far back as possible. If large wild fires are a serious threat you shouldn't have any trees near enough they can fall on or close to a building. You're basically trying to limit the amount of fuel a fire can burn close to the protected buildings. If all that is there is short grass that fuel will burn very fast and not have time to ignite the buildings.
Did you hear about the Federal ban on drop side cribs a few years back? That was done because a dozen infants were killed by them over the course of some number of years. Whereas elective circumcisions are estimated to kill 100 infants a year from complications like infection. As a society there doesn't seem to be a lot of reasoned thought about what we ban.
The running out of sand bit actually isn't a tin hat talking point, it just needs more specific wording. The problem is that production of concrete uses up a lot of sand, and in particular sand that is rough around the edges. When talking about running out of sand people typically point to the worlds immense deserts and laugh. However the sands in the deserts have been weathered to the point that they aren't very good for making concrete. In some countries there is actually a problem with illegal dredging of sand which is then illegally exported. Sand is actually a renewable resource, parrot fish feed on corral which creates sand that they then crap out, is just one example. The natural processes that create sand take a very long time. But with the ever increasing pace of concrete consumption at some point the world could very likely run out of easily available sand suitable for making concrete. Concrete is already an expensive building material, so what happens when one of it's cheap components runs out and we have to manufacture it?
To be fair, when the Senate was created the East Coast was all there was to the Unites States. Certainly the point was to give less populous states a bit of extra influence, and interestingly the difference between states then wasn't as drastic as it is now. This makes sense because at the time the focus was on the power of the individual States and limiting the Federal Governments power. There isn't any census data available until some time after independence but in 1790 the least populous state of Delaware had a population of 59,094 while Virginia had 747,610. So Delaware had about 8% of the population of Virginia. As of the 2010 census Wyoming has about 1.5% of the population of California. While the East Coast states do represent in the bottom of the population chart disproportionately, they still only make up half of the bottom 10, and a quarter of the bottom 20.
The state vs federal government is interesting to me because while I have an affinity for the state I was born and raised in I don't feel I owe it any allegiance. If I were a sports fan I would probably have more pride in my favorite team than any particular state.
Privately held stocks just aren't traded on the public stock exchanges, there isn't any magic involved. Private investors can still buy and sell their private stocks, they just lose the benefit of doing so via the public markets. Participating in the public markets does incur extra cost for the company in the form of abiding by more regulations, which depending on your views of said regulators may or may not be a positive. Often privately held companies, and their shareholders, aren't interested in buying and selling their private stock to small investors, though Musk appears to be open to it.
The fidelity angle isn't much of an angle as it turns out. Fidelity among other companies, invested in SpaceX during earlier funding rounds, and so owns private stock. Those private stocks in SpaceX are then split up into a couple of Fidelities mutual funds. So you could "buy" some SpaceX private stock by purchasing shares in those mutual funds, however they'd be watered down as SpaceX represents a tiny portion of what is in those mutual funds. Additionally if the fund managers at Fidelity so choose they could sell that private stock position. The same is true for Alphabet, which also bought private shares in the same funding round.
You can label it however you like. It's money that you would otherwise be paid in your paycheck, except that instead it is being used to subsidize a chow hall. You could also view it as them not paying you enough to feed yourself and instead providing an upscale soup kitchen. Same goes for housing, although some of the housing I saw was very nice, much of it was very sub standard. My particular accommodations were what amounted to a concrete shoe box stacked among a hundred others heated and cooled with a radiator that you could tweak by a few degrees. More senior people let us know we were spoiled because in their day the same room would house 4 bodies. When the base turned over an older housing area to the city they bulldozed everything because none of the buildings were good enough to try and keep repair/retrofit.
Those pay pools not being taxed is nice, but almost negligible given the low tax brackets involved anyways. And it feeds into part of the conniving that recruiters do. They would tell you how much you could be earning and talk about retiring before your 40's and collecting 50% pay. They would fail to point out that the retirement pay was based solely on basic pay, excluding allowances and anything else you might get.
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Speaking of bloat on Wikipedia. I sometimes will get bored and spend some time clicking the random article link just to see if I can find anything new and interesting to read. And honestly the number of pages devoted to athletes, and athletic league seasons is mind boggling. The only subject that seems to compete on number of pages is moth species.
High School Seniors usually ran a game every year at my school that I think they called Assassin. Although one of the standard rules was that it couldn't be played on school grounds, more because it would make the game too easy than for fear of getting in trouble. I've heard of other schools having similar traditions and it's hard to believe that all of them ruled out school grounds. I remember at least one teacher who regaled us with stories of his senior classes game decades after it happened.
Sure, it is something we can in theory do something about. However we're also genetically predisposed to conserve energy and avoid discomfort. That has played to our benefit as a species as we've progressed from being hunter gatherers fighting and scavenging for survival to where we are today.
The other problem is that people are bad at understanding long term risks.Most of the risk in being obese is very long term and nebulous. It is easy for a person to look at those risks and weigh them as essentially inconsequential compared to the immediate costs or burdens involved in changing their weight now.
"pretend that it's acceptable"
The fuck are you talking about? Just what other personal choices are you putting into that category?
I'm pretty sure we're genetically pre-disposed to being fat as a species, when high calorie food is so affordable and easily accessible. It wasn't all that long ago that malnutrition was a common problem even in the USA. The other really obvious factor is that people are just far less active than they used to be. Our genetics haven't adapted yet to either of those factors. There are likely plenty of other factors but I think it's silly to discount such obvious things.
In English it means "A perfectly good sandwich which we have ruined by crushing the shit out of it while heating for you!"
Twitter and Facebook both essentially require the user to use an electronic device which is capable of far more broad usage than just Twitter and Facebook. Essentially if you can access either one of those sites then you have access to stuff that is good enough for carrying on a relatively normal life. There is also nothing keeping you from creating your own similar service where you set the rules for acceptable behavior.
I've never understood the attraction of using Twitter outside of celebrities/politicians and their sycophants. I can see how it'd be useful for issuing emergency alerts and such but there are already many systems in place for that kind of thing that are purpose built and so superior.
The cards we use are apparently $60+ per card, and they like to push the point that you've been careless. Additionally all our cards are issued out of one central office which is chronically understaffed and probably supports 3000+ people. If you need to go to that office you have to call ahead for an appointment and hope they can see you in the next few days. I'm pretty sure this is all pretty deliberate to motivate people to take very good care of their cards, and I guess it works, it's just stressful. The one time I lost track of my card it turned out the family cat had dragged my lanyard outside and left it in the backyard, I only ended up losing a half day of work while I searched for it.
Businesses and governments have been using these things for decades now. The RFID chip usually acts as a username and you still have to enter a PIN or password to actually access anything. I'm pretty sure there are also more complicated setups using encryption for query and response.
The newest thing I've observed myself thought that largely negates people scanning it covertly is that the RFID chips transmit antenna being made weaker. Older chips had out sized antennas and could be ready from a foot or more away. The newer ones you have to put your chipped card up flush against the reader, and positioned directly over the spot where its antenna is. This could be further complicated I suppose by using a directional antenna in the chip so that a reader would only work from as specific side or angle.
Using cards on lanyards is actually likely to be less secure. People don't carry them on their person all the time so they end up left unattended for extended periods of time. You could likely "borrow" one for most of a weekend without the owner realizing it and have a lot more time to actually crack any security involved.
First of all the implant is stuck into the loose bit of skin between the thumb and forefinger, just under the skin. It would be trivially easy for you to remove on your own and patching it up would probably involve some antiseptic, super glue, and a band-aid. Sure it's probably safest to have a doctor remove it since they'll have clean implements and local anesthetic, but by no means required.
If I was offered to have an implant like this I'd very likely take it. As it stands if I misplace or lose my RFID chipped access card I could end up having to take a week or so of leave. I've only ever lost track of it once in the last decade but I'd be much happier just not having to worry about it at all. The bracelet is no better than having a card, it's a physical item you have to keep track of at all times.
The one realistic downside I can think of is that you might have to remove the chip prior to having an MRI. But like I said, taking it out is trivial.
The only other downside that some might worry about at all is the potential to use it to track you outside of work. And that concern is relatively easy to mitigate by designing the RFID chip to transmit with an exceptionally weak signal. Some of the cards I work with can be recognized by the door readers from nearly a foot away or through thick materials. The newer chips have to be placed almost flush to the part of the reader that has the antenna in it. You could possibly make them even more difficult to read from a distance by making the antenna directional and implanting the chip such that it can only be read from a specific angle.
I always make a point to thank the janitorial staff when they come through my work area. I've worked places that had bad janitorial contracts and it sucked. The bathrooms were always disgusting, the carpets caked in FSM only knows what, and common areas were places you just didn't want to be if possible. As an employee it was a constant drain on morale. I can only imagine what visitors thought of the place. Where I work now the janitorial staff cleans the restrooms at least twice each workday. All the waste baskets are emptied daily if not twice. Carpeting gets vacuumed regularly, and hard floors get the mop.
I grew up in the midwest and at least in my state any paved rural road with marked lanes and a shoulder that wasn't otherwise posted, was 55mph limit.
Touche!
My primary objection to classifying it as a "real" car is that there is no way it meets the safety standards for a car. It is likely being classified as some other vehicle type with weaker safety standards. Despite that it is being sold for the same price as an actual full function car. I in general like the idea of having a tiny, enclosed, and efficient vehicle for commuting and such, being electric is a nice bonus. But I'm not going to pay a price premium to give up so much safety and functionality. This is essentially the same problem the Corbin Sparrow had, while the price here is lower it's still exorbitant.
12,000 euro's or about $13,600, you might as well buy a real car for that much.
For me a big part of the problem is that our society routinely refuses to hold law enforcement responsible for wrongs when they are caught red handed. Some large parts of the population justifiably have a deep rooted mistrust of law enforcement. So I'm leery of granting broader powers to the police when they frequently have shown they can't be trusted with what they do have.
I generally agree but there are always caveats. Is the car already paid for? Is it more car than you need? I've known people that struggled to put food on the table but were driving giant trucks or late model sports cars. You can buy a 10-20 year old Toyota Corolla or something similar that'll get you where you need to go reliably for a couple grand, and as a bonus you get better fuel economy and cheaper insurance rates. If your vehicle is unnecessarily expensive sell it, use part of the money to buy the small car, and use the extra to survive until you find another job.
The car bits that melted were aluminum or maybe magnesium, which is 300 C cooler than for steel. Granted that is still 1200+ C, which is plenty hot. But there are building and maintenance methods that can greatly reduce the danger from external fires. Roofing materials should be non-flamable and not directly attached to wood to prevent flying embers from starting a fire there. Walls should be covered in sheathing that is hard to ignite like fiber cement board, metal siding, brick, or various types of concrete.
The key thing though is maintaining the area immediately around the house. You shouldn't have anything that can act as fuel for a fire too close to the house. Grass should be kept cut, bushes shouldn't be against the house or other buildings. And brush in general should be cleared as far back as possible. If large wild fires are a serious threat you shouldn't have any trees near enough they can fall on or close to a building. You're basically trying to limit the amount of fuel a fire can burn close to the protected buildings. If all that is there is short grass that fuel will burn very fast and not have time to ignite the buildings.
Did you hear about the Federal ban on drop side cribs a few years back? That was done because a dozen infants were killed by them over the course of some number of years. Whereas elective circumcisions are estimated to kill 100 infants a year from complications like infection. As a society there doesn't seem to be a lot of reasoned thought about what we ban.
I'd rather go back to rooms full of filing cabinets than use SharePoint.
On the positive side the feds might have to accept legalizing marijuana eventually if the trend continues of states legalizing it.
The running out of sand bit actually isn't a tin hat talking point, it just needs more specific wording. The problem is that production of concrete uses up a lot of sand, and in particular sand that is rough around the edges. When talking about running out of sand people typically point to the worlds immense deserts and laugh. However the sands in the deserts have been weathered to the point that they aren't very good for making concrete. In some countries there is actually a problem with illegal dredging of sand which is then illegally exported. Sand is actually a renewable resource, parrot fish feed on corral which creates sand that they then crap out, is just one example. The natural processes that create sand take a very long time. But with the ever increasing pace of concrete consumption at some point the world could very likely run out of easily available sand suitable for making concrete. Concrete is already an expensive building material, so what happens when one of it's cheap components runs out and we have to manufacture it?
To be fair, when the Senate was created the East Coast was all there was to the Unites States. Certainly the point was to give less populous states a bit of extra influence, and interestingly the difference between states then wasn't as drastic as it is now. This makes sense because at the time the focus was on the power of the individual States and limiting the Federal Governments power. There isn't any census data available until some time after independence but in 1790 the least populous state of Delaware had a population of 59,094 while Virginia had 747,610. So Delaware had about 8% of the population of Virginia. As of the 2010 census Wyoming has about 1.5% of the population of California. While the East Coast states do represent in the bottom of the population chart disproportionately, they still only make up half of the bottom 10, and a quarter of the bottom 20.
The state vs federal government is interesting to me because while I have an affinity for the state I was born and raised in I don't feel I owe it any allegiance. If I were a sports fan I would probably have more pride in my favorite team than any particular state.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Privately held stocks just aren't traded on the public stock exchanges, there isn't any magic involved. Private investors can still buy and sell their private stocks, they just lose the benefit of doing so via the public markets. Participating in the public markets does incur extra cost for the company in the form of abiding by more regulations, which depending on your views of said regulators may or may not be a positive. Often privately held companies, and their shareholders, aren't interested in buying and selling their private stock to small investors, though Musk appears to be open to it.
The fidelity angle isn't much of an angle as it turns out. Fidelity among other companies, invested in SpaceX during earlier funding rounds, and so owns private stock. Those private stocks in SpaceX are then split up into a couple of Fidelities mutual funds. So you could "buy" some SpaceX private stock by purchasing shares in those mutual funds, however they'd be watered down as SpaceX represents a tiny portion of what is in those mutual funds. Additionally if the fund managers at Fidelity so choose they could sell that private stock position. The same is true for Alphabet, which also bought private shares in the same funding round.
You can label it however you like. It's money that you would otherwise be paid in your paycheck, except that instead it is being used to subsidize a chow hall. You could also view it as them not paying you enough to feed yourself and instead providing an upscale soup kitchen. Same goes for housing, although some of the housing I saw was very nice, much of it was very sub standard. My particular accommodations were what amounted to a concrete shoe box stacked among a hundred others heated and cooled with a radiator that you could tweak by a few degrees. More senior people let us know we were spoiled because in their day the same room would house 4 bodies. When the base turned over an older housing area to the city they bulldozed everything because none of the buildings were good enough to try and keep repair/retrofit.
Those pay pools not being taxed is nice, but almost negligible given the low tax brackets involved anyways. And it feeds into part of the conniving that recruiters do. They would tell you how much you could be earning and talk about retiring before your 40's and collecting 50% pay. They would fail to point out that the retirement pay was based solely on basic pay, excluding allowances and anything else you might get.