Probably, in the details of the bill, it will turn out that almost all of the 65 million is going to end up in the hands of one beneficiary company who made a substantial donation to Kamala Harris's election campaign.
This is just standard, time-honored "pork belly politics." California companies are betting that this legislation will channel loads of federal money to California companies. She is just looking out for the interests of her past and future campaign donors. Very transparent what the intent is here. This is just how politics is done.
World-wide, no major country has a national grid with enough storage run for any length of time. The only significant type of storage connected to the US grid (which is the one I am more familiar with) is pumped hydro. It can only store a few percent of daily usage. Also, most pumped hydro plants are old. It is very difficult to find suitable locations for new pumped hydro because the US now frowns upon the idea of damming beautiful natural canyons to make giant water reservoirs.
Major breakthroughs in storage are going to be needed not only to get the grid to full-renewable but also in the vehicle space. Battery packs for cars are currently too expensive and that is one of the main reasons why Tesla is finding it difficult to sell electric cars at a price which makes investors happy.
It is my opinion that the government should fund more basic research on potential storage solutions, and in exchange for the funding, require the research results to be made public for all. I think it is a bad idea to "pick a winner" and subsidize it to facilitate adoption, especially if it is not the best solution. Lithium ion batteries are definitely NOT the best solution to grid storage. Storing energy in lithium ion batteries, under today's price conditions, is terribly expensive due to the cost of the batteries themselves.
As a matter of fact, the traditional grid has no mechanism for storing energy, so the generation and consumption must match perfectly at all times. This is basic physics and not at all controversial. When the sun comes up in California, the utility company has to take generation offline. When the sun goes down, the utility company has to carefully spool up generators to shoulder the extra load. This is well documented information which you could find online if you were interested in actually understanding the situation. Nationwide in the US, solar and wind are only a small percent of grid generation (Like two percent or something). As that number increases, the lack of storage becomes a bigger and bigger technical problem. We are going to need a lot more batteries, or a lot more pumped hydro, or some other means of storing energy if we want to increase solar and wind production. And I do own solar panels, which are grid-tied.
Yeah, as the global manufacturing slowed down a bit, China's emissions flattened. But that is only in the last few years. I don't know where the emissions data come from, but if they come directly from China, then they should be considered suspect. Not trying to bash China. I am just saying that they might fudge a bit on economic data and emissions data to help fit the narrative they are trying to put forward.
It's just a shell game. The fundamental trend over the time period in question has been to move all industrial production to China. Global CO2 increased because industrial activity increased. But the LOCATION of the production shifted to China. So if the laws are working, all they are doing is helping speed the catastrophic decline of the West's industrial base, and boosting China's GDP.
Some people believe that corporations have infiltrated CDC and the AAP to create guaranteed demand for vaccines which would otherwise be unprofitable. Some people believe that any public health benefit is beside the point, and profit is the only thing that matters to the CDC and AAP. Even if there are elements of truth to that, it still represents a conspiracy theory, does it not? It is not all just about autism, you know. There are even more elaborate conspiracy theories, surrounding vaccines. But I don't even want to mention them.
If you don't like what you read in a book, then go write your own book, or create an organization to promulgate your correct thinking point of view. Sometimes I think people want to give up a thousand years of hard-won individual freedoms just because they are more worried about social justice or correct thinking about vaccines than they are about basic individual freedom.
It is not a matter of "pretend". Iraq factually was NOT supporting terrorism or killing US citizens until after the US military entered Iraq and started killing people who tried to interfere with their military objective of destroying the entire country. Once the US was there, it immediately became a magnet for radicals in neighboring areas who were eager to fight against the US, but this was not the case until after the invasion.
Let us not forget the drone strikes that the Obama administration made VERY heavy use of. Their PRIMARY PURPOSE was to kill specific people. https://www.cfr.org/blog/obama...
All in all, this post is very unfactual. Much as I would LIKE it to be true, it just isn't.
I would feel awful. But I am also not an anti-vaxxer. I just can't believe the over-heated rhetoric I am getting from some pro-vaxxers. To me, they literally sound like they have lost their minds and lost all sense of humanity. Maybe they are just virtue signalling. I don't know.
The ones that need attention get replied to on first reading. Or if I can't reply immediately, then I mark them as unread after reading. If they are marked as unread, then I will scan through them later. Occasionally I add a follow-up reminder to an email if it is very important but can't be dealt with for some time.
With webmail, I don't see the point in archiving anything. Just let it scroll on down. Leave everything in the inbox. All folder schemas just make it harder to find the email you are looking for later anyway because you have to try to remember which folder or tag you used.
My work inbox has 1700 unread emails. Personal email 20k. Most of them are not personal communications directed specifically at me, though. They are sales come-ons or ship notifications or email group digests, etc.
I wonder just how far from the norm I am? Do other people actually try to organize their emails or just leave them all in the inbox to scroll down like a social media feed?
This is bullshit. Fluoridation of water is not based on sound science. Fluoride toothpaste was tested scientifically at one point. But no good study has been done on fluoridated water and quite a few enlightened cities and countries have come to the conclusion that municipal water supplies should NOT be fluoridated. For one thing, water consumption varies quite a bit, so the dosage is extremely variable. And anyway nobody knows exactly what the daily dose should be in the first place.
Yeah. That is why the company may not be doomed. But the facebook product has certainly peaked. Now the only question is how fast or slow will the decline be.
Separating children from their parents as a punishment for the parent is barbaric. I know you mean well, but please take a little time to envision the actual separation event. Also, what is the logical rationale for separating them as opposed to just vaccinating the kid involuntarily (which is also barbaric, but at least accomplishes the objective of vaccinating the kid without separating them from parents). What if your job was to go around to anti-vaxxer homes and force vaccinate kids while police restrain the parents? Would you feel good about yourself at the end of the day?
Conspiracy theories live and thrive because the official narrative has flaws or is implausible or if no official narrative has been presented.
Historically, many official narratives have ended up being outright lies. Weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq. We are still over there looking for them. Bound to find them any day. Many wars throughout history started on an official story that was a lie. Many of the people in the civil rights movement thought the government was spying on them. It was not until decades later that this was proved to be true. Their fears were dismissed at the time as conspiracy theories. It is very naive to think that the official story is true about everything. But of course, this should not be carte blanche to make up and spread ridiculous conspiracy theories either. So, if you ask me, conspiracy theories live and flourish because there is ample historical precedent for conspiracies.
In the case of vaccines, the lack of nuance in the messaging of the pro-vaccination crowd leads anti-vaxers to believe that the pro-vax people are just brainwashed robots who have not done any research but instead are parroting the opinions put forth by vaccine makers and public health professionals who make money from vaccines. The anti-vax people think they have taken the red pill while the pro-vaxxers have all taken the blue-pill.
Facebook is a total shitshow. Half the people think it needs to do more to prevent spread of certain (possibly false) information. The other half hate it because they think it is censoring the truth and has a bias.
I feel like Facebook (the platform, not necessarily the company) is basically the AOL of the 2010's, and destined for the same fate. A lot of sane people are walking away from facebook. Soon it will just be old people who are uncomfortable with technology (like AOL).
The education campaigns that have been tried so far have not been effective. In fact, they may have been counterproductive. But that does not mean that it is not possible to educate people. There are many ways to reach people with health information. Maybe try talking to those who do health education for AIDS, and other STD's. They have expertise in reaching difficult to reach audiences. I am sure it can be done. I believe it would also help to be honest and stop insisting that vaccines are 100% safe and 100% effective. Over-simplifying the message reduces credibility.
And in any event I am not talking only about vaccines here. The point is, you have to make your case to convince others to believe as you do. Sending cops around to arrest them instead is a well-worn path to dystopia.
I am only trying to encourage people to have some compassion and empathy for those who, for whatever reason, have developed strong anti-vaccine viewpoints. Truth is nobody will probably ever know exactly why she developed the problem. They are not close friends of mine. It is just a well known family at this one school. The vaccine COULD have caused it. What is that family supposed to do with their other kids (it is a big family)? People advocating for having CPS take unvaccinated children, and all kinds of varying punishments for anti-vaccine families ultimately have lost sight of simple compassion and are falling back to authoritarian impulses. "I don't have time to educate you so I am going to have medical police come in and force-vaccinate all your kids." Or whatever. To me this is a problem you fix with education (which should be scientifically designed to reach the target audience... which most campaigns so far have not been).
100% agree. Generally kids should be vaccinated. But I think people should have the right to refuse a vaccine if they are not satisfied that it is sufficiently safe or well-tested or whatever. I do have concern that a situation COULD arise that vaccine makers would essentially corrupt the decision making process to have the AMA or CDC or whatever recommend a vaccine more out of a profit motive than anything else. I mean, look at Ajit Pai. The guy is just a lobbyist for the big telecoms, and he is in charge of the FCC. He could not care less about the rights of the people of America.
Can you explain a little bit about how the mandate would be enforced, in your opinion? I notice that you compare collateral damage between autonomous vehicles and mandated vaccines. Does that mean that you believe mandating vaccines will lead to deaths? How would those deaths occur, in your scenario? Would you be willing to help restrain a parent or screaming kid while a health worker administers a vaccine involuntarily? Just a few questions for you to ponder.
The measles vaccine is definitely not 100% effective. Whenever there are measles outbreaks, something like 20% of the cases are previously immunized people who should have had immunity if the vaccine were 100% effective. Please note that I am just providing this information for the sake of accuracy and perspective. It does not constitute an argument that vaccinations are not beneficial. You can have an over 90% vaccination rate, and then when you look at the vax status of the measles cases, the vaccination rate in that population is only 20%. That is pretty clear evidence that the vaccine works. But it is also proof that the vaccine is not 100% effective. So it is not "functional immunity for all intents and purposes."
Slashdot Mirror
When did "friendly" become an adverb? That IS news for nerds!
That's no pulsar...
Probably, in the details of the bill, it will turn out that almost all of the 65 million is going to end up in the hands of one beneficiary company who made a substantial donation to Kamala Harris's election campaign.
This is just standard, time-honored "pork belly politics." California companies are betting that this legislation will channel loads of federal money to California companies. She is just looking out for the interests of her past and future campaign donors. Very transparent what the intent is here. This is just how politics is done.
World-wide, no major country has a national grid with enough storage run for any length of time. The only significant type of storage connected to the US grid (which is the one I am more familiar with) is pumped hydro. It can only store a few percent of daily usage. Also, most pumped hydro plants are old. It is very difficult to find suitable locations for new pumped hydro because the US now frowns upon the idea of damming beautiful natural canyons to make giant water reservoirs.
Major breakthroughs in storage are going to be needed not only to get the grid to full-renewable but also in the vehicle space. Battery packs for cars are currently too expensive and that is one of the main reasons why Tesla is finding it difficult to sell electric cars at a price which makes investors happy.
It is my opinion that the government should fund more basic research on potential storage solutions, and in exchange for the funding, require the research results to be made public for all. I think it is a bad idea to "pick a winner" and subsidize it to facilitate adoption, especially if it is not the best solution. Lithium ion batteries are definitely NOT the best solution to grid storage. Storing energy in lithium ion batteries, under today's price conditions, is terribly expensive due to the cost of the batteries themselves.
As a matter of fact, the traditional grid has no mechanism for storing energy, so the generation and consumption must match perfectly at all times. This is basic physics and not at all controversial. When the sun comes up in California, the utility company has to take generation offline. When the sun goes down, the utility company has to carefully spool up generators to shoulder the extra load. This is well documented information which you could find online if you were interested in actually understanding the situation. Nationwide in the US, solar and wind are only a small percent of grid generation (Like two percent or something). As that number increases, the lack of storage becomes a bigger and bigger technical problem. We are going to need a lot more batteries, or a lot more pumped hydro, or some other means of storing energy if we want to increase solar and wind production. And I do own solar panels, which are grid-tied.
Yeah, as the global manufacturing slowed down a bit, China's emissions flattened. But that is only in the last few years. I don't know where the emissions data come from, but if they come directly from China, then they should be considered suspect. Not trying to bash China. I am just saying that they might fudge a bit on economic data and emissions data to help fit the narrative they are trying to put forward.
It's just a shell game. The fundamental trend over the time period in question has been to move all industrial production to China. Global CO2 increased because industrial activity increased. But the LOCATION of the production shifted to China. So if the laws are working, all they are doing is helping speed the catastrophic decline of the West's industrial base, and boosting China's GDP.
Some people believe that corporations have infiltrated CDC and the AAP to create guaranteed demand for vaccines which would otherwise be unprofitable. Some people believe that any public health benefit is beside the point, and profit is the only thing that matters to the CDC and AAP. Even if there are elements of truth to that, it still represents a conspiracy theory, does it not? It is not all just about autism, you know. There are even more elaborate conspiracy theories, surrounding vaccines. But I don't even want to mention them.
If you don't like what you read in a book, then go write your own book, or create an organization to promulgate your correct thinking point of view. Sometimes I think people want to give up a thousand years of hard-won individual freedoms just because they are more worried about social justice or correct thinking about vaccines than they are about basic individual freedom.
It is not a matter of "pretend". Iraq factually was NOT supporting terrorism or killing US citizens until after the US military entered Iraq and started killing people who tried to interfere with their military objective of destroying the entire country. Once the US was there, it immediately became a magnet for radicals in neighboring areas who were eager to fight against the US, but this was not the case until after the invasion.
Let us not forget the drone strikes that the Obama administration made VERY heavy use of. Their PRIMARY PURPOSE was to kill specific people. https://www.cfr.org/blog/obama...
All in all, this post is very unfactual. Much as I would LIKE it to be true, it just isn't.
I would feel awful. But I am also not an anti-vaxxer. I just can't believe the over-heated rhetoric I am getting from some pro-vaxxers. To me, they literally sound like they have lost their minds and lost all sense of humanity. Maybe they are just virtue signalling. I don't know.
The ones that need attention get replied to on first reading. Or if I can't reply immediately, then I mark them as unread after reading. If they are marked as unread, then I will scan through them later. Occasionally I add a follow-up reminder to an email if it is very important but can't be dealt with for some time.
With webmail, I don't see the point in archiving anything. Just let it scroll on down. Leave everything in the inbox. All folder schemas just make it harder to find the email you are looking for later anyway because you have to try to remember which folder or tag you used.
My work inbox has 1700 unread emails. Personal email 20k. Most of them are not personal communications directed specifically at me, though. They are sales come-ons or ship notifications or email group digests, etc.
I wonder just how far from the norm I am? Do other people actually try to organize their emails or just leave them all in the inbox to scroll down like a social media feed?
This is bullshit. Fluoridation of water is not based on sound science. Fluoride toothpaste was tested scientifically at one point. But no good study has been done on fluoridated water and quite a few enlightened cities and countries have come to the conclusion that municipal water supplies should NOT be fluoridated. For one thing, water consumption varies quite a bit, so the dosage is extremely variable. And anyway nobody knows exactly what the daily dose should be in the first place.
Yeah. That is why the company may not be doomed. But the facebook product has certainly peaked. Now the only question is how fast or slow will the decline be.
Separating children from their parents as a punishment for the parent is barbaric. I know you mean well, but please take a little time to envision the actual separation event. Also, what is the logical rationale for separating them as opposed to just vaccinating the kid involuntarily (which is also barbaric, but at least accomplishes the objective of vaccinating the kid without separating them from parents). What if your job was to go around to anti-vaxxer homes and force vaccinate kids while police restrain the parents? Would you feel good about yourself at the end of the day?
Conspiracy theories live and thrive because the official narrative has flaws or is implausible or if no official narrative has been presented.
Historically, many official narratives have ended up being outright lies. Weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq. We are still over there looking for them. Bound to find them any day. Many wars throughout history started on an official story that was a lie. Many of the people in the civil rights movement thought the government was spying on them. It was not until decades later that this was proved to be true. Their fears were dismissed at the time as conspiracy theories. It is very naive to think that the official story is true about everything. But of course, this should not be carte blanche to make up and spread ridiculous conspiracy theories either. So, if you ask me, conspiracy theories live and flourish because there is ample historical precedent for conspiracies.
In the case of vaccines, the lack of nuance in the messaging of the pro-vaccination crowd leads anti-vaxers to believe that the pro-vax people are just brainwashed robots who have not done any research but instead are parroting the opinions put forth by vaccine makers and public health professionals who make money from vaccines. The anti-vax people think they have taken the red pill while the pro-vaxxers have all taken the blue-pill.
Facebook is a total shitshow. Half the people think it needs to do more to prevent spread of certain (possibly false) information. The other half hate it because they think it is censoring the truth and has a bias.
I feel like Facebook (the platform, not necessarily the company) is basically the AOL of the 2010's, and destined for the same fate. A lot of sane people are walking away from facebook. Soon it will just be old people who are uncomfortable with technology (like AOL).
The education campaigns that have been tried so far have not been effective. In fact, they may have been counterproductive. But that does not mean that it is not possible to educate people. There are many ways to reach people with health information. Maybe try talking to those who do health education for AIDS, and other STD's. They have expertise in reaching difficult to reach audiences. I am sure it can be done. I believe it would also help to be honest and stop insisting that vaccines are 100% safe and 100% effective. Over-simplifying the message reduces credibility.
And in any event I am not talking only about vaccines here. The point is, you have to make your case to convince others to believe as you do. Sending cops around to arrest them instead is a well-worn path to dystopia.
I am only trying to encourage people to have some compassion and empathy for those who, for whatever reason, have developed strong anti-vaccine viewpoints. Truth is nobody will probably ever know exactly why she developed the problem. They are not close friends of mine. It is just a well known family at this one school. The vaccine COULD have caused it. What is that family supposed to do with their other kids (it is a big family)? People advocating for having CPS take unvaccinated children, and all kinds of varying punishments for anti-vaccine families ultimately have lost sight of simple compassion and are falling back to authoritarian impulses. "I don't have time to educate you so I am going to have medical police come in and force-vaccinate all your kids." Or whatever. To me this is a problem you fix with education (which should be scientifically designed to reach the target audience... which most campaigns so far have not been).
100% agree. Generally kids should be vaccinated. But I think people should have the right to refuse a vaccine if they are not satisfied that it is sufficiently safe or well-tested or whatever. I do have concern that a situation COULD arise that vaccine makers would essentially corrupt the decision making process to have the AMA or CDC or whatever recommend a vaccine more out of a profit motive than anything else. I mean, look at Ajit Pai. The guy is just a lobbyist for the big telecoms, and he is in charge of the FCC. He could not care less about the rights of the people of America.
Can you explain a little bit about how the mandate would be enforced, in your opinion? I notice that you compare collateral damage between autonomous vehicles and mandated vaccines. Does that mean that you believe mandating vaccines will lead to deaths? How would those deaths occur, in your scenario? Would you be willing to help restrain a parent or screaming kid while a health worker administers a vaccine involuntarily? Just a few questions for you to ponder.
The measles vaccine is definitely not 100% effective. Whenever there are measles outbreaks, something like 20% of the cases are previously immunized people who should have had immunity if the vaccine were 100% effective. Please note that I am just providing this information for the sake of accuracy and perspective. It does not constitute an argument that vaccinations are not beneficial. You can have an over 90% vaccination rate, and then when you look at the vax status of the measles cases, the vaccination rate in that population is only 20%. That is pretty clear evidence that the vaccine works. But it is also proof that the vaccine is not 100% effective. So it is not "functional immunity for all intents and purposes."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m...