It certainly was the smart kids in my high school. My high school wasn't the greatest, but we had an Ivy Leaguer or two in the class. The academies have some soft majors, but mostly it is sciences - everyone gets a B.S., not a B.A.
Those are quite popular in Asia, but we'd need to improve their emissions in the US if they became popular. The air quality at the roadside is horrendous in those Asian cities. I mean, it would be horrendous without the scooters, but you definitely notice the scooter emissions as well. Most of the riders wear masks. I think battery tech could make electric scooters feasible eventually - especially if you could make due with one small enough to drag inside so it won't get stolen.
It doesn't help that nearly 100% of people who affirm AGW are clamoring for a solution that involves giving government more power.
I think that is partly an artifact of the fact that most people denying AGW tend to be of the smaller government persuasion - as you point out, it has become politicized. This pains me personally, because that is my camp and I'm surrounded by ignorance. If more people accepted the science, we could have a much more productive decision about what, if anything, should be done.
Personally, I wish the emissions-reduction crowd luck but have very little faith that they will be successful. I do feel that we should be spending money trying to get a handle on the scope of the problem in real terms: where will the water come up to? What cities are in danger? What kind of crops will do well and where? Are our dams and levies up to snuff? I think we should be preparing for the coming changes so that we aren't doing everything in a haphazard manner. Perhaps that means loan guarantees for seawall construction, migration schemes, zoning changes, courts to resolve new disputes, etc. I don't really know, but that's rather the point:)
So you can have your computer in your pocket all the time! Think of it: 1. No more storing your data on crappy services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Now it's just in your pocket, everywhere! 2. Use the same apps on the phone as on the desktop! The only difference is the input and output! 3. Hook up your phone to any desktop that has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (but for some reason no computer)!
For those who haven't caught on, this whole post was sarcasm.
Yes, those things are politicized, which is my point. There is nothing even remotely controversial about AGW or vaccines from a scientific perspective. The politicization stems from ignorance by a startling percentage of the electorate (not to mention elected officials), thus my lament.
If someone were to "figure me out" and make my brain happy every time I watched something, I might not complain, actually. Netflix does a surprisingly decent job of this, actually. And Pandora is just creepy:)
but if your ghetto culture makes your school a gang war zone, that's not a problem caused by the elite.
If you really believe that all kids should have access to an education, then you can't let stuff like their neighbors' ghetto culture get in the way. It is not the fault of the kid that they were born into a bad situation. It's also not in the best interest of the elite to have such a population, and education is a demonstrable way out. You do not have equal opportunity if a kid's lot in life depends completely on where his mom gave birth to him.
Way to Godwin this thing. I didn't say they should be killed, or even oppressed. I'm just very distressed that people with such poor critical thinking skills get so much traction. The things I listed aren't about even remotely controversial topics.
It wasn't first. It was one in a series of many. What hasn't changed is the species. Not realizing that experiments which definitely disprove a theory actually invalidate the said theory is precisely why progressive definitely belong in the group you were trying to compose.
Note that I do not consider myself a "progressive". Like you, I feel that history has shown this to be a flawed strategy to achieve the goals that progressives aspire to.
That said, history is not a science. As such, it has no predictive powers - it can only guide us.
If someone thinks that new developments in computer power can lead to a more even, yet broadly higher standard of living then more power to 'em. Convince enough people somewhere to give it a go and let's see the results of that experiment (see "basic wage" for an example of an idea that might soon get implemented somewhere). In the meantime, my preference would be to stick with something closer to free market capitalism until such time as another system proves itself. Some people are making this claim about China, but I'm not buying it yet.
To be fair, they started adding folic acid because of neural tube defects, which have been reduced significantly since the recommendation went into place. If there really is a link to autism and autoimmune disorders, I'm sure that they will switch to a reduced form (provided the costs work out). Public health is a complicated beast, and these massive fortification programs amount to an experiment of sorts - albeit a pretty safe one. Of course, you can't tell that to the families of children born autistic - and you can't find the children spared the neural tube defects, who will never exist:)
Yes, and the result has always been incomplete Democracy. Thus my feeling that a large population of influential ignoramuses threatens it.
A bit of a tangential rant here, but when 60% of the population goes with a party-line vote, most of the power is wielded by those who set the agenda of the two political parties and elections become rah-rah "vote for your team" exercises.
No, that's not what I'm talking about. A progressive could argue that technology or societal conditions have changed such that a new policy would make sense. History is full of "firsts". It is not a scientific question, but one of policy and goals.
Can I be included in his "Nutter Nut" label? People who run off and believe anything they read without any kind of critical thought are an honest-to-goodness threat to democracy. Birthers, truthers, AGW deniers, anti-vaccine nutters, young earthers, homeopaths, intelligent design advocates, etc. should make the "weird news" segment at the end of the night, not have a serious voice in our society. This is what we get for years of neglected science education in this country - a bunch of flat earthers and geocentrists right here in the modern day.
Part of the whole vitamin craze is how lazy people are.
The thing is, even if you have a horrible diet you probably still get all the essential vitamins and minerals. The few that were making people sick got added decades ago (iodine to salt, vitamin D to milk, everything to cereal, etc.)
It varies by location. My mom was being harassed by some nutjob who saw her picture on her company's "about us" page. She tracked the guy down and called his town's police (IIRC somewhere in Illinois). They, honest to God, said something like, "Oh, yeah, that's Harold's kid. We'll take care of it," and the harassment stopped. It's possible that they sent in the paramilitary police and pinned him down with a gun to his head, but I imagine is more like your Canadian scenario.
If you were so addicted to Facebook that the ads really annoyed you, wouldn't you have Facebook enhancing crap installed, like Adblock+? Social Fixer is pretty great, but I'm not quite addicted enough to use it.
I, personally, was too terrified to ride my bike in NYC. The biggest offenders were the city buses IMHO. While the city sure isn't flat, the hills aren't too onerous. But the main impediment to biking for me was the crowding at rush hour - it's the same reason buses, taxis, and cars become useless in midtown/downtown/crosstown during rush hour... even the sidewalks can be congested and slow. You can use a bike, but you have to violate all sorts of safety and traffic laws to make any progress. When I was there the bike lanes would have been sweet. Car doors are of course a hazard, but probably not at rush hour when you can't go very fast anyway. People always hold up Amsterdam, and indeed it is phenomenal for biking. But the weather is mild and the density is low - it's not a NYC, London, Tokyo, or Seoul.
Are there any biking-heavy cities that have a lot of heat and humidity? I know some parts of the developing world still use a lot of bikes, but that's not really what I mean.
Bloomberg has been busting out lanes all over the place, but the fact is that most workplaces in NYC don't have showers available, so biking is straight out much of the year. Even the subway can be uncomfortable as hell in a wool suit in the summer, but at least the trains come frequently during rush hour.
Slashdot Mirror
It certainly was the smart kids in my high school. My high school wasn't the greatest, but we had an Ivy Leaguer or two in the class. The academies have some soft majors, but mostly it is sciences - everyone gets a B.S., not a B.A.
Those are quite popular in Asia, but we'd need to improve their emissions in the US if they became popular. The air quality at the roadside is horrendous in those Asian cities. I mean, it would be horrendous without the scooters, but you definitely notice the scooter emissions as well. Most of the riders wear masks. I think battery tech could make electric scooters feasible eventually - especially if you could make due with one small enough to drag inside so it won't get stolen.
Aw, SNAP!
It doesn't help that nearly 100% of people who affirm AGW are clamoring for a solution that involves giving government more power.
I think that is partly an artifact of the fact that most people denying AGW tend to be of the smaller government persuasion - as you point out, it has become politicized. This pains me personally, because that is my camp and I'm surrounded by ignorance. If more people accepted the science, we could have a much more productive decision about what, if anything, should be done.
Personally, I wish the emissions-reduction crowd luck but have very little faith that they will be successful. I do feel that we should be spending money trying to get a handle on the scope of the problem in real terms: where will the water come up to? What cities are in danger? What kind of crops will do well and where? Are our dams and levies up to snuff? I think we should be preparing for the coming changes so that we aren't doing everything in a haphazard manner. Perhaps that means loan guarantees for seawall construction, migration schemes, zoning changes, courts to resolve new disputes, etc. I don't really know, but that's rather the point :)
I find your humor quite derivative.
So you can have your computer in your pocket all the time! Think of it:
1. No more storing your data on crappy services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Now it's just in your pocket, everywhere!
2. Use the same apps on the phone as on the desktop! The only difference is the input and output!
3. Hook up your phone to any desktop that has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse (but for some reason no computer)!
For those who haven't caught on, this whole post was sarcasm.
LOL, I'll have to watch Pandora (do you mean Pandorum?) - but I was referring to the music service and its ability to divine my interests :)
Yes, those things are politicized, which is my point. There is nothing even remotely controversial about AGW or vaccines from a scientific perspective. The politicization stems from ignorance by a startling percentage of the electorate (not to mention elected officials), thus my lament.
I think this is the first correction of spelling to ruin a pun that I've seen on Slashdot. Bravo. And, whoosh. Can I call you a "whoosh Nazi"?
Formulaic isn't always bad.
If someone were to "figure me out" and make my brain happy every time I watched something, I might not complain, actually. Netflix does a surprisingly decent job of this, actually. And Pandora is just creepy :)
but if your ghetto culture makes your school a gang war zone, that's not a problem caused by the elite.
If you really believe that all kids should have access to an education, then you can't let stuff like their neighbors' ghetto culture get in the way. It is not the fault of the kid that they were born into a bad situation. It's also not in the best interest of the elite to have such a population, and education is a demonstrable way out. You do not have equal opportunity if a kid's lot in life depends completely on where his mom gave birth to him.
Way to Godwin this thing. I didn't say they should be killed, or even oppressed. I'm just very distressed that people with such poor critical thinking skills get so much traction. The things I listed aren't about even remotely controversial topics.
It wasn't first. It was one in a series of many. What hasn't changed is the species. Not realizing that experiments which definitely disprove a theory actually invalidate the said theory is precisely why progressive definitely belong in the group you were trying to compose.
Note that I do not consider myself a "progressive". Like you, I feel that history has shown this to be a flawed strategy to achieve the goals that progressives aspire to.
That said, history is not a science. As such, it has no predictive powers - it can only guide us.
If someone thinks that new developments in computer power can lead to a more even, yet broadly higher standard of living then more power to 'em. Convince enough people somewhere to give it a go and let's see the results of that experiment (see "basic wage" for an example of an idea that might soon get implemented somewhere). In the meantime, my preference would be to stick with something closer to free market capitalism until such time as another system proves itself. Some people are making this claim about China, but I'm not buying it yet.
To be fair, they started adding folic acid because of neural tube defects, which have been reduced significantly since the recommendation went into place. If there really is a link to autism and autoimmune disorders, I'm sure that they will switch to a reduced form (provided the costs work out). Public health is a complicated beast, and these massive fortification programs amount to an experiment of sorts - albeit a pretty safe one. Of course, you can't tell that to the families of children born autistic - and you can't find the children spared the neural tube defects, who will never exist :)
Yes, and the result has always been incomplete Democracy. Thus my feeling that a large population of influential ignoramuses threatens it.
A bit of a tangential rant here, but when 60% of the population goes with a party-line vote, most of the power is wielded by those who set the agenda of the two political parties and elections become rah-rah "vote for your team" exercises.
No, that's not what I'm talking about. A progressive could argue that technology or societal conditions have changed such that a new policy would make sense. History is full of "firsts". It is not a scientific question, but one of policy and goals.
Can I be included in his "Nutter Nut" label? People who run off and believe anything they read without any kind of critical thought are an honest-to-goodness threat to democracy. Birthers, truthers, AGW deniers, anti-vaccine nutters, young earthers, homeopaths, intelligent design advocates, etc. should make the "weird news" segment at the end of the night, not have a serious voice in our society. This is what we get for years of neglected science education in this country - a bunch of flat earthers and geocentrists right here in the modern day.
Why yes, yes I am! I imagine iodine in the salt is regional as well?
LOL, yes you got it.
Part of the whole vitamin craze is how lazy people are.
The thing is, even if you have a horrible diet you probably still get all the essential vitamins and minerals. The few that were making people sick got added decades ago (iodine to salt, vitamin D to milk, everything to cereal, etc.)
It varies by location. My mom was being harassed by some nutjob who saw her picture on her company's "about us" page. She tracked the guy down and called his town's police (IIRC somewhere in Illinois). They, honest to God, said something like, "Oh, yeah, that's Harold's kid. We'll take care of it," and the harassment stopped. It's possible that they sent in the paramilitary police and pinned him down with a gun to his head, but I imagine is more like your Canadian scenario.
Shhhhhhhh!
If you were so addicted to Facebook that the ads really annoyed you, wouldn't you have Facebook enhancing crap installed, like Adblock+? Social Fixer is pretty great, but I'm not quite addicted enough to use it.
I, personally, was too terrified to ride my bike in NYC. The biggest offenders were the city buses IMHO. While the city sure isn't flat, the hills aren't too onerous. But the main impediment to biking for me was the crowding at rush hour - it's the same reason buses, taxis, and cars become useless in midtown/downtown/crosstown during rush hour... even the sidewalks can be congested and slow. You can use a bike, but you have to violate all sorts of safety and traffic laws to make any progress. When I was there the bike lanes would have been sweet. Car doors are of course a hazard, but probably not at rush hour when you can't go very fast anyway. People always hold up Amsterdam, and indeed it is phenomenal for biking. But the weather is mild and the density is low - it's not a NYC, London, Tokyo, or Seoul.
Are there any biking-heavy cities that have a lot of heat and humidity? I know some parts of the developing world still use a lot of bikes, but that's not really what I mean.
Bloomberg has been busting out lanes all over the place, but the fact is that most workplaces in NYC don't have showers available, so biking is straight out much of the year. Even the subway can be uncomfortable as hell in a wool suit in the summer, but at least the trains come frequently during rush hour.