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User: Joey+Vegetables

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Comments · 1,113

  1. Re: Chapel Hill/ Carrboro North Carolina on Ask Slashdot: If Public Transport Was Free, Would You Leave Your Car At Home? · · Score: 1

    . Gangs are highly organized organizations. They tend not to target non-criminals (because that brings police attention and gets 70 people arrested), and their business model is typically an actual business model (ie: come to this neighborhood where it's safe to buy great weed). Which means that if you're saying they start fights with random people for reasons other then profit it's not what a hardened Detroiter (or most criminologists) would call a "gang."

    What you are describing is the behavior of an established gang. The East Side has been colonized by multiple such organizations going back many generations (hint: until not that long ago they were as white as I am.) What I'm seeing here on the West Side looks more like the attempt to establish a presence, to drive out smaller local groups (which didn't generally harass outsiders), and to set up a business model based on extortion and fear. Not sustainable in the end, so it eventually gives way to something relatively peaceful and sustainable like drugs. Eventually. But just like in the 70s (Mafia wars) and 80s (crack epidemic), a lot of blood, including that of innocents, gets spilled during the transition.

    Part of it, which you will also see in groups like MS-13, is that very young people, sometimes as young as 10, are used to do a lot of the dirty work, and really don't understand the consequences. They've been conditioned - by Black and White alike - that they have no future anyway, so why not live it up right here and right now? These kids are feared by everyone, even, I think, the OGs (though obviously they are not in a position to admit it). They are not respected though. Respect has to be earned. In my book, respecting other people at least enough not to murder them is part of that. Much of the rest is learning to find a way to survive and prosper in a culture that not only doesn't encourage it, but pretends that for those sufficiently young and sufficiently dark-skinned and/or Spanish-speaking, it isn't even possible.

    It's possible. It's also hard as hell, especially since not only do you not have all the auto and steel plants paying good salaries for unskilled labor, but, increasingly, you don't even have the McDonalds' and Wendy's and Jimmy's Check Cashing places anymore. What you do have are big boxes in the 'burbs where buses don't go and where other than white faces still draw unwanted attention from cops. And they cry about not being able to find enough workers.

    And that segues us back to the original topic: it is not RTA's fault that many of these big boxes are way out in the suburbs and exurbs, and there is nothing they can do about this in the short term. Once these developments become sufficiently dense, if they are within county limits and not too far from existing routes, they will try to detour to serve them. Probably only every hour though, probably not at night and probably not on weekends. There just is no money to do that.

  2. Re: Chapel Hill/ Carrboro North Carolina on Ask Slashdot: If Public Transport Was Free, Would You Leave Your Car At Home? · · Score: 1

    Actually I think Cleveland still has very decent transit for a Rust Belt city. Arguably Pittsburgh does a bit better, but that's arguable, and they have a much larger funding base. Detroit definitely does not, but its funding situation is even worse than ours.

    Regarding the recent crime spree at RTA stations - mostly on the West Side - these have not been heavily publicized for obvious reasons, but there has been some news coverage that you can Google for. Cleveland cops rounded up something like 70 members of this group maybe half a year ago, but without noticeable effect because, like other gangs of its nature, its roots are in the prison system, and it is designed to operate both inside and outside. Publicity and flaunting the risk of imprisonment is exactly the point of their initiation rituals. They think it proves they're b*d*sses. RTA cops do a good job considering their numbers and the political mandate that most of them have to be at Tower City, but anyplace else, they really can only respond to crimes after the fact, not intervene while they're happening. The stations between West 65 and Triskett have been especially targeted, enough that I will no longer use them to bring my family downtown; we can always take the slow but relatively safe bus instead. I have friends who have been robbed and/or beaten repeatedly at 98th and 117th, and I have to use the West 98th station to change buses if I take the bus to work. I don't do that anymore unless I have to.

    I don't see any of this as a reflection on RTA, so much as the decline of the surrounding neighborhoods and the battle between gangs to establish dominance. Some formerly very scary stations such as West 25 and East 120 (now being relocated to Mayfield) have improved greatly, reflecting development and/or gentrification in their surrounding neighborhoods.

    Nonetheless, using RTA for anything other than a downtown trip usually involves transferring, typically in less than safe areas, and typically between buses that run only every hour. It's just not something most people choose to do if they have some other reasonable alternative. Not RTA's fault, just the way things are.

  3. Re:I would sell it on Ask Slashdot: If Public Transport Was Free, Would You Leave Your Car At Home? · · Score: 1

    When I was much younger, and had less choice, I biked to school (3 miles give or take) in pretty much all weather conditions except ice. But I was a lot younger and healthier back then. Trust me, if I could bike to work even half of the time (it's only about 5 miles) it would be a huge win for us financially. But I find that it's an awful lot harder now than it used to be.

  4. Re:I would sell it on Ask Slashdot: If Public Transport Was Free, Would You Leave Your Car At Home? · · Score: 1

    Maybe where you live, but where I live, the normal temperature range is between -26C/-15F and +40C/+104F with extremes around 5C beyond these in either direction. It can vary easily by 15-20C within the same day. It is generally humid in summer and windy in winter, making the extremes potentially life-threatening regardless of preparation. Roads are icy or at least wet during the majority of the year, making even walking, much less biking, quite dangerous. And it would be most difficult to fit 6 people on one bike. I know Slashdotters are supposed to live in their parents' basements, but some of us do have families (in my case by sheer luck, my wife being that rare combination of a sweet, beautiful person, inside and out, yet having exceptionally poor taste in men). A car, a fairly sizeable one at that, is a necessity if we are to maintain anything even approaching a developed-world standard of living. Now, I am able to use the buses for certain things. If I'm willing to risk my life by waiting 20-30 minutes to change buses inside gang territory where people of my ethnicity tend to be targeted for violence, then I can get to work by bus in 30-60 minutes. And once in a while I do. I chose our current location in part due to proximity to what by local standards constitutes a decent bus line. I knew this would be very useful in the event I were to become disabled, if one of our cars was on the blink, or any number of other situations. But even in that event it would be useful only to get to and from work, noplace else.

  5. Re: Chapel Hill/ Carrboro North Carolina on Ask Slashdot: If Public Transport Was Free, Would You Leave Your Car At Home? · · Score: 1

    I have to say as a fellow Clevelander that while RTA has badly decayed over the past 8 years, it still does an outstanding job given the resources available to it, which are minimal compared to almost any other comparable urban area in the U.S. However, like most of the others, it is geared primarily toward two groups of people: downtown commuters, and the transit-dependent. People who have a choice don't use it much, mostly for reasons outside its control, for instance, the fact that some of the local gangs earn "street cred" by robbing, raping and killing people at train stations and posting videos on Youtube. If U.S. inner cities were not such violent and dangerous places, they would be rapidly repopulated, density would increase, and over time transit would lose its stigma, ridership would increase, as would willingness to fund it in a sustainable manner. Needless to say I'm rooting for these changes, and welcoming them where they occur, which is at least arguably the case in places like Ohio City, Tremont, and parts of the Central and Hough areas surrounding the Clinic, although, sadly, the reverse is happening in many other parts of town, and I'm guessing the same is true in other comparable Rust Belt cities.

  6. Re:What happened to Common Sense? on NYC Asks Google Maps For Fewer Left Turns · · Score: 1

    My understanding: That was the case in most U.S. jurisdictions, not just NYC, for a very long time. After experimentation, it was found that in most jurisdictions, traffic flow was improved without significant impact on safety when right on red (and, sometimes, left on red between one-way streets) was allowed. Thus, by the mid-80s or thereabouts, it generally became legal in most places. However, NYC is much more densely populated, and has a far more distinct and challenging transportation culture, compared to anyplace else in the U.S., so right turn on red is allowed only when specifically posted (which, IIRC, is rare).

  7. Re:Seems Reasonable on NYC Asks Google Maps For Fewer Left Turns · · Score: 1

    You'd probably also want to consider whether right turns on red are legal by default (yes in many U.S. jurisdictions, no in NYC).

  8. Re:So tell us on New Letters Added To the Genetic Alphabet · · Score: 1

    Basically because P and Z aren't commonly available in food,...

    No, but they are found in ketracel white,

  9. Re:Is You Father The Pope ? on Ask Slashdot: Is C++ the Right Tool For This Project? · · Score: 2

    Here is Stroustrup's take on learning C++, which includes some examples of why you might not want to start with C first.

  10. Re:It's nobody's fault and everybody's fault. on Writer: "Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans" · · Score: 1

    Youve done d

  11. Re:Yes, but can it launch Waze on Siri, Cortana and Google Have Nothing On SoundHound's Speech Recognition · · Score: 1

    Hey, I'm homophone-phobic, you insensitive clod!

  12. I'm sure the wife comment was made in jest. However, my wife - whom I love dearly and would not trade for anything - is not great at managing money, for a variety of reasons. She therefore manages to commit us to spending most of my paycheck, which, being in a very low-cost area, is probably comparable to the OP's. I have tried in vain to explain to her that a salary that's twice as much as most of our employed friends' (leaving aside the fact that many of them are unemployed) should go a lot further than it does, and would, if not for all the stupid iPad games and restaurant meals and expensive gifts and parties and the like. If it were up to me, I'd pay off our debts first, live frugally until then, save several YEARS' cushion, and *then* start being more willing to spend on things that are not true necessities. But, like me, not everyone is able to do that without causing serious difficulty in their marriages.

  13. A thousand times NO. on How Tesla Batteries Will Force Home Wiring To Go Low Voltage · · Score: 3

    NO. That will not happen. Power equals voltage times current. To deliver the same power load at a lower voltage would require higher current, and household wiring is already designed to carry as much current as it safely can. Lowering voltage would thus require new, much bulkier wiring, which can't easily be retrofitted in older structures. Conduits would be able to carry far less of it, so those two would have to be overhauled. Last but not least, wireless charging and better batteries will eliminate much of the need for the lower-power wiring in the first place. There are very few things that I can confidently predict about the future, but one of those things is that mains (110-220v) voltage is not going to change drastically anytime soon. I'd be willing to bet every single powered appliance in my home on it.

  14. Re:Hobbit on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 1

    How hard can ore processing be? We already have word processors. Just fork one and make whatever minor mods are necessary to process ores instead.

  15. Re:To be more specific ... on Why PowerPoint Should Be Banned · · Score: 1

    If you don't have any meetings, how do you know what your coworkers are doing?

    Most of the time they are orking cows.

  16. Re:High speed train travel is NICE. on Examining Costs and Prices For California's High-Speed Rail Project · · Score: 1

    Some of the "actual cities" in the U.S. span dozens or even hundreds of kilometers (e.g., Houston, Atlanta, LA, even Chicago). Even some of the urban areas near Cleveland, Ohio, an older and more compact city than most in the U.S., are 100km or more apart. (E.g.: Oberlin to Mentor). These areas are simply not navigable without a car, no matter how fast you manage to get in or out of whatever you consider to be the "central area." Part the reason is not just suburban sprawl but the fact that originally many of these areas were once collections of separate, distant smaller towns that eventually grew together.

  17. Re:(URGENT REQUIREMENT IN DETROIT!!!!!, etc) on Want 30 Job Offers a Month? It's Not As Great As You Think · · Score: 1

    Agreed. I'm very impressed with the efforts Detroiters (of all races, in case that matters, which IMO it shouldn't) have made to take back their city from the scumbag politicians who ran it into the ground. There is still a mismatch between the skills of the populace and the skills needed in the job market, but that's a problem throughout the U.S., hardly limited to the Detroit area. I am very happy where I am (Lakewood, Ohio, about 6 miles from downtown Cleveland), but if I had to relocate for whatever reason, then Detroit, owing partly to its proximity and reasonable cost of living, would be on my short list of places I would actually prefer.

  18. Re:Different opinions on Debian 8 Jessie Released · · Score: 1

    The only ways to prevent data corruption upon improper shutdown come at a massive cost in performance. Essentially, a filesystem wishing to pose such a guarantee must block until it can confirm that data is physically written to the device - NOT just cached in that device's RAM. I think you will find that this is many orders of magnitude slower than normal writes, and still dependent on proper behavior of the hardware. Having said that, most filesystems have options that will enable that tradeoff for you, in cases where it is sufficiently important. Or you can use a production-quality relational database, which, in most cases, can be configured in such a way that the loss of a single filesystem will not cause irreparable damage beyond the last few seconds of data entry.

  19. Re: Be fair on WHO Report Links Weed Killer Ingredient To Cancer Risk · · Score: 1

    Very possibly worse. Glyphosate is believed to harm gut bacteria. Bt is *known* to do so, and to a much greater degree.

  20. Re:It's a problem in India or Bangladesh on WHO Report Links Weed Killer Ingredient To Cancer Risk · · Score: 1

    Stop, take some probiotics, and start altering your diet to include yogurt, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods. Most of the known mechanisms of glyphosate's toxicity in humans revolve around its propensity to kill beneficial gut bacteria, with which we are symbiotic. Do your best to take care of them, from this point forward, and you should be fine.

  21. Re:Data mining on WHO Report Links Weed Killer Ingredient To Cancer Risk · · Score: 1

    Very misleading summary of the current evidence. Consumption of fructose in the form of fruit, bound together with fiber, reduces morbidity and mortality. In the form in which most of it is consumed, however - HFCS and sucrose - it is among the leading causes of death. It is now known to trigger most of the incidence of metabolic syndrome among adults and even children in the developed world, and much of it in parts of the developing world as well. Other refined carbs are partly to blame, but if we could even halve the consumption of refined sugars it would be a HUGE public health win, comparable to eliminating tobacco and alcohol combined.

  22. Re:Your government at work on Islamic State Doxes US Soldiers, Airmen, Calls On Supporters To Kill Them · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They are indeed not comparable. The U.S. government has murdered hundreds of thousands of Arab and Muslim civilians over the past few decades. ISIS? A relative handful.

  23. Re:simple to thwart., more difficult with detectio on To Avoid NSA Interception, Cisco Will Ship To Decoy Addresses · · Score: 1

    A shipment from San Francisco to Dallas for example, that takes a detour to Boson...

    Didn't they only just recently discover that?

  24. Great performance!! on "Open Well-Tempered Clavier" Project Complete; Score and Recording Online · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've listened to only a little so far, but it sounds extremely promising, with the phrasing, tempo, and ornamentation all being superb. Ms. Ishizaka also does an outstanding job of using the dynamic range of the piano in harmony with the music. This is perhaps among the hardest and most subjective elements of interpreting Bach's keyboard work, since, as other commenters here have noted, most of it predates the widespread adoption of the piano, and was written without its greater dynamic range and expressiveness in mind. So far, this is becoming my favorite recording of this work.

  25. Re:Unconstitutional? on California Looking To Make All Bitcoin Businesses Illegal · · Score: 1

    Agreed. It is my policy to report any nontrivial income no matter whether I think they will find out about it or not. Not because I think honesty requires it . . . I view government in its present form as little more than an extortion racket . . . but because frankly it is easier not to have to live with the constant fear of "what if the IRS finds out . . . ".