gascan

9 ms·

31.
by gascan 8y ago
Yeah, it's kind of funny how we arrived at some of the right answers for totally the wrong reasons. The whole "bad air" concept? Total hokum, but an abundance of fresh air will help control airborne transmission.
32.
by gascan 8y ago
Yes, the results are a mess. But did the voting public elect "tough on crime" politicians as a covert way to oppress minorities? Or did they elect those politicians because they were concerned about crime?
33.
by gascan 8y ago
You misunderstand. I'm simply objecting to the claim that "tough on crime" was a political dog whistle, aka a code word all the voters understood to actually mean "oppress minorities".
34.
by gascan 8y ago
IMO as we accumulated more and more "rights", the concept became diluted. We went from the bedrock negative rights of freedom of speech, travel, etc, then to positive rights, and then people started applying the concept of "r
35.
by gascan 8y ago
This seems like revisionist history. From the seventies thru the beginning of the nineties, the national homicide rate was double to triple what it is today. We had real crime problems in the "Tough On Crime" era, and we were hitt
36.
by gascan 8y ago
Ok, so LNT may describe the damage but not necessarily the all-cause mortality. I can live with that.
37.
by gascan 8y ago
People are interested in nuclear because it's zero carbon, because it's mature, and because it's suited to base load. It's the only zero carbon source that plugs right into the hole left by fossil fuels. IMO it's re
38.
by gascan 8y ago
linear no-threshold is weird & unusual for most processes, but it meshes perfectly well with what I understand about radioactivity in general- that is, random & cumulative. See half lives for example. Is there any real evidence show
39.
by gascan 8y ago
Yup, our household dropped from 2 cars to 1. We bike & trailer the kid. It may not last forever, but it's worked out pretty well, with the car parked 20+ days a month but ready & willing for travel outside town. Saved us tons o
40.
by gascan 8y ago
Better street design can improve traffic & flow with fewer lanes. My local muni has been converting super cramped four lane roads to two lanes plus turn lane and comfortable bike lanes. They are nicer to bike, nicer to drive, and back u
41.
by gascan 8y ago
Not to mention the drivers who are offended by the simple act of spending a dollar on someone who is not them.
42.
by gascan 8y ago
What do you consider walkable range? I bike five miles to work. But I find walking more than about a quarter mile with two day's groceries to be very unpleasant in the heat. Maybe taking a backpack would do the trick. But loading up my
43.
by gascan 8y ago
One could pretty easily imagine tow trucks carrying around a 1kWh battery with some standard DC connector, and that would get you a couple miles. A 1kWh battery is not big; e-bicycles carry ~500Wh. Would be literally the electric equivalent
44.
by gascan 8y ago
Used Leaf's have come down to the upper end of your price range. Heck, with group buys and all other related discounts, I've seen them for $14k new.
45.
by gascan 8y ago
Ok, maybe I used the wrong word, but I meant the bandwidth of the air. As you say, only 1 device can transmit at a time.
46.
by gascan 8y ago
The tree which dies is replaced by a new tree. You're right that we've added more carbon than can be stored in living forests. But reversing deforestation can & should be part of the solution.
47.
by gascan 8y ago
Couple things- the range of 5G is pretty limited. Getting a cell down the block from your house would seem to be nearly as hard as running a line to your door. Also, with wireless, never forget about bandwidth. Bandwidth is the reason liv
48.
by gascan 8y ago
I was a little excited for 4G, because while 3G achieved respectable throughput, the latency was terrible- 4G seemed to dramatically improve. IMO 4G is pretty solid all around, and for the first time people are going, "5G? Why?"
49.
by gascan 8y ago
You could have guessed that a chair mat (big) and cat litter (heavy) might not be products Amazon would be competitive with. I find they are mostly good for mid-price items that are not too heavy or bulky, especially moderately "niche&
50.
by gascan 8y ago
Aren't these two things mutually incompatible? How do you have universal healthcare that doesn't let anyone be bankrupted by their illness, where participation is also voluntary? And isn't voluntary collective healthcare just
51.
by gascan 8y ago
There was never a good reason to limit the number of taxicabs on the streets. Without some kind of limit/pricing on the public good that is city streets, what in particular is to stop Cab Company X from saturating the roads with cabs
52.
by gascan 8y ago
If a $15k hospital grade ventilator has a fifty year service life, perhaps the developed world sees little benefit to finding a cheaper ventilator, regardless of competition.
53.
by gascan 8y ago
the idea that you can get sick one time and be financially ruined is still astonishing to me. FWIW I'm not aware of many people who come down with a cold and are financially ruined. The people I know who are in crippling medical debt
54.
by gascan 8y ago
Is it not only natural that people move to a city when it is good, and leave when it is not anymore? I think there's two interpretations of the observation you describe.
55.
by gascan 8y ago
There are plenty of fish that don't need year round flows. One famous example that springs to mind is even from that region. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/west-african-lungfi...
56.
by gascan 8y ago
Pill form never did anything for me, but live sauerkraut seems to calm things down when I'm in gastric distress. (Personal anecdote of why I am inclined to believe your friend's experience)
57.
by gascan 8y ago
Sorry, when I initially read your comment I simply interpreted that to be referencing the draft, e.g. conscription.
58.
by gascan 8y ago
They might still have a big pile of Garands, but many were sold to civilians.
59.
by gascan 8y ago
Yes, and at the time it might have been a good tradeoff- but today we can do better, at least outside the malaria belt.
60.
by gascan 8y ago
1) I was much like you. My performance in college suffered as I couldn't rouse in the morning. I recently discovered I actually did have a medical problem affecting sleep quality (partially obstructed airway from childhood injury). Can

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