205guy

In this example, we are meant to assume that the incendiary is the equivalent of fuel overload in mismanaged forests. But the analogy is bunk. No one is planting bombs (it's not a willful act), the policy of stopping fires was once considered good, and when it was no longer considered good, there were also issues of homes and property to protect. And then there is climate change that is ostensibly creating dryer and longer fire seasons, so the underlying factors have changed.

Yet the thought puzzle is designed to have obvious answers (aka bias) that the author wants us to apply in the real world. This is manipulation. Give us the real world problem and more information to think about it, we are smart enough.

I see what you did there (but maybe you don't see it yourself :-)

PS: at least MY parentheses are balanced.

Because you can never know how a given website will handle the input, I always leave a space after URL and before punctuation in a text box, like so: http://example.com ;

Here's my reasoning: at the Federal level, the US is large country (4th geographically and 3rd by population) and the federal agencies cover lots of different areas. Yes, you need different people with different skills to protect a spaceport, a train, a nuke on a truck, etc. OK but what about Amtrack what's so special about trains? Well, the article had the example of the Amtrack team training on a special ladder for getting inside of a train. Just think of the Coast Guard teams that intercept narco submarines, sometimes by jumping on the sub, banging on the hatch, and pointing their guns (maybe that was the military side of the CG, not sure) [1].

So the idea that each specialized agencies has specialized teams with specialized skills doesn't seem too far-fetched. The fact that there is a federal facility to centralize and standardize the training is actually a good thing. Give everyone a solid basic training, and then local training in their agency's special conditions, and that seems like an effecient way to handle the requirements.

As for why the US needs such SWAT teams all over the place, I think could be more debatable, but the rise of terrorism, however much overplayed is real (Oklahoma, 9/11, Paris, Paris again, etc.). As much as I think the Patriot act was a power grab and right-wing gift to the military-industrial complex, you also can't do nothing. Like I said, the US is a huge country, has lots of exposure and targets, and has made more than a few enemies (I wish it wouldn't).

And I really like the idea in the US that the military is not deployed against civilians, yet the federal governement needs some way to protect its facilities and activities (and policies, for example school desegregation). So federal agency police forces with appropriate military-style training seems to be the next best solution.

I agree that universities, school districts, and local police forces with SWAT equipment is really crossing the line. But that really is a separate issue, and looking at federal responsibilities and spheres of action, I think it does make sense.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TssmEdbW-WA

I think the framing is wrong here. A cell synthesizes DNA mechanically and without will or intent. The cell is made up of molecules that grab other molecules and operate on the other molecules to do something (repair, replicate, infect, etc.). When the right molecules come into contact with their targets, the synthesis just happens by the chemistry and physics that dictate the shape and movement of the molecules (modulo the stochastic and probabilistic process of other molecules moving around and becoming available). What we call life is an ever more complex set of molecules and their organization that allows their mechanical self-replication--and the other complex processes that extract and build all the constituent molecules from the environment (by building other molecular structures such as cell walls that also act mechanically on the molecules of the environment).

That’s the situation now, but after 1000 remote tech workers move there and 500 decide not to go back to the city, 100 might pivot to lifestyle startups that employ 100-200 more. And now you have a little incubator that wasn’t there before and might grow a nice little self-sustaining eco-system. And once it gets going, it can always rely on the nice geography to attract some talent, even if the cities become huge employment centers again.

In a way, I think this would be a very healthy development for these tourist towns. They are too dependent on tourism, and even when they were prosperous before Covid, they had issues with high property prices (due to empty second homes and Airbnb) and low service wages. Having a healthy middle class independent of tourism would be great for their economic stability.

However, you can't deny or bemoan the freedom of others to do the same as you did, and to be political in the same way.

https://uniqcode.com/typewriter/

It is an accurate simulator with all the sounds and quirks of using a real typewriter. All it's missing is the view of the ribbon moving up and down, and of course the letters hitting the paper.

Kinda how Second Life was too disconnected from reality, it immediately became a fantasy world. If telepresence is tied to a real location (for some definition of real, and likely to change over time), it may bridge the uncanny valley and succeed. Strange that it took a virus to get us there.

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/

Voyager-1 is the fastest at 38,000 mph (61000 km/h) with respect to the Sun, but currently about 90,000 mph (144000 km/h) relative to earth (I guess this fluctuates annually).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont-Saint-Michel: “converted into a raised causeway in 1879“

My observation is that finally those history majors, English majors, and music majors in college (universities in the US) will pay off with a bit of attention. I often see some in the tech crowd dismiss the humanities, suggesting that non-STEM degrees that don't lead to a lucrative career are a waste. Well, I think this shows that having some people who know those things makes life a bit better for everyone.

And as a sibling comment points out, where the US does have good rivers/lakes, notably the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio network and the Great Lakes, they are used extensively for transport. The only one I can think of that is disused is the Hudson and canals that connect to the Great Lakes.

But the same is true for Europe: larger rivers allow larger, more efficient ships and are still used for transport, and the canal system is too narrow and so mostly recreational now.

"In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had misled Congress..."

One of the sources explains that when congress investigated the Iran-Contra scandal, it granted Oliver North immunity for what he would say. From one of the Wikipedia sources:

"The most serious obstacle to North's prosecution was the immunity grant extended him by the Select Committees that in 1987 investigated the Iran/contra matter. North's nationally televised testimony under that grant of use immunity, which guaranteed that nothing he told Congress could be used against him in a criminal proceeding, greatly complicated Independent Counsel's investigation and raised serious questions as to whether North could ever be tried."

https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_02.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_San_Jose,_Californi...

That poster was at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, where you might expect to learn the differences between African-American culture and the dominant White-Anglo-American Culture. Context is important. In no way it implied that "Enlightenment-age values ... should be opposed." Also, it's kind of ironic to be cheering for the takedown of speech you didn't like on a thread where you complain about the silencing of the speech you do like. If you don't like what the poster said or how it said it, maybe oppose it with more speech.

About the whole industry of "training while charging 7 figures" isn't that just how the pendulum swings right now? Before it was prayer meetings and then survivalist tactics for team-building. Plus most employment in the US is at-will, so I suppose if employees don't like it, they are free to find other employers. Freedom cuts both ways too. Also, what's wrong with 7 figures? I thought the free-market and entrepreneurs charging for the value they bring to willing buyers were all good things.

When you conclude it's "purely about making kids hate what their parents did for them", well, that's the kind of hyperbole that's hard to take seriously. It is totally free of argument or evidence, and it sounds so much like the conservatives of the 50's and 60's about how the peace-activists, civil rights leaders, and hippies were going to turn their sons and daughters against their parents.

He has a Honda CB500X and Husqvarna 701 (I don't know much about motorcycles, but I do know that's not the same as sibling comment's 50cc) and he rides all over the US on the backroads and dirt roads. It's full of local cafés, covered bridges, ghost towns, remote mountain roads, and the like. He takes photos and videos and documents the whole thing on an old-fashioned website. It really made me want to ride a motorcycle.

My other thought is that bouncing between cities is the unusual activity here. Maybe after sleeping in so many hotels or airbnbs, the brain no longer has a sense of place and gets confused. I'm sure universal IKEA-decor helps, but why do we expect to jet around and visit so many different places and feel connected to them. In most cases people are busy and stressed, moving around without getting to know the place, just to hop in a car, go to a meeting, then back to the hotel or airport. Maybe that's what the brain is having trouble with.

There are so many complex systems in the body, and so many interactions such as vitamin D and calcium, that it just seems risky. Some people are knowledgeable about supplements and interactions, others sound knowledgeable but are just selling the next fad. Not to mention that it all depends on the person's specific metabolism and any conditions they might have (such as the patient in the article).

Or do we even need supplements at all if we just ate well and had an active lifestyle? Speaking as someone who just had yogurt and a banana: "Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."

sigh, someday we'll have auto-correct that just works. Doesn't even need to be AI, just use words in the current page. Heck just use contextual info such as the capitalization. Somebody, please?

Same with an electric generator/motor: if you pull power off more than it’s being driven, each push from the driving field is less than enough for the rotational rate, so the rotation is slower, and thus the frequency too.

The whole thesis of the strongtowns.org website, with lots of data and references to back it up, is that medium dense city centers and town centers are the only parts of a city/town that are revenue positive. Commercial strip mall areas and suburbs do not generate enough sales tax and property tax revenue (and often require tax breaks) to pay for the infrastructure: miles of roads and streets, sewers, utilities, etc. Density, when you have lots of people and economic activity in a smaller area, can pay for its infrastructure, even if it might be more expensive than a country road.

Otherwise, I do agree, it is cyclical, cities were over-hyped for a while, with the tech boom in many east and west coast cities, but now remote work might reverse that. However, as Europe has shown, with a few precautions and some sacrifice such as concerts and night-clubs, a lot of city activities can go on, and with less rent pressure, we might be headed toward a good balance.

The Alt-13x codes are not as quick as the Azerty keys, but good enough and once memorized are fairly easy with a keyboard that has a keypad (most PCs do, even my laptop). This is especially true because they are done with both hands simultaneously, as opposed to something like Cmd-e+e on a Mac. Actually, they are faster than finding the accented characters on my QWERTY virtual keyboard as I type this comment on iOS.

Those AltGr- combos seem complicated to me, I would much prefer a system such as AltGr-e =é, then AltGr-ee=è, AltGr-eee=ê, etc. To me that would be more intuitive than remembering the composing character (slash for aigüe, etc).

But I really don't understand the need to make up a bunch of strange commentary (nature/nurture, temporary insanity, equality not equal, genetics, euthanasia, etc.) that either doesn't really have a point, or beats around the bush so much with vague language it's not even possible to tell what the point is. I suppose English isn't your first language, and that's fine, but I'm sure you realize even talking about genetics is a mine-field.

I also specifically want to consider your casually-mentioned phrase: "laws are complex for the purpose of gaming them". To my thinking mind, this is a throw-away accusation that really has no standing in actual fact. Yes, laws can be complex. Yes, regulatory capture exists. Yes, people game "the system" all the time. But all three together implies some highly unlikely turn of events, given that it is contradictory (why would a self-serving law be so complex that it can only be taken advantage of with added difficulty). Even if this unlikely convergence has happened, it cannot be a pattern because it is rare--and the unspoken conclusion would be "conspiracy." Your first 2 paragraphs contain a lot of illogical and unfounded assertions like this, with vague conclusions that are outside of normal discourse, and I find it hard to take any of it seriously.

Why is this a challenge if it is the constitutional choice of a sovereign nation. My impression is that this arrangement is knowingly and purposefully meant to avoid Western modernization and development, in order to perpetually safeguard the traditional way of life. Western property regime equals appropriation, displacement, and dislocation, then the concentration of wealth in owners. Mortgaging your land also has a negative connotation, especially when the lien-holder has unbalanced power to cause default and then take the land. Seems like PNG was trying to avoid this and keep traditional life alive in a natural state, not modernize and develop. There are plenty of places where Western ways have encroached and irreversibly changed indigenous outcomes. Let them have this one place where they have a chance to live their way.