Climate change seems to be a topic that's "OK" to be skeptical about because you can't see it right now, today, with your own eyes.
I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning?
These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, microplastics, PFAs, pesticides... Who knows what these will do over generations, and there is certainly more chemical poisons we've introduced into our environment that we haven't even discovered.
In my experience, in the US, harmful chemicals in products are a lot more credible than climate change, to people who listen to the Right. An example that has been in the news: pregnant women taking Tylenol.
For whatever reason, a “natural” lifestyle is more compatible with American conservative politics than an environmentally responsible lifestyle. I think the two can easily overlap, but the former would have to emphasized for it to get any traction with that audience.
EDIT: Replace “for whatever reason” with “due to the influence of the fossil fuel industry”
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like it will speed up travel much at all.
Based on my understanding, travel times in the northeast are limited not by the top speed of the trains, but by the tracks, and the fact that freight is prioritized.
Legally, freight is supposed to yield to passengers nationwide. It's in the legislation that created Amtrak over fifty years ago. It has never been enforced, and trump isn't about to do it. The UP/NS merger will make it worse. On Amtrak-controlled trackage, there is hope. Northeast Corridor is their show.
The problem is that the freight companies run these incredibly long trains now, which no longer fit into the siding (a bit of track that splits off from and then reconnects to the main track to allow one train to pass the other). So even if a freight train wanted to, it couldn’t let another train pass unless the freight companies invested in longer sidings or shorter trains.
Plenty of flosses are available without pfas. The flat glide / smooth floss and potentially flavors (unknown - not required to disclose) are the ones with pfas. Wax coated unflavored floss does not use pfas.
Unfortunately, the article [0] states that "flat tape" floss was used as the delivery method. And this is the form of those smooth/glide pfas flosses. Likely the pfas was used as a functional group to bond the vaccine coated particles to the floss.
They probably have a good model for what percentage of those will never be redeemed so they wouldn't have to count the whole $2 billion as a liability. The OP's one big customer would be harder to predict the future behavior of.
I’m aware of actuarial science, but what does that have to do with accounting? (We've been talking about liabilities as an accounting and contractual term, not as a remedy for injuries.)
Neither of these show up either on a balance sheet or cash flow statement. If a contingent liability is probable, you have to record it as a liability per GAAP.
Oh. Then what's the effect of the growing pile of unredeemed non-expiring gift vouchers that companies issue? Is there a little asterisk next to liabilities saying "but don't worry, we're sure we'll never have to pay this"?
I had a Wink hub maybe 7 years ago, I bought it for somewhere around $150. Later, they decided to add a monthly subscription fee to the device. I cut my losses and quit using the thing.
Whenever the topic of weight loss comes up, I always make the same recommendation: Lift weights.
Lifting weights increases your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories, even at rest, which raises your TDEE. (A bodybuilder will burn more calories sitting on the couch than someone who doesn't lift weights).
For most folks (myself included) cardio sucks. You _could_ jog for an hour every day and burn x-hundred calories due to the increased energy expended... Or you could go lift weights a few times a week, and after a couple months, naturally burn more at rest due to increased muscle mass.
I say this as not a nutritionist nor a doctor, but I don't believe I'm off base here. Feel free to correct me on this if I am.
I'm a fan of weightlifting, and agree that there are numerous health benefits to doing so, but I think the extra calorie burning is over-hyped. From what I've read you get 6-10 calories per pound of muscle per day, at rest. Not nothing, but for folks who aren't looking to body build I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Or maybe over a long enough time span it does, I dunno.
It does matter over a long enough time span, but otherwise I agree - don't get into resistance training for the extra potential calorie burn/metabolism boost, it's a quick way to burn out. Get into it for the numerous health benefits that resistance training brings, the effects of which get especially important as you get older.
You can lose upwards of 3% of muscle pass per year at 60+, and this process can start as early as 30-35 years old. It gets harder and harder to build muscle as you age too, so the more you can build and maintain early on in your life, the better off you'll be in old age.
Other than aesthetic goals, that's most of what got me into weightlifting. I'd prefer not to be so frail when I'm older and want to maintain my independence as long as possible. Not to mention, being strong just makes general day-to-day tasks easier.
I think there are a couple of underlooked points for weightlifting's contribution to sustainable weight loss.
- the weight that you are gaining with a surplus diet turns into muscle instead of fat. You can take diet breaks and just gain muscle faster which will help when returning to a deficit.
- the increased 100-200 calories from lifting can make a 100 calorie deficit easier to adhere to as it's a smaller proportion of your total.
- weightlifting reduces stress which is a common cause for over eating.
And that is the same amount as having 10 extra pounds of fat burns.
1kg of muscle tissue burns pretty much identical amount of calories as 1kg of fat tissue. Heart, kidneys, brain etc. tissues burn more than muscles/fat, but you can't really grow those.
Xkg person's basic energy burn rate is the same, regardless of his fat percentage.
Therefore it is definitely a myth to promote weightlifting on the merits of muscles being some kind of great energy expenditure machine.
That's assuming the extra calorie burn doesn't make you feel hungrier and cause you to eat more, even if only a little. 100 calories is a very small amount of extra food.
I used to believe this (as did many people) but no longer do. The amount of extra calories burned with a higher muscle mass is just not significant enough to make this a relevant idea.
Of course, there are many, many other reasons to lift weights. Health and longevity aside, the reason most people want to lose weight is to look better - so what they should really aim for isn't to lose weight, it's to lose fat and increase muscle mass. For that, you need both a caloric deficit and weight lifting.
This is true, but I don't think the extra calorie burn via extra muscle mass is dramatic enough to move the needle that much. Studies are a bit weak here, but a quick search suggests that a pound of muscle mass burns between 4.5 and 7 calories per day. That's... not that much. A bodybuilder that's putting on competition-worthy levels of muscle mass is going to be spending several hours every single day at the gym lifting weights, and very few people are going to sign up for that just for the hope of losing some weight.
I've been doing some strength training (arms, legs, core) for the past year and a half. Nothing too heavy, but enough that I can see nice muscle-tone changes in my body, and I notice that day-to-day physical tasks are easier. At most, I've put on about 10lbs of muscle (and honestly it's probably more like half that). So I'm burning another 45 to 70 calories per day. That's like... 4 to 7 plain potato chips of calories.
So lift if you want to look good, be generally stronger (core strength is especially good for you!), or just feel healthier. And sure, the act of lifting those weights will burn calories that you weren't otherwise burning. But the muscle mass you gain isn't going to burn a useful amount of extra calories per day.
And yes, cardio does suck! Unfortunately, doing only strength training is leaving out really important parts of your body that need to be strong and healthy: your heart and lungs. I'm in decent physical shape, but if I stop working on cardio even for a month or so, walking up the four flights of stairs in my condo building leaves me a little winded, and I don't like that feeling.
I guess my point is: do cardio and strength training to increase your general level of health and fitness. But if you want to lose weight, change your diet. Change it sustainably and permanently. If you just change it until you get to your target weight, you're going to put those pounds right back on afterward.
The weight lifting also triggers stronger hormonal responses due to the additional mechanical loading. Mechanoreceptors in your body will stimulate a chain reaction by way of the hypothalamus (HPG axis) that ultimately causes a ramp in testosterone and other hormones. Your body effectively has a built-in steroid dispenser that you can control.
The scale is really dramatic in my experience. The more the lifting sucks, the more your body will compensate. This trend can be non-linear for a good period of time before you begin to plateau. The tricky bit is not pushing too far and injuring yourself early on.
One interesting hybrid is running or walking with a weighted vest on. This requires some extra precautions - the vest should be very, very snug on your body. You don't want it slinging around and imposing weird lateral loads.
Or do both! I primarily train Muay Thai these days, but I mix in two minimalist kettlebell strength sessions per week. 20 minutes of emom double kettlebell ABCs with some sets of pull-ups at the end keeps me in zone 3-4. So I'm getting some cardio conditioning while doing my strength training. Sure, it's hard to overload at a certain point with kettlebells, but making a goal to be able to OHP double 24kg bells will get most people pretty far.
There are other advantages beyond just burning calories. Lean muscle tissue acts as glucose sink. When you eat you'll have more reserve capacity to store that energy temporarily in your muscles rather than triggering growth of adipose tissue.
Most powerlifters intentionally maintain a signficant caloric surplus in order to bulk up. Some bulkers even chug straight-up olive oil to meet their daily caloric goals.
I generally drive at or below the speed limit. This is to reduce fuel and improve safety. On a multiple lane road, I'm nearly always on the right (slow) lane.
Unfortunately, this safety measure is usually torpedoed by other drivers. People (usually driving a 'light truck' (an SUV or pickup)) will drive at a single car length behind me. Even on multi-lane roads. If I had to slam on my brakes, I'd be at risk in my sedan.
I absolutely would support wide proliferation of speed cameras. It would be easy, profitable, promote safety, and we could do it today. It would take zero extra policing (in fact, it'd probably reduce workload on police).
I acknowledge that you can fight this kicking and screaming with speed enforcement measures—but I think there's two things that are causing people to drive faster: Wide, straight, flat roads that allow no speed reference, and large sealed vehicles that reduces perceived speed. Change these, and I think that will be a great step to reducing "pedestrian fatalities" (or to call it like it is: people getting murdered due to carelessness and impatience).
The highway speed scatterpot in the US has a floor at the "speed limit" and the median speed is usually 10mph to 15mph higher than that. In this scenario, driving the "speed limit" means nearly all other users will overtake you at a significant differential, and some in a disorderly manner. Consistently doing so in heavy traffic provokes backups and the usual consequences to other drivers.
My experience on US highways is that it generally isn't quite that bad: if you're going roughly the speed limit, you will be in company with a significant subset of the commercial vehicles, whose owners mandate following the speed limit (and in some cases enforce it with GPS surveillance).
Your description sounds right but also pretty similar to GP’s characterization of a floor at the limit and 10-15 mph higher median with the result that more than half of traffic is passing you at a 20+% speed differential.
Quite a few people drive somewhat below speed limit. There is nothing unsafe about it, except wishful thinking to rationalize fast driving. Fast driving is fun, quite a few people equate "fast and nimble" with "good driver", but safety is not the thing they are achieving.
If anything, the Autobahn proves that the system works when everyone respects the rules and each other, all cars undergo regular roadworthy inspections, driver training is rigorous, and the road is designed for speed variation. In the US, none of that is the case.
Having rigorous enforcement of minimum radius in curves*, preserving more available cornering/braking traction and wide lanes, providing for better sightlines ahead (for faster traffic) and behind (for slower traffic contemplating pulling out to pass even slower traffic).
* - I did an internship for Mercedes in the early 90s and we had testing access to a section of ex-A8 near Stuttgart that was retired because it didn't meet the modern autobahn requirements and so had been replaced with a re-routed A8. To my American college-student mind that seemed incredibly wasteful, but it sure was convenient for our testing. I can't find it now on Google maps, but it's been 30 years so may have been demolished by now.
The Autobahn is much more challenging to drive on due to the extreme speed variation between trucks in the right lane going 80 kph and race car drivers in the left going 250.
IMO the only reason that it's acceptably safe is strict German driver's licensing requirements and fairly strong enforcement of traffic laws. If you had the same regime but American style speed variation, I think you'd see considerably safer roads in Germany.
I think this is great as long as the speed limits are set correctly. What I worry would happen is that the speed limits would intentionally be set low to maximize revenue from the speed enforcement system.
On my way to work there is a long stretch of road with great visibility, two lanes in each direction, physical separation between directions, very wide shoulders with virtually zero pedestrian traffic, but the speed limit is 50km/hr. Nobody drives 50 on that road. The traffic generally flows at 70. Similarly there are many semi-industrial areas with wide roads, no traffic, few pedestrians with a 50km/hr limit. We also have highways with 80km/hr limits where traffic generally flows (safely) at 90-100.
Guess what, all those places are where police hangs out looking for speeders.
Contrast that with small streets in dense urban or suburban areas where despite the limit being 50 most people drive closer to 40. Or when it's foggy or raining heavily and you want to drive slower on the highway than the speed limit.
That said there is a question of balancing the somewhat improved safety of lower speeds to the improved efficiency of driving a bit faster. I'm not sure how you balance that. There are other options like moving people to mass transit or closing some city streets to car traffic completely.
People who drive below the posted speed limit (road boulders) are a menace. They increase the risk to everyone else as other drivers try to get around them.
Is everyone in the US expected to drive at least the speed limit on motorways? Here in Europe, there are always vehicles going slower - buses, trucks, vans, or just older cars or drivers not in a hurry. If the limit is 130 km/h, you routinely encounter vehicles going 90-110.
The menace are drivers not adjusting to the realities of the road.
I'm also in Europe and here it's completely normal to drive the speed limit. The motorway speed limit in my country is 130 km/h (81 mph). I drive an EV, so I usually stay around 110 km/h (68 mph) for efficiency, which is still faster than all trucks (limited at 90 km/h (56 mph)) and quite a few passenger cars and vans. Most cars drive a bit faster than me (at or around the speed limit) and very few drive faster than the limit (mostly the usual suspects, german luxury cars or sports cars).
I honestly can't imagine being forced to break the law every day just to get to work safely.
In the US, speed limits are set far lower than required for safety, in order to maximize revenue from citations. More importantly, it allows the police to pick and choose who to pull over: When 99% of cars on the freeway are speeding, the police can pull over anyone, and they will use that discretion to pull over “certain kinds” of people they would like to target. Black people get pulled over less frequently at night, when the darkness does not allow the officer to see who is in the car they choose to pull over[1].
Translating those to our dumber units, that would be a highway posted at 80mph and seeing slower traffic doing 55-70 mph.
This subthread is discussing highways with prevailing 75-80 mph traffic and some road users driving less than the posted 55 mph limit in a belief that doing so adds to road safety.
In my city I sometimes hire a scooter-share. These electric scooters can go up to 17mph.
It is perfectly legal for me to drive in a traffic lane. It may be OK to drive on the sidewalk, with significant restrictions. But it is usually not.
I typically opt to drive in traffic: the limit is going to be around 35mph. You can perhaps predict the sort of reactions I endure from motorists when I’m hogging their precious lanes at ½ their speed. Would you believe spitting in my face?
Nevertheless, I persist carefully, because I’m right, and I drive with scrupulous safety, and I hope and pray that others follow my lead, because electric scooters at 17mph on the sidewalk is fucking dangerous to pedestrian me at all other times.
Might I direct you to the text on the sign, Speed "Limit"?
The ones causing danger are the drivers attempting to pass dangerously, not the person driving slowly. Do cyclists cause danger by using roadways? Or is it the people driving multiple-ton vehicles?
Assigning blame doesn't do anything for safety, even if you're right. Where I live, by far the safest thing to do is to drive ~4 mph over the limit on all non-residential roads. If you drive below or even right at the limit, you will be tailgated or passed with far greater frequency. That behavior is out of your control, at least on the road. You can push for more consistent enforcement while you're not driving (I'm inclined to do so myself), but while you're behind the wheel, the only behavior you can change is your own.
No disagreement here, but where the literal rubber hits the road, you still have to decide how to act when the ambient semi-aggressive driving population continues to behave in the way that they do. Will you blamelessly be road raged at 50-100% more often than a more moderate driver (who drives at the most popular speed, though it may be over the limit) just because if an accident does happen it will be the road rager's fault?
It's a very frustrating social problem. Obviously we can't let ourselves be held collectively hostage by bad actors in all situations. But I would still predict that there are some situations where the bad actor population is so large and "mildly-bad" that indefinitely giving in to their implicit demands is the right game theoretic choice.
> But I would still predict that there are some situations where the bad actor population is so large and "mildly-bad" that indefinitely giving in to their implicit demands is the right game theoretic choice.
Game theory is quite a big thing, that's for sure. And it's no surprise that actors will tend towards these situations where you're tempted to think "eh, letting them do this bad thing with impunity feels like the right game theoretic choice, because it's right at the limit of not being bad enough to illicit a response." And yet, there's a reason for things like territorial behavior in the animal kingdom, where an animal will defend minor territory disputes at great personal cost even when the cost of losing a small amount of territory seems much smaller.
Well, "People who drive below the posted speed limit (road boulders) are a menace" is not just assigning blame, but severely exaggerated angry claim. Somehow, you have choose fairly calm response to it as the thing to criticize as assigning blame.
And driving in the "slow" lane where every single driver has to go past you to get on/off the road isn't generally safe either. On a 2 lane road you don't have much choice, but on a busy 3 lane road, probably not a great choice either.
If you can't understand the subtle, but still fairly obvious and unmistakeable difference between being a net increase in danger/problem potential without a) breaking the rules b) personally increasing your own financial liability for any bad outcomes you probably ought not to be driving.
There's a reason tractors get triangles and oversize stuff gets highly visible signs.
If you are driving slower than other traffic, under the speed limit, and there is not a weather condition or a road impediment, that is also illegal in most (or all?) states.
> Do cyclists cause danger by using roadways?
They are also expected to move with traffic if they are taking up a lane. This is among the reasons non-motorized vehicles are not allowed on freeways.
Anyone moving slower than expected are intrinsically an impediment and a hazard, just the same as anyone speeding or otherwise driving recklessly.
Just to be clear - your statements about the law are all completely untrue, except for some states having a few specific highways with a “minimum speed”. For example, a highway near me says “left lane minimum speed 45mph” - where the speed of the road is 65.
Unless you can find some laws that specify that driving below the speed limit is illegal?
Impeding the flow of traffic is illegal. Most states have "if x number of vehicles are behind you, you are required to use pull offs or let vehicles pass" laws.
If a cop thinks your slow driving is dangerous they can absolutely write a citation. There are a bunch of laws that allow them to do this in most states.
Many states have laws against obstructing traffic. Most of them don't mention a specific minimum speed so enforcement is largely at the discretion of law enforcement officers. Personally I would like to see strict enforcement of those laws with tickets given out to anyone who intentionally impedes the flow of traffic.
Obstructing traffic is very different than “driving more slowly than the person behind you wants”. Obstructing means blocking, not making them wait 30 seconds for a good chance to go around.
If you are moving a large item that is fragile, are you allowed to go 35mph in a 45mph zone to reduce the risk of damaging the fragile item? Or is that illegal too? Or what if one of your passengers gets car sick easily?
In fact, there are some winding mountain roads in California where the speed limit is 55, but if you go that fast, you’re suicidal because there are no guard rails and very sharp turns. Occasionally, someone mildly suicidal will come up behind you. Is it illegal to drive 15mph in that 55 zone?
Safety is prioritized above speed, suggesting otherwise is unhinged and antisocial.
It's very smart to have laws set up so that whether you are speeding or not, you can be pulled over for a moving traffic violation! That way, the police always have a legal pretense for a traffic stop.
Addendum: the margin of error on speed radar generally tends to be in the region of 2mph. You'll need to be a good deal slower than the speed limit before a police officer is likely to consider your driving to be an impairment.
Above the limit, I agree that people speeding bear primary responsibility, although if you're not going the limit in the left lane, you are creating an obstacle for sure. If you're going significantly below the limit though, what's the reason? The whole point of a car is to get you from point A to point B quickly.
Not in the right lane. On expressways that lane (at least here in California) is most likely to have semi-trailer trucks going their max speed of 55 mph. A 55 mph driver will be right at home in that lane.
What does require in person enforcement is making sure license plates aren't obscured, defaced, or removed. The left in this country needs to reconcile that enforcement of laws is a good thing. Matthew Yglessias talks about this a lot.
This requires the most enforcement in front of NYC precincts. I truly don't know how such a corrupt organization could be reformed.
When sites use an AI generated image like this and don't bother to spend 10 seconds looking to make sure it looks okay (UIGN SIGN UPP? AISK ANACIS?) it makes me question whether that same level of care was put into writing the article.
Isn't it nice to have just a little bit of an illustration instead of just text? Obviously an AI-generated image is going to spit out some nonsense text as part of the graphic, but we're not really trying to hide that it's AI generated.
I think things that require high credibility and have a learned readerbase it'd be better to not give a careless image, even at the cost of a cool image. I wouldn't mind an almost right image on some advert for cleanex or intranet holiday reminder mail, but I would be very concerned if it was used as part of EU directive
Cool, and terrifying. This makes me consider that there is some sort of consciousness in the non-lingual side of split-brain patients.
Which also makes me consider: Is there some sort of consciousness in my own brain I'm not aware of? Sure, my brain does a lot I'm not conscious of—but is there a quiet, thinking awareness that exists in my skull, that I, the mind writing this, do not know of?
I wonder if folks who aren't so keen on the idea of climate change would be more open to the idea of population-level poisoning?
These two issues seem to get lumped in the same bucket but it does seem that population-level poisoning seems to be more of an acute threat. Lead, asbestos, microplastics, PFAs, pesticides... Who knows what these will do over generations, and there is certainly more chemical poisons we've introduced into our environment that we haven't even discovered.