TIRM
29d ago
The assertion in that senate hearing was that the toxin entry hole would be tiny like a mosquito bite and easily overlooked in an autopsy. These are ultra-potent shellfish toxins that kill from minute quantities.
TIRM
17d ago
I've been to China plenty. Their driving norms are hard to take. Someone on a scooter making an illegal left hand turn starting from the right side of the road through multiple lanes of traffic. I'm cringing watch him weave through cars going both ways.
City busses don't slow down for or avoid pedestrians. You need to proactively get out of the bus's way. I've seen a few people almost get hit by busses. They don't have our very American understanding of pedestrian right of way.
People driving with no seat belt and pulling it across their body as they approach the seat belt cameras, then letting it go when past the cameras. More effort than just wearing a seat belt.
Taxi drivers aren't the person on the taxi license. One was clearly underaged and smoking.
TIRM
20d ago
There's a lot of New York City talk in this thread. I accept that maybe for major cities such as that bikes are faster. They sure are not faster than a car anywhere I have lived. Like almost all Americans I don't live in New York City or any place nearly as densely populated. Cars beat bikes on total trip time and it is not remotely close.
TIRM
10d ago
Ideal weather? Southern to central coastal California. Warmish and dry. Humidity is the great enemy and it is not present here. I'm fine with snowy winters, it is muggy wet summers that are intolerable.
TIRM
12d ago
minimum results
Border encounters have plummeted to near zero. The results are enormous.
TIRM
17d ago
Obligatory I don't advocate "fingers first" bonesawings for anyone, but Khashoggi was an Islamist and his political complaints were there not being enough and the correct kind of Islamic rule. And then Americans lamenting this poor "journalist" as though he wasn't an advocate for something completely incompatible with our way of life.
TIRM
24d ago
I saw a documentary about law enforcement dealing with organized crime. There was some mobster that other mobsters tried to kill by luring him to a meeting and shooting him repeatedly in the back of the head with a 22. The bullets failed to get through his skull and tore up his scalp. He stood up, took the gun out of his would-be-murderer's hand and ran off.
TIRM
20d ago
I worked in Shanghai for a few months. Their scooter infrastructure is amazing. A wide lane for scooters separated from the car lanes by a concrete barrier. It goes: sidewalk, scooter lane, concrete barrier, car lanes, concrete barrier, scooter lane, sidewalk.
This would be perfect biking infrastructure, but they seem to be all in on small electric scooters rather than bikes.
I would have thought that trying to "trans" a Central or South American country would be net negative in this regard. It would make them more want to bail and side with Chinese who don't give a damn about their local culture and social norms.
TIRM
29d ago
When in doubt, copy Singapore
They are 100% urban and 76% ethnic Chinese.
69% of Americans choose to live in suburbs. Ultra-urban state planning (even if competent!) won't work on us. It isn't relevant to our wants and inclinations.
This is like people who say America should be more like Japan because of their great health outcomes. On one hand, yes. On the other hand, we just aren't Japanese and a bunch of fat white people severely underperform them on health outcomes. There's no path from us to them.
TIRM
20d ago
I don’t expect bicyclists to dismount at lonely intersections. And I think rolling stops should be legalized in the absence of cross traffic. Maybe we can't legalize it because people can't be trusted to follow a conditional rule of only rolling through if there is no cross traffic. I wish we could. I'd say legalize it anyway see if accident rates increase.
When I say some bicyclists enjoy blowing through stop signs, I mean in the presence of other traffic. They could do whatever they wanted on lonely roads or empty intersections and I'd never care. Instead they defy traffic controls in ways that make drivers have to move out of their way or hit their brakes. That's my problem. People should drive and ride predictably. That means stopping if there is cross traffic with the right of way. That means not suddenly unexpectedly swerving into the street with much faster cars driving in that lane; like I saw this morning.
the absurd ("speeding is actually safer because a vehicle that isn't keeping up with traffic causes more accidents when people try to pass')
That's just true. If everyone is going 70mph except one person going 55mph, then the 55mph driver is being wildly dangerous by causing people to constantly pass him at 15mph speed difference. Speed differences are dangerous. Driving 60mph in a 60mph zone while everyone else is going 40mph would also be dangerous and I don't recommend it. Speed match the road for safety. Or at least get out of the leftmost lane if you insist on driving slower than everyone else.
TIRM
20d ago
I'm on the West coast. The road I'm talking about is hilly and 2 lanes. It is not safe or practical to pass on it. Instead we get a line of cars following a bicyclist. Not that often really. Not a great burden on me. But that road has a proper bike lane. These people chose to obstruct traffic.
TIRM
25d ago
Adam Friedland is neither charismatic nor funny. He won't be the next generation's John Stewart or Bill Maher or the left's Joe Rogan or whatever he is trying. He can get around a guest per month on his show and he's not a good interviewer. This is going nowhere.
I heard the first few minutes of the Hasan Piker interview. He says he invested his life savings in this failing show. He will have to give up eventually. I suppose when he can't pay his help or make rent. So sad he squandered his Cum Town millions on this. He won't get a second chance since he is so unfunny.
TIRM
26d ago
somehow convincing politicians to make their crimes legal or at least unpunishable
Kinda sorta happening a bit. Some prominent West coast prosecutors selectively decline to prosecute some classes of crimes. Not prosecuting property crimes of course. But also more serious issues of selectively not prosecuting gun crime depending on the demographics of the perpetrator.
TIRM
29d ago
Yes, and their lifestyles are inferior to mine. Yet another indication of their enormous poverty relative to a professional American.
The companies I worked for, from age 16 until now, all had a lot of capital tied up in their facilities. It would make no sense for such company to be created and destroyed easily given the large startup investment justified only by potential long term profit. I've been in companies that weren't profitable for years after their creation. They ultimately became profitable, but it was a long slog to get there. Liquidating their assets would mean some new company getting to start from scratch.
TIRM
21d ago
Intetesting. I would call out the spandex-clad roadies as the worst of the worst. There's some hills with two lane roads by me. They like riding down hill in the street rather than the bike lane even though they are much slower than cars. I get stuck behind a line of cars following spandex man. I wish those guys were ticketed and had to go to traffic court.
Kids are mostly fine. Maybe ride too fast on sidewalks sometimes. Particularly recently with surprisingly fast electric bikes. But they generally don't suicidally shoot into traffic and they've avoided getting too close to me when walking. They slow down and carefully go around me and my family. Spandex man could learn a lot from middle schoolers how to navigate the world as though other people also occupy it.
TIRM
21d ago
some griping about it
My work has an internal chat program. It is like slack. More than a little cheerleading on it for pride recently. Also bitter complaint that major companies are not sufficiently showing their support for pride this year.
I'm used to Rainbow Captalism being a subject of mockery. My coworkers really want it. Or at least a portion do and everyone else remains silent on the issue.
mid-density inner suburbs
Yes, pre-car America had dense walkable 'streetcar suburbs'. Not a modern lower density SFH car-based suburb, but a proper extension of the city. Some small houses mixed in with big apartment buildings. Just hop on the trolley to go to work.
Anyone with financial means fled them like they were radioactive as soon as it was feasible to do so. They transformed into crime-ridden slums with horrible public schools. Exactly the sorts of places I pay to not live in. We were in the New Urbanist Garden of Eden and voluntarily left with great haste.
Google tells me Europe was 5-10% urban circa 1700. And that's really straining the definition of 'urban' to include towns of a few thousand people. I don't think that special Chinese-only DNA makes Singapore function. But they have a certain set of social norms and types of people we don't much have in the US. Their ways aren't and won't be ours. Given the wildly different situations (ethnically Chinese ruled modern city-state vs much more pluralistic continent-spanning world power), I'd even say shouldn't.
It is broadly true, even controlling for age, etc.
I once saw a way of framing this that there is not a men vs women wage gap; there is instead a married men vs everyone else wage gap. That may be overstating it a bit.
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