Combining the two: centrists have bad vibes because they always have an authenticity problem. They position themselves against change, but then happily go where the Overton window takes them (see Biden’s outgoing border bill). They are for nothing except what they think is popular at the moment, which is usually out of date information, and that comes across as fake and focused on accumulating power rather than solving problems. You don’t need to be a policy wonk to see that centrists will say anything to get your vote and do nothing to solve your problems

Know. I don’t think or believe how tariffs work, I know how tariffs work. I know he doesn’t care about that either though

Tire and brake particulate is a real air quality impact that is either worse with EVs (for tire particulate because they are heavier) or mitigated, but still present for EVs (for brake particulate because regenerative braking reduces but does not eliminate the use of physical brake pads). For ICE cars (which are still the dominant form of car when looking at what’s on the road today), efficiency might go up in terms of fuel consumed per mile at a steady speed of 90 kph, but urban driving involves a lot of stopping and going, and reducing the speed limit reduces the amount and intensity of acceleration being done, which is where emissions are going to be worst. Also, the existence of 30 kph zones encourages alternatives to driving, whether that is low-no emission modes like walking, biking, or transit, or moving car trips away from the 30 kph zones to other areas (there’s a potential negative externality to the latter, but if done well, this can move car airborne emissions away from where a lot of people live and play and towards corridors and areas that are designed with uses that are more tolerant to poor outdoor air quality (e.g.: industrial parks, generally lower density areas, etc.)). That’s not to mention road vehicle noise pollution (sometimes considered part of air pollution, but most times not) and safety benefits that come alongside the air quality benefits discussed in this article from having fewer and slower cars

Catenaries can stretch up pretty high. This is a bit of gadgetbahn trickery, using batteries shifts cost from up-front capital improvement projects to operating and maintenance cost (managing vehicle charge levels and replacing batteries) and it eliminates one avenue for opponents of new transit to criticize (unsightly wires ruining the anesthetic of our beautiful car-choked city). It is a technically worse solution, but it’s a relatively mild departure from trains/trams as far as gadgetbahns go, and if they can leverage the novelty and the political benefits to build more transit to serve more people than they otherwise would have, good for them. Time will tell if this approach pays off, the world is littered with failed gadgetbahns, but also sprinkled with a few success stories

Is this not just “the free market of ideas”? Which has the same pitfalls as the free market of money where if consumers are not educated and motivated to prune out bad actors, the market is easily subverted by malicious actors? Relying on people to regulate their information diets is betting on individuals with limited resources and motivation to defend themselves and the collective against concerted, well-resourced, and well-organized efforts to abuse the market of ideas because there is immense money and power to gain from doing so

Pretty sure this kind of game mechanic (expose yourself to an enemy attack for a skill check that regains health) can be traced back at least to the Dodgeball DLC for Outside™. Game mechanics are like TV tropes, they echo what came before them, almost without exception

I read a bit further. Definitely got the vibe that AI had a hand in editing the prose as well, it felt like half a story and half a pros/cons list. There’s some technical content in there that is salvageable, but as a piece of writing, it holds up to that stamp of quality, IMO

The Harris campaign literally did this, I want to say in a sideswipe during the debate. And Trump said nuh-uh, it’s not a tax, and the campaign more or less shut up about it, wasn’t a core feature of their advertising, stump speech, or debate strategy going forward, they opted for “save our institutions” and “he’s going to raise the ever nebulous cost of living” (which got lost in the Biden is responsible for bird flu egg prices noise from the other side). Can you imagine betting it all on courting Republican voters, and being so easily talked off of the “he’s going to tax you more” hill? I know hindsight is 20/20, but that’s some frustrating shit to think about

You have it all right except that Covid 19 happened in 2020 (at least outside of China and maybe a few early cruise ship cases?), not 2019

Reflective signs are specifically efficient at reflecting light back at their source and nowhere else (retroreflectivity). Obviously it’s not perfect, but the fact that that cone is so narrow is part of why it looks so bright (not dissimilar from the cutoff of the LED lights you are describing). Meaning that light reflected off the roadway before reaching the sign will generally be reflected back at the roadway. With how large some vehicle grills are being built nowadays, it may be possible for a low mounted headlight to be far enough away from the driver that retroreflective signs are no longer as effectively illuminated for the driver. Truckers probably already deal with this, I haven’t driven in one, but I suspect road signs are not as well illuminated for the driver as in other vehicles. We don’t rely solely on retroreflectivity to make our signs visible, so it’s not all or nothing, but it may be worth keeping some nominal illumination (could be like moderate flashlight levels of brightness) at driver level so we can continue to take advantage of retroreflective technology

Accelerationism is ultimately burning the vulnerable at the stake to try and send a smoke signal, so I think it’s hard to say that this is a positive development. We can hope that there is a silver lining here where corporate social media self selects itself out of the general populations’ lives, but I think we probably have to be realistic about the low probability of success here and the human cost that is incurred in the meantime

No, I’m not eating $2000 worth of fast food, I’m investing. People will pay 10x that for recently deceased human organs, and I’m using my money to unlock that earning potential

To be fair, the same can be said of the book it is based on

Pre-edit: Rereading, I definitely misread your comment because I saw 37 years ago and my perpetual 2000 brain decided you must be talking about the first year of shinkansen operations, 1964. You’re almost certainly correct in your initial assertion that 1986 Shinkansen well outperforms anything on the NEC

Nozomi did not exist in 1964 and the Hikari timetable of 1964 was more or less the same as today’s Nozomi (4 stops to Nozomi’s 5) across the Tokaido Shinkansen, which is all that existed at the time. At 33 miles per stop, the Acela is in the ballpark of the original Kodoma timetable (27 miles per stop with 12 stops), or today’s Hikari timetable (36 miles per stop, which definitely outperforms Acela at an average speed of 128 mph). Definitely not disputing your points on the intangibles or the fact that Acela is not up to snuff when compared to the state of the art, but it does compare favorably to Shinkansen as it opened, which is just to say that we don’t even have to start from scratch to realize the benefits that Japan and so many other countries have reaped from their HSR systems, we just have to actually invest in improving and expanding what we have at a competitive level. I think overall we agree, so I’m probably just being pedantic

Shinkansen was doing a top speed of 130 mph. At that time, the Hikari express service was making an average speed of 80 mph. Acela has a top speed of 150 mph and an average speed of 67 mph, comparable to the initial average speed of the Shinkansen Kodama (64 mph). It’s definitely not great by today’s standards, but Acela is essentially equivalent to the initial operating standards of Shinkansen (by average speed. Ride quality, reliability, etc. probably don’t compare as favorably thanks to the aging infrastructure of the NEC). People making unfair comparisons against American train service are well intentioned in pointing out that we need to do better and to modernize, but can make train travel appear less viable than it actually is in today’s conditions by doing so

Not by distance. But imagine doing it on a 0.5 meter strip of poorly maintained concrete slabs, with the occasional light post sticking up and forcing you into an even narrower space or onto the uncut grass. Now imagine that strip is surrounded by nothing interesting to look at, and just a couple meters away, there is a constant stream of large trucks going 100-120 km/h beside you. And every time you hit an intersection, you’re going to have to prepare to cross 6-8 lanes of that stream as drivers who don’t expect you to be there have their eyes glued to the green light they have as they turn into the crosswalk that the signal is telling you is safe to cross. Now you arrive at the parking lot and the last 200m don’t even have a sidewalk, you are just walking in the road through the parking lot as you pass empty spot after empty spot because an engineer in the 60s pulled the wrong number out of his ass when guessing how many spots grocery stores should be legally reguired to build. Oh, and the grocery store is structured for people who are buying in bulk, not for someone who just wants to grab a couple days of food that they can carry while they are walking. Yeah, it’s no less physically possible than the 800m stroll you were envisioning, but it becomes pretty clear pretty quick that nobody in charge wants you to do what you are doing in that environment.

I’m not a lawyer, but it strikes me that this could be exactly what is happening. The ambulance company’s insurance wouldn’t pay the hospital directly, they aren’t health insurance. So instead, the cyclist’s health insurance footed the initial bill. Then they went after the cyclist for his deductible/copay/whatnot. Now he has to get the money from the ambulance company. If this was vehicle on vehicle violence, he would have gone to his auto insurance, who would have in turn went after the ambulance company’s insurance, but he might not have auto insurance or auto insurance might not be willing to get involved because he wasn’t driving. So he has to go direct to the company. Wouldn’t be shocking if the company pushed off any non-legal petitions from him because he doesn’t have the name weight of an insurance company with lawyers on retainer, so now he is seeking a legal remedy. Insurance doesn’t just work always, there is often a degree of negotiating and litigation involved in these exchanges, especially if one party disagrees with another on matters of liability

This passive language bullshit is so obvious sometimes. “Oh, I wonder what the cyclist did to get run over? And that poor SUV driver getting charged for murder because of this event, Paris is really going off the deep end finding ways to attack innocent drivers.” And yet, per the article, the SUV driver ran down the cyclist in a fit of road rage. That sounds an awful lot like an active choice by the driver, not some passive circumstance that the headline implies. If this person got angry and attacked someone with a knife, and the victim died, the headline wouldn’t be “Knife owner charged with murder after person stabbed”. But use the “right” weapon and all of a sudden we put the kiddie gloves on

short distances in solar radii

I think astrophycisists and I may have a difference of opinion on the meaning of the adjective short

For me, I think it’s the fact that I have to prepare for both a social interaction and a monologue depending on whether they answer or not. As someone with mild social anxiety, the uncertainty and the fact that I am unequivocally initiating the interaction messes with a lot of the ways I would cope with joining a normal social interaction and throws me off my game