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With respect, 2/3 of the carbon dioxide out there is purely natural such that “icky” isn’t an appropriate foundation for the relevant public policy

With respect, they said pollution is the icky part. I’m not aware of any major industries that are responsible for an appreciable amount of CO2 emissions and no other pollutants/icky stuff, but I’d love to be proven wrong about that.

“Free coffee”?

Look, if you’re going to allege corruption and votes for sale here, I think it’s a little more potent when you suggest he’s gotten better compensation than some “free coffee”


An exception? Like how the CFPB was created independently such that it didn’t answer to the president?

(Actual exceptions like this would violate separation-of-powers principles and typically get struck down.)


Some particularly weird parts of that have come when the protection of the union actively conflicts with other employer mandates, like hostile working environments — e.g. from 2015-2017 the NLRB went after Cooper Tire for firing an employee who had used racist slurs on the picket line

Maybe you could train it explicitly on modus ponens et alia.


There’s a lot to say about the structure of health care, but the classic “Now” lecture isn’t it. Most people make key decisions about provisioning and paying for their health insurance months before they actually need it, and likewise establish relationships with a primary care physician or dentist at a quite ordinary level of urgency.

The vaccines are also a particular bad example. (The typical Now-lecture example is of emergency room care).


The Romans also used the March-based year; that’s why February has fewer days and why October is literally the eighth month


September-October-November-December: 7-8-9-10

And July used to be Quintilis (5) and August was Sextilis (6), but then Julius Cesar and Emperor Augustus came.. and got their own month names.


Not just a year starting in March, a year with 10 months -- and 304 days.

It was quite frosty that June and people were hoping for a warm summer come December.


Decibels are logarithmic; a 1 dB reduction in sound is ~26%.


But that is NOT the same as human perceived volume.

Less 37% energy is not 37% less volume to humans.

You won’t be able to tell the difference in volume except for the tone which could be more or less pleasing depending on the frequency they say they got 12db on.


I learned something new today (I didn't know decibels were logarithmic), but I still don't understand how it relates to "human perceived volume" as you put it. If a typical electric leaf blower makes 70 decibels of sound, it seems odd that cutting that to 67 decibels makes it sound 37% less loud. Perhaps it does, but I think I'll have to hear it to believe it. I may have to buy a sound meter and run some experiments.


A reduction of 3dB at any point in space is equivalent to halving the energy at that point.

But we humans don't perceive sound energy linearly, so half of the energy is not equivalent to half of the perceived loudness.

The usual rule of thumb is that it takes a reduction of 10dB (1/10th energy) for a thing to sound about half as loud, or an increase of 10dB (10x energy) for a thing to sound about twice as loud.

(This leads to all kinds of interesting problems with making things quieter or louder. It seems superficially implicit that moving from a 100-Watt amplifier to a 1,000-Watt amplifier would be strikingly-dramatic difference, but in an ideal world where everything else is the same then that change only makes things about twice as loud -- the same as moving from a 1-Watt amplifier to a 10-Watt amplifier.)


The sound has 37% less power, but human perception of sound intensity is roughly logarithmic. Looking at the difference in dB will give you a better estimate of the perceived change than the difference in actual sound power.


A key benefit is that it might be able to perform follow up screenings that make sense for that type of cancer, rather than expecting absolutely everyone to take all the tests ever at the same rate, at significant inconvenience and expense.


Do me a favor. Go back and rewatch Dumbo (1941) and prepare a few thoughts regarding its treatment of hot-button issues like miscegenation (hint: what kind of elephant has big ears?). Then, comment again on Disney’s recent discovery of “politics.”


That is an absurd level of reading things into a work. Unless you have actual primary sources which say that's what they intended, I'm calling bullshit.


Look, the other elephants start out the stork delivery scene declaring they’re part of “a proud race” and end it gossiping about “what would Mr. Jumbo think?!?” and “Jumbo? More like dumbo…”

We also see what happens to certain black men in the world, during “Song of the Roustabouts” (“when other folks have gone to bed / we slave until we’re almost dead,” “boss man hounding / keep on pounding / ‘grab that rope you hairy ape’”)

Afterwards we see the cruel and arbitrary nature of those who mock the poor kid, contrasted to the universal experience of family (“Baby mine don’t you cry”). Eventually the kid ends up with a bunch of (black) crows, including one Mr. “Jim Crow,” who make fun of him, before his buddy from Brooklyn calls them out on how people make fun of them for being different too, and they feel real bad; after finding friendship there, he earns social acceptance for his athletic feats (flight) and later through participation in the armed forces (“Dum-bombers for victory!!” read the newspapers.)

You sayin’ that this isn’t about race at all, and the whole storyline is just a coinkydink? Ha! Tell me another one. Disney’s been at this stuff for longer than your parents have been alive.


For a good introduction to the problematic social and political content of many Disney films - Dumbo definitely included - I highly recommend Lindsay Ellis' video "Woke Disney" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1ffHa47YY


Speaking of that, there ought to be a streaming service that uses bittorrent and has only old, public domain movies on it. Like popcorntime, but with only legal stuff on it. Internet archive just isn't the same.


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