Douthat picks Trump's policy positions very carefully, though. From the other side, Trump's a man who has said we wasted four trillion dollars in the Middle East [1], that we should spend more on Social Security and Medicare as currently structured, that US taxes ought to be more progressive, pointed out that the rest of the world has had good experiences with single payer health care, and is okay with affirmative action.
I've become more convinced about the "middle American radical" theory of Trump's support. Douthat doesn't dare accept that, since those people aren't supportive of a whole lot that he thinks are important parts of conservatism in America today.
[1] That's bigger than the biggest estimates I recall seeing from other sources, which was three trillion and was a present value that included money we have yet to spend re-outfitting the armed forces and taking care of veterans.
Yeah, but like all engineering problems, designed with applications in mind. Certainly there's an arguable case that while civilian long weapons can be used to kill people, that's not what they were designed to do. They're hard to conceal, they're difficult to carry while doing anything else, they're hard to manipulate effectively inside buildings or in most crowded situations, and while they're accurate at long distances you have to go through a clumsy process of aiming them to make use of that. In many cases where someone makes long term plans to use one in a "standard" interior or urban setting, the first thing they do is saw off most of the barrel and stock.
But it’s myth made of the stuff our our lives today, rather than the stuff of the lives of Greeks living 2500 years ago.
Is it? The trappings are different, sure, but the story remains the same. Per lots of comments below, the physics in Star Wars is so different than what we understand about how the universe works that "magic" is a better description. Jedi and Sith powers are not that much different in scale than those exhibited by the Greek gods when they're on Earth. Or the powers elves and Norse gods had on Earth in the stories that Tolkien based his work on. Greek heroes sailed between ports in days/weeks/perhaps months. In the Norse stories, they sailed between ports in days/weeks/perhaps months. In Star Wars, they "sail" between ports in... days/weeks/perhaps months. The opening lines may say galaxy, but for practical purposes the scope is the Mediterranean or the North Sea.
There seems to be a rather timeless scale for the stories that most people love.
On a separate note, the places that often still have mixed used corner stores are also normally noted a ‘food deserts’
The Kroger chain in Denver has opened a full-blown suburban supermarket (sans most of the parking spaces) on the ground floor of a new Lodo development, with a four-story 314-unit apartment complex sitting on top of it. Studio apartments start at just under $1,500 per month. It will be interesting to see how it does.
G1: Arapaho opposes the CWR for the same reason most of the Mountain West does: it gives the EPA the implicit authority to shut down the agriculture industry in each of them. Colorado, for example, has on the order of 6,000 miles of irrigation ditches that could be regulated under the rule -- they don't meet the conditions for an exception.
Good for you for taking care of yourself. My weight gain came later, and I've never torn up any joints like that, but my knees would be happier if I dropped 30 pounds. Being in my 60s, I think it's harder than ever to make the changes.
My upbringing would be closer to "there's no such thing as demeaning work," I think. Throwing hay bales up on the wagon may be hard, dirty, somewhat dangerous, and not pay for sh*t, but it's not demeaning.
And was mechanized decades ago, because it got to be difficult to find people who would do it for less than the costs of the equipment.
Bicyclists too. I've had cars in electric mode sneak up behind me at traffic lights. It's not a problem when we're moving at any speed because there's enough tire noise for me to hear them.
So here's my example of a hard problem for autonomous cars. It happened to me at least once each session when I was working for the state legislature. Taking a day off during the session isn't really an option, no matter what the weather forecast...
About noon it starts to snow. Hard. By the time I could leave at 4:30 or so, there's eight inches already on everything. Still snowing heavily, so visibility is a couple hundred yards tops. All the main roads are slick as hell because the snow's been packed down before the plows could get out. No lane or other road markings visible. Interstates are parking lots. Lesser-traveled streets are passable, if you know how to start and stop in that much snow. Successful navigation means knowing not just where the roads go in an x-y space, but also knowing where the steeper bits are. I got home in an hour (my neighbor spent four from roughly the same starting point), but that was possible only because I spent years and years learning how to drive in the snow.
I was thinking more along the lines of the simple "herd behavior" rules that get used in animation these days. IIRC, there are two parameters in that model and by adjusting them you get all of running herd of herbivores, swimming school of fish, and flying flock of birds. Given distance sensors, it ought to be straightforward (I avoid "simple") to have rules that, if followed by each vehicle individually, give rise to cooperative behavior.
My father was a field auditor and safety engineer for most of twenty years, putting on >50K miles per year, and never had an accident. At the first opportunity after I got my license, he made me chauffeur him around for a week to, as he said, "put some polish on." One of the points he pounded at me all that week was that driving in traffic, particularly heavy traffic, is a herd endeavor, not a solitary one. Good self-driving software is going to have to be able to handle that, until we get to the day when most of the cars are autonomous.
@jaybird
Dude, that's what you always say. I think you underestimate all of the difficulties of making a product, the size of the market, and willingness to pay. There are big players (ArcGIS, MapInfo) with polished tools and substantial development staffs. There are professional cartographers. There are graphic design folks who will take the output of any of those and make it really slick with Illustrator. What I have here is the beginnings of a set of tools that let people who can't afford all of that do "simple" things. I know what I would say to someone who showed up asking for an investment whose business plan was "We're going to sell something of interest to a limited number of people who can't afford to buy the bright, shiny products."
The obvious question from a non-lawyer would seem to be, "Does it matter that 'The Slants' is a name chosen by a group of Asian-Americans for themselves, while 'the Redskins' was chosen by a group of white men for a group of (now, at least) predominantly black players?"
It's not about the end (mastery), it's about the process :^) My cartogram software will never be "finished" -- there will always be another feature that could be added, or something that could be done better, or...
And E. R. Burroughs a bit later. My grandmother had a walk-in closet in her house that was filled with paperback books, sans front covers. As a kid I read all of the Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Tarzan series. Amazingly, they are all still in print today.
I don't know about Chris's reasons, but my biggest problem in theaters is that I've reached that unfortunate point in life when the sound level needed to understand has gone up, and the sound level that causes discomfort has come down. The lower bound gets challenged by the background noise that seems to have become more common. Sound limiters for the high end are uncomfortable when worn that long. The wife and I will no doubt watch the Blu-Ray or DVD when it comes out, but with the audio run through some form of dynamic range limiter.
This is the first Hamilton I've read. I would definitely put it in the airport novel category. Once upon a time I realized I was probably an expert on airport novels -- I found that I had a shelf in one of the bookcases with a double row of the darned paperbacks, all purchased in airport book shops around the US.
I enjoy reading the thoughts of people who encountered Star Wars as a kid. When the original came out, I was already a grad student. It was still cool, but I was already mostly a grown-up.
Anyway, I finished Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and have started the sequel. It's not that it's that good, but the story moves along nicely, and when something has this many moving parts I'm curious to see if the writer can actually tie things up reasonably.
One of the marginal arguments is that, contrary to popular belief, crude oil isn't fungible. There's heavy and light, sour and sweet, varying levels of heavy metal content. Refineries are to some degree specialized in what kind of crude they handle best. For example, Valero opted to emphasize handling heavy, sour crudes at its refineries. At one point when light crude supplies were declining sharply, that appeared to be a brilliant move -- until the glut of US shale oil, which is almost all light. There are some (probably minor) efficiencies from being able to match crudes to refinery capabilities more closely. Eg, with US light crude on the global market, Asian refineries that do best with light crude would buy more of that and less heavy crudes, lowering the price of Valero's inputs.
One of the big things more water gets you is durability. If you want turf thick enough to stand up to kids and pets (large dogs in particular), you've got to feed and water it. There are some varieties that will stay green(ish) with little water, but they're fragile. Ditto for grass that you let go dormant -- it's not growing when it's brown, and the damage accumulates.
Yes. I remember those ancient days, when places where you could get donuts at 7:15 on the way to work, or at 11:30 at night if the mood struck, were few and far between. Lots of bakeries that had better donuts, but they were only open for regular business hours. Can't speak to their coffee then -- coffee has always done nasty things to my insides, so I avoid it.
And amazing how often the miners proper are complaining bitterly about the people who have settled on the big asteroids and now monopolize the trade in hydrogen for the fusion reactors, markets for the mined ore, repair facilities that can replace some piece of exotic hardware that can't be jury-rigged, etc. Prospectors have always been hugely dependent on cities... as any casual study of the history of the American West would demonstrate.
So, then, are you just whining, or do you have a plan? Everyone's entitled to whine -- I certainly do my fair share of that. And I'm always interested in hearing about practical plans.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Cracks in the Liberal Order”
Douthat picks Trump's policy positions very carefully, though. From the other side, Trump's a man who has said we wasted four trillion dollars in the Middle East [1], that we should spend more on Social Security and Medicare as currently structured, that US taxes ought to be more progressive, pointed out that the rest of the world has had good experiences with single payer health care, and is okay with affirmative action.
I've become more convinced about the "middle American radical" theory of Trump's support. Douthat doesn't dare accept that, since those people aren't supportive of a whole lot that he thinks are important parts of conservatism in America today.
[1] That's bigger than the biggest estimates I recall seeing from other sources, which was three trillion and was a present value that included money we have yet to spend re-outfitting the armed forces and taking care of veterans.
On “Linky Friday #146: Crime & Daeshment”
Yeah, but like all engineering problems, designed with applications in mind. Certainly there's an arguable case that while civilian long weapons can be used to kill people, that's not what they were designed to do. They're hard to conceal, they're difficult to carry while doing anything else, they're hard to manipulate effectively inside buildings or in most crowded situations, and while they're accurate at long distances you have to go through a clumsy process of aiming them to make use of that. In many cases where someone makes long term plans to use one in a "standard" interior or urban setting, the first thing they do is saw off most of the barrel and stock.
Handguns, not so much.
On “The Montauk Catamaran Company Chronicles, 12/2015: More Help Wanted”
Aside from all the reasons that I've sworn off living anywhere near Long Island, it's a real temptation.
On “Star Wars VII and the Ultra-Real”
But it’s myth made of the stuff our our lives today, rather than the stuff of the lives of Greeks living 2500 years ago.
Is it? The trappings are different, sure, but the story remains the same. Per lots of comments below, the physics in Star Wars is so different than what we understand about how the universe works that "magic" is a better description. Jedi and Sith powers are not that much different in scale than those exhibited by the Greek gods when they're on Earth. Or the powers elves and Norse gods had on Earth in the stories that Tolkien based his work on. Greek heroes sailed between ports in days/weeks/perhaps months. In the Norse stories, they sailed between ports in days/weeks/perhaps months. In Star Wars, they "sail" between ports in... days/weeks/perhaps months. The opening lines may say galaxy, but for practical purposes the scope is the Mediterranean or the North Sea.
There seems to be a rather timeless scale for the stories that most people love.
On “Linky Friday #146: Crime & Daeshment”
On a separate note, the places that often still have mixed used corner stores are also normally noted a ‘food deserts’
The Kroger chain in Denver has opened a full-blown suburban supermarket (sans most of the parking spaces) on the ground floor of a new Lodo development, with a four-story 314-unit apartment complex sitting on top of it. Studio apartments start at just under $1,500 per month. It will be interesting to see how it does.
"
G1: Arapaho opposes the CWR for the same reason most of the Mountain West does: it gives the EPA the implicit authority to shut down the agriculture industry in each of them. Colorado, for example, has on the order of 6,000 miles of irrigation ditches that could be regulated under the rule -- they don't meet the conditions for an exception.
On “Swimming like Frankenstein’s Monster”
This is a wonderful bit of writing, Tod.
Good for you for taking care of yourself. My weight gain came later, and I've never torn up any joints like that, but my knees would be happier if I dropped 30 pounds. Being in my 60s, I think it's harder than ever to make the changes.
On “Weirdos at Work”
My upbringing would be closer to "there's no such thing as demeaning work," I think. Throwing hay bales up on the wagon may be hard, dirty, somewhat dangerous, and not pay for sh*t, but it's not demeaning.
And was mechanized decades ago, because it got to be difficult to find people who would do it for less than the costs of the equipment.
On “Who Will Win the Driverless Car War?”
Bicyclists too. I've had cars in electric mode sneak up behind me at traffic lights. It's not a problem when we're moving at any speed because there's enough tire noise for me to hear them.
"
So here's my example of a hard problem for autonomous cars. It happened to me at least once each session when I was working for the state legislature. Taking a day off during the session isn't really an option, no matter what the weather forecast...
About noon it starts to snow. Hard. By the time I could leave at 4:30 or so, there's eight inches already on everything. Still snowing heavily, so visibility is a couple hundred yards tops. All the main roads are slick as hell because the snow's been packed down before the plows could get out. No lane or other road markings visible. Interstates are parking lots. Lesser-traveled streets are passable, if you know how to start and stop in that much snow. Successful navigation means knowing not just where the roads go in an x-y space, but also knowing where the steeper bits are. I got home in an hour (my neighbor spent four from roughly the same starting point), but that was possible only because I spent years and years learning how to drive in the snow.
"
I was thinking more along the lines of the simple "herd behavior" rules that get used in animation these days. IIRC, there are two parameters in that model and by adjusting them you get all of running herd of herbivores, swimming school of fish, and flying flock of birds. Given distance sensors, it ought to be straightforward (I avoid "simple") to have rules that, if followed by each vehicle individually, give rise to cooperative behavior.
"
My father was a field auditor and safety engineer for most of twenty years, putting on >50K miles per year, and never had an accident. At the first opportunity after I got my license, he made me chauffeur him around for a week to, as he said, "put some polish on." One of the points he pounded at me all that week was that driving in traffic, particularly heavy traffic, is a herd endeavor, not a solitary one. Good self-driving software is going to have to be able to handle that, until we get to the day when most of the cars are autonomous.
On “So You Want To Draw a Cartogram”
...because that schtuff is monetizable.
@jaybird
Dude, that's what you always say. I think you underestimate all of the difficulties of making a product, the size of the market, and willingness to pay. There are big players (ArcGIS, MapInfo) with polished tools and substantial development staffs. There are professional cartographers. There are graphic design folks who will take the output of any of those and make it really slick with Illustrator. What I have here is the beginnings of a set of tools that let people who can't afford all of that do "simple" things. I know what I would say to someone who showed up asking for an investment whose business plan was "We're going to sell something of interest to a limited number of people who can't afford to buy the bright, shiny products."
On “A Belated Hanukkah Gift For A Wealthy Man”
The obvious question from a non-lawyer would seem to be, "Does it matter that 'The Slants' is a name chosen by a group of Asian-Americans for themselves, while 'the Redskins' was chosen by a group of white men for a group of (now, at least) predominantly black players?"
On “So You Want To Draw a Cartogram”
It's not about the end (mastery), it's about the process :^) My cartogram software will never be "finished" -- there will always be another feature that could be added, or something that could be done better, or...
"
You don't think hunting counts?
On “Fandom Über Alles”
And E. R. Burroughs a bit later. My grandmother had a walk-in closet in her house that was filled with paperback books, sans front covers. As a kid I read all of the Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Tarzan series. Amazingly, they are all still in print today.
On “I hate to say it, but…”
I don't know about Chris's reasons, but my biggest problem in theaters is that I've reached that unfortunate point in life when the sound level needed to understand has gone up, and the sound level that causes discomfort has come down. The lower bound gets challenged by the background noise that seems to have become more common. Sound limiters for the high end are uncomfortable when worn that long. The wife and I will no doubt watch the Blu-Ray or DVD when it comes out, but with the audio run through some form of dynamic range limiter.
On “Sunday!; or, Maribou’s Star Wars Review; or, A Love Letter from Me in 2015 to Me in 1984”
This is the first Hamilton I've read. I would definitely put it in the airport novel category. Once upon a time I realized I was probably an expert on airport novels -- I found that I had a shelf in one of the bookcases with a double row of the darned paperbacks, all purchased in airport book shops around the US.
"
I enjoy reading the thoughts of people who encountered Star Wars as a kid. When the original came out, I was already a grad student. It was still cool, but I was already mostly a grown-up.
Anyway, I finished Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and have started the sequel. It's not that it's that good, but the story moves along nicely, and when something has this many moving parts I'm curious to see if the writer can actually tie things up reasonably.
On “Linky Friday #145: Politics In Everything”
One of the marginal arguments is that, contrary to popular belief, crude oil isn't fungible. There's heavy and light, sour and sweet, varying levels of heavy metal content. Refineries are to some degree specialized in what kind of crude they handle best. For example, Valero opted to emphasize handling heavy, sour crudes at its refineries. At one point when light crude supplies were declining sharply, that appeared to be a brilliant move -- until the glut of US shale oil, which is almost all light. There are some (probably minor) efficiencies from being able to match crudes to refinery capabilities more closely. Eg, with US light crude on the global market, Asian refineries that do best with light crude would buy more of that and less heavy crudes, lowering the price of Valero's inputs.
"
One of the big things more water gets you is durability. If you want turf thick enough to stand up to kids and pets (large dogs in particular), you've got to feed and water it. There are some varieties that will stay green(ish) with little water, but they're fragile. Ditto for grass that you let go dormant -- it's not growing when it's brown, and the damage accumulates.
On “Talk to me like I’m stupid”
Yes. I remember those ancient days, when places where you could get donuts at 7:15 on the way to work, or at 11:30 at night if the mood struck, were few and far between. Lots of bakeries that had better donuts, but they were only open for regular business hours. Can't speak to their coffee then -- coffee has always done nasty things to my insides, so I avoid it.
On “Market Failure 5: Imperfect Information (When life hands you lemons, call your mechanic)”
And amazing how often the miners proper are complaining bitterly about the people who have settled on the big asteroids and now monopolize the trade in hydrogen for the fusion reactors, markets for the mined ore, repair facilities that can replace some piece of exotic hardware that can't be jury-rigged, etc. Prospectors have always been hugely dependent on cities... as any casual study of the history of the American West would demonstrate.
"
So, then, are you just whining, or do you have a plan? Everyone's entitled to whine -- I certainly do my fair share of that. And I'm always interested in hearing about practical plans.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.