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local_issueson The Canopener Bridge

Fun fact! The namesake of Storrow Drive was "an investment banker who led a campaign to create the Charles River Basin and preserve and improve the riverbanks as a public park. He had never advocated a parkway beside the river, and Helen Storrow, his widow, publicly opposed it"

It's one of the urban highways that can absolutely go, and should.

local_issueson Horrifying numbers of Americans will not make it to old age

Nice own bud

local_issueson Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

The market isn't free because Vanguard and BlackRock are a duopoly on this. Vanguard isn't the issue though - they do literally nothing besides harvest tiny tiny fees at scale.

BlackRock is a different story - look into their actions around SFH. They're not great.

local_issueson Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals

My favorite Vanguard fact is their HQ. It's a shitty set of lowrise buildings in suburban Philly - not some massive highrise in Manhattan or JC. Their whole thing is automation and saving money.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Vanguard/@40.0513614,-75.5...

BlackRock? Different story, but Vanguard? Comeon.

local_issueson Horrifying numbers of Americans will not make it to old age

As the resident HN conservative, I wish the GOP would embrace bikes as a symbol of freedom. Cars are NOT tools of freedom - you are at the whim of gigacorporations and authoritarian governments like Iran.

With a bike, you move through the world, on extremely low cost infrastructure, while becoming a Fit Western Man and through Self Reliance. You don't need subsidies, you just need a bit of Strength and Forethought and all those other conservative goals.

local_issueson US universities need to stop elitist discrimination that Europe abandoned

It's true when you want to do something with your shiny new degree, which is part of why so many Russians emigrate, and why the ruling class holds on

local_issueson US universities need to stop elitist discrimination that Europe abandoned

Correct + part of the reason Russia is so fucked up is extreme elitism and a massive gap between the provinces and the 2 gigacities. It's like if NYC and London were dropped in the middle of Kazakhstan, and both groups were raised to hate each other.

local_issueson Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

The people I fear the most are people who are 100% sure they're doing the right thing. This comment section is full of that - "no, this is a good policy and it's just the implementation that's wrong."

Sure, maybe? But maybe it's just a bad policy? Maybe we could adjust the implementation? Maybe we can look at other places were things are better?

Maybe a bit of shame could be helpful, too. SF and Portland have turned into a national punch line. That's shameful.

local_issueson Elon Musk’s X sues anti-hate researchers

"Anti-hate researchers" - strong scare quotes required here. This is just a political org masquerading as a research group.

local_issueson LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

Materials going from concept -> public testing in less than 200 years is fucking shocking in the scale of human history.

When did the Chinese invent gunpowder? What about the discovery of uranium? The rate of attention span decrease is much greater than the still shocking increase in rate of discoveries.

local_issueson LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

>discovery seems disorganized and amateurish though, and with the multiple papers all submitted at the same time by competing factions, riff with infighting - but they stuck with a hunch for longer than anyone else and followed it doggedly.

Pretty good description of all of human history so far, to be fair

local_issueson Where did our belief in abundance come from?

Capitalism doesn't require anything besides a court system capable of enforcing contracts.

local_issueson Where did our belief in abundance come from?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/hy9gqo/europe_i...

The colonies were a burden. They were useful for military and political reasons, but not for economic reasons. The reason Europe is so wealthy is Capitalism and early industrialization. The reason the colonies are so poor is colonialism.

It was a shitty deal for everyone involved

local_issueson Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

Fusion.

local_issueson Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

Ding ding ding! We still don't know how bikes work, we have a pretty good but incomplete model for lift on airplanes, and no one has the faintest why Tylenol works.

We should figure that out! But we can definitely keep using all the applications until then. (Except for Tylenol, we keep learning how bad that stuff is)

EDIT: It won't let me post more, so here's the answers to responses.

For sure!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/science-of-cycling-still-mys...

http://www3.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh1/gyrobike.htm

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730370-400-how-does...

It's a fun little fact. We know a ton about BUILDING bikes, which is a more useful tool anyway

local_issueson Florida ocean temps surge to 100F; mass coral bleaching event is found in reefs

I'm a part of a group trying to reduce driving on 1 small section of a neighborhood street in favor of wider sidewalks and maybe bike parking, in a very liberal area.

You would think we're proposing a second Holocaust from the reaction. Insane. Accusations that we're trying to round everyone up so we can send them to Trump's camps, to wipe out everyone over 50, etc.

We're fucked. I don't pay attention to this stuff anymore, I've done what I can.

local_issueson Alphabet Announces Second Quarter 2023 Results [pdf]

No, because they're balanced over time. It's when you don't make the charges that this becomes stock manipulation.

Not writing down investments is how Enron committed it's mark-to-market fraud.

local_issueson Chicago’s Railroad Problem

Free market capitalism only works when you have free markets. Look at the cost of airline tickets post ICC. We could see something similar with freight, and will see major Amtrak gains - ideally even Brightline gains.

local_issueson Education Dept. opens inquiry into Harvard legacy admissions

Meritocracy is good. My family has Harvard legacy and I support this

local_issueson The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

There's a surprising number of them around. I think the bottleneck for quick repro will be mat sci people, not equipment.

local_issueson Chicago’s Railroad Problem

Ding ding ding. Treat them like highways, they basically are anyway. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

local_issueson Chicago’s Railroad Problem

Resident conservative here - we need to nationalize the rails. Not the railroads, but the rails themselves.

The freight companies take federal money to expand the network, and the second they don't meet profit projections they tear the tracks up. They treat Amtrak like shit despite taking their money hand over fist, they have been terrible stewards of the system, and they would rather engage in the fuckery from this article than think holistically. It's a misalignment of incentives, and it's really starting to fuck us.

Nationalize the rails. It's what other sane Western countries do. The Erie and Lackawanna sold off the rails in the Lackawanna cutoff - considered at the time an engineering marvel, and capable of HSR - for scrap. That's insane, and should never have happened.

local_issueson Why did it take psychedelics so long to become popular?

Same - and this isn't discussed enough in Tech circles. I know a girl who's done acid 100 times, and she's pretty "off." Kind of like a record left in the sun for a bit. She's not dumb or anything, just a little sideways. Not in a good way either - in a "can't hold a job or relationship together" way.

local_issueson American universities have an incentive to seem extortionate

Have him claim he's homeless. At least when I was in college they didn't and couldn't really check, and allows him to claim $0 parental income.

Do not go into debt for college if at all humanly possible. Fuck the system, it's designed to fuck you.

local_issueson Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

That many want to do this again is absolutely insane to me.

I see so much support for Mao BECAUSE of his murder of landlords and business owners, not DESPITE of his atrocities

local_issueson Ask HN: My country is undergoing a coup, which encryption software should I use?

No, OP just disagrees with the vote on the judiciary.

A coup is nothing like this.

local_issueson Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

No no no no no.

Design your product to be understandable at first pass. Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone, while Sony forces you to do it on every new device.

Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability. This isn't a crutch, it's something worse and damaging.