Recent submissions

Comment · 4 years ago
Also, you don't need to be downwind from the BBQ. It's a point emission of fluid (particulate). It diffuses. The intensity scales with the square of the distance. (Same exact process as the cigarette smoke.)
Comment · 4 years ago
I was referring to a specific situation (a university campus) that already banned smoking from all indoor areas, and all outdoor areas within 100ft from buildings (could have been 200, I don't remember). The question was whether to ban it everywhere. That scene I used of the party was very accurate, you'd have about 1 in 20 people who smoked. You'd not bump into smokers in any other settings, basically. (You'd maybe see a random smoker smoking on their own far away from buildings.) This was early 2010s at a west coast university.
Comment · 4 years ago
I believe true stoners (not one myself, but I like them) would say that "impairment" is just a higher state of consciousness.
Comment · 4 years ago
Exactly, you mention beliefs, while the point was (is?) one of science. By the way, have you ever heard of banning coal BBQs? I'm not sure at all that the exposure is less severe. Say you are at a party, there's a BBQ 20ft away, and some annoying guy lights a cig 10ft away. I'd bet you money that the BBQ harms you more, or at least emits more than 4 times (you need to scale by the square, diffusion of a fluid) PM2.5 than the cigarette.
Comment · 4 years ago
A wise man I knew used to say

"Dilution is the solution to pollution".

In fact, once you think about it, that's also the only solution.

Comment · 4 years ago
Reminds me of a discussion at a students' senate meeting on campus a few years back, when they were discussing banning tobacco smoke everywhere including in the parks away from buildings. People who noted that PM2.5/PM10 emissions from construction sites (ubiquitous at the time), or even BBQs, where much greater than cigarettes, even if all people on campus were chain smoking (we maybe had 5% smokers), were ostracized. The times we live in lol.
Comment · 4 years ago
YM/YPM aged so well!
Comment · 5 years ago
You mean those "allies" who signed a non-aggression pact with them and then proceeded to discharge on them the largest amount of explosive material ever in the history of warfare? (Sadly that record held for only a few months.) Because those guys were well funded by the Western banksters.
Comment · 5 years ago
They don't need to engage in traditional warfare. It's enough to bring their products near their enemy and ask for payment in exchange for them. You know, what merchants do. The enemy is stubborn and insists in "paying" them with fake monopoly money, they are stubborn and don't discharge their merchandise. The people in the enemy country as so accustomed to high-quality cheap products that they want them more than a corrupt government, and would gladly rise against it if, say, their traditional Christmas presents are at risk.
Comment · 5 years ago
I would use firefox focus as my daily driver if it was available for desktop. I use mainly firefox but I'm not comfortable with the many addons I need to install to make it private. I would prefer privacy features baked in.
Comment · 5 years ago
That was just a word play on the 2nd amendment. They couldn't stop the Afghans with GSM-targeted drone-delivered missiles though :)
Comment · 5 years ago
It's sad to hear that the neo-marxist lowering of educational standards is also happening in the military. Our faith rests with the self-regulated militia.
Comment · 5 years ago
One could think of rural hipsters with goats in america. I think characterizing Afghans as poor fighters was part of the propaganda push. "They're so weak, no way we'll lose." Turns out those goat herders have successfully expelled invaders since recorded history.
Comment · 5 years ago
My objective is not to belittle the contribution of individuals in war efforts. Clearly wars are won by soldiers. But technology matters. Cement to make roads. Steel to make ak47s (which are much more valuable, per kilo of raw material, than drones). Coal to power it all. And so on.
Comment · 5 years ago
unless you live on the moon, it should be clear by now that the afghanistan occupation's main objective was to enrich contractors. the mission was accomplished.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton