I see all these people in the comments talking about how they have no idea how much their services are going to cost and my only thought is "how is this legal? how has the US FTC not stepped in, or EU regulators?"
It should be noted that the author thinks ESP is a Thing, and it's worthy of study / research. They're essentially concern-trolling / no-true-scotsman-ing skeptics - that they're not the right kind of skeptics or occasionally skeptics also did misleading things, and bullied those poor poor ESP researchers and hurt the field of ESP research and that's why we don't hwave any proof ESP is a thing. That a skeptic didn't perfectly skeptic-ize a ESP researcher (or two, or three) doesn't mean ESP research has the slightest legitimacy or value because regardless of a skeptic's methods, the burden of evidence on something as extraordinary as ESP is purely on the researcher claiming ESP exists.
Of James Randi, he complains in another article (which for some reason BoingBoing published...) on his site: "[Randi made] it more difficult for serious university-based and academically trained researchers to study ESP and mental anomalies, and to receive a fair hearing in the news media."
Uh....Yes? That was the point? Randi dedicated his time and energy to debunking shysters. At best they were seeking fame while popularizing paranormal crap and hurting scientific literacy...and at worst taking advantage of people finanically to varying degrees.
TV used to be awash in idiots claiming to be psychic or able to do absurd things like magnetize their bodies with their mind. I remember Randi was on such a show with such a "magnetic" person, watched them stick something metal to their body...then he whips out a container of baby powder, applies it to the guy who claimed to be able to magnetize himself...and wouldn't you know, the "magnetism" disappeared....because the reason something metal stuck to him was because his sweaty skin had enough stiction (and probably using some rosin to 'help') and use a part of their body angled a bit from vertical. And Randi then demonstrates this, showing he can "magnetize" himself, too.
Randi was a magician, saw people abusing lazy/shitty magic to rip people off, and didn't like that. And the world is a better place for it. That he had an ego, or that his methods weren't perfect, or he was too aggressive for the author's taste - is all completely irrelevant.
What's next, complaining that some doctor is an asshole for appearing on TV to refute people claiming ivermectin cures covid, thus making it impossible for people to seriously study ivermectin's covid benefits? Or that they were too aggressive in responding to the shyster?
>Randi dedicated his time and energy to debunking shysters.
A lot of people informally call Randi himself a "shyster." But if you mean "shyster" in a legal sense, the only "shyster" Randi spent time and energy on was Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga.
When you say "shyster" you are using loaded, ambiguous language. A scholar would define his terms more clearly. You are probably referring to people like Uri Geller, who are semi-public figures that make money by making claims that are hard/impossible to verify through respectable channels. You might center your definition of "shyster" on Uri Geller or some other public figure.
I don't want to put words in your mouth. I would truly love to see your definition of "shyster," and refer to the professional community that accepts your definition. Then I would ask the professionals why Randi himself does not fit the description of "shyster."
If you believe (first) that people like Uri Geller are shysters and (second) that Randi made the world a better place by harassing people like Uri Geller, you can provide a definition of "shyster" that can be referred to the appropriate professional body -- perhaps the American Bar Association or the I.C.E.
Thanks. I was puzzled about what the article was about and why it waffled on so. I guess "I kinda believe in ESP and think the skeptics are mean" wouldn't have got many readers.
"that his methods weren't perfect ... is all completely irrelevant"
It is relevant if the movement he founded is pedantic about methods of other people. In that case, he should be able to pass his own rigorous muster, applied by others.
>Randi dedicated his time and energy to debunking shysters.
That's not how I see Randi. I see him as a profoundly dishonest person who claimed to be doing debunking when in fact he was not.
Debunking is great, but it requires actual attention and critique. Randi customarily dismissed weird claims and claimed that they had "failed his test." In fact he had not tested them; he had not done anything more than glance at them and toss the letters in his outbox or his trash.
For example, it is very weird to claim a human can go indefinitely without food. If presented as a miracle, this claim is called "inedia." Randi received letters from presumably delusional or dishonest people who claimed to be able to live without food in a miraculous sense. Randi claimed that he had debunked these claims but he never investigated them. If he had actually taken the trouble to debunk these claims, he would have been a real debunker. Because he dismissed the claims out of hand and declared victory, he was a charlatan. Randi was very willing to have CSICOP collect donations for his cause, but he did very little actual debunking.
If an honest debunker -- someone like Feynman -- had been approached by such a claim, Feynman would have met the claimant, said a lot of rude things, and written something informative. He might have actually taken some numerical measurements. That is the sort of debunking I would pay money for.
On very rare occasions, Randi tried to do some real debunking. The results were not what I would call satisfactory. His colleagues at CSICOP (later CSI) were a little more diligent, but not very good at debunking. An example is the Demkina case.
CSI/CSICOP was supposed to be providing a team of experts, but they bumbled around like the Keystone Cops. CSICOP, to me, seems to have the same problem as allegedly "Christian" churches -- the preachers talk a lot, claim to embrace lofty ideals, collect monetary donations, and nothing useful happens. I don't believe these self-proclaimed "Christians" are worthy of the name -- why would I believe that self-proclaimed "skeptics" are worthy of the name?
>What's next, complaining that some doctor is an asshole for appearing on TV to refute people claiming ivermectin cures covid, thus making it impossible for people to seriously study ivermectin's covid benefits? Or that they were too aggressive in responding to the shyster?
That might not be the best example to use here because the incentives are entirely backwards. The people claiming to have ESP were doing it for fame and money, whereas the scientists and medical professionals claiming that ivermectin was effective for treating COVID were doing it in spite of the professional stigmatisation that came with it. The unscrupulous would have been shilling for pharma as they always have, that's where the money is, not sticking their necks out for some off-patent drug.
>the scientists and medical professionals claiming that ivermectin was effective for treating COVID were doing it in spite of the professional stigmatisation
Many of those people went from earning six figures a year as medical professionals to earning six figures a month as "influencers". Patreon has radically altered the marketplace of ideas, for better and for worse; for those who are unscrupulous or merely deluded, there are now some very attractive alternatives to mainstream legitimacy.
For the most part you have the financial incentives of pharma backwards... it is very easy to make a killing and because very famous being the kind of doctor or scientist willing to go to bat for pseudoscientific ideas. They get invited to podcasts, make their own podcasts, accrue thousands of followers, get paid to write articles for right-wing think tanks, get easy ghost-written book deals.... and after Trump's election, high-profile positions in the government. This is especially true for people who fail at the normal scientist / doctor career path.
I also don't really think there is any money per se in "shilling" for pharma, at least for like, 99% of doctors and scientists. Pretty much all doctors and scientists I know who dedicated a lot of time to communicating on covid-19, including studying ivermectin, running the trials on it that failed, didn't really get any extra money for doing so. Just a lot of hate mail.
No, it's spreading because corporations are waking up to what an insanely good deal "pay my employees for me" is.
In my state an employer is only responsible for raising an employee's effective wage (for the entire pay period) to minimum wage if the tips don't.
You can tip someone working as a waiter $100 and unless they've already hit minimum wage for that pay period, all you're doing is handing $100 to the owner because it's $100 they don't have to pay in wages. Once the waiter has met minimum wage, then the money actually goes to them.
Same here. We have really cut down on the amount of "out for lunch/dinner" activities we plan. One reason is the tip situation; the other is because we can cook as well at home than out of the house. In the past (80s), going out to dinner was considered a real treat. In the 2000s, it was commonplace. Now, I think we are back to the 80s mentality (cost, tipping, food quality, etc)
In California we've set the tipped minimum wage to the same as the non-tipped minimum wage (so employers have to pay their employees the same regular minimum wage regardless of whether or not it's a tipped job). Unfortunately, that hasn't fixed the tipping problem.
Of course, a living wage in California is quite a bit higher then even our above-average minimum wage, so that's a big part of it.
I'd argue that (our socially-obligatory form of) tipping is a deceptive pricing practice (not really any better than a store labeling shelves with a giant $4 and a .99 written so small you need a magnifying glass to perceive it). As such, if banning it is too impractical, they should disincentivize it with the tax system. I can't figure out the best way, but it's disappointing that our government is obviously not trying to.
Note: I don't care one bit if someone wants to recognize an exceptional act by handing $20 to a worker -- that's great. That's not the same as giving a bartender $4 for spending 12 seconds pouring vodka and redbull into a glass or tipping $3 when I stood in line to order at a counter and came to fetch my food when my number is called.
I think a ban on the solicitation of tips, including tip jars, would be practical and easy to implement. It would still be legal to tip if not asked/prompted. That would make the tip prompts on payment terminals illegal, as well as tip jars.
I don’t think tipping would continue without a way to demand tips or shame people with prompts.
my wife worked under this regime of we-pay-below-minimum and you make it up with tips, when she was a student. it’s illegal in multiple states. including the state where it was done to her. but if you need that sort of job you’re typically probably not in a position to go after your employer…
I'm guessing this barely applies in practice, since only 1% of hourly employees make minimum wage. A tipped employee who doesn't reach minimum wage is probably getting fired regardless.
The Lightning connector is superior for everyday use. It's exeptionally reliable, tolerant of debris, and difficult to damage. It was designed to last, unlike every single USB device port ever made, which was designed to fail so you'd need to replace the cable and device eventually. MiniUSB, MicroUSB, and USB-C. It's all trash.
Lightning has a perfect mechanical design. The pins phone-side are nearly possible to damage because they're well supported and only poke out in a bump shape that can't hook on anything. The cable side is the same way - no pins to catch on anything. The port is easy to clean out. The cable end is trivial to clean. The retention mechanism doesn't rely on anything that can wear out or break.
Meanwhile the USB-C connector puts a fucking thin wedge of plastic in the middle of the connector and even worse, there are pins around that center thin wedge and they're easily broken/damaged because they have no protection whatsoever and poor mechanical support. Oh, and the retention mechanism sucks just like it has in every
The USB-C port on my airpods is contactly getting fucked up while once in a blue moon I need to tick a toothpick in and rummage around a little to get some lint out of my phone's Lightning plug, and it's good for a couple more months...and that thing lives in my pocket, whereas the Airpod case spends most of its life sitting around on tables.
It's also a substantial plus that Apple tightly controls the cable spec. Just go look at the pages where people document USB-C cables that are so shitty they'll destroy the electronics in one or both devices.
People do not go "teeth first through the windshield into the back seat" when hit by a sedan. They go up the hood and up the windshield.
Euro-NCAP crash standards are specifically designed to "help" this by means of hoods which crumple and/or shift position in such a case.
That is infinitely preferable to hitting the flat face of most American and Japanese SUVs and specially pickup trucks, which are designd primarily to look "aggressive" and "angry" because that's what pickup truck buyers want.
There are old vehicle designs were the grill causes the pedestrian to rotate 90° into the windshield. Your assertion of how collisions work is predicated on changes to hood and front design that already account for pedestrian collision physics. But you’re implying this has always been the case and it has not.
This is, for instance, a big part of why the Mini Cooper is no longer mini. They had to lift the hood profile to reduce angular momentum.
Also why the forward raked grill designs of the seventies are gone never to return. Those suck pedestrians under the car, which is almost always fatal.
So just to be clear: your theory (which has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support it, and is entirely your personal anecdotes of which there's no causal relationship established whatsoever) refutes both broad evidence of how much damage pesticides do to outside of the target species (and to humans, and birds) but also refutes extensive scientific evidence that we are living through a time of massive ecological die-offs of species?
I would bet they don't live rurally or havent been alive very long. Anyone rural alive over the last 30 years shouldve noticed a decline everywhere around them....would also expect them to notice bugs are different by the road to in the fields to by the ponds, and that different times of year, weather etc, changes which bugs are out and how many are out...its harder to notice these things in suburbs or cities.
Except that because of all those things, the government is more likely to use it so the "it's cheaper!" argument doesn't hold water.
The comparison is not between "do it without smart bombs and drones" vs "do it with smart bombs and drones" and the former costing more.
The comparison is between "if we didn't have the smart bombs and drones, we wouldn't have done anything because whatever it was wouldn't have been worth the cost in money and American lives" versus "we spent a million dollars blowing up some stuff because we could do it on the cheap and with no risk."
On a broader scale the US's involvemnt in the foreign affairs of other nations skyrocketed when we went from having volunteer armed forces to a "professional" armed forces. Ike predicted as much in his rant about the military-industrial complex.
Except WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam were all very costly and direct engagements. US involvement in foreign affairs skyrocketed because WW1/WW2 destroyed Europe and created a power vacuum that we were eager to fill. If we didn't have these smart bombs we would just be involved in fewer but more bloody global conflicts.
The entire camera clearly dips and then rises during the fault slide. It's not the fault moving in a curved path, it's the camera dipping and rising. You can clearly see that just by placing your finger or mouse cursor on any feature in the video.
Among the G8 we probably have the least-electrified, slowest rail network with the worst Positive Train Control. Probably the most dangerous, too, given how disastrous Precision Railroad Scheduling has been for safety. We also likely have the highest crash and derailment rates.
ASES, ACSES, ETMS, CBTM, CBOSS, E-ATC, ITCS, and whatever Union Pacific is using. That's over half a dozen different systems and none of them are inherently compatible with each other - specialized systems are required to tie the systems together on railways that might have trains with different systems.
I'm guessing no other country in the G8 has issues with freight train movement such that trains routinely bisect towns and entire counties for hours or more and force police, fire, and medical services to reroute, as well as require children to crawl underneath the trains (which could start moving without warning) to get to/from school.
Why? Because the feds are not regulating train lengths nor mandating that trains cannot block road intersections for more than a certain amount of time, so the railways do whatever they please.
I'm guessing no other G8 country has problems with the government (federal, state, or local) having no idea what hazardous materials are being shipped and where...no way to look it up, not noticed by the railroad, nothing.
Well given Rivians rank among the worst EVs in the world efficiency-wise, maybe if you care about not spending your life at charging stations, don't buy a Rivian? Or a Tesla for that matter, since Tesla lies about their efficiency numbers and the real-world numbers are middling at best.
It is the low temperature performance that make most EV impractical. A Tesla power pack heater means the charge will be completely depleted if left outdoors for more than a week in winter.
EV are meant for people that live in 4'C to 42'C weather, and have excess capacity on their solar installations. Everyone else is getting subsidized by their neighbors paying for excess electrical capacity. =3
