Same with 6'5" me. I had a guy banging my knees over and over again one time. When I asked him to stop, he told me if the seat reclined, he should be able to do it.

I said, "Why don't I stand up, you get the seat the way that you want it, and I'll try to get back in." I stood up to my full height, bending my neck sideways with my ear hitting the ceiling

The guy said, "Oh ... ... can we switch seats?"

While I understand why many people don't trust the government, freedom of speech is tied very tightly to the ability to communicate over distances. It was written into the U.S. Constitution that the federal government ensures communication over distance by overseeing the U.S. Postal System. For most of the history of the United States, this has been a benevolent monopoly ensuring that letters can be sent over very large distances for rock bottom prices.

When phones came out, it changed the way that long distance communication occurred. At that time, the federal government turned the private phone companies into utilities and funded an expansion of the system. Federal money ensured that the service was available to everyone at reasonable prices. Rural home did not have to pay the full price of the infrastructure to get a line dropped to their homes.

Technology has changed again, and modern communication over distance is now transacted via the internet. To the extent that rural areas and the poor have extremely limited access to the internet, they have lost a portion of their freedom of speech.

I agree with Bernie Sanders that the federal government needs to ensure appropriate access to communications technology. It may be a federal takeover of the industry, as with the Post Office, or a combination of subsidies and oversight, as with the phone companies. The details should be determined by the legislature. The government should not continue to be laissez-faire, however, as that course reduces the rights of our neediest citizens.

Please look at the graphs in the parent article. As of 2018, we are already essentially paying a flat tax. Here is the total tax by percentile from eyeballing the graph in the parent NYT article and using this article to get actually money values of the percentiles. (https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/)

• 10th ($14,280 / year): 27%
• 25th ($30,001 / year): 23%
• 50th ($61,822 / year): 23%
• 75th ($111,160 / year): 26%
• 90th ($178,793 / year): 29%
• 95th ($236,360 / year): 27%
• 99th ($434,454 / year): 30%
• Top 400 (billionaires): 22%

The total tax paid across all income levels is about 26% +/- 4%. It's hard to get much flatter than that, especially compared to years gone by. In 1950, just after World War II, the bottom decile paid about 17% and the top 400 paid 70% income taxes. I don't think anyone wants to see that again, but it would be nice for the graph to fall a little in the beginning and rise a little towards the end.

I have a friend who was a principle for a BPS school. She explained to me the problems that she was having with busing. She was seeing three primary issues.

1 - Buses were consistently late getting kids to the school.

2 - Buses would arrive at stops way too early, leaving kids behind.

3 - Buses would arrive at stops way too late, causing the parents who were waiting with their kids to be late to work.

When she looked into it, she discovered the issue that was causing all of the problems. Fully one third of the buses had their routes reversed. The first pick-ups on the inbound routes were the stops closest to the school, and the last pick-ups were the stops farthest away.

Some buses ran according to the published schedule. After the last stop which was farthest away from the school, the bus would have to turn around and drive all the way back to the school. Those buses were consistently late. (Issue #1 above.) Other bus drivers took it upon themselves to reverse the route to make it more efficient. For the kids who were supposed to be picked up at 7:00, the bus arrived at 7:30. For the kids who were supposed to be picked up at 7:30, the bus arrived at 7:00. (Issues # 2 & 3 above.)

My principal friend rerouted all of the buses herself making sure that all of the buses started far away from the school and worked their way closer to the school as they went. All of the issues were resolved.

I don't know if the human schedulers were temps or if they were full time workers who only worked on the bus schedules during the summer, but clearly some of them were not trained properly on how to schedule a school bus. Allowing a computer to do it couldn't help but make it better.

Movies in theaters tend to be more social than TV. People invite friends to something that they haven't experienced yet. Inviting someone to a good movie improves your status with them. Wasting your friends' time and money with a bad movie makes you look bad. It's worth checking a review to be certain that everyone else will have a good time.

TV tends to be more solitary. You can watch the first couple of episodes on your own to try it out with no loss of social status. Once you're sure it's good, then you can invite your friends and family to watch with you. There is no need for a review, if you're only wasting your own time.

In baseball, it's more about geometry than how frequently you see left-handers.

Right-handed batters bat from the third-base side of home plate. When facing a right handed pitcher, curve balls curve towards the batter's body. When facing a left-handed pitcher, curve balls curve away from their body. Left-handed hitters are the opposite. They bat from the first-base side of the plate. For them, left-handed curve balls break towards the batter's body, and right-handed curve balls break away from their body.

Most batters find it easier to hit a ball that is breaking away from their body. Therefore, left-handed batters tend to hit better against right-handed pitchers, and vice-versa. It's good to have both left-handed and right-handed players, both batters and pitchers, to gain the geometry advantage whenever it makes sense.

Moore's Law says that transistor density doubles about every two years. It's been forty years since the late 1970's, so we've had about 20 iterations of Moore's Law. In that time transistor density has gone up exponentially from x to roughly x^20 . Meanwhile, the number of engineers necessary to continue the advancement has gone up linearly from y to 18y .

An exponential reward for a linear cost doesn't seem like a bad a trade-off.

I would find this surprising, since in a base 2 system every prime number ending in 1 is followed by a prime number ending in 1.

There is well established precedent on how to reduce speeds on highly used residential roads. It's called "Traffic Calming". Essentially, you redesign the road so that it is narrower, curvier and gives better access to pedestrians and bikers. The basics of Traffic Calming can be found here:

http://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/CDD/Transportation/TrafficCalming/trcalm_brochure_2000.ashx?la=en

Generally, urban roads that have traffic where it's even possible to move at 50 mph are straight, wide and flat. That is definitely the case with Locust Ave, as seen below.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0343513,-78.4694989,3a,75y,173.55h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLC2p-2vz-idXmvJ1TaBg7w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Some suggestions for slowing traffic on this street might include:

- Put curb extensions at the sidewalks to reduce the distance that pedestrians have to walk to cross the street. This also makes the intersections tighter for cars, requiring them to slow down.

- Currently, parking is only on the left side of the street. About every half a block alternate parking between the left and the right sides causing the traffic to have to curve back and forth. This will slow down the traffic.

- Mark the parking with stripes, making the traffic lanes look smaller.

- If there is room, add another bicycle lane to the left side of the street.

Here is an example of traffic calming.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3652093,-71.0988748,3a,75y,14.17h,59.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssPfDs88GgNpRJgOTW2Z7mA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Although this street is in a more dense urban area (Cambridge, MA) than Locust, it used to look similar to it. All parking was on one side, and there were no curb extensions. Now you can see the tightened intersections and the curvy traffic lanes. Speeds have dropped significantly on this road. It's worth a try.

You are correct that we already know that healthier people have a smaller chance of dying. How do you quantify "healthy", however? How do you go beyond, "He kind of ran on a treadmill for a while, so I guess he won't die soon?"

If this research proves correct, then it gives people a powerful new metric for interpreting the results of Cardiac Stress Tests. We already know that heart rate, METs, age and gender are individual predictors or heart health. This research, however, indicates that the relationship between these four may be a more precise predictor of overall heart health than any one of those factors alone. It may also provide non-physicians a way of identifying people with heart problems that need medical attention.

For example, let's say that you go to the gym for the first time, and a personal trainer there routinely gives you a stress test to determine your health fitness prior to determining your exercise plan. By calculating this score, she may be able to quickly determine that you are high-risk for a cardiac event in the next five years. If that's the case, then your personal trainer can recommend that you go to a doctor and get further evaluation. This would be a huge benefit to people with undiagnosed cardiac disease.

The results are calculated following an official medical study called a Cardiac Stress Test. It consists of attaching an ECG machine to a patient and then having them exercise in a very precise, repeatable way. Typically, for patients who can walk or run to their personal maximum heart rate this is done on a treadmill. Some patients cannot run, but they can bike. In that case the test would be performed on a stationary bicycle. If the patient can neither run nor bike, an arm cycle (i.e. bicycle pedals that you twirl with your arms) is used.

The typical treadmill version of the test is called a Bruce Protocol, and it proceeds as follows. The patient walks and then runs on the treadmill as it progresses through several 3 minute intervals. For each successive interval, the speed of the treadmill is increased, and the slope of the ramp is increased (making the patient walk or run up a steeper hill). Based on this speed and slope, we can calculate the METs achieved. The protocol for increasing the difficulty of the exercise is as follows:

Minutes 0-3: 1.7 mph / 10% grade
Minutes 3-6: 2.5 mph / 12 % grade
Minutes 6-9: 3.4 mph / 14% grade
Minutes 9-12: 4.2 mph / 16% grade
Minutes 12-15: 5 mph / 18% grade
Minutes 15-18: 5.5 mph / 20% grade
Minutes 18-21: 6 mph / 22% grade

Only an athlete will be able to finish all seven intervals, as the final interval means that you are running 10 minute miles up a very steep hill. The vast majority of people will stop before the end of the final interval. The test is officially stopped for one of the following reasons:

(a) The patients says that they are exhausted and cannot proceed any longer.
(b) The patient experiences chest pain or shortness of breath.
(c) The patient's ECG changes in such a way that the physiologist running the test determines that it is unsafe to continue.

If you do not perform the test in this way (or some other medically approved way), then you will not get accurate results. For example, if you immediately start with Stage 7, you may be able to sprint for 1 minute, and achieve your maximum heart rate. Unfortunately, you will be overestimating your METs, because during a normal test, you may have had to stop during Stage 3 or Stage 4 with the same heart rate, but at a lower METs rate.

It is also important to note that unless you consider yourself to be completely healthy, it is best to perform this test with an ECG machine and under the supervision of a licensed physiologist. They will stop you, if you have a serious change in your ECG.

I believe that is projected to happen on the exact same day as the end of the Mayan calendar.