My brother goes to school in Pittsburgh and has taken the buses back east, and you're full of shit. First of all, Bolt doesn't even go from Pittsburgh to anywhere. And Megabus most certainly isn't nonstop to Philadelphia, it's got a stop in Harrisburg. It is indeed cheaper and has more options (3 vs 1) to take the bus, but Amtrak is almost always on time or early (last time about half an hour) and Megabus is in his experience laughably late. He's taken Megabus a few times to Philadelphia en route to our grandmother (in a suburb) and the time/price difference would be about 40m/$20, plus the SEPTA time back to where he wants to be (40 mins and whatever the wait is) except that there's a closer stop (Paoli) on Amtrak to his destination that means it's about an hour faster to take the train.

To NYC, which he's done more frequently, the time is even better, since he lives in northeast NJ and the train stops at Newark (9hr) and even if Megabus is on time to NYC it still takes about 30-45 minutes back to the house, so the time works about the same, with a lot less comfort. And that's assuming the bus keeps to their schedule.

First time he took Megabus (to NYC, not Philly), the driver was new and went the wrong way (west) out of Pittsburgh despite the passengers telling him he was going the wrong way. Eventually he was convinced to start following somebody's phone, at which point he bottomed out the bus trying to make a U-turn and ended up about 6 hours late because the bus was ruined and they had to wait for another one to transfer everybody on to, and then make it back an hour towards Pittsburgh to even get started. The next time, he was 4 hours late due to traffic and leaving 45 minutes late from the stop at State College, so instead of getting in at 9PM he got in at 1AM (to Midtown Manhattan!), and I had to drive in to pick him up from a street corner. The few other times he tried, it was miserable - either the wifi or power didn't work or the bathroom was out of order (so they had to keep stopping every hour) or some other incompetent problem, and every time they were just plain late by at least 2 hours. He's taken Megabus 6 times, and the service was so bad that 5 of those times he's gotten a refund. Which I suppose helps the price argument, but it seems like a pretty shitty way to save a few bucks.

Due to Megabus' demonstrated and utter incompetence, he looked into taking Greyhound instead, which should be more professional and does stop in Newark, but is barely any cheaper ($10 or so) and in fact slower - even as scheduled, let alone traffic, since it makes 3 other stops.

So despite Amtrak's suckitude (which I don't dispute) west of Harrisburg, mostly due to having to run over Norfolk Southern trackage past Harrisburg (and so limited to diesels and about 40mph), it still is a more pleasant and easier way to travel. He has plenty of room, usually a seat next to him to take a nap (comfortably), hot meals, etc. And Amtrak's working with NS on upgrading the Harrisburg-Pittsburgh route.

Sure you can do better by driving (about 6 hours to our house), but we're talking about public transit here. He doesn't have a car, and somebody driving out to get him doubles the time and cost overall.

Not in the Northeast. It's cost and time competitive with planes from Boston to Washington (even better for points in between, like PhillyNYC) when you include security (and sometimes without). And it's miles more convenient, since it takes you right into the middle of the city. And miles more comfortable.

Some comparisons - from Amtrak website and Expedia, for June 3

Bos - DC - $70 for 7h40, $251 for 6h40. 18 trains between 5AM and 9PM
Bos - NYC - $49 for 4h (faster than you can drive it), $107 for 3h25, 19 trains between 5AM and 9PM
NYC - Philly - $36 for 1h20 (much faster than you can drive it), $97 for 1h5, 48 trains between 3AM and 11PM
NYC - DC - $49 for 3h12 (faster than you can drive it), $144 for 2h44, 38 trains between 3AM and 10PM
Philly - DC - $35 for 1h50 (faster than you can drive it), $127 for 1h33, 39 trains between 12AM and 11PM

vs (adding 2 hour minimum "arrive early time" and Google Maps center city to airport, and from airport to center city, by public transit time and cost)

Bos - DC - $79 for 1h26+2h+30 (bos) + 1h30 (DC) = ~5h30
Bos - NYC - $90 for 1h10+2h+30 (bos) + 1h (NYC) = ~4h40
NYC - Philly - $159 for 6h stopping in Charlotte, $265 for nonstop, 55m = stupid idea to fly
NYC - DC - $67 for 1h36+2h+1h (NYC) + 1h30 (DC) = ~6h
Philly - DC - $188 for 8h via Boston, $315 for nonstop, 55m = stupid idea to fly

The only place airlines are even competitive is the Bos-DC route, and even there it's close to a wash considering the hassle of public transit transfers, security, and how uncomfortable planes are by comparison - not to mention their propensity for delays. In reality most of those "to the airport" times need another 20-50% on top to account for the fact that the bus or subway/etc doesn't leave exactly when you'd like to be there in time to get through security. You could take a cab of course but then you have to add another $60-$100 to the costs, and you wouldn't save much.

The cheapest planes aren't competitive with trains on price, in some cases because they've given up (NYC-Philly and Phil-DC) and in some because planes are just more expensive, even for the longer routes (Bos-DC). And the cheapest planes are at times like 6AM. In all cases, the cheapest trains are spread throughout the day (obviously rush hour is more expensive, but if you can leave 10A-3P or after 7P you're probably going to find one).

So no, "Amtrak is more expensive than airlines on the same route, is usually slower than both airline and intercity express bus (including airport security times) to the same destination. And offers both worse service/schedules and en route service than either.". Amtrak is cheaper and either marginally slower in the best case (about even in the average) or faster, sometimes by a lot, and it has more options at those prices. I didn't even bother with bus because in all cases Amtrak beats the optimal driving distance, and buses are hardly optimal ever.

Admittedly this only counts the northeast Boston to Washington area, but there's rather a lot of people and cities there, so I think it's more than sufficient to counter your claim. There's a lot of the country where trains, properly executed, would be the best option - pretty much anywhere under 400 miles, which incidentally is almost precisely the line of sight DC-Boston distance. The faster the trains go, the longer that distance gets.

Actually most of the NEC is continuously-welded rail on modern concrete sleepers and I've got a GPS snapshot of going 125MPH, not even on the Acela, just the normal trainsets. Still a joke compared to other countries, but you can do Philly-Newark, about 100 miles line of sight, in 58 minutes (real-world and experienced), for $51. For one person, you beat the cost of driving, and for two, you beat the cost of driving and time (especially when you include comfort).

I've actually tried my hand at web design since, and I don't think I've completely embarrassed myself. The most important thing since 2004ish is that the tools are miles better - both the browsers themselves are, you know, predictable, and there are competent debugging utilities if the layout isn't right. In 2004 if you wanted your layout to look right, you were still stretching spacer GIFs all over the place.

What the fuck do you think your freedom deal with America is if it's not a social contract? Do you make use of roads, cleanish air and water, and the right to not be hassled/killed/enslaved by roving warlords? Well you probably would claim that you mean the whole "let's not have people die in the streets" thing more than the roads thing when you say social contract, but I'd argue that you're just drawing an arbitrary line, and you're doing in such a way that it maximizes your assholishness. You're perfectly fine taking some services from the government and paying your share (and expecting the rest to do the same), but some services are too much. And the latter (but not former) services are the "social contract" ones.

A typical explanation of 'social contract' is why we do education. It's because we want the electorate to be educated. It's pretty easy to make the same case about healthcare or foodstamps or unemployment insurance or social security. And yes I know your type, you'll start screaming about welfare queens or personal responsibility or something, but here's the dirty little secret - it is in your interest to do these things. We already have universal healthcare, for example, just literally the worst one imaginable - you can't be turned away at an ER. So only the people who are actually having heart attacks or are in labor get treatment, not people with high cholesterol or looking for prenatal care. Fuck them, which one is cheaper for you? Because the hospital sure doesn't eat the cost, they give it to you in the form of a $2000 MRI, which the insurance doesn't eat and you pay more for that. Some people who could barely afford insurance can't anymore, and then they become part of this problem.

We do that kind of thing a lot in this country - do the worst thing imaginable because of the fear that somewhere, somehow, a poor person might benefit. Even though (in the health care case, and others) it would literally be cheaper to just give everybody health care and pay for it with taxes - as evidenced by every nation with universal healthcare, the OMB, math, logic, etc.

Point being, you have a bad premise. It's at best short-sighted and at worst "fuck you", because it assumes that if anybody else benefits, you must therefore suffer. But doing the best thing for everyone can also be the best thing for you. This is some pretty basic civics, pretty well hashed out by a few hundred years ago. Hell, it's all over the bible itself - be nice to people and you get to go to heaven.

The 'zen' was that you could load a new .css file and have a completely different-looking web page with the same content. I was doing some web design about 8 years ago - badly, I was about 14 and working for my high school over the summer - and even though I didn't know what I was doing it was so obviously a better way to do things than the table-based layout of the existing website that I tried (and failed) to figure out how to do it myself.

Never could figure out web design, so I switched to programming.

That's just a BearCat, and maybe there was a HMMWV there too. Fairly standard SWAT stuff nowadays (unfortunately). The armor seems appropriate, given the large amount of automatic gunfire sent in their direction and literal bombs being thrown at them. One of your pictures has a "poke it with a broom" type attachment, which I hadn't seen before, but I'm fairly sure that's not too much more to worry about from a "heavily armed" standpoint.

I'm first in line to complain about the "militarization" of police agencies, but now that they've got it I can hardly think of a better time to use it. And, unfortunately, even fairly small cities can now make a compelling case that it would be prudent to have some sort of armored vehicle. Had they not been able to approach in a timely fashion and see that this guy was not about to kill them, he probably would have bled out - the alternative being choosing to risk your officers in being the first one to see if he's still trying to gun people down, or has a dead-man detonator on him or something. But since he survived, we get to try him like the criminal he is (accused of being), with courts/lawyer/judge/etc, as opposed to him being "an enemy" gunned down in "battle".

I thought everybody acquitted themselves rather well. The shelter-in-place was totally voluntary, and most people cooperated. Those that didn't.... drove around the city doing their normal errands or whatever. Hardly martial law. And I didn't see any tanks, unless you were watching something I wasn't. What the hell good would they be? You gonna shoot a guy with a tank cannon?

No, the pussies were the nimrods in Congress calling for the guy to be classified as an "enemy combatant" because they have so little faith in our most basic institutions. Everybody else was being reasonable, far more reasonable than after 9/11. Everybody was pretty much like "yeah those guys are dicks" and then just went on with their lives like they do after any other horrific crime. Just the way it SHOULD have been 12 years ago.

But I've heard this kind of talk before, usually from guys a thousand miles away who spent that whole day listening to cable news and didn't bother to actually figure out what was going on on the ground. They spent a few days talking about "imagine how much better we'd handle that here" and guffawing about East Coast types.

Except for some rare cases, they're hearing mostly-equal cheers and boos about everything they do. And it's still only a percent or two of their constituency. You have a stunningly naive view of politics.

This is why it's more important to vote for people who you think will make good decisions than if you like the stuff they've done (or said they'd do). I'd never vote for Paul, despite happening to agree with a lot of what he says and does, because I have no confidence that he actually evaluates the arguments for or against anything and comes to the conclusion that's based on fact and logic, not philosophy. And he doesn't even follow that stated philosophy very well anyways, so how does he actually decide what to do? This is an important thing to understand about a politician, probably the most important thing.

You should lay off the ganja at least 8 hours before flying (as is the FAA requirement).

If indeed you have actually flown small planes and you don't care about ATC, you've therefore never flown under anything other than VFR - or even out of a towered airfield. The idea of any sort of routine commercial flight happening only in VMC is laughable at best. And without ATC to provide separation, planes would crash all the time. It's such a vital service that there's a reason the government in almost every country does it - either directly via a government agency like the FAA, or indirectly via a company they own or control. It's not something that can be subject to a profit motive.

More importantly, if people are staying inside they're not getting in car accidents or most of the various other things that tie up police time. It was partly about the danger from the suspect, but also partly about trying to save police resources.

Totally agreed. People need to realize that our brains are predisposed to make stereotypes, and be both prepared and willing to fight against that.

First of all, many women do treat all men as (at least potential) rapists. As you note, it's not valid, and I'm certainly not trying to suggest that you have anything to do with it, but such as it is.

As unfortunate as it is that they asked you those questions, and that they felt like they should ask, I can see why they did. A well known bug-as-feature of the human brain is the extremely powerful and innate ability to categorize things. This is why we don't have to rediscover an apple every time we see one - but it also leads to stereotypes when this is applied to people. And it requires active work in everybody to realize this particular flaw of human thought and avoid or mitigate it, or avoid making these associations in the first place.

I am going somewhere with this. The thing is, almost all men in the workplace - and especially tech men - have or have heard a horror story about a man making a benign joke or a comment that a woman hears and takes offense to. Or a man who asks a woman out that he finds attractive and faces sexual harassment discipline, not because he was being harassing and asking multiple times, or creating a toxic workplace environment, but simply for asking (and men are expected to be the ones to ask).

Witness the recent Adria Richards case. She heard two guys talking to each other (not in reference to her) making a 12-year-old style "dongle" joke, proceeded to misinterpret something else they said as sexual when it wasn't, and decided that the best course of action was to publicly denounce them with a photograph on Twitter and write a blog post, instead of, you know, asking them to cut it out.

You're absolutely, unequivocally, 100% right that she does not say anything about all or most women, and you are obviously not "responsible" or "accountable" for what she and others like her have done. The problem is, virtually never has a man done these things - in fact if he does, he is laughed away before it gets anywhere (which is another problem). And most women won't either, but it's a risk that doesn't exist with men. So they're not holding you accountable for others' actions when they have a concern that doesn't exist with the men they hire.

It's not right, and I don't agree with it, but you can see where they're coming from. An apparently unique phenomenon with this (as opposed to other 'ism's) is a small minority of women considering anything sexual as therefore sexist against women (which I find a really creepy attitude). Guys tend to make sexual jokes to each other - it's probably not appropriate for work, but I have a hard time saying it is deserving of a career-damaging sexual harassment claim. And it's very rare for a man to complain about this to management, whereas it's statistically much much more likely (relative to men) for women to do so (even if most women wouldn't).

So what you saw was a bunch of men nervous about their careers. Maybe they shouldn't have been (both their fear and what caused it shouldn't be happening), but I have a hard time condemning them for it. Perfectly reasonable to not want to work in an environment where that was the prevailing fear, though...

Once you've ordered a meal, you are in debt for the value of the meal. The restaurant owner has to accept any and all legal tender, just as the GP said.

Basically, if you try to buy something in pennies as a "screw you" they can refuse to accept it - and everybody's still squared up. But if you owe somebody money they have to accept what you give them (I believe there are laws specifying the dollar value of various change that must be accepted for debts).