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Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 58

The same growing season extension has happened in Canada. I looked at it some years ago. It is the yearly frost free interval dates. Even a few days can make a difference.

Let's hope the current doesn't collapse. I always thought Iceland was a cool place. (no pun intended)

I forgot to add - I nuked my back, a muscle tweaking hard and am on some really powerful muscle relaxants. So my writing style is a bit different. Wife says I'm a lot nicer today, Maybe I need to work on that! 8^)

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 58

It's hard to overstate how bad it would be. Iceland doesn't just get glaciated in ice ages, it gets catastrophically glaciated. As in "mass kills almost all of our plant species". That's why there's currently no native conifers even though there used to be, for example - virtually the whole island ends up under an extremely thick sheet of ice.

Of course, a shorter localized ice age, in an otherwise warming world, isn't as bad as a Milankovitch Cycle ice age. But it'd be pretty awful for us. Right now, we're benefiting from a warming world (though losing our glaciers and regularly getting annoying new insect species which previously couldn't survive here :P). Our growing reason is so short, and the difference between our winter and summer temperatures so small, that even a small amount of warming drastically lengthens our growing season, and makes a vast difference to how well things can grow in it.

The same growing season extension has happened in Canada. I looked at it some years ago. It is the yearly frost free interval dates. Even a few days can make a difference.

Let's hope the current doesn't collapse. I always thought Iceland was a cool place. (no pun intended)

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 58

It would drastically affect most of Northern Europe, also the Eastern US. But Iceland would probably be the most seriously affected. Greenland might refreeze, I believe that the "little ice age" was responsible for the failure of the Norse Colony on the shores of Greenland.

It did make for the failure. The reconstructed stories paint a terrible picture. Families living in tight quarters with their animals, slowly heading toward the end of their existence as a colony

Comment Re: That's a bad look on Marriott. (Score 1) 46

They didn't.

They did. From the summary:

Paul Strack, 63, visiting Boston from Little Rock, Arkansas, told CBS News he received an email from Marriott on Sunday about his Sonder stay, but he initially mistook it for a scam. The email said that Marriott's agreement with Sonder had ended, and that "we are unable to continue your reservation beyond today."

I don't know how to read this in any other way besides that Marriott contacted these people and told them that they no longer had reservations.

I also don't know how to read this in any other way besides that Marriott's cancellation of the contract with Sonder was directly responsible for this, which must either mean that the stay was at a Marriott hotel contracted through Sonder, or that it was at a third-party hotel and Marriott decided to not pay Sonder for the rest of that person's stay. In either case, Marriott is at least partially responsible, and in the latter case, may even be guilty of tortious interference with that person's stay.

Comment It's a trap (Score 1) 3

These are basically websites that are wrapped by an app. These developers can currently get most of what Apple provides without using Apple tech, and keep 97% of the profits. Why would they want to keep only 85% for such minimal benefits? For that matter, why are they providing an app when a website will do?

Comment We didn't let them do anything (Score 1) 37

They spent 60 years getting us to this point starting when Barry Goldwater lost. Right wing extremists have been gradually taking over every single aspect of American culture and civilization and the economy.

I mean yeah we indulged in pointless moral panics and bigotry and racism so there is a little bit on us.

But frustrations about bigots aside you're blaming the victim. Especially when so many people just do not have the education and critical thinking training to see past propaganda and moral panics.

Comment Re:Small business owner types (Score 1) 37

Yeah, any sensible human being is against the concept of work. Work should be viewed as a necessary evil. Not as some bullshit puritanical means to its own end.

Keep in mind when a scientist sits down and learn something or a surgeon does the same they're not working the same way you and I are. They're doing something that they find tremendously interesting and fulfilling.

The problem is the English language is shit on a shingle so we don't have a word for doing something that is simultaneously useful to civilization as a whole and fulfilling to differentiate it from something that's just a stupid bit of drudgery that is physically necessary.

So we use work to cover both of those things. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that billionaires who never do a lick of work in their entire life benefit from that quirk of our language.

Also I'm sure I completely lost you there's no way you're going to follow a conversation this complex and it frankly isn't all that complex. Why are you wasting your time here? Did you get kicked out of Reddit or something?

Comment This (Score 0) 76

Also to clarify, there is a difference between being taught the general skills and knowledge needed to do a job and being taught specific tasks needed to make someone's business profitable.

Back when I was a kid there was a line between school work and on the job training and you got paid for on the job training. I am pretty certain the old farts floating around this forum also got paid for actual on the job training.

Now not only do kids not get paid for on the job training they pay for the privilege and they don't have a choice because that's the only way into a middle class life assuming you're lucky enough to even get a shot at that anymore.

It seems like my kid just barely squeaked in but it's hard to say. From what I can tell anyone five or six years younger than my kid is get screwed in the current job market even more than my kid could even fathom.

Our entire system and civilization is collapsing around us. And we're too much of a bunch of pissy little 12-year-olds to do anything about it

Comment Re:Honest man (Score 0) 50

I doubt it has anything to do with honesty and has more to do with the fact that he's at risk of costing billionaires a lot of money and if you do that you usually go to jail and you don't get to bribe the president for a pardon.

My guess is he's getting out before that.

I do find it hilarious that he's famous for predicting the housing market crash that every single sensible and honest economist was telling us was coming.

We really really hate listening to experts. There's a reason that stupid movie Forrest Gump is so popular and Homer Simpson so beloved. For some reason we really love the idea that you can be a completely ignorant fool and still be tremendously successful.

Comment Re:What about top speed? (Score 1) 72

Also, the only realistic way to create a true "unintended acceleration" without pedal misapplication is something getting stuck in the pedal or the pedal getting stuck down, which is not actually a subtle thing (again, these things have happened, but they're dwarfed by how often people hit the wrong pedal). Just sensor readings alone don't cut it. As a general rule, pedals have multiple sensors reading the pedal position (typically 2-3). They have to agree with each other, or the target acceleration is set to zero. A sensor failure doesn't cut it. Also, Hall-effect sensors are highly reliable.

Oh, and there's one more "failure mechanism" which should be mentioned, which is: creep. Some EVs are set to creep or have creep modes, to mimic how an ICE vehicle creeps forward when one lifts their foot off the brakes. If someone forgets they have this on, it can lead to "unintended acceleration" reports. There have been cases where for example the driver gets in an accident, but not intense enough to trigger the accident sensors, and the car keeps "trying to drive" after the accident (aka, creep is engaged). People really should not engage creep mode, IMHO - the fact that ICEs creep forward is a bug, not a feature.

Comment Re: in soviet russia we fail you! (Score 1) 108

The U.S. rarely attacks or occupies those that didn't recently attack someone.

I mean, the most recent war with Iraq was something of a stretch, though there was at least some justification because of Iraq not holding up its end of international agreements regarding their nuclear program, which were made at least in part in response to Iraq attacking Kuwait just over a decade earlier. Otherwise, it's pretty much peacekeeping actions in response to U.N. decisions, helping out neighboring countries whose leaders ask, etc.

And when we say "keeps alternate parties off ballots", we don't mean "keeps alternate parties off ballots unless they can get at least n% of eligible voters to sign a petition. In the U.S., any party can get on the ballot, including those who just list one of the major party candidates as their candidate (yes, this is weird) just by getting enough signatures. If you can't get that many signatures, you were never going to win anyway, and all you can do is cause less desirable candidates to win by drawing votes from more desirable candidates.

Mind you, we've evolved into a two-party system that basically gives third parties little chance of actually winning any major election, which is, at least in part, a flaw in the way we do vote counting, but that doesn't prevent them from being on the ballot.

Comment Re: That's a bad look on Marriott. (Score 1) 46

- These aren't Marriott bookings

So why is Marriott the one telling them that they have to vacate? That kind of notification should be coming from the property owner or Sonder. And more to the point, it shouldn't matter if Marriott cancels their contract with Sonder, because Sonder got paid already, or should have.

Just because you booked your Sonder stay in the Marriott app, doesnt mean Marriott is responsible for the booking.

Actually, it does. In fact, that's possibly way worse, because unless they kicked you out to an outside website, Marriott literally took a payment from you.

None of this makes the slightest bit of sense. Either Marriott took the payment, in which case they are duty-bound to fulfill or reverse payment, and in the case where this causes severe harm, are liable for damages from that harm, or Sonder took the payment, in which case Marriott's contract cancellation with Sonder shouldn't affect your stay.

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