Similarly, I hope folks will reach out with ANY additional data around the lack of danger caused by large / heavy vehicles as opposed to any other non-commercial vehicle.
I'm sorta tired of people regulating or trying to regulate every aspect of life. Maybe just let people make their own decisions.
I still disagree that there's a regulatory need here. Are there not consequences for the drivers in these situations? Are pedestrians not somewhat liable for their own situational awareness?
Even if regulation is the only solution (I do not believe it is) there's ways with better locality like limiting access to the roads, providing better pathways for pedestrians, better guard rails, lighting, etc. Regulating the vehicle is a sweeping change that assumes that people who own these vehicles have absolutely no need for them in the first place.
I live in an area where a high clearance SUV or other large vehicle is a necessity for navigating many of the roads. Why should I, and others like me, suffer for the externalities occurring in cities (this seems to pertain to) where I will never drive?
But the issue is that drivers of large vehicles are typically less aware of pedestrians. So how can I as a pedastrian be responsible for the situational awareness of the SUV driver? It kills me just as much if they are not aware of me.
I think other solutions would work just as well, just add sidewalks so roads become smaller, or make users of large SUVs pay for the cost of killing pedestrians.
>I live in an area where a high clearance SUV or other large vehicle is a necessity for navigating many of the roads. Why should I, and others like me, suffer for the externalities occurring in cities (this seems to pertain to) where I will never drive?
I don't know where you live but most SUVs are not really made for off-road use either and there are plenty of high clearance smaller cars around. Moreover, let's turn the question around, why should pedestrians pay (with their lives) so that some people in remote areas and many city people who want to feal like a outdoor cowboy can drive SUVs?
> So how can I as a pedastrian be responsible for the situational awareness of the SUV driver?
The same way you're responsible for anything you do around other people. Pay attention to who and what is around you, how exposed to danger you are currently. I don't walk around parking lots or other busy areas assuming drivers can always see me, do you?
> I don't know where you live...
It's fine if folks want to regulate their cities like this, by all means. Make vehicles over some size/tonnage illegal in the city limits, do whatever in the city. But why choose a pathway that effects people who live far from them? I struggle to follow the logic.
Give me a break. I spent most of my life in this county and my family's been there for two generations prior. The "everything is racist" argument so poorly applies to the issues of these communities it's absolutely absurd. Come back when you find a different hammer.
Give ME a break! I am ALSO from Pasco County and you well know the KKK used to sponsor road clean up in Moon Lake - so don't give me any of that "everything is fine and there's no racism problem here"
_Used to_. KKK cleaning up a stretch of road in a rural area 30 years ago doesn't mean there's an inherently a racist police force, voted in by the county constituents, currently. That's tenuous at best. The existence of racists in a subset of an area does not mean that the entire area is racist.
Wait so is your problem that you don't understand when people say "place X is racist" they don't mean literally every single person in town is a racist?
It might be a class issue, not a race issue, or I'll concede it could be something else entirely. I don't know enough to say. But there is a parallel between the two stories that certainly bears consideration.
The comment I was replying to cites an article about public pools and racist behaviors from 60+ years ago in entirely different communities that borders on a non-sequitur to these issues of community policing and does so as a commentary to the suggestion that these areas are "cleaning up their Deep south, backwoods" image by behaving this way, senselessly pushing the idea that racism is the cause of this. Talk about hand-wavy.
Racism is a pervasive, if often invisible, force in American life. We've all learned over the past decade that racist policing is pervasive from New York to Texas. It would be odd if racism did not come up in the discussion.
I'm enrolled in CU Boulder's MSEE program that's administered through Coursera. It's decent, definitely not as good as in person instruction (for me at least), but is probably a good deal for people who are ok being largely self-taught/directed and only need some light help from TAs if necessary. The content seems pretty good and up-to-date so far as I can tell. The price competitiveness and flexibility is ultimately what led me to give it a shot. I'm also doing it to complement an existing career, not bet my future on it, so the downsides for me are somewhat negligible vs someone with no work experience who might be doing the program. So take that as you will...
The peer reviews are definitely better in the degree program, but there's always a few people not even trying, of course. Nothing that's really impacted my own work.
I looked at that program, but I was very cautious. It’s an open program, which means you don’t even have have to have an undergrad at all, albeit you do need to have an understanding of the prerequisites. While personally, I find this and the price point absolutely amazing, I have to wonder what that means for the value of the credential obtained. On paper it’s basically paying for a degree and an MS-EE at that. From engineers I’ve talked to, they don’t even trust accredited online programs.
CU Boulder advertises the resulting degree as indistinguishable from their on-campus program from a records perspective (you're even invited to the graduation ceremony afaik). How much truth there will be to this, I've yet to see.
I don’t necessarily doubt them, but it still just feel off. Why can’t just anyone enter their on-campus program and prove themselves the same way? If they had some more courses focused in certain areas I’d take a more serious look at it though.
You're getting down-voted without anyone else actually providing a rebuttal. But what you're saying matches, roughly, my understanding of what happened. Perhaps their issue is with the way it is phrased, sounding sort of like rhetoric.
So I'll add because I'm more or less with you: I'm sincerely confused how we can spend years alleging Russian interference and now that on a really close election, with contention over the way the ballots were counted, it's being called by the media without presenting doubt despite polling being pretty off? The inconsistency is concerning, in my opinion. What am I not understanding?
If I'd introduced a new system in at work (my understanding is the mass mail-in ballots are new at this scale, but please correct me if I'm wrong) and was testing it and it gave a weird result, I'd at least double check it.
There is no contention over how the ballots were counted. There are allegations which have been repeatedly thrown out or debunked by judges and press across the country, including those friendly to the parties making said allegations.
So I’d say that’s what you’re not understanding, though I’m puzzled as to how you could have missed it if you spent any time looking into it at all, since every reputable source has reported the rebuttals right alongside the allegations.
There is no question in this election. The margins are not close. They are not surprising. They were not even terribly unexpected. The only party alleging any of those things is the party that has repeatedly eschewed facts for 4 years and longer. The one that has repeatedly pushed useless investigations that they themselves conclude are baseless. And in fact it’s not even the whole party, it’s mostly the parts of the party working directly for the loser.
Yes, that helps, thank you. I'd read of some officials denying it, but the information around judges is new to me and I will explore it further.
Who do you consider to be reputable sources? I will include them in my reading.
I'm also interested in why it was necessary to refer to the president as a "loser." I thought your point stood without it and all that did was clue me in on the possibility of bias in the rest of the response. Staunch supporters would likely discard your reasoning entirely because of it.
I did indeed mean loser as the opposite of victor, as mentioned in the sibling response, rather than as an ad hominem.
Reputability-wise I focused on the American press in general (Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NYT, etc). My main through-line during the week was following the 538 live blog, which did a good job of linking out to a variety of sources as several of the cases unfolded during the week. A decent summary is the one at https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/election-2020-trump-campaign... . You'll find the legal challenges so far are largely about technicalities rather than actual allegations of voter fraud, despite claims otherwise, and that the ones that have been heard have mostly either been dismissed or they have resulted in minor adjustments to procedures, at times to the frustration of the presiding judge (finding in-person recounting of the proceedings requires digging deeper than the above article).
Not featuring in the legal proceedings are other allegations, such as those that certain people who were supposedly deceased had submitted votes. These have mostly turned out to be clerical errors, many of which were already fixed but hadn't necessarily propagated to the systems that the allegers were looking at. As a bonus, here's a 538 feature from 2016, when the groundwork for this kind of argument was once again being laid just in case now-president Trump lost: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/voter-fraud-is-very-rar... .
Taking your question in good faith, it's because the argument isn't that "Russian interference" happened. It's that the argument is "Russian interference in favor of Trump" happened. So clearly, if Biden won, the belief isn't that Russia helped Biden, it's that Biden's victory was able to overcome whatever interference was still trying affect things in favor of Trump.
For those who don't recall, Russia had big reasons to endorse Trump over Hillary in 2016: Hillary was bellicose about Russia and Syria, to the point where people echoed worries she'd plunge us into "WW3". That, compared with Trump's contrarian sympathies toward Russia and irreverence about the U.S.'s moral highground (and conservatism AND clear, probable incompetence) of course motivated Russia to support him.
They also hoped that he would come to the table and legitimize Russia as a fellow superpower and usher in a new era of diplomatic relations. The fact that Trump utterly failed to do that probably chilled Russia's interest in the 2020 election though.
China has good reason to endorse Biden; should we assume that Biden has colluded with China in efforts to “hack” our election (whatever tf that means)?
Not solely because of motive, no. You'd need evidence, which is different than motive. Russia having a motive wasn't the only reason to suspect collusion, either.
Because the polling majorly favored Biden and the results showed far more Trump votes than anticipated could rationally be interpreted to mean that mail-in ballots were flawed in a way that favored Trump.
I'm not claiming this is the case but providing an example of how subjective and spinnable any set of facts can be made.
The downvoting could also be because I asked a very basic question and they responded to it with a non sequitur that did not even attempt to answer the question.
My family and I are in the Seattle area, we're considering moving due to work going primarily remote, cost of living (childcare is becoming a significant concern for us as we start a family, for example), and disagreement with local politics, probably in that order.
My family and I also live in Seattle and are in the middle of moving for similar reasons (sold my house, bought another one, waiting for everything to close). I probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger, but I have a friend who happens to be a real estate agent, and that made things a lot easier. Still, moving is expensive, a lot of work, and really disruptive! (I'm typing this from a hotel room...)
I'll second this person's opinion. I used to work in a small town computer shop many years ago as a sales/support "clerk". I spent all day helping people directly, many repeat customers. The job was pretty chill and there was a somewhat new problem to solve every day. I worked fixed hours and when I went home I could completely focus on whatever I wanted to do now that I wasn't working. The wage sucked, slightly above minimum wage isn't great, but it was enough for me at the time.
Contrast that with my FAANG job I have now. The pay is phenomenal. But it basically swallows my life. Between the long hours, weekend on-calls, constant churn, all for a customer I've only spoken to indirectly via a project manager. It's hard to feel like the work you're putting out is really making a difference in anyone's life. With covid and the lack of direct human contact as well, I'd go so far as to say I'm practically pushing commits into a void everyday and getting paid for it, there's very little if any feedback for my work. First-world problems, I know. But if you took away the pay differences, I know which job I'd choose in a heartbeat.
At least in the US, this is why it's not uncommon for certain demonstrations to be full of people who are armed, openly. It's much less likely that the police will open fire on a crowd that is at least equally, if not more, heavily armed. Though, this requires a certain critical mass among the demonstrators to be successful. I believe I see this more commonly with conservative demonstrations as the overlap of conservative values and gun ownership is somewhat high.
It's the demonstration equivalent of mutually assured destruction, whether one agrees with it or not.
>In 1967, 30 members of the Black Panthers protested on the steps of the California statehouse armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols and announced, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves.”
>The display so frightened politicians—including California governor Ronald Reagan—that it helped to pass the Mulford Act, a state bill prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms, along with an addendum prohibiting loaded firearms in the state Capitol. The 1967 bill took California down the path to having some of the strictest gun laws in America and helped jumpstart a surge of national gun control restrictions.
There have been a few incidents of Black Lives Matter protest groups armed with rifles. I don't believe there has been any violence between those groups and police.
Those are not automatic rifles, they're very likely all semi-automatic. Semi-automatic rifles can look the same as automatic rifles, visual appearance doesn't mean much. Automatic rifles in the US are much, much more difficult and expensive to acquire than one would think--tens of thousands of dollars usually vs ~$500 for a semi-automatic variant.
Sorry if that seems pedantic, but the media uses the understandably easy confusion between the two to misrepresent issues around gun rights a lot.
The whole 'fully automatic rifle' is such a nothing burger anyway. M4s and M16s aren't controllable on fully automatic at anything over 10m. Watch modern combat footage of any trained unit, and I guarantee you'll see them using semi auto.
My point? Semi auto AR-15s are every bit as effective and deadly as their fully automatic military counterparts. Whether civilians should have such weapons is another discussion.
Regardless, full auto is misleadingly portrayed in media as being orders of magnitude more deadly than semi auto, hard to change that (for example[0]). Nevermind handguns kill more than all other gun types combined, it's the "military" style ones that politicians and media focus on because they look scary (again, also disregarding the fact that a functionally equivalent semi-auto hunting rifle has exactly the same destructive power).
>a functionally equivalent semi-auto hunting rifle has exactly the same destructive power).
I'd strongly argue against this point. Most hunting rifles have 5 round mags (legal limit for hunting in a lot of places). They won't accept 30 round mags. They're also chambered in more powerful calibers which have much more recoil.
An active shooter with his dad's hunting rifle is much less dangerous than the same shooter with an AR-15 with 30 round mags.
To add to this, having had quite of bit of firearms experience both semi and auto, the real limiting factors are, as mentioned, controllability and ammo.
With a 30 round mag and a cyclic rate of 700 rounds per minute (AR-15 mods run 700-1000 RPM), you get a little over 2 seconds of trigger time. That assumes you don't experience a jam, which is very likely with an AR-15 variant modified for automatic fire, and because of the weight distribution and recoil deflection, you won't hit anything you aim at after the second round leaves the chamber. So, if they are packing fully auto AR-15 mods, I'd be wayyyyy less concerned than if they were using semi automatic.
> I'd be wayyyyy less concerned than if they were using semi automatic.
In general, yes. To play devil's advocate though, accuracy/controllability is not really needed if your goal is just to spray as much lead as possible into a densely crowded area from, say, a hotel room above.
Such domestic terrorist events are extremely rare, but I would guess in these specific cases where the goal is to spray as many bullets per second as possible into a crowd, full auto + large magazine is going to kill more people than semi auto.
Semi auto fires as fast as you can tap the trigger, they still fire plenty fast. Test out how long it takes you to get through 30 clicks on your mouse. Now keep in mind with the automatic, by your third or fourth shot your aim might be 10 feet higher than where you set off aiming at the start of the burst, and you can see how even in crowds a semi automatic weapon would be far more dangerous as you could control where the rifle is pointed.
Late reply, sorry. I'd say that in the domestic terrorism situation you describe, even someone completely untrained would still be more deadly taking aimed shots than with full auto or auto bursts. With auto, most of those 30 rounds would impact the ground unless they were shooting into a really, really dense mass of people, and even then you'd have many shots that would be grazing or non lethal hits. And by the time the second magazine went in, people would be clearing out fast.
With a large magazine it would be a different story though, you are right about that. This is why I think that it's good to have fully auto by design weapons be illegal (think the SAW, or the M240), along with magazines above 30 rounds.
Yeah you say that but in a tight crowd with nowhere to go, and enough ammunition, you can do a lot of damage. E.g., the Vegas shooting at a music festival with pseudo-automatic bump stocks.
Each bullet does the same amount of damage, regardless of whether they are fired 0.1 seconds apart or 0.3 seconds apart. (Made up numbers, but a semiautomatic can be fired very quickly if you aren't taking time to aim.)
This pedantic distinction ignores reality. Police response to a shooter is measured in some finite number of seconds. N / 0.3 is smaller than N / 0.1. Slower fire rate matters.
Yea one of my best friends has two fully automatics. He needed to get permits signed by the local sheriff and both of them cost more than his truck. He's a collector and likes shooting WWI and WWII era guns.
But yea, legal fully automatic weapons are not cheap.
I would check your sources on that. As one example, there are plenty of registered legal “Lightning Links” in the US. They are drop-in fully automatic on many (otherwise) unmodified AR-15 variants. With small exception, they shoot and cycle just fine. They’re literally just one small piece of steel.
One could make [1] their own in 2020 illegally with the hand tools you find at an Ace Hardware Store.
That's just a plate carrier, with no plates in it. It won't stop a bullet, definitely not a rifle round. Maybe he has some soft armor jammed in there but doubtful based on the rest of his "I bought this from the local gunstore 3 days ago setup."
Yes, you're correct and it's a good clarification. Thanks. The rifle in this photo is definitely purchased and would've been subject to the waiting period you mention.
I was being a being a bit sarcastic about his gear being brand new and forgot about the relatively new laws as part of my joke. :)
You got this backwards, an M4 is actually a knock off of the AR-15. That is to say the AR-15 came before both the M16 and the M4 and both of those guns were built from the AR-15.
Sure? If you mean it's probably a 16" with a carbine-length gas system, tube-like handguard that probably isn't floated, and a carbine stock, that looks about right.
It's kind of an ill-defined term, and doesn't really mean that it was purchased whole. It could easily be a stripped lower + lpk + complete upper, or complete lower + complete upper. Either of those sidesteps the 10 day waiting period, and it's about the same price - you can get a lower+lpk with buffer tube and halfway-decent buttstock for something like $120, or you can buy a complete lower for about that same price.
Assuming you just buy a stripped lower and not an 80% lower, assembling requires minimal tooling - a couple roll pin punches, a hammer, some pliers, a hex wrench, and maybe another wrench. A vise grip makes it easier but isn't strictly speaking required. Takes like an hour or two even if you have no idea wtf you're doing.
That said, I agree it's probably more likely they bought it whole, or bought a lower+upper and just slapped it together (which takes 5 seconds and zero tools).
I'm sorta tired of people regulating or trying to regulate every aspect of life. Maybe just let people make their own decisions.