Chardok (u/Chardok) - Readit News

Chardok commented on Los Angeles hid power plant methane leak for a year latimes.com/environment/s... · Posted by u/AndrewBissell

mc32 · 5 years ago

I don’t know the particulars of this location; however, often times it’s not dirty industry invading and settling in poor neighborhoods but rather poor neighborhoods sprouting up next to these industries because land is cheaper.

For example the Sriracha company settled in the middle of nowhere, the north San Jose water treatment facility was in the middle of nowhere but now you have housing next to them and people complaining about smells or pollution.

To avoid this you’ll need better more stringent zoning laws with bigger buffer zones.

Chardok · 5 years ago

The issue isn't just isolated to those living around it. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-gree...), letting it leak out like that for a year has likely caused significant environmental harm.

Chardok commented on U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/re... · Posted by u/mudil

numakerg · 6 years ago

> Edible marijuana takes time to absorb and to produce its effects, increasing the risk of unintentional overdose

No citation for this. Do they mean a larger than intended dose or a dose that results in a serious toxic reaction or death?

Better source:

Median lethal THC dose for a 70kg human estimated to be 4g [0], which is slightly over 1300 full joints (at 3mg per joint) [0]. I won't link them here, but a cursory web search showed me stores claiming to sell edibles with up to 1000mg of THC.

Also a good read [1] [2]

0. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/0095299930900161...

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep08126

3. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cannabis-overdose-tox...

Chardok · 6 years ago

Its referring to ingesting more than the desired amount, not "ODing" in the lethal sense.

Chardok commented on Reddit has quarantined /r/The_Donald old.reddit.com/r/the_dona... · Posted by u/hih0

nilkn · 6 years ago

I suspect this isn't going to accomplish much of anything and may even backfire. According to published statistics by Reddit as of this writing, this subreddit has 755k subscribers and over 45,000 members online right now. For comparison, the official politics subreddit has 5.2 million subscribers but fewer online members (42,000). r/the_donald has an extraordinarily high level of activity and engagement. So long as r/the_donald exists and is maintained, it can act as a sort of black hole so that official subreddits can be heavily moderated to support certain platforms, politicians, and advertisers. If it were actually shut down, though, the users there are so numerous and active that it probably wouldn't be possible to maintain r/politics or other official subreddits in their current moderated state.

Perhaps worse, this quarantined state -- which really doesn't accomplish or do anything of substance -- just creates a sense of martyrdom in the already extremely active userbase there. I suspect this will energize them 10-fold.

Chardok · 6 years ago

I thought that would have happened too when other subreddits were quarantined or banned (and it briefly did when fatpeoplehate was banned) but honestly the banned discourse does not show up on the front page or /r/all, as they intended.

However, because of this, Reddit is becoming increasingly sterile, single-minded, and most importantly ad-friendly to the point where its fairly difficult to have an honest discussion about anything remotely controversial.

Unfortunately their selective banning of communities that I would associate with the "far-right" has seriously hurt any attempt to migrate away from Reddit (specifically Voat.co is unbearable for me trying to participate).

I don't know if there will ever be a straw to break the camels back, but I have been actively searching for reddit alternatives for years and have not found a truly viable replacement.

Chardok commented on State of the climate: Heat across Earth’s surface and oceans mark early 2019 carbonbrief.org/state-of-... · Posted by u/perfunctory

magnamerc · 6 years ago

Last weekend I overhead two older gentlemen talking about climate change. They were both agreeing with each other that it's all 'cyclical' and that clearly there are businesses that stand to benefit from climate change research. This is in Canada btw.

I don't know how you convince these people. Luckily, they're on their way out, but they still represent a large portion of the voting population for at least the next decade. Do we need more intense floods and forest fires every single year until they finally admit that maybe there's something to this climate thing?

Chardok · 6 years ago

Unfortunately the problem seems to be a Prisoner's dilemma for countries - curbing CO2 emissions without all other countries doing so puts said country at an economic disadvantage. It also puts a large onus on developing countries that don't have the established industry to easily convert to "greener" technologies/industries. Top that with most Western countries being in relatively low threatened areas comparatively and you get a large populace happy to remain ignorant.

I'm convinced the only possible savior at this point would be a Superpower aggressively enforcing environmental regulations to the point of going to war over it, but that seems unlikely.

Chardok commented on Carnival Cruise Lines Hit with $20M Penalty for Environmental Crimes npr.org/2019/06/04/729622... · Posted by u/jazzdev

Chardok · 6 years ago

"Miami-based Carnival pleaded guilty Monday to six probation violations, including the dumping of plastic mixed with food waste in Bahamian waters. The company also admitted sending teams to visit ships before the inspections to fix any environmental compliance violations, falsifying training records and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard to try to redefine what would be a "major non-conformity" of their environmental compliance plan."

So not only did they knowingly dump plastic waste into the ocean, but they also actively tried to cover it up, implying they were fully aware of being guilty. And they get a paltry fine with no one going to jail for this criminal charge?

At this point the judge is just as guilty for allowing this behavior to continue.

Chardok commented on Update Regarding Add-Ons in Firefox blog.mozilla.org/addons/2... · Posted by u/akyuu

Chardok · 6 years ago

The most frustrating part of this for me is there is no (relatively) easy way to override this behavior. Its fine to disable the addons, but please allow me to "understand the risks" and continue against Firefox's recommendations.

The feeling of no control over my web browser was why I left Chrome in the first place.

Chardok commented on Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law citylab.com/transportatio... · Posted by u/cienega

ben7799 · 6 years ago

I'm a long term cyclist (> 100,000 miles) and I live in the Metro Boston area and have bike commuted into Cambridge before.

I read Effective Cycling a long time ago and took it to heart and I put a large amount of my safety over the years down to following the "Vehicular Cycling" model. Drivers are WAY less likely to honk or yell at you when you follow this model too because you are behaving in a way that is consistent with the rules of the road. In the end the law in 99% of places actually mandates you ride according to Vehicular Cycling.

I don't have a problem with bike lanes but they are all highly imperfect. Boston, MA has a very large # of very very very dangerous bike lanes because the bike lanes encourage/force the cyclist to behave inconsistently with other traffic.

A lot of the bike lane advocates appear to be from the anti-Vehicular cycling.

The problem with a lot of the bike lanes is even they are protected it is impossible for them to protect against collisions at intersections. Most of these bike lanes place the cyclist who is traveling straight off to the right side of the vehicles which are trying to take a right turn at the intersection. This is an absolute disaster in the city and we had a high profile fatality of a woman cyclist a few years ago in Boston that was directly caused by this kind of bike lane.

You can't protect straight traveling cyclists going through an intersection where the cars need to turn right and left. As soon as they get to the intersection the cyclist is placed in the most dangerous place for them.

If the lane is unprotected the cyclist can exit the bike lane and enter the "travel straight" lane of traffic and avoid this. If the bike lane is protected the cyclist might not be able to do this at all and is forced into the "travel straight to the right of the right turning traffic."

If the road designer insists on putting a protected bike lane to the right of the right turning traffic the only thing I see being safe is a stop light for both the cyclists & cars, and the cars can't take a right when the cyclists have a green light and the cyclists can't go straight when the cars have a red light. The cars would have to be given a "No Right turn on Red" as well.

Again my experience is a lot of the advocates of some of this non-vehicular cycling stuff do not have that clear of a picture of what is actually safe because:

- They don't actually ride that much

- They spend a lot of time riding on Multi-Use-Trails instead of roads.

- They use sidewalks a lot of the time and advocate use of sidewalks

- They often think the rules of the road are invalid for cyclists

- Never got a motor cycle license or learned to ride a motorcycle

- Maybe don't drive cars at all

My experience is there is a cavernous gap in behavior between these folks and long term long distance riders & racers. The long term long distance riders & racers fall into vehicular cycling and are very very safe over the years.

This same kind of thing happens with left turns. The Vehicular cycling way to do this is signal left and move across the lanes of traffic as you approach the intersection and get to the left turn lane, just like a car or a truck. I've been doing this for decades safely and without conflict on roads as busy as 8 lanes wide. It works incredibly well. The non-vehicular way (Forrester always called this the "cycling inferiority complex" way of riding) is to hug the right side of the road even if you're in a right turn lane, and then take a left across all the right turning & straight turning traffic in an incredibly dangerous way that is also illegal.

Any cycling behavior that would get you a ticket if you did it on a motorcycle or in a car should be a red flag behavior for you because the ticket would be issued because you were engaging in flagrantly dangerous behavior.

A cyclist who is experienced in Vehicular cycling can move in and out of the bike lanes when they are safe or not safe and get the best of both worlds.

Chardok · 6 years ago

I agree with you in the sense that especially in America a lot of the bike lanes are really just faded single lines littered with gravel, and practically speaking following the Vehicular Cycling model has been very successful for me in interacting with cars.

However, while I can nimbly integrate with traffic being in shape and experienced, trying to get friends and family who are not experienced in this are usually met with an awful time, further discouraging bicycle use.

A fully segregated path, where you can get comfortable and learn without impatient drivers honking or zooming past 45+MPH would be infinitely valuable in helping. Cities need to stop half-assing bike lanes and either provide a safe, effective path or not bother because like you said they can even more dangerous.

There are plenty of intelligent solutions to the intersection problems, as well.

https://www.industrytap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/duth....

Chardok commented on Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law citylab.com/transportatio... · Posted by u/cienega

Tiktaalik · 6 years ago

Every city should be doing this. It's shameful how little attention we've paid to cyclist safety with city designs up to this point.

Chardok · 6 years ago

Its especially frustrating how cities will try almost anything to alleviate traffic instead of encouraging cycling. Its less taxing on the roads, it doesn't pollute, it doesn't require a schedule and best of all it takes up peanuts in space compared to a parking spot.

Chardok commented on Cambridge's Ambitious Protected Bike Lane Law citylab.com/transportatio... · Posted by u/cienega

mkoryak · 6 years ago

I found a "simple trick that makes all drivers around me nice".

I put a pigeon on my helmet 8 years ago[1]. Everywhere I go I see smiles. I really makes every ride fun. One of my friends recently started also doing it, so its starting to catch on.

Pigeonriding transforms me from an awkward software engineer into an interesting person who people want to talk to. I have only had a handful of bad experiences[2] with drivers and other bikers in 8+ years that I have been riding (a few of those years I commuted on a bike year-round).

[1]:http://www.pictureboston.com/blog/2011/08/14/a-leica-camera-...

[2]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=1&v=2hJ_hzjlQsw

Chardok · 6 years ago

I haven't needed it in the city I'm at now, but I used to wear a USA flag as a cape when riding in less biking friendly areas. It was night and day how drivers treated me.

Chardok commented on Nearly half of young millennials get thousands in support from parents cnbc.com/2017/02/10/young... · Posted by u/paulpauper

Chardok · 6 years ago

I just want people to be less 'secretive' about receiving parental support; in my peer group it seems almost shameful to have help, yet I can guarantee all of us have received some sort of financial help from family. It seems disingenuous to not acknowledge this fact especially when talking about government financial assistance.