The Brits have gone all in on the surveillance society with their CCTV cameras all over the place and now the Online Safety Bill. Still early days, I'm sure it'll be expanded at every opportunity. Maybe 1984 is the blueprint.
In the US the fundamental Christians are grabbing power and they're taking flamethrowers to books and talking about tracking women who may go across state-lines to get an abortion. Self-censorship for fear of being 'canceled' is putting a damper on the spirit of freedom. It's perhaps more along the lines of Fahrenheit 451.
Well, as a Brit, I agree with the surveillance society bit although the police don't even have time to go after the crims, so I suspect that most surveillance footage is ignored unless you're a political figure.
As a devout atheist, I have a particular view of Christians and from what I can gather, the Christo-fascists in the U.S. trying to grab power are Christian in name only and represent almost the exact opposite of the teachings of Jesus. I think it's more of a fascist movement that picks on the most gullible and easily led of groups for their support base.
For decades in the US, school administrators have been obsessed with monitoring student's online activity and email. There is a lucrative industry providing what amounts to glue and regexs for detecting and reporting suicidal language, threats of violence, and so on (you can be sure there's detection of LGBTQ language for all the various religious schools.)
There is a subreddit for K-12 IT administrators and the stuff people would post there about monitoring students was pretty shocking (also, the levels of incompetence are also pretty shocking. Most of the crowd are barely competent at IT basics. People who are in charge of IT at multiple campuses.)
Tell your kids that any email account associated with the school, and anything they even type into a school device (phone, tablet, laptop, computer) is monitored, and even the most innocent keyword could flag their email and put it front of admins. If they want to talk to a trusted friend about anything regarding the administrator or teachers, or something regarding mental health, sexuality, bullying, violence, etc - they need to do it on devices not associated with the school, with no school management software installed, on non-school accounts.
In fact, they should probably never use their school accounts or devices for anything except strictly school related communication and work.
It's amazing how completely ignorant these admins are that, say, hauling a suicidal student into a meeting with administrators is just about the last fucking thing that kid needs, and yet that's exactly what was described in some posts and discussions. The only thing they care about is snooping in student's activity and covering the school's ass.
Sadly a lot of kids only have one portal to the internet and that’s through a school device.
Otherwise the advice should be, as you said, to never use a school device for anything not explicitly required by the school. But when there’s no other route, surveilled access is better than none, I guess?
It’s a tough quandary though - schools can be held liable, at least socially so if not legally, if kids use school provided devices for all the things kids use devices for that they shouldn’t. Meeting sexual predators, bullying, etc. Many parents are technically incapable of monitoring their online activity, others too busy. Schools are being put in a weird spot of being access providers to an adult world online, not just educators.
I’ll wager a lot of school surveillance started with parents demanding it.
It’s a tough subject, I don’t have the answer. My intuition tells me schools shouldn’t be involved in access OR monitoring, but I also understand the “digital divide” isn’t just a media term. A lot of pretty smart kids live in a pretty neglected context, and without access to sources of fact like Wikipedia or sources of dubious plagiarism like ChatGPT (tongue in cheek), they’re at a structural disadvantage that can’t be overcome through hard work alone.
Except they can’t control the fact that wealthier kids will have access to devices that give them Wikipedia and ChatGPT and other online knowledge sources. Being able to tell ChatGPT “explain to me the Byzantine empires history” then interrogate it on fine points to prep to write an essay in immeasurably more powerful than “here’s a middle school textbook good luck understanding the nuances.” This puts the kids without a device at a structural disadvantage, a more steep disadvantage than they’re already at in society.
Finally, there’s an idea of digital literacy - the ability to use these tools to your advantage, and to navigate with sophistication the mental crack of algorithmic personalization. They will have a device at some point, and being taught at a younger age to be skeptical of mental crack might help weaken its hold (still to be seen!)
Wealthier kids have always had and always will have advantages like that. Wealthier kids probably also have their own room and a quiet organized place to do homework. They've probably been encouraged to read and been provided with books and other enrichment opportunities. I think most teachers know who these kids are and and know if they are turning in their own work or not.
I’m not talking about ChatGPT writing an essay for you. ChatGPT is also a pretty good teacher in itself, and can help you learn many topics and subjects by providing direct access to a tutor on most topics. Wikipedia is the only encyclopedia available, more or less.
While schools can’t give you a good family or a nice house to study in, they certainly can give you an iPad.
I can't speak for your area of the world, but every even vaguely metro or suburban area of Australia has public libraries with quiet spaces to work/study, free internet and free computers to use if you don't BYO. Most run digital literacy classes, and a number are even starting to do little cost-price cafe setups.
Whilst being wealthy is an advantage, it's certainly not the gap it once was.
The CCTV meme is completely disconnected from reality. There are plenty of CCTV cameras around, but they aren't connected in any way, most of them are private, and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings. American obsession with Ring-like cloud connected cameras and their dealings with police forces are way more dystopian than the reality of CCTV as practiced in Britain.
A good example is my partner getting pickpocketed on an empty tube train, which surely should make finding the person easy, right? Nope, the Met told me they'd need to go and pay the train maintenance company to retrieve the recordings from each carriage on the train, and they're not going to do that over a wallet.
In practice it works pretty well, because it implicitly sets a very high bar on the severity of the crime that would warrant retrieving dozens of recordings and tracing people through them. Skripal poisoning or murders get that treatment and are solved pretty quickly. Small scale crime (or whatever dystopian thought crime scenarios people imagine) doesn't.
> and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings
obviously this is the case if you are a normal citizen. imagine how fast they'd access the recordings if a police officer was hurt, or to identify protesters, etc
There are probably hundreds to thousands of protesters protesting for different causes in London alone every weekend. CCTV tracking of protesters is just not happening, it's absolutely unrealistic. Besides, you don't need street CCTV for that, local police van-based CCTV on mass gatherings is already a thing all over the globe.
Stuff like Ring (centralised, pervasive, and already cooperating with authorities) is way more sus than CCTV on British streets.
While I agree that our politicians are obsessed with sticking their nose in people's private business (and the shadow cabinet often merely object that the proposals don't go far enough!), but I would say this is mostly down to a different issue - an overzealous obsession with "safeguarding" and the belief that it must be possible to preemptively block all societal harms, and that those objecting to the cost of the attempts must just be running apologetics.
I have friends and family who work in education and other social care roles, so hear about the various training and policy they're given, and it almost feels like the public sector is putting parents on perpetual trial. And there's the underlying assumption of "if in doubt, raise it", with the false belief that a false report is harmless and will surely come out in the wash with no harm from the process.
Though it's important to remember this isn't down to the staff all being little Umbridges wanting to cause stress; as usual it's down to incentives. They are explicitly told they could be at fault for failing to report a Potential Safeguarding Issue, so it's the safer option in doubt. And at an organisational level, any instance where a child does come to harm leads to potentially nationwide accusations of negligence (sometimes fair) and demands to Do Something, no matter what that something is, what its collateral costs are, and if it even works in the first place.
And of course it would be unfair not to mention that the teachers themselves are often very much victims of similar overscrutiny, and are quite used to self-policing their behavior, with fear of both policy violations and parents' ire. Again, I'm largely criticizing the policy not the people. The common sense and discretion of workers on the ground is often a good defense against stupid policy, but not when there's a credible fear of being disciplined for that
> Self-censorship for fear of being 'canceled' is putting a damper on the spirit of freedom.
I'm always curious about what people mean by this, because usually its people upset they can't say the N-word or upset they're getting cancelled over being sex pests.
There is a well-worn joke in the economics profession that involves two economists – one young and one old – walking down the street together:
The young economist looks down and sees a $20 bill on the street and says, “Hey, look a twenty-dollar bill!”
Without even looking, his older and wiser colleague replies, “Nonsense. If there had been a twenty-dollar lying on the street, someone would have already picked it up by now.”
> “Nonsense. If there had been a twenty-dollar lying on the street, someone would have already picked it up by now.”
I don't remember too much from my finance courses in business school but one comment from the professor always stayed with me. He said that if there was any succesful pattern to trading, there are firms on wall street which can afford many orders of magnitude more brain power and compute power than you, so they will zero in on it pretty quick if it works. As soon as they do, it doesn't work anymore. Proof: Otherwise they would all be making infinite profit.
Makes sense. This means any trading algorithm that can be programmed is pretty much obsolete (if it ever was any good) by the time it's working.
You're proving the point of jjav. Jim Simons was an advanced mathmatician able to employ novel ideas to generate an alpha. Institutions with access to top level mathematicians and massive compute resources are still doing that.
But such algorithms only work as long as they're kept secret. As soon as the algorithm is made public, every large institution will incorporate them into their trading robots, meaning the information will become priced in to the market value instantly.
There are really only five ways to beat the market:
1) Insider information. (Illegal)
2) Extensive market research, where you understand the companies better than the market does. (Requires A LOT of work)
3) Direct contribution to the company's success (you need to have the talent of a Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates).
4) Mathematical/computational superiority (you need to be at the level of Jim Simons or have the capital to hire such people)
5) Luck.
Mainstream technical analysis is not on the list.
That being said, I'm sure the current AI revolution is leaving some doors open to massive profits to some clever person able to create a model that predicts patterns better than most other algo trading robots.
Replace the twenty dollar with the tens of millions at minimum if basic technical analysis (ie. dead cat bounce level stuff) is leveragable and yeah I think you have a pretty close approximation to reality: more likely you are hallucinating than you found $20 million on the street.
The USA is approx. 250x larger than Estonia, so there's that. Also, there are vested interests that would fight a USA federal ID, due to politics and etc.
The population of Maine is about the size of Estonia. Why can't an individual state try to implement it? Surely that small scale is not a show-stopper.
OK... so at best you wind up with 50 independent state ID systems (although probably fewer, some states will absolutely refuse), none of which have any value outside their respective states (although more likely some do and some don't,) and no political will to integrate them into a single Federal system, out of unreasonable fears the US government will hunt down gun owners and put Christians into re-education camps, and more reasonable fears they might do those things to anyone else. Then what?
That doesn't sound right. Even 95% of max heart rate is sustainable for a long, long time. Intervals one can only sustain for 30s are way above VO2max intensity deep in the anaerobic zone. Heart rate pretty much maxes out on those.
90% of maximum heart rate is the start of the anaerobic zone, and maintaining it for multiple minutes requires intense training. If you think you're sustaining 95% for any sort of time then that means you've failed to measure your maximum heart rate correctly.
This really isn't accurate at all. I'm in very strong aerobic shape and 95% of my max heart rate is not at all sustainable for more than a few minutes, and it is also a deeply anaerobic activity. VO2Max != max heart rate. Your heartrate @ VO2 max is typically much lower than your max heartrate. Max genuinely means max in this case, as in, literally the highest you can get your heartrate up. By definition, you are way above your VO2 max in that situation and it is not going to be sustainable for long at all.
Something like 90% approaches what you're talking about, maybe being sustainable for 15 minutes or so, but that 5% makes an enormous difference.
You might be right and my 95% was a bit off. But the main point is that 80-85% being sustainable for only 30s might only be the case for someone who is in absolutely terrible shape.
Don't think about actual pulse numbers and % of pulse numbers. If you're not thinking about quitting and almost falling off the rower you're not going hard enough.
You will think of every excuse known to man to avoid doing it.
Nope. A rough estimate of my old fart MHR is 169. 85% of which is 143. I run literally for several hours at this heart rate every week. The burning intensity you're talking about is at 100-110% of max HR.
How does one determine maximum pulse rate? I do workouts where I'm constantly at 160-170 bpm for 15 minutes and my lungs aren't burning nor am I about to collapse (aged mid-30s, if that matters)
Note that wearable fitness trackers that use wrist optical heart rate sensors often don't give accurate readings on such tests so it's best to add a chest heart rate sensor.
"Since HRmax varies by individual, the most accurate way of measuring any single person's HRmax is via a cardiac stress test. In this test, a person is subjected to controlled physiologic stress (generally by treadmill or bicycle ergometer) while being monitored by an electrocardiogram (ECG). The intensity of exercise is periodically increased until certain changes in heart function are detected on the ECG monitor, at which point the subject is directed to stop. Typical duration of the test ranges ten to twenty minutes."
If you need an accurate number, it should be measured manually. Some sports clinics can do this; measuring true VO2 Max, as well as actual max heart rate.
I've heard that estimate before (80% would be ~150bpm for me). But then the physiological effects described by the GP don't seem right as I need to go much higher to feel anything like "my lungs burning" (maybe 190+?)
Age based equations for maximum heart rate are mostly bullshit. More recent research has shown that there is much less decline in maximum heart rate with age, at least for athletes with a decent level of fitness. And there is a huge amount of natural variation between individuals which is often more significant than age effects.
Maximum heart rate is also sport dependent. For an equivalent level of fitness, maximum cycling HR is often about 10bpm lower than maximum running HR. This is because running engages more muscles and doesn't restrict breathing as much.
Yeah, not saying it’s a perfect rule, just making the point that the parent’s 160-170bpm is lower than what I’d expect his max to be, using the rule of thumb a lot of people know.
(And for what it’s worth, my max heart rate is the same when cycling or running, within a small margin of error. I’ve never thought to ask anyone if it’s the same for them - I will do now!)
> just making the point that the parent’s 160-170bpm is lower than what I’d expect his max to be
Just want to clarify, I mentioned 160-170 bpm as a regular workout I do where I do not feel anywhere near max (I have seen my heart rate get above 190 while running).
I was replying to this:
> For 80-85% of maximum pulse rate...
> If your lungs are burning and you're about to collapse after 30 seconds of activity the intensity is about right.
And saying that going at 160-170 (above 80-85% according to rule of thumb) for a prolonged period of time, I feel none of those symptoms.
For my whole life i sustain 195-200 for 1h. Im 40+ now and run a 10k a day (45mins). Even a very slow 10k (1h) i never go below 170 after the first 5 minutes.
I wouldn't suggest using swimming to calculate your maximum heart rate, as you have less control over when you breath. Also, you don't want to be out of breath anywhere near water, the potential for passing out and drowning is too great.
Just put on your heart rate monitor, get warmed up, and then sprint as fast as you can until you collapse, most easily done by sprinting uphill. Note your maximum heart rate recorded.
Just hill sprints will get you a better read than 220-age, but the reason, I believe, lab test build up heartrate gradually is that you don't want to test the abilities of your leg muscles to sprint and recover.
Very well trained athletes will notice that they bounce between different body systems limiting their performance as the move through training periods.
Swimming can work as well, but only if you have good technique. I'm not a great swimmer so when I'm panting by the poolside it's because I wasn't breathing correctly, not because I was exceeding my aerobic capacity. Highly trained competitive swimmers don't have this problem.
I believe running your heart at such high intensity every day isn't particularly healthy. It causes scarring of the heart tissue and possible problems as you age.
5-10 minutes of high intensity exercise daily is well outside what that Ted talk was describing.
With up to 45 minutes of daily exercise you see an improvement. After that there is a period where more exercise has negligible impact and only at the extreme upper end to you see a decline. But even people running regular marathons have lower risks than couch potatoes, you need to get really extreme before it’s an issue.
“First, low exercise is a much more prevalent problem for our society than is excessive exercise. Second, the maximal health benefits of exercise typically occur at quite low levels. More exercise may burn more calories and improve athletic performance, but probably does not lead to better health outcomes.
“Three, in keeping with what Ben Levine said in his Circulation Commentary in 2014, I do not believe that we should go overboard to frighten athletes who want to compete in vigorous endurance sports like marathons and triathlons.”
Lavie also pointed out two new exercise studies in JAMA Internal Medicine....
When mortality rates were adjusted for exercise levels, the researchers found the lowest rate among those who exercised about three to five times the amount recommended by federal guidelines (i.e., 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise like running). However, the increased benefit of working out three to five times more than the guidelines was modest, the researchers wrote.
More importantly to serious runners, there was no evidence of harm at ten or more times the recommended minimum.
Another JAMA Internal Medicine paper looked at mortality rates in relation to moderate vs. vigorous exercise. In other words, what’s the proof for the federal government’s guideline showing vigorous exercise is roughly twice as good per minute as moderate exercise (75 minutes vs. 150 minutes)?
The conclusion, based on an analysis of 204,000 Australians aged 45 to 75: The current federal guidelines likely underestimate the value of vigorous exercise. The Australian results showed an inverse relationship between vigorous exercise and mortality rates.
A new Mercedes Sprinter is around EUR 40K. If you are handy you can outfit it for living with another EUR 15K. Put in a wood stove and you have yourself a home.
No one ever adds VAT. Consumer goods mostly come from China. You would expect them to be 23% more expensive across the board than the US where sales tax is always lower and added at time of purchase.
Things produced within the EU can be a better deal if it’s not too labor intensive. Camper bands are a good example of something being built within the EU and able to have a price advantage, even after factoring in taxes.
Take, for example, an iphone 14 pro, base model. Prices are from apple.com and apple.com/fr as of today. I choose this because it's the exact same model that's available from the same retailer, so easy to compare. But this happens with many other products.
US: 999 USD
FR: 1329 EUR
That's way more than 23% (999 * 1.03 * 1.2 = 1235).
Sure, add on a little extra for the depreciating currency and currency risk (euro has been losing value vs USD) and likely at the time Apple was setting the price it was close to parity with the dollar.
Sure, I can see Apple trying to set a price high enough to account for this, so they don't have to change it every other day. But boy did Apple (and others) see this situation coming since five years ago (when I started following this). Electronics (and related products) have always been more expensive here than in the US, even years ago, even accounting for VAT and other taxes.
Hell, when I was in college, (~2010, in France), I used to be really into photography. Bought a tripod and head. Italian brand, made in Italy. It was cheaper for me to order it from B&H in NY, pay for conversion charges, shipping, import duties, VAT, etc on top of the shipping, than it was to buy it local. Both Italy and France had the Euro at the time.
Huh? I was in California and food is not expensive at all in the supermarket there. And I'm not talking about Aldi quality food but organic.
Especially when you consider how much richer Californians are VS Europeans.
Maybe it's because California has got a performant agriculture.
Mostly housing, healthcare and education are more expensive in the US but consumer prices are generally significantly lower. Check numbeo.
Exactly, we are witnessing supply destruction. It's worth considering that liquid natural gas is one of the most expensive (in both emissions and cost) to ship.
It needs to be held in special LNG carrier ships that can keep it not only at the right pressure, but the right temperature (against vast fluctuations). The crew on this ship requires special training and the ships carry a different insurance profile.
This is not like oil which is essentially held at room temperature in a water tight vessel.
Therefore just having LNG in a ship takes a considerable number of resources even if it's just sitting there. Crew and insurance has to be paid, refrigeration and ship costs add up, as well as the opportunity cost.
As you can imagine, getting the LNG that you very expensively purchased in the US, shipped, and then brought to Europe, is quite important. Every day delayed this becomes money that is not just being incinerated, but also not being maid.
What we are witnessing now is supply destruction, and as much as the ignorant journalists at CNN may celebrate it, this is actually quite bad long-term for Europe.
Coincidentally, the only other thing that is likely to be more expensive to ship is what Canada's Trudeau has promised Germany it will send: hydrogen. Thankfully that is likely to never happen as the promise was as limp-wristed as it gets.
Having spent the past ~10 years living in London, I disagree.
Rush hour Tokyo trains were a dream, people are polite and queue, but they queue so that they're not in the way, the carriages are surprisingly head-roomy for 6'4 me, unlike the shit show of the central line, they're cooled properly, like the circle/district and the stations were almost universally clean and spacious unlike our tube platforms which are often cramped with tiny exits through archways blocked by people filling the platforms.
I'm not saying the London Tube is bad, but I would take Tokyo subway over it any day.
It may be controversial to say but tourists (local or from afar) are generally the worst part about central London commuting, due to the ignorance of the etiquette, especially when tourist numbers can be overwhelming in some parts.
> It may be controversial to say but tourists (local or from afar) are generally the worst part about central London commuting, due to the ignorance of the etiquette, especially when tourist numbers can be overwhelming in some parts.
This goes for any city that is popular with tourists, who seem to forget that most of the people in a city live and work there, and have their own lives that do not revolve around hospitality or entertainment for tourists.
The tube is pretty bad. Many lines have grime floating in the air that deposits on skin & clothing and turns your snot black. Often a very long walk pavement to platform. Frequent delays from suicide attempts because its old so no track doors and the designs of stations are depressing. Overworked and underpaid staff.
So, did some research. TFL have not released hard figures in recent years, but it appears the delays due to jumpers are significantly down from their past near-daily occurance because of the installation of "suicide pits" to catch jumpers under many platforms and training staff to intervene when they spot a distressed person on the platform.
Could not possibly agree more, they are the worst. System would be massively more efficient and pleasant if everyone followed basic etiquette.
Other annoyances;
When you get to the bottom of the escalators don't just stop in the middle looking at phones and wondering what platform you need. Stand to the side.
Observe the queues next to each door position on the platform and join them. Do not just stand in the clear space in the middle. Following on from that, let people off the train first!!
Walk down the platform don't huddle at the entrance to it.
Don't wait for the gates to close before tapping your card. Just tap and check for green light.
I actually expected people to stand on the "left" of the scalators - just like how they drive on the left and overtake on the right - but they didn't.
They stood on the right.
Stand on the right on escalators, let people off of the carriages before you barge on, don't stop suddenly without checking who's about to walk into you, don't run into tube trains as the doors are closing only to get stuck and hold up the train, DON'T HOLD THE DOORS OPEN, go up and down stairs on the left, corridors etc, stay on the left and don't fuck around at the barriers. Have your card ready, your contactless ready, take your kids, cases, whatever through the wide gate. Don't play whatever shitty video you're watching to the whole train and certainly don't subject others to your music taste.
DO ask people for directions or for help, people may look tired, they may look grumpy they may even be those things, but most will be more than willing to help you.
EDIT: Others covered a few important ones I missed too; backpacks off, walking N-abreast so as to be blocking others from passing are a big no-no; you may be having a leisurely stroll, commuters have places to be, whether at work or at home with their families and their feet up after a long day.
Adding to this: Don't jump aboard wearing your dirty working jumpsuit smeared with paint, cement, oil. Also stop loudly arguing with your partner over phone. Get your shoes off the chairs.
It's like London, but the overly-compressed people are more polite and the air doesn't get quite so.. thick because the carriages are much bigger.
Also, the trains are on time, so there's no waiting on an overflowing platform for 10 mins of no trains then 30 minutes of trains too full to get onto.
Based on the fashion and film grain, that picture is probably 30 years old. I lived in Tokyo recently, for 5 years, and saw this maybe 3 times, all at special occasions, such as on the way to a large fireworks festival. I've experienced train pushers in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics, too. Yes, many trains are uncomfortably crowded at rush hour but I've experienced the same in Europe. Maybe slightly worse in Europe, because at least the train tends to be on time and the ticket machines and turnstiles always work in Japan.
In Paris train pushers are just a convenient excuse for you to ram the idiots standing clueless in the middle of the carriage towards the aisles where they should have gone from the start while pretending it’s not your fault anyway.
It’s nearly as enjoyable as getting someone out of the way so you can get in said aisles yourself and avoid being compressed next to the doors at rushed hours.
It was a thing before COVID in Tokyo. Don’t know about now. The point I’m trying to make is that this thing NEVER happens in London. Train pushers don’t exist, so even if it’s not an everyday thing in Tokyo anymore I can hardly believe that anyone would say “I prefer the rush hour in Tokyo”, to which my previous post was the response to :)
Even if the trains in Tokyo are more packed (debatable, but I'll concede it for now), there is more to commuting than that. The reliability of the service, the cleanliness or the stations and carriages, the (lack of) pushing and shoving on and on the way to the platform, the temperature and ventilation of the stations and carriages etc. Tokyo wins in all these measurement.
Train congestion has been falling with the decline in population.
Also, the pandemic has really sped up adoption of either wfh, partial wfh, or commuting during “shoulder” hours instead of the peak of peak, from what I’ve heard.
"When I describe East Coast vs West Coast culture to my friends I often say "The East Coast is kind but not nice, the West Coast is nice but not kind," and East Coasters immediately get it. West Coasters get mad."
In the US the fundamental Christians are grabbing power and they're taking flamethrowers to books and talking about tracking women who may go across state-lines to get an abortion. Self-censorship for fear of being 'canceled' is putting a damper on the spirit of freedom. It's perhaps more along the lines of Fahrenheit 451.
May you live in interesting times.