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That agreement does nothing but launder tax money into "green" companies.

We set oil burning records every year.

The people writing that agreement fly around in private jets.

Snap out of it!


In the interest of DRY, naming things is hard because when you want to reuse code in a method or library, it should be easy and intuitive to find what you need.

Most, since, many devs name by what it does, rather than how it might be found.

For example naming a function calculateHaversine won't help someone looking for a function that calculates the distance between 2 latlongs unless they know the haversine does that.

Or they default to shortest name. Atan, asin, Pow for example.


At some point you just have to browse the library, and learn conventional names for algorithms.

If you want to synthesize this type of knowledge on the fly because you don't like learning other people's conventions, just feed the docs to chatgpt and ask if there's a function that solves your problem.

This is why a formal education is so important, and why books like "gang of Four" are some sort of standard. They've given a name to some common patterns, allowing a more efficient form of communication and higher level of thinking. Are the patterns actually good? Are the names actually good? That is besides the point.


The other source of energy is kinetic energy. It converts the potential energy of gravity mgh, into electrical energy, back into kinetic energy, 1/2*mv^2.

You only put one energy in, the other source is gravity and recycled kinetic.

Besides hybrid means two motors gas and electric. Not two inputs.


Toyota explicitly stated that the hybrid strategy spreads the lithium out to more cars, increasing fuel economy across the fleet.

Tesla's 800hp super cars aren't green and never were. They consume lithium to such a degree that they are, maybe even worse in the long run.

Using 800 horses to transport one human never could be efficient, no matter the technology.


800 horse Teslas overtaking narative as "green", "environmental", "eco friednly" is a true sleight of hand from the marketing department.


Spoke like a true oil industry executive


The argument still works for another 10 year cycle. Hybrids are not the enemy. Pure ICEs are.

Hybrids (well phevs) can deliver huge % of electrification and efficiency while transitioning older, dumber, and more conservative drivers to EVs, home charging, without having to plan

As to the article, I don't think they were influential enough. This obviously wouldn't have happened with the Bush administration, but maybe in some parallel world where Gore when the election, we might have gotten a mandate that all consumer vehicles needed to be hybrids or phevs within 10 years.

The amount of gas that would have saved, The amount of development it would had on batteries and electric drivetrains, would have further paved the way for decarbonization.

Why semis did not become hybrids is beyond me. The electric drivetrain provides so much more torque and smooth acceleration, while providing obviously regenerative braking.


A few hanging chads really changed the course of the western world in... 2000 I think.


The lithium isn’t consumed.


Dying worker bees ensure survival of the group without a measurable impact on death of the colony, which when seen as a super organism, means only a part of the organism, leaving the reproducing parts intact, since workers don't mate anyway.


> we humans and nearly all other mammals certainly don't have a singular queen and a sterile caste of workers.

No we have many queens and many sterile workers. Almost all women have children and increasingly more men don't father children. We've outlawed polygamy, but society is trending that way anyway, especially considering online dating statistics. 80% of women are choosing from the top 20% of men.

Men die in war. Look at ukraine. A million men dead, while women dance in clubs. Vietnam, on the American side: 55,000 men dead, 8 women dead. Most women stayed home, like the queen bee. Most of those men were sterile for all intents and purposes.

If we don't introduce artificial measures, the natural tendency is toward fewer women mating with more men and the end result is one to many. There's a British lady trying to mate 1,000 men.

We are more like bees than we like to think.


A lot if times yes. Almost always cash buyers pay the least, even less than those with insurance.


How would you know the difference until you find the truth?

Are you suggesting we shouldn't have sought nukes?

That eve should not have eaten that fruit?

Who determines which truth isn't worth pursuing or dangerous to?

Maybe we should pursue no truth?


Truly, it is impossible to discern when one is actively looking for trouble until one has actually found it. A priori assumptions are clearly a sham and we should all wake up every morning delightfully surprised that the sun has risen yet again.


Bush's no child left behind was catastrophic. Terrible strategy.


It's about exposure to the way richer people think and access to the same community resources. Property taxes pay for schools. The best schools are in the richest communities.


    > Property taxes pay for schools.
I know this is true for the US. The vast majority of public school budgets are paid from local property taxes. This gives wealthy communities a significant advantage. Princeton, New Jersey is famous for its high property taxes and excellent public schools.

Are there any other countries that use a local-tax funding model for public schools? Most other nations that I know use a national funding model.


This is not true. Only half of public school spending comes from local taxes. The other half comes from state funds and offsets the local property tax differences.

Here is the breakdown for Maryland: https://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabPDF/2024PubSchool.... My county, Anne Arundel, received half the state funding of poorer counties. In terms of total funding, it’s below the median, but has above average schools for the state because school quality is more a function of the types of kids in the school moreso than funding.


My country uses a national funding model but most people would still strongly prefer to go to a public school in an affluent neighborhood. Even if the funding is exactly the same, you are still much more likely to get more "desirable" classmates (fewer chance of migrants, drug use, etc. as well higher overall academic motivation, more involved parents who contribute to the school community, etc.).


I went to public schools near the city center and/or with a good reputation and I got a retrospectively insane proportion of wealthy schoolmates mixed with a few lower class ones. And an even more insane number of serious crimes: bribery (multiples), manslaughter, contraband, murder.


Note in some European contexts (like UK) "public school" means something more along the lines of "private school" in the US. They have selective admissions, there's usually tuition, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)

> The schools are "public" from a historical schooling context in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession or family affiliation with governing or military service, and also not being run for the profit of a private owner.


Exactly. Most private schools were meant for weak students, wealthy but pathetically snob families, or often both; a specific high school, run by nuns and now disbanded, distinguished itself with even greater occurrences of newsworthy criminals and psychopaths.


Baltimore is famous for its high per student funding of public schools ($21,000 per student in 2023). It's also famous for the terrible outcomes of its public school students.


This is a common misconception. The high per capita funding is partially due to required emergency funding of repairs resulting from deferred maintenance - both in the literal sense, and in reference to the hollowing out of the city's industry and, therefore, capacity for stable community and family life. Baltimore is a Rust Belt city smack dab in the middle of a region that happily moved on to the service economy; poorer Baltimore residents are surrounded by people who can bid up the rates of goods in the area (and they do).

Other jurisdictions don't have to put so much into student funding directly.


This doesn’t pass a smell test. You are saying that maintenance spend is significant fraction of school fundings. Let’s say that that fraction is 20% of funding (if it was much lower, your argument doesn’t make sense, because it would make the maintenance spend irrelevant). That’s over $2M/school/year. This is enough to entirely rebuild a school from the ground up every 10 years.


A few Baltimore schools had to close down a few years ago because they had no working heat/AC. Asbestos is an issue. As are pests. It's not that it was uncomfortable to be in some of these buildings, it was literally unsafe. When things get this dire, they cost a lot more to fix. Anything you move in to do uncovers other issues, and contractors can bend you over on change orders because it simply has to get done. I wouldn't be surprised to find some amount of graft involved, either.

So, yes, maintenance is a significant portion of spend. The schools were allowed to get into really bad shape, physically, in a way that doesn't at all reflect on the enthusiasm or capability of students or teachers.


If schools get $20k+ per student, but somehow fails to keep AC working, then it is a clear case of extreme incompetence at best, likely pointing to criminal levels of mismanagement. You don’t solve that problem with shoveling even more money into the fire, you fire everyone involved and start over.


Yeah but how is that funding actually applied?

You could throw an extreme amount of money at schools but require it be spent on specific initiatives. Things like resource officers, hiring someone with specific qualifications, and boatloads of staff training.

You can average that out to a per student basis and say "look we're spending so much on education" but if the money is going to train teachers how to deal with crisis situations like school shooters, it's not really being spent on educating the student. How that money actually gets allocated matters.


> Are there any other countries that use a local-tax funding model for public schools?

Doubt it. In my province of Canada (Alberta), school is paid for by provincial taxes and money is distributed based on the amount of students.

That being said, since kids are assigned to schools based on proximity, it's still worthwhile being in a nicer neighbourhood since the kids will come from more affluent families...


Your local private school also isn't going to cut you a check, and I've yet to meet anyone with money that had a hard time sniffing out aspirational neighbors. Not buying it.


The assumption is that upper class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes that you'd like your kids to adopt (e.g. getting a C or even a B is embarrassing/shameful, AP classes are table stakes, drug use bad, video games/tv limited, more likely to have intact households, expected to be polite/treat others respectfully) while lower class kids are more likely to have the types of behaviors and attitudes you'd like your kids to avoid (e.g. no point in applying yourself, parents have no idea what you're up to or how you're doing in school anyway, drug use normal or cool, kids raised by tv/computer/phone, family tree is more of a chain with random links sticking out, family yells at each other so loud the neighbors hear it). It's an attempt to manipulate the Overton window that your kid will encounter interacting with peers.


A related adage to present this succinctly, "you are the company you keep".


100% of the individuals that I've known who ended up either shot dead in the street or caught serious charges were from upper middle class, outright wealthy neighborhoods, or were keeping company with rich kids. Maybe my sample is badly skewed but around these parts all the wealthy are known for is buying their lunatic children out of trouble.



In my experience, the positive attributes you list tend to be more associated with middle class than upper classes. At a certain amount of wealth, you can see very problematic behaviour.


This is the kind of contemptuous skepticism of facts from, and lack of trust for, folks trying to help you understand something that permeates neglected communities and interferes with the educational process.

That attitude is prevalent in poor schools, but rare in rich schools and is properly dealt with by better educators that prefer wealthy schools with good salaries.

That sort of antagonism toward authority is incredibly disruptive in a community of People who want to achieve something.

Parents want to get their kids away from it for a reason. It's unhealthy. You're an example of the point. I don't mean any offense by it, just that it's easy to sniff out that you haven't experienced both sides of the coin so you reveal stubborn ignorance.

It inhibits learning and communicating. It's repulsive.


> just that it's easy to sniff out that you haven't experienced both sides of the coin so you reveal stubborn ignorance.

You're welcome to that narrative if you find it comforting. It's wildly incorrect however. Half of my family self-identify as semi-literate rednecks. The other half are members of the most prestigious country club in the state they reside in and the least successful of them was a V level executive at a multinational bank. I've cherry-picked the best of both worlds and have done just fine for myself without having to resort to any of the soulless pantomime you're advocating here, which does more to maintain property values in exclusive neighborhoods and feed a certain class of individual's sense of self-worth than anything objective. Water finds it's level I suppose.


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