Day: August 7, 2018

📰 Lighting the Political Fires

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

As I continue the process of clearing out the news chum, here is a collection of articles that should serve as political incendiary catalysts, sure to light that political spark of discussion:

  • Nobel Laureate Economist Says American Inequality Didn’t Just Happen. It Was Created. Quote: “Those with power used that power to strengthen their economic and political positions, or at the very least to maintain them. They also attempted to shape thinking, to make acceptable differences in income that would otherwise be odious.”
  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Democratic Socialists of America member. Here’s what that means. Just as Trump was a whistle to the hard right folks, Bernie Sanders was a whistle to the hard left. We’ve seen the growth of a subgroup in the Democratic party called the Democratic Socialists. This isn’t a particular party, and it isn’t your father’s socialism. Further, it doesn’t add up financially.
  • Why Are Jews So Pro-Choice? Abortion / Choice. It is one of the driving forces of those on the right to oppose it. But it is also one of those areas where those who aren’t that ilk of Christian feel they are having a Christian moral shoved down their throats. Here’s an explanation of the Jewish position.
  • I Was Fired For Criticizing Trump. We have a President who seems to feel any criticism of him is fake, and he’s convinced some in the news profession that criticism is not allows. What happens when a liberal editorial cartoons runs into a change of ownership at his paper?
  • How to be an uncivil Trump resister without leading a vigilante mob. We’ve all heard the calls for civility. But when should you be uncivil, and how?
  • Immigration in America. Think immigration is a new problem? It is both what made America, and what some claim is destroying it. But do you understand it? Here’s a visualization of immigration to America as the rings in a tree trunk.
  • Trump’s Republican Party, explained in one photo. A real T-shirt at a Trump rally read: “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat”. This captures what Trump’s identity politics has done to America, and how it can destroy this country. Since when has the Russian system of government with its dictatorship, false democracy, and draconian laws been better that what we have in America, even with the opposition party? I wrote about this with respect to Israel and their new National law about Jews coming first a few weeks ago. Identity politics — in which one group is 100% right and the other group is subhuman — is destructive.
  • Remaining Trump Supporters. What camp do you fall into: (1) Too arrogant to admit Trump was a mistake; (2) Too embarrassed to admit it; or (3) Too dumb to see it?
  • Fake News (no link here — just look at any Trump tweet). A challenge of the day, for those who purport that the news is “Fake”: Find multiple verifiable sources demonstrating a pattern of false news from the source claimed to be fake, other than the one making the claim that it is fake. A couple of times is human error: there needs to be a verifiable ongoing pattern of falsehood, from sources across the spectrum that can be verified.  Note: Bias is different than Fake. Biased news can have the bias filtered out, but is ultimately based on the truth and that underlying truth can be verified. Fake news is false and untrue, and cannot be verified.

As I say, “ready, set, discuss”.

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📰 Design You Haven’t Thought About

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m finally past the mapping project for the highway pages, and I’ve posted the theatre reviews for the last weekend. Do you know what that means, boys and girls? It means I can get back to clearing out the accumulated links for news chum (as in, “ready, set, discuss”). This collection all struck me as having to deal with design issues you might not have thought about:

  • Coffee Cup Lids. Have you ever thought about that styrene lid you get on your take-out coffee or tea? Who designed it? What is the meaning of all those symbols. It turns out that there is a new book on the design of the humble lid, and there is even more details in an Atlas Obscura post on the same subject, where they decode the lid.
  • Concrete. If you were to think about what makes our civilization possible, your mind might turn to the humble man-made rock, concrete. It allows us to build in a variety of shapes, it makes our roads and tall buildings possible. But its manufacture comes with a tremendous environmental cost, and it is one of the reasons we are at peak sand today. The manufacture of cement creates loads of greenhouse gases, and the manufacture of concrete traps water and sand in a way that can’t be easily recovered (certainly, the sand).
  • Airline Maps. Consider the humble airline route map in the back of your in-flight magazine. Have you ever thought about how it is designed? How it shows you the detail the airline wants you to see while hiding others? How it conveys messages about the brand itself. Here’s an interesting exploration of the design process behind the creation of the map.
  • DC Metro Stations. When you travel on transit, you probably don’t think about the station design. But that design can tell you a lot about the system, when it was built, and the messages and wayfaring notions the transit operator wants to convey. Just consider all the different station types in Washington DC.
  • Highways and Cities. When you think about the design of highways, what thoughts go through your head? The material the road is made out of? How much easier it will make it for you to get from point A to point B? The fact that it completes a line on a map? But do you ever think about how the design and routing of a freeway can impact a city? Building a highway can divide communities and make racial segregation worse. This isn’t new; think about the “other side of the tracks” distinction. Look at how freeways such as the Harbor divide south-central LA. But that raises the next question: Would removing a highway undo the damage? How might we build these structures so that they do not divide.
  • Batteries. Finally, here’s a questions of A, B, Cs. More properly, I should say AAA, AA, C, and D. Here’s a handy diagram of all types of batteries.

 

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