Indications are that it's easier to synthesize than morphine. If so, one doesn't run the trafficking risk with local production. Seems also it's cheaper (pushers make more profit).
(If addicts know they're taking carfentanil and risks associated with it then it's indicative of how powerful a hold the drug has over them.)
Aye. No problem with hospitals, insurance companies, doctors, or drug companies being greedy as long as they provide value. The problem is that over time the value received by the patient is dropping while the value extracted increases (as does the number of middlemen!). We have gotten to the point where the value proposition is highly questionable. I can drive to Mexico (or fly to the Bahamas) and get cheaper care, often even better care. The only thing that makes it worthwhile to stay in the US system is that one's employer shoulders the burden of insurance payments. In other sectors of the economy we call this vendor lock-in.
Vested interests have succeeded in creating a system where the individual has almost no agency, but the individual's interests are not being served.
If my primary care provider is too expensive or too inept, I should be able to seek out another. This does not happen, because my insurance company locks me into their network and hides the prices and complication rates.
If my healthcare provider denies too many claims, I should find another. This does not happen because either my healthcare provider is selected by my employer, or the claim denial rates are obfuscated.
If enough patients or insurance companies complain about drug prices, hospital administrators should negotiate with drug companies. This does not happen because until last year hospital administrators were able to take kickbacks from drug companies.
At every level the patient is given minimal information and minimal choice. The only way to be guaranteed affordable care without billing surprises is medical tourism.
Around 2013 our university digitized their newspaper displays. Prior to the renovation, newspapers were posted daily in large vertical glass-covered display cases in the student lounge of the library (the library would buy and post two copies so all pages were face up). Tens of students at a time would slowly walk down the row of newspapers reading during their study breaks and quietly chatting while sipping on coffee.
After the lounge was renovated and made into a digital media space this culture completely disappeared. I saw maybe two people use the digital kiosks to read newspapers in the subsequent year. It was heartbreaking to see the culture of community newspaper reading just collapse.
Seems there is a psychological effect at play. I imagine a social ritual of standing and reading something that is always in-focus requiring no scrolling is far more appealing.
Scanning in that fashion is also far faster, more comfortable and efficient.
I used to flip through newspapers rather quickly scanning the headlines and first paragraph and reading more interesting articles in depth. Scanning this way is almost impossible digitally. Also headlines were more useful and articles actually had informative first paragraph instead of just "scroll some more" hooks.
I find that many of the magazines on Apple News+ have innovative navigation techniques that allow me to scan quickly. The throughput is high enough not to be laggy.
It is pretty possible digitally, at least I haven't had much problems doing it with PDFs on good fast reader.
Just not in the web way where going further almost always incurs some load time so it is impossible to skim, and it always wants to shove ad in-between
I can't quite pin words on it, but just intuitively it feels like there is less barrier to reading and more of a break from studying when the newspapers are printed and sitting there than when you have to swipe on a screen.
It's really hard to nail down, and even harder to explain to a lot of techies (who tend not to even believe it's a thing), but there is something about print-on-paper that just doesn't translate over to electronic displays.
I don't think it has to do with the actual appearance of the page, or even the feeling of the page when you touch it. I don't know what it is. But I know a lot of people (including myself) who react differently between the two media.
Printed words-on-paper is more immersive, somehow. There's less separation between the writing and the reader. I assume that's not true for everyone, but it's true for a substantial percentage of people.
Agreed, it also means no/less distractions and maybe that's what is happening. I get close to the words-on-paper immersive feeling when using e-ink style tablets (like supernote which tries really hard to not be more than a journal). But just knowing I can interact with it makes it less immersive. Something about words on paper are static and the information in front of me isn't changing makes it feel more immersive.
That glass display sounds extremely cool. Due to bus scheduling I would always have 20 minutes to kill before some classes and I would definitely have visited that.
I appreciate the reason for the kiosks (decently private, better access for those who need it) but they are competing with my personal laptop.
>The Today's Front Pages Gallery presented daily front pages from more than 80 international newspapers. The Today's Front Pages Gallery is still available on the Newseum's website [https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/#1], along with a few other galleries.
When I went to Washington, D.C. (a couple times) I'd lose myself in front of this gallery: absolutely fascinating to see how the world was viewed each day from so many different perspectives.
I work blocks away from the former Newseum and would routinely walk over there to look at the front pages. As years went by it seemed both increasingly anachronistic yet still relevant. The sheets of paper were static in a nice way that countered the ephemeral nature of the ticker that scrolled inside the building.
I remember the local library had these wood slat sticks they'd put the papers on, and you'd have today's paper on the top of this standing height desk, and the previous week or two would be underneath it; it was VERY nice for glancing at headlines or reading a page or two when passing by.
Every once in a while on HN, somebody posts about having taken a very large e-ink display and hooking it to an arduino to, daily, just post the front page of a newspaper. The thing is then just hung on a wall.
I'd love to have that, but those displays are $5000 or so.
If a business has a waiting room, it would be a fine thing to hang on the wall there.
By nature of being human and prioritizing my own existence and the existence of the people I love, I fundamentally believe humans (specifically these humans) have more moral worth than "digital beings." In fact, digital beings only have value to me insofar as they help humans and don't harm humans. I'm a human chauvinist, and proud of it.
For that one would have to define morality. Also, the iterated evolutionary game theory of life supports the emergence of moralities among creatures which gain fitness by cooperating well to form groups that are more successful than individuals. It is not clear that digital beings will be cooperative social creatures.
Wait, I thought the 15 minute city idea was about reasonable mixed-purpose zoning and public transit, and now it is about limiting car access to cities?
That also means engineering, management and labor for construction are much reduced in cost, provided you can find domestic engineers working at domestic salaries and management which isn't corrupt.
If labor is all that we have to worry then yes. But building materials prices are almost the same everywhere, so they still wouldn't be able to afford it
Definitely not, a 2x1m plywood board in Tokyo cost ~$50, while the same one back in my hometown of Spain is $10 (despite the average wages being the same in both countries).
After a scandal in our institution with medical professors publishing in pay-for-play journals, we were required to take an ethics class. Our PI scheduled this for 10 am, and not knowing better I booked an hour of time and brought a notebook.
The presentation was two slides. The title slide was presented, and then a content slide was presented. Professor's lecture on ethics was, in its entirety, "You guys know enough not to be unethical. Don't be unethical." We pretended to be learning from the second slide while someone took a picture to present to administrators, and the ethics class was dismissed. I had 55 minutes of my hour left.
Unethically completing an ethics class was one of the most ironic experiences I've ever had.
What would your goal be in calling it out? Admin mandated ethics training, so it is either going to happen or it is going to "happen".
Professor is not getting grants to make research ethics slides, so he's not going to do it. The group needs a volunteer, but everyone else is already busy with assigned tasks. Would you volunteer to run the ethics training and do it properly?
> Would you volunteer to run the ethics training and do it properly?
Yea but I doubt they'd have me. I'm just a disruptive individual. With regards to the question of why I would make a scene in the lecture, it's because of the contradiction of agreeing to be ethical and at the same time walking out of the ethics lecture knowing it was meaningless. It's the complicity in society that leads us to being led by a bunch of fucking jellyfish.
