[RD] Daily Graphs and Charts

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think the military serves no purpose. That last sentence of your answer was not something I had considered, though.

I didn't say that you think it, it is just a potential assumption that would make getting "the best and the brightest" out of there ASAP a good thing. Truthfully, without thinking "serves no purpose" one of my annoyances with the world as it is would be not so much that the actual military is "a brain drain," but that the defense industrial complex is.

My sister lives in this smallish city, which legitimately boasts one of the highest per capita education levels in the nation. In the old days there was a joke about being a door to door encyclopedia salesman and her town being the only place where more often than not the customer could check it for accuracy before they bought. She, like most people she knows, is brilliant, highly educated, and has spent her entire working life improving the art of killing people, since the only major employer in this city is the department of defense. It irks me to think what the brainpower of that city might have accomplished/be accomplishing. If something were getting everyone out of that black hole after four years...or even twenty...the world would be a lot better off. But unlike the military, their retirement window doesn't really open until they are done working.

 

[Cutlass]

Wouldn't we prefer those young people to get into the real economy?

If you do need to fight a war, you don't really want the bottom students as your officers. There's a reason that 'fragging the lieutenant' became a sport in the Vietnam War.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If you do need to fight a war, you don't really want the bottom students as your officers. There's a reason that 'fragging the lieutenant' became a sport in the Vietnam War.

Yeah, but the ones who got fragged weren't "bottom of the class," usually. They were mostly "super joe gung ho" types. From the upper ranks those guys are usually considered top of the class.

 

[Lexicus]

It irks me to think what the brainpower of that city might have accomplished/be accomplishing.

They could be designing algorithms designed to let hedge funds profit from milliseconds-faster financial micro-transactions!

 

[Cutlass]

http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/...-greenhouse-gas-emissions#.WrMf2Eqp4u0.reddit

 

[El_Machinae]

That report is really astounding. So much gain to be had merely by eating less beef.

If Americans in the highest-impact group shifted their diets to align with the U.S. average—by consuming fewer overall calories and relying less on meat—the one-day greenhouse-gas emissions reduction would be equivalent to eliminating 661 million passenger-vehicle miles, according to the researchers.

That hypothetical diet shift ... would achieve nearly 10 percent of the emissions reductions needed for the United States to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord

 

[Cutlass]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/15/17113176/new-york-times-opinion-page-conservatism

 

[JohannaK]

What's each colour mean?

 

[Cutlass]

What's each colour mean?

Standard US politics colors. Blue news sources are most used by Democrats, red by Republicans, green by other.

 

[Cutlass]

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The airfoil was not the enabling technology for flight; that was the internal combustion engine. You can fly with a flat plate if you give it an angle of attack. Airfoils are super important for flight, don't get me wrong, but by the time the Wright brothers got in the air it was their lightweight engine that got them there.

If you don't believe me about the flat plate, stick your hand out the window of your car and angle it up - it will generate lift and pull upwards.

 

[Cutlass]

The airfoil was not the enabling technology for flight; that was the internal combustion engine. You can fly with a flat plate if you give it an angle of attack. Airfoils are super important for flight, don't get me wrong, but by the time the Wright brothers got in the air it was their lightweight engine that got them there.

If you don't believe me about the flat plate, stick your hand out the window of your car and angle it up - it will generate lift and pull upwards.

The point to that chart was not the useful information. It is that all the information, while technically correct, is presented in such a way as to not be useful.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ok my bad

 

[Lexicus]

It is that all the information, while technically correct, is presented in such a way as to not be useful.

See, I realized that but I thought the people who made the chart were just kinda dumb, until I hit the "you can find cryolite in Greenland" part (which happened sooner than you might think because I didn't start in the top left corner).

 

[civvver]

This interactive map is pretty cool. Shows income levels like pegs on a litebrite.

http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2018/mapping-incomes/index.html

 

[Cutlass]

That is kind of neat.

 

[civvver]

It's somewhat eye opening how poor the entire south is.

 

[Lexicus]

It's somewhat eye opening how poor the entire south is.

What do you expect? States that continually elect Republicans to govern them end up like third world countries pretty fast.

 

[Cutlass]

It's somewhat eye opening how poor the entire south is.

At that, it's a huge improvement. Before the Civil Rights Acts the South was like a 3rd World hellhole. While not great now, such things persist.

 

[Lexicus]

At that, it's a huge improvement. Before the Civil Rights Acts the South was like a 3rd World hellhole. While not great now, such things persist.

I think this is actually an inaccurate portrayal, insofar as there has been measurable decline across many metrics of human development in the last few decades, due to the bipartisan consensus on allowing the rich to loot the economy without restraint.