skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on US Federal Aviation Administration reducing air traffic by 10% across forty ‘high-volume’ markets during government shutdown in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    For the airports I use, they do recommend getting there a couple hours before, but this depends a lot on whether it’s busy. I tend not to fly at the busiest times, so getting there a bit over an...

    For the airports I use, they do recommend getting there a couple hours before, but this depends a lot on whether it’s busy. I tend not to fly at the busiest times, so getting there a bit over an hour before works out. The main constraint is getting baggage checked on time. Getting through security doesn’t take that long.

    Flying around the holidays would be a different story.

  2. Comment on Are cooperatives more virtuous than corporations? in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    Did you remain a member of any of these? If so, why, if there are better alternatives?

    Did you remain a member of any of these? If so, why, if there are better alternatives?

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Are cooperatives more virtuous than corporations? in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    You seem pretty sure about this, but how do we know that coops are more sustainable than corporations, on average? For example, I think that in the US, both credit unions and banks are pretty...

    You seem pretty sure about this, but how do we know that coops are more sustainable than corporations, on average? For example, I think that in the US, both credit unions and banks are pretty long-lived, and I couldn’t say offhand which ones are older or how many of each have gone out of business. It seems like someone would need to do a study.

    It would also matter a lot how one decides to do the comparisons. I would want to do comparisons within the same industry, at least.

    Meanwhile, I would guess that there are a lot fewer coops than corporations in extractive industries like mining, but I’m not sure that a coop would necessarily make sense or do a better job. The customers of mines are businesses, so I’m not sure how it would work.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on US Supreme Court appears dubious of Donald Trump’s tariffs in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the blog:

    From the blog:

    The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed skeptical of President Donald Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs in a series of executive orders earlier this year. During more than two-and-a-half hours of oral arguments, a majority of the justices appeared to agree with the small businesses and states challenging the tariffs that they exceeded the powers given to the president under a federal law providing him the authority to regulate commerce during national emergencies created by foreign threats.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on Are cooperatives more virtuous than corporations? in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the blog post, which links to a journal article with the same name: ...

    From the blog post, which links to a journal article with the same name:

    The status of cooperatives in Western Canada gave rise to one of the major points of divergence between the Canadian and British left in the 20th century. Whereas the U.K. Labour Party’s Clause 4 committed it to “common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange,” which was generally understood to mean public ownership, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Canada distinguished itself by affirming a commitment to “social ownership,” which included both public and cooperative management of the economy. It was only much later, especially after the CCF was rebranded as the New Democratic Party (NDP), that unions came to play a more important role. Its primary impetus, in the early days, came from the cooperative sector – especially the tradition of mutual insurance among farmers.

    ...

    I have absolutely no doubt that cooperatives provide enormous benefits to their members (as I put it in the paper, “it is a truism that cooperatives are better for their members – if they weren’t, then their members wouldn’t be their members”). Thus there is good reason to ensure that the law is neutral between different organizational forms. We do not want people to be stuck transacting with a corporation when they could be better off organizing a cooperative. My point is that there are very few additional benefits, to society in general, above and beyond the benefits that are enjoyed by the members. Cooperatives are good for their owners, just as corporations are good for their owners, with the implication that neither is intrinsically better than the other. The appearance of superior virtue for the cooperative form is most often based on differential sympathy, and in particular, a rather striking lack of sympathy for investors as a constituency. If one adopts an impartial perspective, treating the economic interests of all individuals equally, there is no real basis for this asymmetry.

    That’s the gist of the argument. The details are more complicated, which is why it’s a journal article and not a blog post.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Pathfinder 1 airship overflies Golden Gate bridge: pictures in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    At 124 meters long, the Pathfinder 1 is currently the largest aircraft in the world. This modern take on the airship concept started to take shape with the construction of the first prototypes in 2016. Filled with helium and powered by 12 electric motors, the Pathfinder 1 has also fly-by-wire controls, not unlike those of a modern airliner.

    Although this was not the first public flight of the Pathfinder 1, the recent renewal by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the airship’s Special Airworthiness Certificate has allowed LTA Research to operate within an expanded flight envelope in the Bay Area.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on The cost of borrowing divides rich towns from poor ones in ~finance

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    Selling bonds—essentially issuing buyers an IOU, plus interest—is a quick way for a government to raise funds. [...] Cities get money up front, and buyers are assured that they’ll turn a profit; this win-win proposition made many postwar suburbs take the plunge into the bond market. Throughout the 1950s, as private developers rapidly constructed new suburbs, school districts in Nassau County, where Levittown is located, increased their debt load by sixfold to meet the needs of their new residents. The problem was: Not every town and city was treated the same. Credit-rating agencies saw richer locales as very likely to repay their debts and gave them sweet deals on interest rates, which meant that these towns owed less to those who’d bought their bonds. The poorer places got shortchanged.

    [...] The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world where municipalities raise money primarily through bonds, and their differential treatment on the private market has quietly driven inequality across the nation. Saddled with higher interest rates on their bonds, people in poor cities and towns today pay double the amount in property taxes, often suffer higher home-foreclosure rates, and wield paltrier education budgets compared with their wealthier counterparts. Major cities face the consequences of municipal bonds, too—Chicago famously leased its parking meters to investors in order to pay off its debts—but they employ teams of bond experts to negotiate the best terms. Small cities and towns, whose bond coordinator is often a single financial manager juggling dozens of other tasks, can do less to protect themselves from high interest rates.

    [...] Although municipalities in other countries can borrow from their national government—Canada regularly provides localized loans to stimulate housing construction—American cities and towns usually don’t have that luxury. Instead, they have found themselves playacting as entrepreneurs, courting private investment to fund basic services.

    Over the course of a 30-year term, Glass estimates, the fees and interest on bonds add 30 to 60 percent in costs beyond the original borrowed amount. Every town pays extra, but some pay more than others. [...]

    Disproportionately high property taxes are one telltale sign of a city trapped in a cycle of municipal debt, and so are weak public services—underfunded schools, underpaid teachers, aging recreation centers, sewer systems in need of an upgrade.

    8 votes

  12. Comment on Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    On our electric bill, the cost of actually generating the electricity is already quite a bit lower than the delivery charge.

    On our electric bill, the cost of actually generating the electricity is already quite a bit lower than the delivery charge.

    5 votes

  13. Comment on US Federal Aviation Administration reducing air traffic by 10% across forty ‘high-volume’ markets during government shutdown in ~transport

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: This article has a list, but apparently it's not final. ... I assume there are legal reasons why the airlines can't pay the salaries of the air traffic controllers. If they...

    From the article:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it was taking the extraordinary step of reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 “high-volume” markets beginning Friday morning to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers exhibit signs of strain during the ongoing government shutdown.

    The cutback stands to impact thousands of flights nationwide because the FAA directs more than 44,000 flights daily, including commercial passenger flights, cargo planes and private aircraft. The agency didn’t immediately identify which airports or cities will be affected but said the restrictions would remain in place as long as necessary.

    This article has a list, but apparently it's not final.

    In a letter to employees, United CEO Scott Kirby promised to focus the cuts on regional routes and flights that don’t travel between hubs. He said the airline will try to reschedule customers when possible and will also offer refunds to anyone who doesn’t want to fly during this time, even if their flight isn’t canceled.

    ...

    The cuts could represent as many as 1,800 flights and upward of 268,000 seats combined, according to an estimate by aviation analytics firm Cirium. For example, O’Hare International Airport in Chicago could see 121 of its 1,212 flights currently scheduled for Friday cut if the FAA distributes the reductions equally among impacted airports, Cirium said.

    I assume there are legal reasons why the airlines can't pay the salaries of the air traffic controllers. If they could, I'm sure they would because this will cost them millions.

    14 votes

  15. Comment on Idle complaints of indebtedness and isolation in ~talk

    skybrian
    Link
    Around here, people are getting rid of older computers pretty often. What kind are you looking for?

    Around here, people are getting rid of older computers pretty often. What kind are you looking for?

    11 votes

  16. Comment on The real truth about the Tudor succession comes to light in ~humanities.history

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: ... ... ...

    From the article:

    For more than 400 years, historians, myself included, have accepted the account, written by the 17th century antiquarian William Camden, of the Virgin Queen’s last-gasp naming of her closest blood relative, James VI of Scotland, to succeed her as ruler of England.

    ...

    But detailed analysis of Camden’s original manuscript released by the British Library in 2023 has revealed that key sections were rewritten after Elizabeth’s death to make them more favorable to her successor. In addition to the numerous amendments that can be read with the naked eye, no fewer than 200 pages have been pasted in, 65 of them replacing original text with a new version. Advanced imaging technology using transmitted light has revealed the words that lie beneath.

    Most of the concealed text concerns only details — the number of horses involved in a battle, for example. But a small number of the original pages hide material that challenges the version of Elizabeth’s history — and the succession — that has endured for the past four centuries. Rather than naming the King of Scots as her heir with almost her last breath, Elizabeth apparently upheld the policy that she had doggedly followed throughout her reign and went to her grave without nominating a successor. Camden’s original, undoctored manuscript even suggests that in the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign, James lost patience and might have plotted to have her assassinated.

    ...

    As soon as I stopped seeing James VI’s accession as a foregone conclusion, the race for Elizabeth’s throne was cast in an entirely new light. It became clear just how easily one of James’s rivals could have pipped him to the post. The long-accepted story of the Tudor dynasty’s end and the Stuarts’s rise was transformed. Far from being the “peaceable coming in of the king” that James’s apologists claimed, his accession sparked deep-seated resentment that soon boiled over into open defiance.

    Anticipating this, James’s supporters on the English council had placed extra security in key towns and ports and banned “disorderly assemblies.” Even so, there was reportedly “great unruliness” on the Scottish border, though this was drowned out by James’s carefully stage-managed journey south to claim his crown, which official reports claimed was greeted with “unspeakable joy.”

    But the rising opposition to England’s new king could not be suppressed and soon found dramatic expression in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which aimed to blow the Scottish king to the heavens.

    ...

    Researching all this has made me more humble — and skeptical — as a historian, reminding me of the crucial importance of questioning everything, even sources that have been relied upon for centuries. But I have also been struck by how current a story this is. Camden rewrote his account of Elizabeth’s deathbed to please her successor, who was literally breathing down the historian’s neck, forcing him to make numerous changes. “Many things were struck out and many things altered,” a beleaguered Camden confided to a friend. In short, those in power had controlled the narrative.

    8 votes

  18. Comment on Debunking “When Prophecy Fails” in ~science

    skybrian
    Link
    From the web page: Here's the abstract: It's paywalled, but the preprint is here. If these claims are true, the Wikipedia page needs updating.

    From the web page:

    When Prophecy Fails is one of the most influential case studies in 20th-century social science. It helped launch the theory of cognitive dissonance, shaped popular understandings of how belief survives disconfirmation, and became a touchstone for explaining the origins of religious movements—including Christianity. But the case was misrepresented. The cult did not persist, proselytize, or reinterpret its failure as a spiritual triumph. Its leader recanted, the group disbanded, and belief dissolved. This article shows that the authors of When Prophecy Fails misled their readers—and that scholars in psychology, sociology, and religious studies have been building theories atop a collapsed foundation.

    Here's the abstract:

    In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased. But When Prophecy Fails (1956), the now-canonical account of the event, claimed the opposite: that the group doubled down on its beliefs and began recruiting—evidence, the authors argued, of a new psychological mechanism, cognitive dissonance. Drawing on newly unsealed archival material, this article demonstrates that the book's central claims are false, and that the authors knew they were false. The documents reveal that the group actively proselytized well before the prophecy failed and quickly abandoned their beliefs afterward. They also expose serious ethical violations by the researchers, including fabricated psychic messages, covert manipulation, and interference in a child welfare investigation. One coauthor, Henry Riecken, posed as a spiritual authority and later admitted he had “precipitated” the climactic events of the study.

    It's paywalled, but the preprint is here.

    If these claims are true, the Wikipedia page needs updating.

    7 votes

  20. Comment on Zohran Mamdani wins New York City mayor’s race, capping a stunning ascent in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It would be government-funded, but built by contractors, because NYC isn’t likely to hire the construction workers. Here’s an introduction to the construction industry in New York: A problem with...

    It would be government-funded, but built by contractors, because NYC isn’t likely to hire the construction workers.

    Here’s an introduction to the construction industry in New York:

    Most construction firms in New York City employ fewer than 20 people (89 percent in 2017). These small firms are responsible for about one-third of all construction jobs.

    A problem with government projects in the US is that governments often don’t even have the engineering talent to manage them, so that gets outsourced to expensive consultants. Fixing that would go a long way towards improving the efficiency of government-funded infrastructure, but it seems like a long-term project, taking years to see effects on new projects.

    8 votes