BTW: for anyone with an interest in gaining a better understanding of epidemiology and medical research in general, I strongly recommend Ben Goldacre’s books Bad Science and Bad Pharma.
The first one focuses on quackery ranging from the cosmetic industry to the AIDS-denialist scammers in Africa. The second focuses on the abuses and frauds of the global pharmaceutical industry.
Beyond that, though, both of them provide a thorough grounding in how to read media coverage of science. You’ll learn how to see when good science is reported badly, and how to spot the pseudoscientific crap.
Fortunately there’s some rather clever imaging systems under development right now to deal with that very problem. Field tests (literally, hah!) show up to 95% reduction of chemical use with no change in efficacy. Rather cool!
That as well. The imaging started out to deal with pests on some plant (I forget which) that was too delicate for the available pesticides that particular bug responded to. Then they added wireless soil moisture sensing probes and leaf color analysis. They realized the leaf color analysis could be tuned to detect weeds as well. In short, the project turned into developing a full on “robot gardener”. It’s been a couple years since I last read up on it, I don’t know the current status. (It’s late and I’m tired or I’d go find some links for you.)
Hyperspectral imaging can be pretty useful for recognizing different kinds of plants, and at the same time diagnose their health.
I can see a system with a grating and a CCD and a slit, acting as a linear scanner, getting a spectrum for each scanline and acquiring a “cube” of way-more-than-RGB data.
Some people are using flatbed scanners for high-res photography. If the same method is used with a camera and a grating-containing optics, could be even homebuilt - make a step, take a photo, repeat until all the scanlines are acquired. Or put the rig on a drone and do slow overflights, much in a way like a sideways scanning synthetic aperture radar (or sideways sonar) is used.
From the Congressional Budget Office on raising the income cap to $178,000:
"An advantage of this option is that it would provide more revenue to the
Social Security program…CBO projects that, in combination, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds will be exhausted in 2031. Under this option, exhaustion of the combined trust funds would be delayed until 2036.
In the words of the immortal Porky Pig, “B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-big deal.”
He’s absolutely right. I’m fine with a one-quarter reduction in Soc Sec nineteen years from now. Raise the income cap, and we can push that out to maybe 25 years, maybe a couple more. Bernie won’t be around to deal with the problem.
We need a long term plan that looks at changes in demographics over the next 75-100 years, not another Band-aid “fix”.
(Edit: This is not a “liberal” failure to face reality. I’ve been in plenty of arguments with self styled conservatives who get completely red-faced when yelling about what they “paid in” and what the government “promised them”. And I’m sure many of them are Trump supporters who are convinced we can make Social Security permanently solvent by building a wall, or something.
It’s not an issue of left versus right, it’s an issue of those who understand demographics and math versus those who do not.)
Well look at it from the modern perspective. Now it doesn’t matter if you are white, black, or any other race because very few can afford to have a single income household, or pay off a mortgage in less than 10 years, or contribute the necessary amounts to retirement. I certainly understand the “context” of what the good old days held, but if we could extract some of the positives from that time and apply them to everyone now it’d be a win-win on any scale.
That is indeed more than rather cool.
Sadly good old round up is the tool of choice for the neighbors bamboo that is spreading RIGHT UP AGAINST THE SIDE OF MY HOUSE (I just hope the roots wont dig through the foundation) and the blackberries that I cut down close to the ground and then apply to the open wound I just made. When I talk to even the environment friendly granola hippie type master gardeners for alternatives they say nope that doing what I am doing is just fine and should be done with prejudice I figure that it can’t be that evil a substance.
And recovery has been slow, and lagging in working class black and white communities. The recovery of wall street has not exactly correlated to the rest of the country, or at least to all communities. Many people have just stopped looking for work (which means they don’t get reflected in unemployment numbers) and many people are underemployed.
[ETA] 2015 unemployment rates from the bureau of labor statistics for African Americans, which is nearly 10% - nearly 5% higher than the national average:
Of course I do. But are you implying that if the economy was doing great that everyone, including African American households wouldn’t be doing better than they are now?
I know the argument you are making, and I think it’s a reasonable one. But at the same time wouldn’t it be better to raise everyone up and then (or during) find ways to fix the inequality?
No one is saying ignore other groups for African Americans. Of course there are economic problems in other communities that need to be addressed. I assure you, I know this. I have members of my family who are working class and have struggled in recent years.
What I’m saying is that a long history of institutional racism has put many African Americans at a distinct disadvantage, especially regarding any sort of capital accumulation (and often home ownership). Reagan’s (and obama’s) rising tide hasn’t helped nearly as much as they pretend and ignoring that is ignoring reality. We need more investment in a variety of ways which directly benefit the communities worst hit by the recession, including infrastructural and educational. To do that, certain communities are going to need deeper local, state, and federal investments than they get now. This includes both rural and urban communities with lower tax bases (because of higher rates of poverty), black and white. The tax incentivization of corporations (low or no taxes for low wage retail jobs) at the expense of local communities isn’t helping matters.
Yes. There’s always been a recession (really a depression) in black and brown America. The country itself only thinks it’s in one when white folks are affected.
I was thinking about that in relation to the recent discussion on overdoses and drug addition. All of a sudden it’s a public health problem instead of a crime problem. I think John Kasich even admitted as such, but just shrugged his shoulders about it. It’s fucking maddening.
