For me, the issue is not being alone, or quiet. I don't even own a cell phone.
It's everyone else with the incessant noise; non-stop music; speaker/video calls; and now AI talking back to you via phone. Speakerphones are the worst, I cannot believe we normalized having a two way conversation via speakerphone while holding it up to your ear.
I used to enjoy nature and just sitting and staring, with portable bluetooth speakers and phones blasting music, I can't do that anymore. I used to enjoy the library and just sitting, reading whatever random facts I could find. Last couple times I went, I was yelled at to mind my own business by people when I asked them to take their phone conversations to the lobby. So I went to another library, librarians were loud and several meetings via Teams were going on by different people.
Local rail trails are similar, I can't just take a walk in peace and quiet anymore. Honestly, removing the 3.5mm port is when I started noticing when it all got worse.
Indeed it's rude, but since I suddenly found myself unplannedly having to use an iPhone I found that's it's hard to position the speaker so that my ear can actually hear the other person.. I have to carefully keep micro-adjusting the position until I can actually hear something, and then ask the person to start from the beginning. Speakerphone fixes that. Not that I would ever do that in public though.
It's been well known for awhile now that it's his preferred setup.
He seems to want as much stability as possible; while being as minimal as possible; with as little fuss to install and keep up to date as possible. Fedora meets those needs. Gnome is Fedora's main concentration.
Indeed. In fact, only recently the Fedora KDE version was elevated to "Edition" status and is now on the same tier as the Gnome version.
Most newer popular distros (Bazzite, CachyOS, Zorin, Asahi, etc.) default to KDE now, and it's very nice that Fedora's not only keeping up, but also providing the basis for some of them.
No worries. I started using Fedora around the 4-5 timeframe and am still using it 40 editions later -- time flies. To my memory, it's always been GNOME-first.
No, it's not worse. If you look through the list of deadly plane accidents, the last year has been average (4 vs. 3 avg).
Since the deadly DCA collision in January, there are things making the news now that would never have in the past, so it seems like it's worse. Especially if the plane has "Boeing" written on the side. For example, hitting animals, tire blowouts, or ground equipment bumping into planes, which grounds them for inspection. When I worked for a major airline, those things are all actually pretty common and happen everywhere, all the time.
It's just a method used to stoke fear and feed clicks.
People find the most minute thing to complain about. Recently, there was an article about the antiquated FAA system using floppies. While the system is old and showing it's cracks, saying it uses floppies just makes it sound worse then it is. As of 2020, our mx crew were still plugging a Windows 98 laptop with DOS into Embraers and Bombardier Dash8s, and used floppies in Boeings (no Airbus or ATRs in our fleet for comparison).
There is a media difference though since the DCA crash. Military and small planes (<10 PAX) crash all the time. We just never heard about it until after January. My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive clickage.
On a personal level, I know three people that have died in small plane crashes in the Alaska wilderness in the last 15 years, which is so common that it didn't even get on local news. I have acquaintances that were in involved in two others elsewhere over the last few years. Small planes are unbelievably dangerous. Commercial jets, not so much.
Small planes are about twice as safe per mile as motorcycles, all-cause to all-cause.
Now, there’s planes running out of fuel and drunk driving on cycles that some operators might choose to exclude from their own risk calculations, but it’s a little over one order of magnitude riskier than cars.
Whether that’s unbelievably dangerous is up to personal judgment.
> Military and small planes (<10 PAX) crash all the time. We just never heard about it until after January.
We don't hear about military jet crashes unless they're F-35s. The controversial jet gets coverage because it gets eyeballs from people satisfying their confirmation bias. These are never put into context of course.
> The F-16 has been involved in over 670 hull-loss accidents as of January 2020.[312][313]
Fighter jets are simply dangerous, period. They're meant to be flown right at the bleeding edge, accidents are inevitable. But every time an F-35 crashes, the media makes a big deal out of it and idiots see that as confirmation of their belief that the F-35 is bad. Even if the F-35 is bad, it crashing sometimes wouldn't be evidence of that. Occasional crashes are just what happens when fighter jets get flown a lot. It's going to happen whether the jet is good or bad.
Having flown tactical jets off an aircraft carrier into Afghanistan . . . you seem to be conflating "dangerous" with "inherently unforgiving." Flying jets in combat against a peer foe is dangerous. Flying them in peacetime is inherently unforgiving. "Dangerous" occurs when I as an aviator can be taken out by something not under my control or that of my pilot or fellow aircrew.
The reason verbiage matters is because many people fear flying because they look at it as some kind of gamble as opposed to something where risks can be mitigated down quite a bit by the act of being safety-conscious. Even flying multi-plane low-levels or opposed large force exercises are not "dangerous" per se, so long as everyone plays by the rules and takes it seriously. Civil aviation is so safe because of a culture of making it safe.
And there were 7 in one year during 2018 and 2019.
Looking through the chart you linked, averages around 3 per year. Considering how many planes are currently in the sky at this very moment, this is a wildly useless statistic used to cause fear and panic.
> Looking through the chart you linked, averages around 3 per year.
> this is a wildly useless statistic used to cause fear and panic.
I can read too. I added a comment with a number. You don't know my intent, this is your interpretation.
Besides, 2018/19 was a steep outlier with the 737 MAX crashes. This is why these got widespread attention and have been discussed down to the last detail for years.
Anecdotally there seems to be a bit more air traffic in around Chicago versus 2019, but perhaps I just notice flights overhead more now as I commute downtown far less. This site shows current ORD volume at roughly 2019 levels:
I mentioned this in another parent comment: Tunhannock doesn't even need a bond, they can easily pay for it just with what the town has made from gas extraction in the last 15 years.
> Solar has won the market's backing. Whatever Pennsylvania politicians decide, they better take that into account.
I would argue it really depends and is highly dependent upon the region. British Columbia, Canada is mostly hydro-electric. Are we going to get rid of all the dams for solar in a mostly cloudy and rainy province? We have to choose what works best for the region. Solar works great in Southern California; Arizona; Florida; Spain; Southern France, not as well in places like Washington; British Columbia; or Scotland where alternatives are more conducive to the climate.
Pennsylvania already has a strong market in nuclear; hydro; and wind, with very reliable power when not flooded or ice-stormed. We are also larger then some EU countries, and get lots of snow in the Western/Northern areas of the state that are better served by those other methods over solar. I have also never paid over .12kW/h (.09kW/h now) near a major river. When I was looking into solar panels, my average was going to be between .16-.25kW/h (own-lease range). That's a hard sell to a lot of people with little payoff for most individuals in the state.
In PA, for most of the state, solar is better provided by requiring new public buildings or parking garages/lots have panels, rather then individuals.
As a Pennsylvanian with a personal connection to the school district in the article, there are several things not mentioned that are critical to this conversation:
1. Tunhannock is in a prime area for Marcellus shale natural gas extraction. About 15 years ago, there was an extraction "boom." The town made a fortune off of it and took the town from very low income, PA "dump" to using it for massive improvements. Still not a booming town by any sense of the word, but much nicer then it was. Still a small population.
2. The town has a fortune in its coffers from the gas companies; employees; and other income related to above. In my opinion, they should use that for their solar, instead of getting a grant from the state that could be better used for solar in Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Lancaster; Allentown; or other densly-ish populated areas without large land available for solar/rooftop panels.
3. Tunkhannock is also outside a former major coal and manufacturing region, on the Susquehanna, about 45 mins from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Except for employees of Proctor and Gamble, it's a relatively poor population compared to most of the rest of the state. They hear "improvements to school district" they think "higher taxes." PA taxes, especially school taxes are quite high, with little payoff or bang for the buck. When you're small town blue-collar, earning an OK income and your property tax goes up 1 mill (the antiquated way PA calculates property tax), there's obvious pushback.
4. PA is Philadelphia in the East; Pittsburgh in the West; Lancaster/Harrisburg in the south and nothing else in the rest of the state. Except for it being mostly woods/forest, it's prime for solar, but we also already have lots of environmentally friendly ways of producing energy as it is: hydro-dams; nuclear; windfarms (as well as coal and natural gas). Our power is also pretty reliable, outside of ice storms, so it's a hard sell to people to want to give up anything else.
5. PA is slow moving in general. We have the second largest full-time legislature in the US (we're 7th in population, 33rd in size). There's a lot of logistics; committees; and procedure with that. Most of our power is in the Towns; Townships; Counties; State (in that order). Just because it seems to be held up now, is not unusual for us. We tend to do things in slow steps, instead of one big leap that freaks people out. Pot legalization is a good example. We started medically; and there's very recent bills being proposed to legalize. However, that didn't fly. What will end up happening is decriminalization then eventual legalization after a few years of that. Everything works that way in PA. We're slow-progressive, with a priority on small region rights. Except for liquor sales. That's stuck in 1929.
6. And last, the most important, and probably most obvious, PennDOT sucks.
Where at? Where I live in Pennsylvania, and not the most populated of areas, there are at least 3 groups open all the time for donations (two local Hospital systems and the regional Blood Bank). Plus, there are no less then three mobile blood drives at fire halls; schools; churches; civic centers (i.e. VFW; Lions; Elks, etc...); libraries; etc... seemingly every week. If you don't see signs, you often see it posted in grocery stores, libraries, anywhere a community billboard might be.
Valley forge area, but also up and down montgomery county, I've never seen a dedicated blood bank. If the hospitals are taking blood they aren't advertising that. The local Y has a mobile blood bank occasionally, but I've missed it every time. I never see blood donation ads anywhere except the Y (I would miss ones in churches and most community centers though).
You grew up in the wealthiest county in the state, some selection bias there. Look on google maps for blood donation center in the philadelphia area. Zoom out to get the suburbs. There are what, 20 or so sites listed, for an area with a population of 6 or 7 million people? That is insufficient. Even now the closest one to me is actually a drug testing site, not a donation center. Its probably at least a 30 minute drive (in bad traffic) to get to the closest listed donation center.
I grew up in lower bucks. There were no dedicated blood centers. Before I was 22 I had never donated at anything but a mobile bloodbank. My parents hauled themselves to mobile blood banks whenever they wanted to do it. The first actual dedicated blood center I donated at was blood centers of the pacific in San Francisco. I was shocked that someone would actually build a dedicated site just for donating blood. But then later I saw Oregon did it too.
There was one point I was trying to make, you said there are no locations currently near you, I posted three, plus mobile units.
There is also no selection bias. I said that in the 90's there were several near West Chester and KoP. You say ChesCo is the wealthiest. Wealth in ChesCo is entirely concentrated within the KoP; West Chester; and Valley Forge area. Which would be accurate to what I said. I did not grow up anywhere near there, rather in a very poor region, which is most of the county. It is a large county.
It's everyone else with the incessant noise; non-stop music; speaker/video calls; and now AI talking back to you via phone. Speakerphones are the worst, I cannot believe we normalized having a two way conversation via speakerphone while holding it up to your ear.
I used to enjoy nature and just sitting and staring, with portable bluetooth speakers and phones blasting music, I can't do that anymore. I used to enjoy the library and just sitting, reading whatever random facts I could find. Last couple times I went, I was yelled at to mind my own business by people when I asked them to take their phone conversations to the lobby. So I went to another library, librarians were loud and several meetings via Teams were going on by different people.
Local rail trails are similar, I can't just take a walk in peace and quiet anymore. Honestly, removing the 3.5mm port is when I started noticing when it all got worse.