Recent content by Richard

"Constant mindfulness" <~ agreed. Indeed.

(from a newsletter I'm subscribed to...) Good morning. Super clean manicured cities, towns, and subdivisions bother me. I don't know if it is because I have lived outside the U.S. for so long or if this is just because the feel of a place where every piece of grass is the same length is...

Overlaying with a free campsite map seems a pretty useful idea. I wish there was a universal way to export from other people's maps the data they use to populate their/those maps. Then any/all of us could mix-and-match in ways that were useful to us. One of the things I'm working on is...

Thanks, and yes, I'm toying with the idea of an app. The data source is text files. For searching from an app, I imagine it would have to be imported into databases and hosted elsewhere. I'm not sure (yet) that I want to take on hosting data but I am considering it.

I don't think anything happened to our freedom, at least not in the sense that it was somehow taken away in an explicit struggle. Instead, I think that what 'happened to' the experience of freedom is that people, overall, became gradually accustomed to enjoying said freedom to the point that...

All too true. I find Oklahoma's recent electronic scanning of pre-paid money cards (for the purpose of electronic seizure of 'cash') particularly disturbing. Here are the closing paragraphs from the article where I found that information:

It seems that the 4th amendment is irrelevant if you happen to be within 100-miles of a national border within the U.S.: https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

With regard to identifying the 'problem' in the story linked-to in the original post, I used to have this as my 'signature' on this forum: "An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to...

One of the lessons we may take from this experience was mentioned in this excerpt from another piece covering the tragedy: (bold red emphasis mine)

Glad to hear it. Enjoy! :)

I never considered the context of 'dating as a traveler'. It got me curious so I asked Google about it. Here's one meta-site it offered: 8 Best "Travel" Dating Sites -- (That Are 100% Free) I visited a few of the sites listed on that page just to get an initial vibe; seems legitimate enough...

Excellent point. Human beings are very good at imagining things. The various scenarios that arise in the mind when a person imagines resorting to a gun for protection often aren't rooted in realistic dynamics. People raised around guns 'grow into' the mindset associated with pulling a trigger...

Ok, this blew my mind: Apparently the bear roamed around the house (as caught by in-home video) for FIVE HOURS while the homewoner slept.

Hm... I just clicked a few and it seems to work for me. I also asked a friend to click them and they work for my friend, too. If it seems like it's taking a long time to load, that's because there are 7,200 data points on the map. It takes 5-6 seconds for the map to appear after I click a link...

I think this point deserves a bit more elaboration. When we think of risk in terms of 'the odds', one of the implicit assumptions is that all members of the collective are the same. This is a fairly reliable way of assessing things like manufacturing widgets with tolerance limits and defect...