Happy new year?

[conuly]

Crises beyond ‘Duck Dynasty’

http://wapo.st/JHUeyJ

2013 is the year that proved your ‘paranoid’ friend right

http://wapo.st/19sszZn

What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2014?

Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1957

http://bit.ly/1lwVKQr

The Madness of the Planets
Our home in the universe continues to rock out of control.

http://bit.ly/18XcSMH

Atoms Reach Record Temperature, Colder than Absolute Zero

http://bit.ly/1lAnlAe

Mass-transit commuters getting screwed by the taxman in 2014

This is especially galling when you consider that people without cars tend to have less money than people with cars. So why should they get a smaller deduction for their transportation costs when those costs haven't decreased?

http://bit.ly/18WpbuW

Root for the Postal Service to survive

You know, if the USPS didn't have to prepay employee pensions, something no other government agency has to do, they'd be in much better straits right now. And if other delivery companies like FedEx didn't get to ditch packages on USPS if they were too inconvenient to carry, or too expensive, then they wouldn't be doing as well as they are either.

I ought to write to my congress folk again.

http://cnn.it/Ke7JXf

US acceptance of evolution holds steady overall, drops among Republicans

http://bit.ly/19EBLdl

Comments

[siderea]

Mass-transit commuters getting screwed by the taxman in 2014

This is especially galling when you consider that people without cars tend to have less money than people with cars. So why should they get a smaller deduction for their transportation costs when those costs haven't decreased?

Okay, I read the article and was a little surprised by the actual numbers. Usually, as you say, penalties against mass-transit hit the poor.

But in Boston, the people this will disproportionately hit are folks from wealthy suburbs. It's pretty hard to pay more than $130/mo for public transportation unless you are taking the commuter rail or the express commuter buses to and from the 'burbs. It's not exclusively wealthy 'burbs -- the Lowell, North Shore, Providence, and Worcester lines serve poor communities -- but if you're commuting daily on the T from those places, you're... already not saving money over owning a car, and probably not all that poor. The commuter rail and express bus routes strike me as luxury alternatives to driving in Boston traffic, not cost-savings measures.

Meanwhile, us poor folks are paying (if we can afford it!) $70/mo for all-you-can-eat "LinkPasses" good on all subways and city buses. Bus-only passes are $40/mo.

How does the new $130/mo limit square against mass transit prices in NYC?

[conuly]

A monthly unlimited is $112, and doesn't cover express buses (which often operate within the city). You can get an unlimited metrocard for the express bus at the cost of $55 a week.

Right now, plenty of people are moving out of the city to where it is cheaper, and then commuting for work because if they had any money, they would have stayed in the city. So coming from further away, like if you need to take the MetroNorth or the LIRR or the PATH, doesn't necessarily mean it is because you have more money. I have no idea how expensive tolls and stuff are, though.

[siderea]

Right now, plenty of people are moving out of the city to where it is cheaper, and then commuting for work because if they had any money, they would have stayed in the city.

Rents are skyrocketing in greater Boston, driven by the competitive demand to... be close to public transit. The problem is that there's no place to go. You could move out to the surrounding impoverished cities, but then how would you get to work and how would you buy groceries? Most of those places have terrible-to-no public transit, and the commuter mass transit into Boston is very expensive. It's a pretty terrifying situation.

ETA: in any event, it does sound like this is going to hit poorer people in the NYC area pretty hard, in a way which isn't obvious perhaps to folks in other cities.

[conuly]

I just don't understand why we, as a country, aren't building more public transportation through cities and suburbs. The demand is there, it would definitely employ people to do so....

Sorry, you hit my rant spot there.

[conuly]

And you can travel by regular bus and train instead of express bus if you have to, but that generally requires more transfers and a lot more time. If you're used to using the express bus, all that time has to come from somewhere.

[steorra]

It irritates me a bit that the headline for the negative temperatures article contradicts the article itself:
Headline: 'Atoms Reach Record Temperature, Colder than Absolute Zero'

Article: '"The inverted Boltzmann distribution is the hallmark of negative absolute temperature, and this is what we have achieved," said researcher Ulrich Schneider, a physicist at the University of Munich in Germany. "Yet the gas is not colder than zero kelvin, but hotter. It is even hotter than at any positive temperature — the temperature scale simply does not end at infinity, but jumps to negative values instead."'

[conuly]

Yeah, the first article I read on the subject said that really, really cold things act funny, more like super hot things.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

US acceptance of evolution holds steady overall, drops among Republicans

http://bit.ly/19EBLdl

Maybe the Republicans who have accepted evolution don't long remain in the party.