This is definitely not true at the state level, and not exactly true at the federal level either.

Every state to which I regularly travel is now "constitutional carry" - i.e., no permit needed at all. None of them were ten years ago.

Pretty much all gun control in the US is racist in its origins and usually in its modern implementation. "May issue" is a shining example of this.

  Location: Arkansas 
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  CV: https://linkedin.com/in/lyndsysimon
  Email: lyndsy@lyndsysimon.com

Why? Are the data that the FDA relied upon for this determination public?

There is a great deal of internal politics at play within the federal government. I see this as the grain of truth behind the "deep state" allegations. Without knowing more about the FDA's justification, it seems completely reasonable to suspect that they may have acted out of their own personal and institutional biases.

I was interested in hydroxychloroquine long before Trump started talking about it. It was being administered both as a treatment and prophylaxis in Italy, and was showing promising results - it didn't look like it was going to be a panacea, but it seemed likely that it would be a good first-line treatment until something better came along. It also had the added benefit of an existing production capability that was already in place and easily scaled further.

Then Trump started talking about it, and it became effectively impossible to sort out reliable information about its use. Papers started coming out either strongly in favor or strongly opposed to its use, where before there was cautious optimism.

> If the FDA hadn't done that and the treatment continued to prove effective, I think we would all generally be on board with it.

That's an interesting statement. I read that as "because the FDA retracted their authorization, the effectiveness of the treatment is not relevant". The only other way I can wrap my head around it is a more charitable reading of "it's unlikely/impossible to be proven effective because the FDA retracted their authorization" - that reasoning is so at odds with my worldview that I'm not confident that others would consider it reasonable.

They have been conservative in their statements. I don’t recall them ever saying “it doesn’t spread person-to-person” - I do recall them saying “there is no conclusive evidence of person-to-person transmission”. At the time, given the evidence they had, that was true. From their perspective saying that it did in fact spread person-to-person and later concluding it didn’t would have been much worse; I assume they take this approach to protect their reputation of being certain before making a public statement.

The problem seems to be that lay people seem to expect WHO to be on the bleeding edge and providing comprehensive information on the latest investigation and data. That’s not what they do. They report the findings, and that’s very different.

Now I’m curious to see if I can run some statistics against my Lightroom library.

I shoot a Fujifilm X-E2, and am hoping to upgrade to an X-Pro3 fairly soon. I’ve put off upgrading my camera for years in favor of buying better glass.

My favorite/most used lens is a 23mm f/1.4. I know I rarely use it wide open unless I’m shooting at night, and in that case I’m also usually also shooting monochrome. That lens is awesome for low light and indoor candidates, and even with my generations-old X-E2 I have enough resolution (16MP) to crop in when I need to.

My next favorite is a 35mm f/2. With the crop factor, it’s ~50mm and nearly perfect for street photography. There is a quality to that lens that I have difficulty describing - the closest I can get is that it’s “Leica-like”.

I also recently picked up a used 18-55mm f/2.8-4. Zoom lenses aren’t really my thing, and variable-aperture zoom even less so. This lens was so cheap that it didn’t make sense not to buy it, and it’s turned out to be very capable as long as I’m outdoors in full light. It gives me a bit more reach, which is important sometimes for me. A lot of my photography is done either of my kids or for the dance studio I and my wife own, so while it’s not my favorite lens it does see quite a bit of use and is often the right tool for the job.

Examples:

XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 400 | f/4 | 1/250s - Outdoor, stage shot of a dance performance: https://adobe.ly/3f9rbmH

XF23mmF1.4 R | ISO 1600 | f/2 | 1/60s - Indoor, with terrible lighting and a glossy background: https://adobe.ly/332b9IN

XF35mmF2 R WR | ISO 200 | f/8 | 1.170s - Outdoor, street photography in Cleveland: https://adobe.ly/2X6CTbk

XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS | ISO 1600 | f/4 | 1/500s - Outdoors, my youngest daughter riding a go-kart: https://adobe.ly/3f5o6Ec

I’m 36. It’s striking to me how much has changed in my professional lifetime already - we’ve gone from rumors of data-based marketing causing issues for other companies to it being embedded in everything we do. A/B testing is fundamental to feature development at every successful company I’ve experienced in the past decade.

While the election of 1960 was before my time, it seems like fairly recent history to me. To realize that it’s closer to the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk than to the present day is disconcerting. I can’t begin to imagine what the future holds sixty years from now. Subjectively, it seems like the velocity of the societal impact of technology continues to increase. I’ve seen the rise of social media (MySpace, Facebook, Google+, and countless others that have failed). Sitting here today I see the only survivor of that - Facebook - increasingly as a legacy network that appears strong on its surface, but precariously so. I fully expect something new to hit the scene that steals the limelight and turns Facebook into a ghost town. Each time that has happened in the past the new platform has fundamentally changed the way we interact with others, both virtually and in person.

We look at the current state of technology with different eyes than our predecessors. The “People Machine” described in the article is almost certainly possible today. It exists in various forms at Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, the NSA... We see each of those implementations as limited because we have perspective on how they could be made to be more powerful and a better understanding of how models are limited by the purpose for which they are created. Our dystopian fiction today takes the dystopian fiction of the 1960s as a starting condition.

Perhaps they aren't crashing on accident, but are shot down?

I'm not saying I believe that, of course, but "crash" != "accident".

Anti-gravity/electrogravitics would make all kinds of sci-fi stuff possible. It would be a much, much bigger deal.

I’d say this is an excellent example of Poe’s Law.

I’m very interested in Nim and try to keep up with news, but I just don’t have time for yet another language and community. That’s unfortunate because I see a lot of promise in it, and I think it would be a joy to work with every day.

I’m just quietly waiting, hoping for Nim’s Django.

My 12-year-old daughter would strongly disagree that this is gender-specific :)

> If you are thinking of self-defense, you could always carry a firearm instead (or perhaps a sword or staff), since most people apparently consider that a more persuasive deterrent to violence.

Frustratingly, knife laws in the US are bad and inconsistent. It’s often the case that you can legally carry a firearm but not a good knife. Knives are also comparatively very difficult to use defensively, and extremely dangerous to the user. Every skilled knife user I know has the same opinion: If you end up in a knife fight, you will get cut.

Finally, while they can certainly be lethal, they are not typical fast-acting - for defensive purposes, it does you no good if an attacker dies hours later in the hospital from blood loss if they’re able to continue their assault in the meantime. In all circumstances where it is legal, OC (“pepper spray”) in its various forms is much better suited for defensive use. It’s relatively fast acting and has the added benefit of not killing your attacker.

> If you cannot make up your mind there is always the "Apache" knife/gun/brass knuckles:

Brass knuckles are illegal in most states, even with a carry permit in the ones that offer and require them. I couldn’t carry this in Arkansas - not because of the gun, but because of the knuckles.

> You can always carry a pistol unloaded, with ammo in a separate pocket, so you have time to think clearly whether to load should violence occur!8-)) Remember that one can both punch or bludgeon quite effectively with a pistol even if it is not loaded. This is called "pistol-whipping" and is commonly displayed in old Hollywood westerns.

This is objectively terrible advice. I’m a strong advocate for carrying a firearm, but carrying unloaded is the worst of all worlds. It’s not going to be ready when you need it, and presenting it immediately escalates the situation both legally and in the eyes of a potential attacker.

You shouldn’t carry a gun unless you have seriously considered what that means, know when you can legally use it, and are 100% certain that you understand an accept the moral responsibility that it entails. If you do, you should carry it in a way that protects it from being taken from you and makes it available for your immediate use.

Speaking only for myself - I get enjoyment from using quality tools. That goes for knives, but it’s also why I invested in Milwaukee M18 Fuel power tools when the much cheaper Ryobi line would technically have met my needs. It’s also why I use vim and have spent as much time as I have customizing it to my liking.

For knives, there are three that I regularly carry:

For everyday use, I always have my Microtech UTX-85 D/E (~$250). It’s an OTF (“out the front”), the blade is ELMAX, and is easily opened with one hand. While I originally chose it primarily for defensive use - I often carry a full-sized handgun OWB, and it’s well suited for use as a retention tool - I’ve found its ability to hold an edge and ease of opening makes it ideal for everyday tasks like opening packages. If I had to do it over I would buy the single-edged version; the double edge makes it difficult sometimes to get leverage when cutting something stubborn.

I usually carry a second knife that’s sturdier and well-suited for “serious cutting”. If I need to open a thick plastic package, or (gently) pry on something, I use it. It’s a Gerber US-Assist (~$100). The blade is S30V, and has a nice, thick spine that I can lay my finger on to gain good control. It also a locking blade (so it can’t fold on my fingers when using it) and has a safety button so the blade can be affirmatively locked either open or closed.

Finally, for food purposes only, I have a CRKT CEO (~$50). Its blade is commodity steel (“8Cr13MoV”, I had to look it up), and it holds an edge adequately. Pretty much every time I use it, I touch up the edge that night so it stays razor sharp. Because I’m mostly cutting meat with it I chose a long, slender blade with a gentle curve. Since getting it I’ve found myself increasingly annoyed when I unexpectedly go out to eat and end up having to tear a steak with a dull serrated steak knife provided at a restaurant.

> I have a utility knife that takes replaceable utility knife blades, and I'd think having a replaceable blade would work best for any of those things.

If I were regularly using a knife for cutting boxes, tape, plastic, etc., I’d do the same. Many years ago when I was working as an electrician, I had a folding knife that used standard utility knife blades. When I was working in PC Support at a large company and was often opening boxes and breaking them down to be crushed, I carried it as well.

I carry a single expensive knife (my Microtech) because I like it. It’s not that complicated :). I have other knives for specific purposes, and carry them when I expect I might need them - but in a pinch, the Microtech can serve almost any role adequately well. A good steel will hold an edge very well and give you that flexibility - I don’t hesitate to cut anything with it. Meanwhile, I would never use the slender generic steel blade of my “food knife” to open a plastic package that might have metal staples; it would destroy the edge and would at least take time and effort to restore the edge. I might even have to reprofile it.

All of this is to say: I highly recommend that everyone carry a good quality, general purpose pocketknife. They can be had at any budget level and you’ll use it far more than you’d expect. Beyond that... spending more money and acquiring knives for specific purposes is something you either enjoy or you don’t.