>How did they financially suppress fuel prices?

If you google for the "oil price today" you will find something like $75. However, if you look closely, it's the price of oil futures for September. Futures are not oil, they are contracts. If you need to buy oil in September and you expect the price to be higher than $75 you can buy such a contract and guarantee your price to be $75 now. However, you can also buy such a contract even if you don't need to buy oil ever, hoping its price will go up and you can sell it at profit (you can also do it on margin i.e. only put enough money to cover daily price change). And a whole lot of people do exactly this (likewise, they also can sell these contracts even though they don't have a drop of oil to sell).

Normally, the large volume of these speculative contracts cancel each other before the expiration date and no oil changes hands. However, because most of these traders don't have oil or the ability to take delivery on oil, a "squeeze" is possible. Say, you bought $75 oil futures for September today, hoping to sell them at premium sometime before today and the last trading day at the end of August. As that day approaches you see that the price is still $75 or even lower. Oil spot price (the actual price) can be anything (it was about $100 last week), maybe $100, maybe $200 but nobody is buying futures at this price, because someone is selling them at $68. If you had a refinery with storage to take few thousand barrels, you'd be happy as you got a great deal on oil. However, if you are just a dude at a computer in a NYC apartment, you are now in big trouble - you have to pay $75K for each contract you hold and take delivery on 1000 barrels of oil. Either or both might be impossible for you so, instead, you just sell yours at $67.99 and take $7K loss on each contract, which 10x less money than you'd have to pay for the oil you can't take delivery on. This is a "long squeeze", as more people find themselves in such a situation they sell at lower and lower price causing the futures price to tank even more.

Someone causing a long squeeze is, obviously, taking a loss as some legitimate buyers will buy the cheap futures and take delivery but because of the sheer volume of the speculators, a long squeeze is not nearly as expensive as a direct undercutting the spot price and can be maintained for a long time with relatively small capital.

Why do you think that? A cigarette contains 10-20 mg of nicotine depending on the tobacco blend used. The strongest e-liquid is 50-60 g/l so to get 10x nicotine of a mild cigarette you'd need to atomize 2ml of the strongest e-liquid. Coincidently, 2ml is the legal limit of disposable vapes in EU. So, to get nicotine of one pack (20) light cigarettes you'd need to empty two European vapes (provided they are filled with the strongest liquid and at the capacity cap). To get 10x nicotine of a pack-a-day smoker you need to vape 20 disposables a day, which seems like quite a feat to me both physically and financially.

A cigarette contains 10-20mg, but it's not readily available. On average, of those 10-20mg, you absorb only 1mg. [1]

My assumption, which could be faulty, is a lot more of the nicotine in the vape gets absorbed vs a cigarette.

[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-much-nicotine-...

Yes, neither is nicotine from a vape is all absorbed. Seeing they both have the same delivery mechanism (aerosol into lungs) it's quite a leap to assume one of these delivers an order of magnitude more nicotine, IMHO.

Here's my reasoning.

The nicotine in smoke is bound to plant matter which you are likely to exhale. The dose you get is basically entirely from whatever gets stuck on the lungs, but even then it's still bound to the plant matter, so there will be some that just even if attached to the lung won't cross over.

Contrast that to the vape juice, which is water, glycol, nicotine (and flavors). In that case, the nicotine isn't bound to anything and as the water/glycol evaporates you are left with just the nicotine on the lung.

It's true that a large portion of the vape smoke doesn't attach to the lung at all. But my presumption is that a hit from a vape carries more nicotine and that nicotine also more readily gets absorbed by the lungs.

I don't know if it's exactly 10x. I presume it's higher.

Vape juice is nicotine, glycol (PG) and glycerin (VG), the "V" in "VG" stands for "vegetable", which is a type of plant so if having a plant matter is a decisive factor in absorption then both delivery methods have it. It, however, depends on what you mean by "bound", from my limited knowledge nicotine is not bound chemically to anything in tobacco leaf either but perhaps water from plant cells has some properties which makes it very different from water from atomizing glycol and glycerin. And the concentration of nicotine in vape smoke is lower as I already shown with the numbers.

Bicycles are hilarious because the same sizes will be designated in inches or millimeters depending on where or why they are taken. E.g. handlebars are 31.8 mm or 25.4 mm (1¼" and 1") but steerers are 1" or 1⅛". Wheels of the same diameter will be called 28", 29" or 700 (and the diameter is actually 25½" but it's only called "622 mm"). And even when they use metric from the start for something that is not a standard fastener already they end up with things like 28.99 mm spindles (not to be confused with 30 mm spindles, which also exist).

I don't know if you noticed that, but when they make bike lanes they don't cut them off the sidewalk, they cut them into the car lanes, either taking a lane out or making the existing lane very narrow. Unlike a cyclist, which you see once in a blue moon, the reduced lanes are there forever, you drive through them all the time. Does this explain the paradox to you?

I, for one, cycle and still oppose bike lanes - they don't make cycling much safer (a car can easily jump a curb and most of these don't even have a curb, just some paint and plastic bollards in the best case) but impede traffic for everyone. If you want to increase cycling adoption you will piss off much fewer people and be 1000% more efficient by reigning in bike theft instead of building these lanes.

Absolutely. In my part of Miami proper, what's left for the SUVs after the bike lane was cut in, is not enough for them to pass me. When I am on that same street in a car instead of the bike, it's very unnerving to be that close to a cyclist. I mean, technically, it's enough, but it's scary for the driver. Many streets are painted with solid double no-pass markings.

When I cycle, I take the full lane even if there is a "bike lane". If I am holding up traffic, I'll slow down and retire to the bike lane until that wave of car passes, no need to agitate anyone.

This has been a solved problem in Europe, but in the states, cars got wider, but the streets didn't.

I do dislike Tour de France militant wanna be tribes, they act really obnoxious in traffic in my part of the world. When it's a single rider, mostly all is cool, but when there is a pack of a dozen or more, they transform into something else.

You don't see cyclists because they don't have to wait in traffic as much, and because there's essentially no safe road for them to travel on. Bike theft is not why people don't cycle, from my experience, it's because they're right next to cars going 35+ miles per hour that would maim them if they got hit, even plastic bollards are enough to get drivers to stop riding so close to the bike lane, which makes cyclists feel safer.

> You don't see cyclists ....

Glad we agree on this, the reasons you imagined could be true or false, the main point is that drivers are going to be affected by the bike lanes significantly more than by cyclists.

> Bike theft is not why people don't cycle

It is in my experience. E.g. I don't bike to work because the office building requires bikes to be stored in the shared storage room and I don't want it to be stolen. There is a bike trail between my home and office so no 35 mph cars you are so afraid of.

Could you please read my message in good faith and not intentionally quote me out of context, then ignore everything I had to say? It's rather impolite, and if you did that to someone in person, they'd probably be rather upset with you.

I think drivers are catered to in almost every single scenario in the United States to the point that giving cyclists any space, any infrastructure, or anything that is not also usable by cars is almost unthinkable. With that in mind, yes, drivers will be inconvenienced. Oh well. They're convenienced at almost every turn in almost every decision about transportation, let's give bikes a chance too.

You have a bike trail? Lucky! I live in central NJ, while bike trails do exist in the western part of the state, where people live here, they basically don't exist and you have to just ride in the street. Almost no offices even have a storage room, so you'd be chaining your bike to a sign, most likely, or storing it behind the building somewhere. You have it better than we do here...clearly, there's a lot more work to be done.

I am sorry, what you wrote looked like you agree that there are few cyclists and you just added your idea why is it so. Did you actually want to say that there are many cyclists on the streets but they are, apparently, invisible? Well, you are entitled to believe this, I took the most charitable interpretation of what you said because attributing the belief in masses of invisible cyclists to someone would paint them completely nuts in my view.

>I think drivers are catered to in almost every single scenario in the United States to the point that giving cyclists any space, any infrastructure, or anything that is not also usable by cars is almost unthinkable.

Yet it's reality in many cities in the US - tons of bike lanes, unusable by cars. You can bring up bike lanes on google maps, show me a city without those.

>Almost no offices even have a storage room, so you'd be chaining your bike to a sign, most likely, or storing it behind the building somewhere.

And yet, the bikes don't get stolen? Not even parts like wheels, saddles, lights etc? Lucky!

You don't see the cyclists because they pass right by - they're only in a particular bike lane that you happen to be next to for a very short time, they don't usually need to stop, and yes, obviously there are fewer cyclists than drivers because cycling in the US is unsafe.

People don't bike here because they can't. I don't live in a city, I live in one of the many dense suburbs (which are denser than many cities in the US) of NJ, where there's lots of roads, and almost no bike lanes. Where biking does happen, they bike in the street, with no shoulder, and hope not to get hit by cars.

The bikes aren't stolen because there are no bikes, because you'd have to have a deathwish to try biking in the road with cars in the same lane as them.

It's the densest state in the union, and the only places you can bike are Newark, Hudson County, New Brunswick, Trenton, Atlantic City, Camden, the barrier islands, and the boardwalks. The other 99% of the state, you're putting your life on the line.

It's about safety. Would you feel safe biking in those lanes? Would you feel more or less safe biking where there are none?

Your ignorance of the road rules might be the reason you can't bike in the streets. Bikes, even in NJ, have to stop at the "STOP" signs and red lights, just like cars - if you don't then you are indeed in danger of collision with cars. You should seek the "driver's handbook" for your state and study it (you can download it or even get a free hard copy at the local DMV), follow the rules of the road described there and you won't be putting your life on the line.

PS. Your response got killed for some reason (very bizarre in an old thread and so quickly) but to answer your question - it depends on the road. There are roads I don't feel safe driving (I live in Austin, where the city decided that the traffic enforcement is racist or something so there is none, as the result there is mayhem on the roads) but I do bike on some streets with 35 mph and no bike lanes without feeling I put my life on the line.

It's the third or fourth time I see it on HN, I have not read anything other than the first two, which were more of complaints about tiered products. E.g. one was about backpacks and how a $40 backpack from Walmart is not going to last 20 years of summiting Mt. Everest like the $400 backpack of the same brand sold elsewhere...

JRE mentioned it several times recently, I imagine it could have spiked interest but overall it's been growing over the past decade because of the advances in fitness trackers, IMO. It's been very easy to see its effect with trackers measuring FTP and VO2max.

IANAL but as an IP creator I have not heard of "derivative products" in the copyright context. There are "derivative works", which are covered by the same copyright as the original. For example, a translation to another language is a derivative work, a novelisation of a movie, a screen adaptation of a book etc. If some author could have proven that any Anthromic model is a derivative work of theirs then they had the copyright on that model and made mad bucks licensing it back to Anthropic.

>One thing soviet commies did right was housing builds

And yet, the housing was a much bigger problem in the USSR than what amounts to "housing crisis" in the USA. One of the big points of the CPSU platform was to provide non-shared living accommodations to each family by the year 2000 (the USSR collapsed before that but the Party admitted they are not meeting the demand already in 1989). In rich cities most of these pre-made buildings had been already scraped.

This depends on what you mean by "own". We have property rights, which are colloquially referenced as "ownership" but, by definition, these are rights and don't exist outside the state, which enforces them. So yes, your rights are given to you by the state and you don't really have any without the state enforcing them. If you could naively own your property then you could just tell the tax collectors to fuck off, what are they going to do with your property if it had been truly yours?

> So yes, your rights are given to you by the state and you don't really have any without the state enforcing them.

This ignores the Constitution and the acknowledgement of 'inalienable rights'.

   We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, [...]

In essence, the government of the United States derives its power from the governed, and otherwise wields no true power. The Constitution of this nation is written specifically limiting powers of the government, and not enumerating the rights of the people.

> If you could naively own your property then you could just tell the tax collectors to fuck off, what are they going to do with your property if it had been truly yours?

Yes. This is where the second and fourth amendments to the constitution are important. True sovereignty (not in the sense of that 'sovereign citizen' nonsense) comes with martial ability; that is, the right to take another life. Sovereignty is necessarily paired with 'power', as without it, there isn't any true ability to protect one's rights.

---

All that said, I'm appealing to an ideal when I say 'property tax is theft'.

I imagine you wanted to say "ignores the Declaration of Independence", which you quoted? Sure, if you believe that this declaration endowed you with the unalienable property rights then just go ahead and don't pay the property tax, what is going to happen if your property rights are truly unalienable, right?

Also, how theft would be even possible if property rights had been unalienable? If someone stole from you and you retained your property rights you could just keep enjoying your property and exclude the thief from your property as the right entitles you.

I know this is a facetious dismissal, but I'll try to respond anyway.

> I imagine you wanted to say "ignores the Declaration of Independence", which you quoted?

Correct.

> Sure, if you believe that this declaration endowed you with the unalienable property rights then just go ahead and don't pay the property tax, what is going to happen if your property rights are truly unalienable, right?

I'm not advocating for breaking laws, regulations, or rules of the nation I live in.

> Also, how theft would be even possible if property rights had been unalienable? If someone stole from you and you retained your property rights you could just keep enjoying your property and exclude the thief from your property as the right entitles you.

This is less about the pragmatics of 'possession' and its intricacies (the old adage 'possession is 9/10s of the law' is relevant here), and more about the policies of the governments that rule, and ultimately that answer to the people they rule.

If I am advocating for anything, it is change in laws and the appropriate limits on government to limit the levying of taxes on possessed things. In this case, land.

> I'm not advocating for breaking laws, regulations, or rules of the nation I live in.

What if we change the laws to remove or limit those property rights?

> This is less about the pragmatics of 'possession' and its intricacies (the old adage 'possession is 9/10s of the law' is relevant here), and more about the policies of the governments that rule, and ultimately that answer to the people they rule.

What if most of those people want to reduce the property rights of a small wealthy minority?

Just like you read your unalienable property rights from the Declaration of Independence you seem to be reading a facetious dismissal from a very simple and factual commentary on your beliefs. This is probably why you did not address anything.

There are high trust communities all over America. Fewer every year.