The Off Topic Topic

[Duque de Bragança]

Happy National Engineer's Week to all the forum's engineers. This is the time of year when we put aside our differences and focus on what really matters; like pondering could an Evangelion beat up Godzilla?

Happy National Engineer's Week! Still no word about the proposed merger between Alsthom and Bombardier? Good, average, better than nothing, bad, why not SIEMENS THEN?, Jaron?

[Iormlund]

Happy National Engineer's Week to all the forum's engineers. This is the time of year when we put aside our differences and focus on what really matters; like pondering could an Evangelion beat up Godzilla?

They would all fall before the might of the Emperor's Titanicus legions. How can anything stand against walking cathedrals?

[Valmy]

Happy National Engineer's Week to all the forum's engineers. This is the time of year when we put aside our differences and focus on what really matters; like pondering could an Evangelion beat up Godzilla?

Does this include Civil Engineers?

A contradiction in terms if there ever was one.

Good because while I strive for inclusivity there are limits...

[Savonarola]

Happy National Engineer's Week! Still no word about the proposed merger between Alsthom and Bombardier? Good, average, better than nothing, bad, why not SIEMENS THEN?, Jaron?

We got an e-mail about that yesterday... which I'm not allowed to talk about.  Which was funny since the Wall Street Journal had an article with much greater detail than our corporate masters provided us.

That wasn't as bad as the time, early in my career, when I worked for Nextel.  Their technology was remarkably similar to the railroad TETRA standard; but when they first launched they had too limited throughput for telephone calls.  So we had a "Secret project" to increase throughput; but information about the "Secret project" was released in all the trade journals and The Wall Street Journal.  Nextel had provided no information about this to their sales force; for fear that they wouldn't sell phones until the problem had been fixed.  So when we had a vice-president come in from our corporate offices for a "Rah-rah" meeting the sales people confronted her about it.  She denied that they were planning this change.  One the sales team had a Wall Street Journal and said "Look it's right here."  To which she replied "Don't read the newspapers."

[The Brain]

I only read the funnies.

[Sheilbh]

I changed my view since then.  I think the rapid growth in nicotine consumption is alarming, and I think that nicotine dependency is dangerous enough on its own.  People who vape are also sucking in way more nicotine than they would suck in from smoking, and it's not a benign substance.  It's very much possible that conversion can go the other way, from vaping to smoking.  If that happens, then it doesn't need to happen frequently enough to cancel out the argument about saving smokers' lives, and then some.

But look at the UK stats which is a country with a regulated market (so they have limits on nicotine for example). 6% of vapers are not already smoking whereas, while it's harmful, it will save lives in the 94% of vapers who are previous or current smokers. And even then nicotine isn't harmless but it's the addictive substance - what kills people is the tar, the carbon monoxide and all the other chemicals inhaled when smoking. So you've got millions of people - in the UK 94% of vapers - who have either quit smoking or are cutting down, against the 6% (couple of hundred thousand) who might have it as a gateway smoke.

I feel like the issue is more that the US has no regulations rather than that vaping is bad, so the US is exporting its standards in an unregulated market - which is ban this new product - via the WHO. The David Nutt example of India where advertising cigarettes is legal but you can be jailed for selling e-cigarettes is where that's ending up. The public health impact of stopping even a quarter of smokers in China from smoking is surely higher than the risk that some - say 6% - of those who vape later go on to smoke.

[alfred russel]

Prediction: Klobuchar drops out before super Tuesday. A poll just came out and she is only up 6 in Minnesota! 27-21 over Bernie. How embarrassing if she was to loser her home state. She is finished.

[Admiral Yi]

Prediction: Klobuchar drops out before super Tuesday. A poll just came out and she is only up 6 in Minnesota! 27-21 over Bernie. How embarrassing if she was to loser her home state. She is finished.

I'll bet you $25 even she doesn't formally announce termination or suspension of her campaign before Super Tuesday.

[Admiral Yi]

Why did you put this in OT?

[DGuller]

I changed my view since then.  I think the rapid growth in nicotine consumption is alarming, and I think that nicotine dependency is dangerous enough on its own.  People who vape are also sucking in way more nicotine than they would suck in from smoking, and it's not a benign substance.  It's very much possible that conversion can go the other way, from vaping to smoking.  If that happens, then it doesn't need to happen frequently enough to cancel out the argument about saving smokers' lives, and then some.

But look at the UK stats which is a country with a regulated market (so they have limits on nicotine for example). 6% of vapers are not already smoking whereas, while it's harmful, it will save lives in the 94% of vapers who are previous or current smokers. And even then nicotine isn't harmless but it's the addictive substance - what kills people is the tar, the carbon monoxide and all the other chemicals inhaled when smoking. So you've got millions of people - in the UK 94% of vapers - who have either quit smoking or are cutting down, against the 6% (couple of hundred thousand) who might have it as a gateway smoke.

I feel like the issue is more that the US has no regulations rather than that vaping is bad, so the US is exporting its standards in an unregulated market - which is ban this new product - via the WHO. The David Nutt example of India where advertising cigarettes is legal but you can be jailed for selling e-cigarettes is where that's ending up. The public health impact of stopping even a quarter of smokers in China from smoking is surely higher than the risk that some - say 6% - of those who vape later go on to smoke.

Fair points, circumstances may be different and warrant different solutions. 

Over here, Juul is spreading like wildfire, especially among the teenagers, and that shit is 5% nicotine.  If it continues exploding like that, it may well be the next public health disaster story. 

Nicotine may not be tar, but it's still a highly addictive stimulant that can impact developing brains, and at some point is probably not all that good for your cardiovascular system.  We also don't know yet in quantifiable terms the damage that vaping does.  It's most likely dramatically lower that cigarette smoking, but what are the odds that some substance in vaping juice is the next asbestos that doesn't start killing until decades later?

[dps]

Working in retail, my impression is that most people who buy vapes are neither people who didn't smoke before, nor smokers trying to kick the habit.  Instead, they mostly seem to be smokers who are trying vaping pretty much the same way that they might try a new brand of cigarettes.  They buy vapes once, try them, and then decide they like regular cigs better and go back.

However, that's the perspective from working in a general merchandise retail store.  I think most vaping supplies are probably sold in stand-alone vape shops, and their customer profile is probably a lot different.

[jimmy olsen]

I am now an assistant professor of English at a South Korean university.

[Josquius]

Congrats!

[The Brain]

Sweet!

Is there a lot of rivalry with the Konglish department?

[celedhring]

Congrats are in order!