Recent comments in /f/CambridgeMA

desicant t1_jakbodt wrote

Reply to comment by Opposite_Match5303 in Open Response to Congresswoman Clark's recent letter by noob_tube03

Right, so I am listening I just think I wasn't being clear in my response.

I'm rejecting your premise because it is flawed, specifically it commits the McNamara fallacy. This fallacy occurs when you have a complex or ill-defined situation (like "harm") and you've measured one part of it (CO2) and are ignoring the unmeasured parts (plastic pollution)

To be precise to your argument - the research you mention doesn't measure "harm" it only measures energy/CO2 per cup of coffee consumed. Plastic pollution and the impact it has on health and wellness can't be measured using energy/CO2.

Note that when the k cup research was written up by the Washington Post they actually had to post a correction and a quote from the Ocean Conservancy pointing this out. Essentially warning people to not over interpret from the limited data, specifically because the original research failed to take into account plastic pollution and what offsets that may have on health outside of CO2 production.

Now - I challenge you to consider that we don't actually need to measure "harm" in this case because we don't need to find the optimal solution to find a solution that mitigates harm. Indeed, demanding that level of evidence is similar to tobacco companies claiming that no one's ever 'proved' that smoking causes cancer.

Instead consider that with increasing energy production coming from renewable resources and carbon sequestration technologies focusing on atmospheric CO2 capture it seems like these concerns can be addressed using near term scalable technologies.

Conversely, plastics and microplastics, get mixed into the soil, water, and biological tissues in ways that make it hard, if not impossible, to separate out. There is no near term technology that can sort microplastics from soil. It presents a permanent problem. And, unlike the shift in energy production towards renewables, plastics are only being produced in ever greater abundances.

3

SesquipedalianPossum t1_jak9811 wrote

Reply to comment by noob_tube03 in Open Response to Congresswoman Clark's recent letter by noob_tube03

Since you seem to be anti-climate chaos, I wanted to say, think it's important for everyone to understand that EV passenger cars are not a good choice. EV passenger cars are meant to save the car industry, not us or the planet.

The materials required to create batteries to power EVs--cadmium and lithium--are in quite limited quantities on the planet, we really, really need to reserve those small amounts to use for batteries that will store energy for the power grid and large-capacity vehicles, like buses and trucks. If we waste it all on private passenger electric cars, we'll have none left for the grid or public transit.

2

nhf1918 t1_jak4n61 wrote

Reply to Atwood's Tavern is Closing by zepporamone

Love atwoods and sorry to see it go. Hopefully this turns into a similar bar / venue under new ownership though. They just redid the inside and the back patio is perfect. I think someone will snap it up and put out a similar product.

5

IamUnamused t1_jak4it6 wrote

Reply to Atwood's Tavern is Closing by zepporamone

this is a huge loss. Been going there since it opened and have known the owners even longer. We had our wedding brunch there (rented out the place for half a day), seen countless shows there and we even modeled our back patio renovation after theirs. Gah. Whyyyyy

9

guimontag t1_jak3fjq wrote

Reply to Atwood's Tavern is Closing by zepporamone

Hmm so I really loved the food there but I had an insanely terrible interaction with the management there once.

I went there with a friend for dinner and drinks, tipped like 20% on a $55ish bill so like 12 or 13 bucks or something. I'm in my 20s and poor but payday is coming up and I know exactly how much I'm spending the next week so no big deal. Two days later I'm looking at my bank account and it's way lower than I thought it'd be. I've got a charge from Atwood's for almost $200. Turns out the server entered the tip with an extra digit so it was like a $112 tip instead of $12. I call the restaurant and ask them to change/void the charge and the guy I talk to on the phone starts getting really pissy about it, saying it's a big hassle with the credit card company and can he just give me the difference in an Atwoods gift certificate. Holy fucking shit I got so angry I just stopped talking for a second and told them tough luck, do the charge change. Stopped going there as often after that.

13

MatNomis t1_jajxudj wrote

Reply to comment by HafizSahb in Highest accessible vantage point in the city? by HafizSahb

If it’s a Harvard ID, the 10th floor in the Smith Center has a nice “common spaces” area called the Riverview Commons.

Hours and stuff on this page: https://commonspaces.harvard.edu

MIT has several tall buildings, dorms and otherwise.. The Green Building was slated to get some nice study spaces, but I’m not sure what’s available there presently, or what effect the planned renovations may be having.

2

BAM521 t1_jajthm3 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Atwood's Tavern is Closing by zepporamone

…is this a bit? I genuinely can’t tell.

Anyway, if anyone is wondering why Atwoods or your favorite restaurant is closing, the biggest factor is probably staffing difficulties since COVID pushed a lot of people out of the service industry who will never go back. Only so much you can do.

17

This_Cantabrigian t1_jajsqw8 wrote

Reply to Atwood's Tavern is Closing by zepporamone

I liked Atwood’s and I enjoyed going there, however I distinctly remember the place before it, the Overdraught, and I was bummed when that closed as well. So if they open another bar/music venue there it could be good.

9