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Leashes Come Off Wall Street, Gun Sellers, Polluters and More
WASHINGTON — Giants in telecommunications, like Verizon and AT&T, will not have to take "reasonable measures" to ensure that their customers' Social Security numbers, web browsing history and other personal information are not stolen or accidentally released.
Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will not be punished, at least for now, for not collecting extra money from customers to cover potential losses from certain kinds of high-risk trades that helped unleash the 2008 financial crisis.
And Social Security Administration data will no longer be used to try to block individuals with disabling mental health issues from buying handguns, nor will hunters be banned from using lead-based bullets, which can accidentally poison wildlife, on 150 million acres of federal lands.
These are just a few of the more than 90 regulations that federal agencies and the Republican-controlled Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed in the month and a half since President Trump took office, according to a tally by The New York Times.
The emerging effort — dozens more rules could be eliminated in the coming weeks — is one of the most significant shifts in regulatory policy in recent decades. It is the leading edge of what Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's chief strategist, described late last month as "the deconstruction of the administrative state."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-deregulation-guns-wall-st-climate.html
In the submitter's opinion - some of these rollbacks are mistakes. Others, though, should never have been passed. For instance, the Social Security Administration being drafted into notifying law enforcement agencies of HIPAA protected information. The MPG requirements on American auto makers? The fuel efficient cars are available, but no one wants them. Left and right alike, buyers demand the gas guzzlers. Banking regulations, though, should stay in place. Trump should know that the bankers won't regulate themselves. FFS, he saw the same meltdown that we all saw in 2008!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 11 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
Sorry, bad memory, not 5, more like 4th power of the load. Here's one reference (Google's html rendering of a pdf):
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hia5vrAGNBgJ:www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx%3Fitemid%3D1586+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us [googleusercontent.com]
Or, the pdf if you prefer nice formatting http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=1586 [nvfnorden.org]
Google search string I used:
pavement damage vs load cebon
(David Cebon has published some of the basic references on this topic)
3.2 Relative effects of different axle loads
For pavement design, but also to determine the pavement wear effect of different tyres, the pavement wear effects of different axle loads have to be determined. Generally this is described by a Load Equivalency Factor (LEF), where an axle load is said to be equivalent (producing equal pavement wear) to a number of applications of a reference (standard) axle load. The most well-known of such a LEF is the so called “fourth power law” which is expressed mathematically as follows
Nref .| Wx . | 4
. = | . . | {my best attempt at ascii math, the dots try to control the whitespace}
Nx . | Wref |
here Wx and Wref are axle loads and Nx and Nref are the corresponding number of load applications. The exponent 4 in the fourth power law was found in the AASHO Road Test, carried out in USA between 1958-1960.. However, it was not strictly constant in that test but varied from about 3.6 to 4.6. Later experimental and theoretical research has indicated greater variability in the exponent, but has not been conclusive. As an example, it was found in the OECD FORCE project that the exponent depends also on the extent of distress, the exponent being smaller in earlier phases than in later phases of failure. It must be understood that the fourth power law includes all distress modes. The most important at the AASHO road test were rutting (caused by subgrade deformation) and roughness (unevenness) of the road. Cracking had a minor effect and deformation of bituminous mixtures was not important.
When individual distress modes are considered, different exponent values are found. E.g. COST 334 reports that cracking of bituminous layers has a value of 4 − 7, permanent deformation of the subgrade has an exponent of perhaps 3 − 4 and permanent deformation of bituminous layers a value of 1 − 2. As these values depend on many factors (a.o. material variations) and are not fully known, the stated values should be regarded as “best estimates” [3]
Years ago I had reason to study some of the literature, very interesting. The pavement testing machine set up at a government test lab included some very clever (and large) machines that repeatedly rolled loaded tires/axles over pavement samples. Over years of testing they varied the load and also the pavement (including base materials, etc). Good, well funded, big government science.
Roads are a big deal (big $$$ spent to build them), there is a lot of on-going research. Here is one page that links to hundreds of research papers:
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/pub_listing.cfm [dot.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:20AM
Somewhat like you, I've "studied" this stuff in the past. That line from the Matrix, "I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." It applies here. I just don't have the time and energy to dive deep into that hole again.
"As an example, it was found in the OECD FORCE project that the exponent depends also on the extent of distress,"
That bit is the reason why it is so criminal of our politicians to allow the infrastructure to deteriorate due to politics. On a well maintained road, trucks do "X" amount of damage. But ona poorly maintained road, that damage increases tremendously, so that it might be 3X, 5X, or even 10X. Better to take up the road surface, and replace it with a gravel road in some cases!
One thing I can tell you with certainty, is that the politicians never give the trucks a break on taxes. The taxes are collected, day in, and day out, 365 days per year. Billions of dollars flow in to the state coffers, in every state, every year, but the money doesn't flow back out into the infrastructure.
When all the analysis is done, any honest researcher will see that the trucks pay for the infrastructure, continuously, but the politicians find reasons and excuses to use the money elsewhere.