domain:worksinprogress.co
RenOS
Dadder than dad
3hr ago
I get the impression it's something else. When I lived in London, one thing I especially noticed was that many of the parks are arguably more beautiful than any german cities' I've been to, and if you look up the financing of restorations or new developments, it's not strictly London-specific, it's often from diverse sources. Same goes for the London museums in particular. Meanwhile, cheap neighbourhoods are worse dumps than anything I've ever seen in Germany. Trash in the streets, barbed wire everywhere, junkies, the housing quality would literally be illegal in Germany. Small towns are the same or worse; When I visited Hastings as a teen it looked pretty dead, lots of obvious junkies as well, and the english teachers who lived there also complained constantly about how awful Hastings has become (as a teen I didn't mind it much, actually found it fascinating). Other small towns I've visited as an adult also just look terrible, except for a minority of historically relevant cities such as Oxbrdige, that often are disproportionally rich. I can't help get away with the impression that the UK is actively pooling its money extremely non-equitably into very few places (which is funny, given that the UK elite likes to talk about equity much more than the german elite does).
On the other hand in (western) Germany, it's not rare that I drive through a rural area and just stumble into a really nice, well maintained playground, or a park, or a nice-looking town centre. I only know the funding for my tiny home town, ~5k people, but I don't think it's unusual: large parts are actually from greater german/european sources, the town itself couldn't afford it. On the other hand, even the nicest centres of large cities don't really compare to central London. Eastern Germany is a different beast though, the countryside looks as awful as UKs, and the youth is fleeing in droves. On both sides, small cities often offer the best of both worlds and are correspondingly popular; Large enough to support most kinds of jobs, hobbies and locations, small enough to be somewhat affordable , with accessible nature & farms, and it still profits from certain funding sources explicitly targeted away from the large cities. I don't see something similar to UK/London happening any time soon.
Maybe it's just a feedback loop; once a critical mass of power is concentrated into a center it feeds itself until nothing else is left, the social equivalent of a black hole. In the past, countries didn't really care or even actively worked toward centralisation, so early unification countries are especially liable. Modern countries seem to care though, so late unification countries can stave it off successfully much more easily.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
3hr ago
Also Journey to Fusang by William Sanders, a much lighter book in tone.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
3hr ago
B-but there might be a Pride parade there!
In any case, it seems the shooter was a pro-Russian far-righter:
Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old man from Levice, was immediately detained by Fico's security detail.[20][21] According to the Minister of Interior, Cintula stated during police interrogation that his decision to conduct the assassination was made immediately after the 2024 Slovak presidential election.[22]
The suspect had frequented events organized by the pro-Russian paramilitary group Slovenskí Branci [sk] (Slovakian Recruits; SB). The group, which was connected to the Russian motorcycle club Night Wolves and which was receiving training from Russian Spetsnaz members, announced its disbandment in October 2022. On his social media, Cintula wrote multiple posts praising SB and its anti-immigration stance.[23] During the attack, the suspect used a pistol which he held legally in connection with his job of a private security personnel in a shopping centre.[24][25]
In 2016, the suspect had founded a "Movement Against Violence". The suspect had also been a leader of the Literárny klub Duha (Rainbow Literary Club) in Levice, which he co-founded in 2005. He had authored three poetry books, a novel, and a book about Romani people in Slovakia titled Efata. In this book, the suspect praised the programme of the far-right People's Party Our Slovakia and professed understanding of mass-murderers in cases of perceived governmental failures.[24][26][27]
This still doesn't necessarily indicate a particular conspiracy related to these movements or anything else, such movements tend to draw unstable personalities to them like flies to honey.
Folamh3
3hr ago
I mean, okay, but I was just laughing at that guy's joke. Is it against the rules to say "ha ha, your joke was funny"?
fauji
3hr ago
The same has been done in India also. It seems to be a common play to fund left wing activities through NGO funding.
Corvos
3hr ago
Do environmentalists not say that they're concerned about the effects of global warming - rising sea levels, crop destruction, etc. - precisely because it will affect people? That's always been my impression.
I would say there's a big split between the pro-humans (our children will live better, happier lives if we take better care of the environment) and the misanthropes (the environment would be better off without us).
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
4hr ago
I know it's just a TV show doing this for funsies, but I would really prefer if they actually steelmanned the pro-Palestine position before trying to mock it.
fishtwanger
4hr ago
Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Years of Rice and Salt" has some of this. The premise is that the Black Death killed 99% of Europeans in the 1300s, instead of 30-50%.
Corvos
4hr ago
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
4hr ago
I almost wish we could level the entire area south of I-280 and redevelop it into a megacity with housing for 20 million people according to Chinese urban development practices just to spite the nimbys.
You don't even need to import Chinese development practices, you can just retvrn to the housing principles of your European ancestors. Paris proper has a density that is 3x the density of SF proper and it doesn't even have any residential high-rises and only one office high-rise.
Corvos
4hr ago
I think it is far more likely (I'm not projecting here honest) that people are worried about making a top level post that sits at 2 upvotes and gets no engagement, rather than a fear of being 'banned' or any other mod action.
Yeah, I'd say getting modded is rare whereas having proof people aren't really interested in what you have to say is much more intimidating.
Corvos
4hr ago
It's interesting how many different types we have here. As a contrast, being a non-American I find the legal discussion to be almost entirely insular and irrelevant, whereas the discussion of social and economic dynamics is universal.
self_made_human
Kai su, teknon?
4hr ago
I wonder how much time you need to spend reading up on longevity extensions before it becomes a net negative by detracting from other things you can do with your life expectancy.
Can't say I'm particularly bothered, I expect that medical science will bail me out of any poor decisions I make in the next decade or two, not that I don't keep an occasional finger on that pulse.
Corvos
4hr ago
This is going too far the other way. If your food supply is limited, you could cut down more of the forest for farmland or you could just refrain from inviting the next tribe over for dinner!
To put it another way, I like my hometown the way it is, I like the countryside the way it is. Yes, we could concrete over ever more of my small country, or build more hideous skyscrapers. Or we could just stop inviting in hundreds of thousands of foreigners every year.
Corvos
4hr ago
I do sometimes get the impression London is full of monkeys...
Thanks, I didn't know that term.
the sharpness of this phenomenon is proxied by how status-conscious a place is
I think you're probably right. Bit of a feedback loop, too: the more absolute the hierarchy, the more people care about their place on it.
why don’t we vote on bringing back the bare links repository?
Eh. Might be interesting but I'm not really keen on bringing back the daily rage. I get as much current news through here as I can handle. I'm mostly happy with the site and @cjet79's formulation as-is, I just wanted to provide a little calibration in favour of 'this specific warning was too strict'.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
4hr ago
Why olive oil? Why not use one of the flavorless oils used for frying?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4hr ago
I'd argue against bullet point 1, or at least ratchet it back a bit. I read Robert Lustig's book Metabolical and he is clearly wrong about a number of things. Sugar (sucrose, fructose, etc.) is obviously not great to eat constantly and vigilance and curating one's consumption of it can only help, but Lustig calls it a "toxin." It's not a toxin. Or, rather, it's not a toxin in small enough doses. I'd also flag "processed" food as overly vague. There are lots of meanings to the word processed and again just being processed doesn't necessarily make a food harmful to eat. Another point against Lustig (and I realize I'm the one mentioning him, not you, but he has been my most recent exposure to these same claims you're making) is he bangs the drum about "organic" food, a thing which always makes me immediately hold whoever's doing it suspect. Organic farms are arguably less sustainable than non-organic farms, and are not pesticide-free.. (Once again I realize you have not pushed organic food.)
I personally agree with your view on protein, as well as the importance of sleep and hydration.
TIRM
5hr ago
very low entropy walls of text
You mean high entropy as in terrible signal to noise ratio?
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
5hr ago
The difference between a wife and a paid cook is that a cook won't tell you "fuck you, I ain't cooking a separate meal for you just because you've read another longevity shitbook"
2rafa
5hr ago
How is it surprising? People in this kind of Eastern European state can look honestly at the situation and compare the extraordinary increase in prosperity that Poland, Hungary and they themselves have seen in the EU orbit with the continuing shitholes for ordinary people that Belarus, pre-war Ukraine and even Russia itself to some extent are. It’s unclear whether Russia is ever going to reach Western European income levels (seems unlikely), while it’s pretty much guaranteed that Poland will very soon. Obviously there are relevant additional factors, but average people don’t consider most of those. I wouldn’t want to join or stay in the Russian orbit.
Before the movies came out the books themselves were adapted for an American audience. The example, the first book renamed the philosopher’s stone to the sorcerer’s stone.
There were 2 versions of the audio books. The British version narrated by Stephen fry and the American version narrated by Jim dale.
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