That's in part because they are far past their original designed lifespan, as these were meant to give everyone a house.
Despite their other egregious excesses, the Soviets at least said they believed in housing as a human right, and implemented policies to that effect.
Not only for building housing at record rates with innovative prefab construction, but also for upkeep of those buildings.
That is in stark contrast to the radical chicago school of economics "reforms" after the collapse of the soviet union, which basically created an oligarchy overnight.
Those buildings were sold for pennies at private auctions to private landlords.
Whole populations who used to have the security of free public housing, suddenly found themselves having to rent the house they have always lived in.
Meanwhile those landlords never have nor will invest anything in upkeep, which likely accelerated the deterioration of these buildings significantly.
I do agree social housing should if possible be beautiful.
However, the first concern should always be to build enough of it so everyone who wants housing can get it.
Most of the western world is in a deep housing crisis, so IMO any social housing is beautiful.
That math works out great, as long as everyone's 4-8 fast charges a year are spread out so on average the demand is spread out evenly throughout the year.
But if Australia is even a little like Europe, that won't be the case, and most people will try to take those long distance trips during the summer holidays.
Obviously during those peak demands charging rates will be restricted to avoid overloading, but rich consumers (who can buy electric cars) have become such babies that they can't or won't understand this technological reality.
While the general public is not as indoctrinated to hate socialism as in the US, they are still (being made) resistant to preserving or expanding the welfare state.
Every time cuts are made to social programmes, (conservative) people will say "we should be grateful with what we get" and "well we can't afford to keep paying for that", especially if it's cuts in another country that "has it better".
The media are an active and gleeful participant in this, constantly running stories about "OMG we are running a deficit" and "how are we going to afford to pay for pensions?", manufacturing consent all the way.
Finally, the EU and ECB also play their role as boogeymen by reprimanding states who run deficits, which national politicians then use as an excuse to cut social spending, instead of cutting military spending or taxing the wealthy.
It's likely also plain corruption, just lawmakers creating ways for their friends to siphon money from government budgets with useless gadgets like this.
2 years out from the election, Democratic establishment operatives are already going around and manufacturing consent for "settling" for Gavin Newsom. If that is the response to AOC not denying she may run, imagine what will come when she does announce. I'm expecting a tsunami of "she's unelectible" sabotage, like they did to Bernie twice.
I agree with your point that no one on the megayacht is personally to blame, they're just doing their job and (hopefully) not actively harming anyone.
It's just a little surprising to me that there's no mandate for ships above a certain displacement to carry a radio that's permanently tuned to the emergency channel. You know, a large ship may be more likely to have a crew member listening, so may cut down response times if and when that stuff matters during an emergency.
Of course the coast guard should still be monitoring and coordinating, it's just that maritime law requires you to respond to emergency calls, so why not mandate things so it's more likely you'll hear the emergency call? I guess that stuff is hard to mandate since all those ships are registered in Panama and the like, but still.
The Académie Française is absolutely not a "committee of linguists". They're a bunch of rich conservatives who are way too high on nationalism, and they are infamous for going against the consensus of linguists (who they supposedly consult).
I agree with your overall message, public water in public water can absolutely taste like drinking from a pool.
However, small correction and a fun fact: the chemical you taste is actually chlorine, not fluoride.
I actually have no clue what fluoridated water tastes like (if it has a taste at all), because in the EU most countries don't fluoridate their water.
A small intake of fluoride is good for you by the way, it helps reduce tooth cavities.
The amount you need is small enough though that you should get enough from toothpaste.
It makes sense for everybody, except for those with a financial interest in selling and/or haggling over software licenses. That's not only the companies producing the actual software, but also legal firms and similar "specialists" who siphon off money from this system of complex IP law.
IMO the only way to transition to more software being open sourced, is to deconstruct these vested intrests with regulation. We need to fundamentally restructure the way software development is funded, and transition away from a model where ownership is the only thing that's profitable.
Doing that is delicate though, because as backlash from those vested interests, a lot of workers will likely lose their jobs. You need to make sure those people easily find new jobs working on open source, and communicate that effectively, so workers' job insecurity is as low as possible during the transition.
In the case of cars with infernal combustion engines, it's even worse. Even for very efficient road car engines, more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is expelled as waste heat, through either the exhaust or cooling system. Of that smaller than 50% fraction, indeed most of the energy is spent overcoming aerodynamic drag of the car body, and friction from the tires.
Sidenote: F1 made headlines a while back they had achieved >50% thermal efficiency, with an incredibly complicated hybrid system that recovered excess exhaust energy from the turbo.
That, but also the current concentration of wealth is an immense problem. These things are incredibly interconnected of course.
My point is that even if power didn't corrupt, everybody still has a price, and with wealth this concentrated, there will be someone who is able to pay it.
Furthermore, even if there are measures against corruption, or someone is uncorruptible, etc. there will be a way around that if you throw enough resources at it to find it.
Whether it's influencing public opinion through the media, spending decades changing the law incrementally, or just litigating everyone into oblivion, these people have the resources to be 10 steps ahead of activists and completely above-board.
I think you should still leave the possibility open for that guy to return, but under some strict conditions which he'll only accept if he sees the rest of us as equals.
Adopting the euro should be a good start.
That certainly would happen if it was just open access for any South Korean IP address.
What I think is equally likely is that this will require some government ID to access, and hoo boy does that open a dystopian can of worms.
That's in part because they are far past their original designed lifespan, as these were meant to give everyone a house. Despite their other egregious excesses, the Soviets at least said they believed in housing as a human right, and implemented policies to that effect. Not only for building housing at record rates with innovative prefab construction, but also for upkeep of those buildings.
That is in stark contrast to the radical chicago school of economics "reforms" after the collapse of the soviet union, which basically created an oligarchy overnight. Those buildings were sold for pennies at private auctions to private landlords. Whole populations who used to have the security of free public housing, suddenly found themselves having to rent the house they have always lived in. Meanwhile those landlords never have nor will invest anything in upkeep, which likely accelerated the deterioration of these buildings significantly.
I do agree social housing should if possible be beautiful. However, the first concern should always be to build enough of it so everyone who wants housing can get it. Most of the western world is in a deep housing crisis, so IMO any social housing is beautiful.
That math works out great, as long as everyone's 4-8 fast charges a year are spread out so on average the demand is spread out evenly throughout the year. But if Australia is even a little like Europe, that won't be the case, and most people will try to take those long distance trips during the summer holidays. Obviously during those peak demands charging rates will be restricted to avoid overloading, but rich consumers (who can buy electric cars) have become such babies that they can't or won't understand this technological reality.
Widespread but being dismantled as we speak.
While the general public is not as indoctrinated to hate socialism as in the US, they are still (being made) resistant to preserving or expanding the welfare state. Every time cuts are made to social programmes, (conservative) people will say "we should be grateful with what we get" and "well we can't afford to keep paying for that", especially if it's cuts in another country that "has it better". The media are an active and gleeful participant in this, constantly running stories about "OMG we are running a deficit" and "how are we going to afford to pay for pensions?", manufacturing consent all the way. Finally, the EU and ECB also play their role as boogeymen by reprimanding states who run deficits, which national politicians then use as an excuse to cut social spending, instead of cutting military spending or taxing the wealthy.
~ Stephen Miller (probably)
Nah that's just him reflexively victim blaming, ’cause he's a rapist.
It's likely also plain corruption, just lawmakers creating ways for their friends to siphon money from government budgets with useless gadgets like this.
This already seems like a best-case scenario tbh.
2 years out from the election, Democratic establishment operatives are already going around and manufacturing consent for "settling" for Gavin Newsom. If that is the response to AOC not denying she may run, imagine what will come when she does announce. I'm expecting a tsunami of "she's unelectible" sabotage, like they did to Bernie twice.
Happy VIRM noises at 160kph
Wait... were you arguing for or against AI slop?
So it was a communication issue then
I agree with your point that no one on the megayacht is personally to blame, they're just doing their job and (hopefully) not actively harming anyone.
It's just a little surprising to me that there's no mandate for ships above a certain displacement to carry a radio that's permanently tuned to the emergency channel. You know, a large ship may be more likely to have a crew member listening, so may cut down response times if and when that stuff matters during an emergency.
Of course the coast guard should still be monitoring and coordinating, it's just that maritime law requires you to respond to emergency calls, so why not mandate things so it's more likely you'll hear the emergency call? I guess that stuff is hard to mandate since all those ships are registered in Panama and the like, but still.
The Académie Française is absolutely not a "committee of linguists". They're a bunch of rich conservatives who are way too high on nationalism, and they are infamous for going against the consensus of linguists (who they supposedly consult).
I agree with your overall message, public water in public water can absolutely taste like drinking from a pool.
However, small correction and a fun fact: the chemical you taste is actually chlorine, not fluoride. I actually have no clue what fluoridated water tastes like (if it has a taste at all), because in the EU most countries don't fluoridate their water.
A small intake of fluoride is good for you by the way, it helps reduce tooth cavities. The amount you need is small enough though that you should get enough from toothpaste.
It makes sense for everybody, except for those with a financial interest in selling and/or haggling over software licenses. That's not only the companies producing the actual software, but also legal firms and similar "specialists" who siphon off money from this system of complex IP law.
IMO the only way to transition to more software being open sourced, is to deconstruct these vested intrests with regulation. We need to fundamentally restructure the way software development is funded, and transition away from a model where ownership is the only thing that's profitable.
Doing that is delicate though, because as backlash from those vested interests, a lot of workers will likely lose their jobs. You need to make sure those people easily find new jobs working on open source, and communicate that effectively, so workers' job insecurity is as low as possible during the transition.
In the case of cars with infernal combustion engines, it's even worse. Even for very efficient road car engines, more than 50% of the energy in the fuel is expelled as waste heat, through either the exhaust or cooling system. Of that smaller than 50% fraction, indeed most of the energy is spent overcoming aerodynamic drag of the car body, and friction from the tires.
Sidenote: F1 made headlines a while back they had achieved >50% thermal efficiency, with an incredibly complicated hybrid system that recovered excess exhaust energy from the turbo.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-human-on-a-bicycle-is-among-the-most-efficient-forms-of-travel-in-the/
It gets better: a human on a bike is the most efficient mode of locomotion there is in terms of mass moved per unit of energy invested.
That, but also the current concentration of wealth is an immense problem. These things are incredibly interconnected of course.
My point is that even if power didn't corrupt, everybody still has a price, and with wealth this concentrated, there will be someone who is able to pay it. Furthermore, even if there are measures against corruption, or someone is uncorruptible, etc. there will be a way around that if you throw enough resources at it to find it. Whether it's influencing public opinion through the media, spending decades changing the law incrementally, or just litigating everyone into oblivion, these people have the resources to be 10 steps ahead of activists and completely above-board.
I think you should still leave the possibility open for that guy to return, but under some strict conditions which he'll only accept if he sees the rest of us as equals. Adopting the euro should be a good start.