This recent episode of the Secular Buddhism podcast may be worth a listen. It gets into the enduring value and joy we can find in the good fortune of others.
Another fact you may find interesting because it's unique, I think, for a North American city of its size: Vancouver has no freeways.
Within city limits, there are no roads with speed limits over 50 km/h (30 mi/h), lots of traffic lights, lots of bus/bike lanes, and lots of congestion. The Trans Canada highway skirts along the side of the city but does not enter it. Things get slow, very quickly.
There are complex historic reasons behind this. Politics, activism, lack of federal funding, etc.
Thank you for the link! This potentially helps to explain the relative popularity of public transit. I’m glad at least some places saw the writing on the wall early with freeway-dominated cities.
I think Detroit is an amazing example in the US of how much a sole focus on building our highways can cripple a city for decades.
This feels like the trend of Americans having to start GoFundMe campaigns for surgeries and health care. (!) I mean, do what you feel you have to do in the urgent moment. But come on. What's the plan? This is not civilized.
You work towards reality tv where you vote on who lives and who dies. Used to be the domain of things like black mirror but the reality is coming far sooner than you think.
What would you suggest? I mean, we have a legitimate government that has been duly elected in what everyone broadly recognizes were free and fair elections. It just happens to be a government of crazies and grifters who our neighbors genuinely believe can save the country (whatever that means to them).
I spent so much time typing in the Star Trek game from that book into a Commodore Pet, and then so much time playing the game. Hunt the Wumpus as well. Good times
BMW is considered relatively unreliable, categorized into "hasn't been that much expensive for me so far" tier by Japanese standards. So that's probably not a great counter example.
Fair comment about BMW. So another data point ... Ford also supplied their F150 trucks with plastic oil pans for a number of years. Not sure if that's still the case. But an F150 material decision is going to factor in hard use and reliability. So it's not like this is an insane design decision.
I agree it's suspicious to replace a traditionally metal motor part with plastic, but there's plenty of this history we've gotten past. Consider that people freaked out when intake manifolds started to move to plastic. Now it's quite normal. Even on Japanese motors. The benefits besides cost and weight include the ability to model and mold more complex geometries.
It is noise. The whole thing is noise. I've never heard it referred to as the "Gulf of America" before this stupid substanceless news cycle. At first glance I don't suppose it really makes any difference if the entire continent is referred to by the name "America", but changing a name as a nod to a certain group of people is exactly the kind of empty noise I'd expect in the year of our Lord 2025. Time to tune back out.
It is to distract everyone from more significant acts of corruption. Exactly like 2017-2021 but this time with a planning committee to take advantage of the distractions.
There's the Frontline interview with Steve Bannon where he discusses the plan to hit the "opposition party" that is the media with so much nonsense because they're so dumb and lazy they can only focus on one thing. Then push the agenda while they're focused on the nonsense. Now, you have Jefferies saying they're not going to swing at every pitch and wait for the right pitch. It's all just so ridiculous it's hard to believe this is real life
With the giant continental shelves it’s not as if it’s separate from the nations bordering it. So what the US calls it is relevant, as is what Mexico calls it, and Cuba, though that might be a side note. As a USian I strongly believe we should be calling it Gulf of Mexico FWIW.
> TBH, that parenthetical label outside jurisdiction or common usage seems like noise.
More than noise, it feels they are force-feeding the world this "freedom fries" nonsense in a way that normalizes this behavior.
If the US wants to go ahead with this pathetic policy of renaming things as a way to stake a claim, limit this to their geo bounds. Don't let that brand of stupidity leak elsewhere.
1. That pilot hole looks way too wide for the screw that follows it. A pilot hole should be wide enough to prevent binding, and sometimes for guidance or to prevent splitting, but it still needs to be tight enough so there's plenty of friction so the screw doesn't work loose.
2. Phillips needs to die. Maybe he can make that bit in Robertson. Or nearly anything else, really.
If closeness was basis for a claim, Canada would like to have a word. Lol. No, we don't. It's not our way.
Fun fact, though, you can walk from Canada to Greenland. When the winter sea ice freezes. I think it's about 20 or 30 km. This has cross-pollinated people, language, culture for thousands of years in the north.
I love it. I had not read that the two nations finally settled their friendly dispute just a few years ago!
Previous to this, the Danish military would occasionally visit the island, leaving a flag, and a "Welcome to Denmark" sign and a bottle of Danish schnapps. Then the Canadian military would visit, plant their flag and a "Welcome to Canada" sign, and leave a bottle of Canadian whisky. Repeat. <3
> I don’t like the attitude endemic to nerds that truly smart people don’t care about personal aesthetic.
Then IMO you should be on Magnus' side here. He is a truly smart person and IMO he looked clean, groomed, and ready for business in those jeans. He wears a mindfully put together outfit of good quality. This is good character, is it not?
https://secularbuddhism.com/blog/204-beyond-happiness/