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DnD Central / Re: Money dumped in vast amounts for space?
If there are no delays or cancellations, a massive if, the next one might flitter around Titan just a decade from now.
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Messages - jax
If there are no delays or cancellations, a massive if, the next one might flitter around Titan just a decade from now.
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DnD Central / Re: Tripe about Ukraine
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DnD Central / Re: The awesomesauce with Chimerica
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DnD Central / Re: Everything Trump…
Easy to be bogged down into what are the common traits of fascists and fascism, and what are the most dangerous ones.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
For the more complex cases you'd need something more dynamic and interactive, including switching between views, and particular your current needs.
Do you want an overview, getting from one place to another, or something else?
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DnD Central / Re: Climate Change and You
Here is a Swedish instruction video from 1964 how to responsibly get rid of garbage. TL;DR: you pack it in a box together with some stones and drop it to the bottom of the sea. (That was the responsible method to get rid of old cars as well, you drove it out on the lake during winter and let the wreck stay there until spring thaw.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t03saJVFkv4
Sweden has spent 50 years cleaning up from the spills made in the previous 100. Not quite done yet, especially not the waterways.
Today, households produce dramatically less trash than they used to. And while I consider waste sorting at source a transitional stage, it is certainly way more convenient and efficient than it used to be.
While there is something to be said for the model of garbage collectors buying and reselling household garbage, it's not a viable long-term solution with increasing affluence.
We are far better at life-cycle management, and designing for reuse and recycling.
We hardly have a circular economy, but we're getting a few steps closer. Waste is turning into resources.
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Browsers & Technology / Re: What's going on with Vivaldi Technologies?
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DnD Central / Re: what's going on in france
North Sea is North Sea for everyone. It may have had a different name for Vikings.
The Danes sometimes call the North Sea, or parts thereof, for Vesterhavet, the Western Sea. Haf is one of the Norse words for sea, together with sjó (sea) and marr (meer). Scandinavian mostly lost the latter, while West Germanic languages mostly lost the former, except indirectly in haven or in German Haff. Hav in Scandinavian is predominantly open sea or ocean, and that seems to always been the case.
Haven't found reference to origin of North Sea. All the Scandinavian wikipedias blame the Frisians for the name (without attribution), which would make a lot of sense.
Swedes also have Västerhavet, but that basically is the sea outside Gothenburg. Eastern Norway (the Oslo area) like Western Sweden (the Gothenburg area) is practically Outer Denmark in this context. For the rest of Norway, the North Sea is a southern sea.
Norwegian from Viking Age and earlier either travelled south past the west coast of Denmark, or did island hopping by Shetland and Orkneys to Scotland/Ireland (alternatively via Faroe Islands to Iceland). There was no specific name for this route as far as I can tell. Norway itself is the seaway to the north. Also, as far as I can tell, except as a crossroad the North Sea interior wasn't used for much until the Dutch got a craving for fish over Doggerland and neighbouring areas.
Norway also had a Western Sea, Vesterhavet, for the sea to the west of Norway, what's now called the Norwegian Sea. That can be seen on this 240 year old map (where the North Sea is also called the North Sea, though south of Norway and the map is printed in Copenhagen).
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DnD Central / Re: Today's Bad News
West Germany never managed to fix East Germany, and while they might revert to the old approach, throw money at them, hasn't really worked for 35 years (though the cities are nicer now). The split-up of Die Linke is a good enough example. The marriage between the DDR socialists of the East and a smattering of champagne socialists of the West wouldn't last.
Of course it is a problem, both that this reunification project has been the project of this generation, and that AfD has better chance with the Andrew Tate disciples of the West than the DDR socialists have of crossing the Fulda Gap without Soviet help.
However, the AfD is not going to take over Thuringia, never mind the rest of Germany. Not going to happen, never going to happen.
As a response, expect some loud handwringing (that has already begun), more wasted money (the stupid German debt brake might actually help here), and sure, some measures like "tough on crime". Most of these will achieve nothing, others will achieve a lot, but over an extended period of time.
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DnD Central / Re: what's going on in france
The river flows, right? So why does the water stay dirty? Is the source itself contaminated?
That's what makes tributaries so valuable, they are refugia when something untoward happen upstream. Some care will have to be taken for that reason, not completely dam them off for instance.
Downstream, of course, you depend on all the streams being in good condition. That also goes for the sea we share that you call the Western Sea, we call the Eastern Sea, and the rest of the world call the Baltic Sea.
What is dropped there by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the Baltic states, Poland and Germany tends to stay there. Getting that sea back into a healthy state is some challenge.
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DnD Central / Re: What's Going on in the Americas?
Quote
- Judge's order follows expiry of legal deadline
- Telecoms regulator says it is proceeding with compliance
- Saga stems from dispute over regulating online speech
- Some Brazilians already report blocks on X, formerly Twitter
- Top three carriers to start blocking X from 0300 GMT
SAO PAULO/BRASILIA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Brazil's telecommunications regulator said on Friday it was suspending access to Elon Musk's X social network in the country to comply with an order from a judge who has been locked in a months-long feud with the billionaire investor.
The popular social media platform missed a court-imposed deadline on Thursday evening to name a legal representative in Brazil, triggering the suspension.
Musk has argued that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes was trying to enforce unjustified censorship, while the judge has insisted that social media needs hate speech regulations.
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DnD Central / Re: what's going on in france
But overall the Paris ones were good. Good part the use of the Seine, made the whole thing much more communal. Bad part, watching tourist boats floating slowly down a river is about as exciting as watching tourists roll by on Segways. The Dionysian part was somewhat better than much of the diversity sequence preceding. I am all for diversity, but not when it means boring.
However, when it comes to celebrating death and destruction, the French are the best, so that was among the highlights.
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DnD Central / Re: Return of the Grammar Nazis!
A regional peculiarity that I hear more and more: Using "whenever" in places where "when" is appropriate... I used to think it was an Okie-ism, something only folks from Oklahoma said. But I eventually noticed the usage spanned Pennsylvania through the south west U.S. — I guess my New England roots cause me to cringe at such.
Not quite so annoying is this sort of thing:This is a dead serious thread.The term is "deadly-serious" or "deathly serious" — but youngsters don't do adjectives, only memes!
While being dead is serious (it's a condition few recover from), this usage is yet another misapplication of a presumed intensifier.
Dead is used as an adverb as well as an adjective (and noun, not yet verb). While I think it may have been more popular lately, as in the last 30 years or so, it's not a modern phenomena. Seems to be occurrences going back 500 years.
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/dead
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DnD Central / Re: What's going on in Scandinavia, North Atlantic, Baltic States and Scotland?
Statistics Sweden doesn't keep statistics of where people are going, even though they do keep statistics on where they are born. Naturally most are born in Sweden, and in countries with the largest immigration (like other Nordic countries, Poland, Iraq and Syria). But a surprisingly large number of emigrants are born in India and China. Now, these are of course huge countries, but relatively few have immigrated to Sweden. Mostly this seems an artefact of registry cleaning. More than twice as many Indians left in 2023 as in 2022, and almost four times as many Chinese.
That is a common pattern, It is commonly believed that many more Chinese live in a country that actually do, and Chinese in particular often see residency as an insurance policy. Also, they have a larger proportion of students, and they are more likely to leave without telling anyone about it.
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DnD Central / Re: The comings and goings of the European Union
If you think the current German government—not to speak of the next one—is pro-Putin, you really don't get Germany. But SPD is slow, old and wobbly, and Scholz is wobbly with them, and by comparison makes Biden like a drug-crazed berserker. Even so, Ostpolitik is truly dead, and won't come back. Neither will Russian fossil gas.
Ukraine can win in 2025, but that depends on a level of European and US cooperation that is far from given. If the US withdraws, this war will drag on for years, and quite likely lead to more wars.
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DnD Central / Re: What's Your Favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision?
But tell me, jax: Should Barack Obama be charged with Capitol Murder for killing the father and then his son?
Only the son?
Who should bring the charge, and where?
(Which other countries would subject their political leaders to such legal jeopardy?)
Of course not, three presidents in succession made sure they didn't break US law, of which we got "enemy combatant" and the rest. Bush may have broken international law, torture is a war crime, but you're America, you don't care. The ruling was whether the US president was above US law, which he now is.
Several countries give their leaders and/or members of parliament immunity while in position. Some have taken advantage of that, including Berlusconi, the Italian media tycoon who managed to stay out prison that way so long that when the law finally caught up with him, he was given leniency for old age and served one year of community service.
In the UK (and the US as I gather, and many other countries) you cannot be charged with libel for what you say in Parliament or Congress. However your position gives you no immunity even while in power. In theory a sitting prime minister could be charge with a crime (though he would be unlikely to be sitting by then).
The normal course is to wait until afterwards. That includes, apart from Berlusconi finally, leaders of countries like South Korea, France, and your favourite, Netanyahu.
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DnD Central / Re: What's Your Favorite U.S. Supreme Court decision?
While this ruling is tailor-made for Trump, it will stick around for a long time. Even with a new supreme court, it will stay until the next president-criminal is charged.
The US highlights a problem with being an early adopter, in this case of democracy: the lack of precedents to learn from. Even so, they tried to constrain the president with checks and balances, even the title "president" is as un-king-like as they come. Still, where the executive power isn't expressly constrained, it is effectively limitless. Now also to do certain forms of crime.
We have amassed enough data now, parliamentary system > presidential system, always (hybrids, like in France, are much like hybrid cars, transitional).
The advantage of a presidential system is that you get a face, either to identify with or loathe. Parliamentarians are faceless. Most Europeans could name Ursula von der Leyen, I'd think. Most would also be hard-pressed to name one or more MEPs, even from their own country or party allegiance. That could be an argument for presidents-as-king, symbolic figureheads, that many countries are using.
Of course, a prime minister also usually comes with a face attached, so this advantage is rather slight.
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DnD Central / Re: DnD entropy
I'll reply to that in 16 days and change.
Oops…
17 days and change.
Last post: 2021-11-17, 09:51:25
This post: 2021-12-03, 19:07:12
Old interval: 15 days, 8 hours, 18 minutes and 55 seconds
This interval: 16 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 47 seconds
Previous delta: 19 hours, 23 minutes and 10 seconds.
This delta: 1 day, 56 minutes and 52 seconds.
Last post: 2024-04-26, 11:39:27
This post: 2024-05-15 05:56:29
Old interval: 16 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 47 seconds
This interval: 18 days, 18 hours, 17 minutes and 0 seconds
Previous delta: 1 day, 56 minutes and 52 seconds.
This delta:2 days, 9 hours, 1 minute and 13 second.
Fifth time in this thread.
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Browsers & Technology / Re: The Awesomesauce of Chrome
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DnD Central / Re: DnD entropy
Oops…
17 days and change.
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DnD Central / Re: DnD entropy
Last post: 2021-11-17, 09:51:25
This post: 2021-12-03, 19:07:12
Old interval: 15 days, 8 hours, 18 minutes and 55 seconds
This interval: 16 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 47 seconds
Previous delta: 19 hours, 23 minutes and 10 seconds.
This delta: 1 day, 56 minutes and 52 seconds.
That seems a fair approximation to the Realist school that has been very influential in the US
Last post 2024-04-07, 08:55:43
This post 2024-04-24, 11:48:14
Last interval: 16 days, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 47 seconds
This interval: 17 days, 2 hours, 52 minutes and 31 seconds
Previous delta: 1 day, 56 minutes and 52 seconds
This delta: 17 hours, 36 minutes and 44 seconds.
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DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of Globalism
There's this guy called Peter Zeihan whose thesis is that USA has given up on its world police role, turned inward to isolationism, and the rest of the world is on its own now, resulting in, among others, regional bullies extorting their neighbours. I have resented his thesis partly, because to me it seems that USA has always policed the world selectively and suppressed regional bullies selectively, occasionally switching sides. Instead of world police enforcing common rules, USA has been operating as the supreme colonial power to whom other (arguably ex-)colonial powers look up to as a primus inter pares.
So the post-Soviet-collapse World Order, in the Western mentality, has been:
1. USA, the supreme global colonial power
2. Currently lesser (ex-)colonial powers, mainly Old/Western Europe
3. (Re-)Emerging powers, such as India, China or Russia, which are termed "regional bullies" if antagonistic to the above-named elements
4. Smaller countries
That seems a fair approximation to the Realist school that has been very influential in the US, particularly on the Republican side (but the US was more bipartisan in the olden days).
That school does not have much influence on the current administration, but even though it has long passed its peak, it is still around in pro-Putin circles, and quite likely in some US State Department circles as well. You can smell that from some of the "anonymous" sources used by US media. And several of those wheedling their way into a prospective Trump administration.
We have some insights into the Biden administration, and in large there seem to be two factions¸ one could be called "Ukraine for the win". When there is a shift from "as long as it takes" to "Ukraine must win", they are in ascendancy, as has happened with several European countries. Another is around Ukraine's appointed villain, Jake Sullivan. That's probably not entirely fair, but he is notoriously escalation adverse, and that is very much to Ukraine's disfavour. But unlike the current Realist crowd, not to speak of the MAGA grifters, he does not favour Russia over Ukraine.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/sources-american-power-biden-jake-sullivan
I initially thought the administration's sometimes curious moves were not about Russia, but keeping China and India on board (both naturally on Team Putin), and there may be some to this, just like the Scholz brag. But it may be closer to their own policies anyway.
I don't think that was intentional, but US policies were almost perfectly calibrated into radicalising European countries against Russia. This is a persistent re-alignment, but it has not reached all corners of the subcontinent and political landscape.
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DnD Central / Re: The Awesomesauce of Globalism
For one who has declared that geography matters, I have found Zeihan to be less than useful.I think it's because you like mostly world maps. You're a globalist. He is not. And I am not either.
Anyone can say anything, some may make it sound plausible. But for it to have any weight it should have a model or at minimum a school to make it testable. Or the observations should be consistently better than expectation, implying there might be some implicit knowledge or model.
I haven't seen Zeihan perform on either.
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
Only case I can remember is if other family already was eating when I arrived, then it would make sense to wait a few minutes till they were done.
Children flowing around houses aren't considered "guests" though. If they were actually travelling to someone, being brought somewhere else by adults, this would be different. In that case shared dinner would be in order, dependent on timing.
Of course families could arrange that a child would eat with the other family, but the child would likely consider that to be very awkward (but families and children vary).
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DnD Central / Re: Maps-Maps-Maps! ?
I’m Swedish – it’s true that we don’t serve food to guests. What’s the problem?
(Basically, families don't feed other people's children, that would be imposing. Somebody with immigrant background described that as traumatising as a child. Add Twitter, and there we go.)
Scandinavians drink less coffee now, but it used to be impossible to enter any home without being offered a cup of coffee, probably with something aside (cake, waffle or whatever).
As children, when visiting my mother's home village we had to do the round to announce ourselves to the neighbours, meaning drinking something like 6-8 cups of coffee, so we were pretty caffeinated by the time we'd finished.