More like it doesn’t want to get the money to maintain those infrastructure by going into further debt.
I’m not following German politics very closely but the article mentions that this restriction is in their constitution.
There was something in that genre in my province decades ago when a government dedicated itself to ‘zero deficit’ by cutting on infrastructure maintenance for many years. A bridge eventually fell. Classic story. It seems like a common thing.
Meh. I have a cabin in the countryside 130 km away from my apartment and I can cycle the whole way, or take a coach with a foldable bike and pedal the 30 km left.
It’s actually in the region where I grew up so I have to get there frequently to see my family. It’s a hassle sometimes but it’s only because my government can’t adequately fund and maintain a decent transit network.
I also bike to national parks nearby, and sometimes haul my inflatable kayak with a bike trailer.
People overestimate distances and think the country side justifies a car but it’s usually just excuses. I did move in a big city eventually but I lived in small towns and cities for a decade before that. I still hated cars and didn’t have one.
For example, my mother lives on a rural road outside a village of less than 2000 people. And she works in the next town that is 7 km away. Meanwhile I live in a city and work in the same city but I have to bike 9 km to get to work.
So sometimes distances are shorter in smaller cities and towns but people still insist they need a car. People will give any excuse to use their car. It’s like cocain.
Also, here Uber is only available in major cities where it’s competing with public transit anyway. AFAIK you can’t take an Uber to a small town or a rural road.
EDIT: Also, most people DO live in a city anyway. And they still have excuses to use a car.
Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities.
I prefer to be compared to Diogenes of Sinope, thank you.
Jokes on them, I hate cars, don’t have one, and would never take an Uber.
My very anecdotal theory is that those seeing humans frequently get used to us (up to a point) and usually just end up hissing when we get too close.
Where I live geese are omnipresent in parks and people are cycling, jogging and walking through their flocks. They will certainly act inquisitive, hiss and act like they own the place, but I’ve never seen them attack.
However, maybe a flock in a place less busy with humans and less used to seeing them would be more willing to attack.
I know. I’m in my early 40ies and have been trying all my life to convince people around me and do what I could. But with time, I learned about the fraud that is plastic recycling and how capitalism is really not interested at all into solving the issue. My city is fining people for putting recyclables in the trash, but the recycling centres are full and they themselves trash the recycling. What matters is short term profits and virtue signalling. What matters is to look green. Just buy electric cars and everything will be good, apparently. Buy green! But don’t stop buying!
Then a pandemic happened and people disappointed me en masse. We could see the changes in the environment and in ways we could live, but most people were “EaGeR To GeT BaCk To ThEiR RoUtInE”, even if it meant commuting 5 days a week to the office, just to “resume” the economy. What mattered was not other people, it was the economy. Even when they forced us to stay inside with curfews, people couldn’t go out to run/walk in the evening, they barred unvaccinated people from stores (I’m vaccinated 4 times but it’s still not okay), it was all for the economy and to save the system, not the people. And if you had a minor disagreement with this, you were a grandma killer for wanting to go cycling at night. Then we went back to our routines and nothing will ever change. People are whining because of paper straws and want the plastic back. And all this straw stupidity is not even important on the grand scheme of things. Most people don’t want to change anything. Most people will not vote for change. The system does not have any incentive to change.
I never owned a car and everyone around me is telling me how great they are and how I should definitely buy one because it’s useful and practical. I would have total absolution! Some people here are vociferously fighting against active and public transit, and the government is actually cutting public transit funding. People are yelling at me when I trash some plastic instead of putting it in the recycle bin, then they drive away in their car that generates literal tons of toxic fumes and greenhouse gases in the air, accusing me of not caring.
I gave up a few years ago. We will deserve most of it.
Don’t worry, the rich will eat well and survive, with their private security forces willing to kill others, while the poor will starve and die. We’ll have rations and curfews but it will all be for the good of the people economy. Just like in the pandemic, It will be an effort of the poor, to save the rich. That’s what we want. You just have to become rich before it happens.
AFAIK Kodi can use pulseaudio and probably pipewire. I use Kodi too on those computers and I just leave it to use the default PA device that I’ve set. I switch the default devices with pasystray.
What’s usually breaking for me is paprefs. Every so often after an upgrade, the options are greyed out and I can’t share or access my devices over the network.
I never tried to setup simultaneous output before because I just switch from device one to another, but I just enabled it in paprefs and it’s working too.
I won’t bother reading AI stuff. I don’t appreciate cars in large parts because of their environmental impact. And the same goes for AI.
Just as cars, AI is also polluting our spaces, and wasting energy.
I work in a call center where we are all speaking English as a second language. At one point we had a pharmaceutical company as a client. They had employees in different countries but the American employees whined that we didn’t speak English correctly or made bad comments about my coworkers. Eventually we lost the contract and they went with an all American call center for their American employees, because apparently they didn’t like our English.
Of course, Monsieur le Marquis de SuddenDownpour.
Also, it’s obviously inaccurate as he would have said it in French, not English. Duh!
We (Canadians) actually have two layouts to type French characters. The modern Canadian multilingual layout, and the traditional “French (Canada)” layout. As an older French speaking Canadian, I prefer the traditional layout but both work. You can even type English words with these.
I work in IT and I have coworkers that use caps lock to capitalize single letters, like the beginning of a sentence. It hurts a bit every time I see it.
For me it’s an old habit from IRC. Instead of sending 5/6/7 lines of text, I just cut it with … and continue typing on the same line. I could make complete sentences with capitals and periods but instant messaging is not a medium well suited for full sentences and paragraphs, so you get …
🎵 We’re whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon. But there ain’t no whales so we tell tall tales and sing a whaling tune. 🎵
I never noticed any latency when I’m not using bluetooth. And no, the devices do not speak to each other. For PA/pipewire, this is just an audio sink as any other.
There is latency when using bluetooth but this is pretty standard. It just doesn’t increase (or not noticeably) when streamed to another computer.
For some people there’s a point where riding in the rain turns from sucking to being fun. For me it’s when it’s pouring down and water is sloshing around in my shoes. I meet other drenched cyclists and we just smile at each other. We can’t get any wetter, might as well enjoy it.
I don’t enjoy going cycling when it’s raining, but I get used to it and sometimes end up liking it. Same with the cold.
Montrealer here. When roads are unplowed, cars also struggle. When it’s too cold, cars also struggle.
I live at the top of a gentle slope and as soon as it starts snowing, cars are slipping and sliding down the slope. There’s even a famous video of exactly this kind of thing, with cars, buses, police and snow plows just sliding down the slope.
Cars need very well maintained roads to work in winter. Those roads can also be used by bikes. And if you plow bike paths and bike lanes, just like we do for cars, cycling in winter is usually no big deal. Sometimes while cars are slipping down I can observe cyclists being able to climb the same slope. Or they just push the bike up on foot and continue on their way.
I use my bike in winter and can assure you that it is working.
Addendum: I am a simple man. When is starts snowing I just sit by my window and watch cars struggle to go uphill. In fact, I record it.
Also, just to continue on your points. It’s not -30C every day and snow here is usually plowed within a few hours, AND removed within a few days. Extreme weather is extreme, and one should avoid driving in during heavy snowfall anyway. So either you’re on a bike, or in a car that you must dig out of a snow bank, or using public transit, if the weather is extreme, everyone is going to have a less than perfect day.
Let’s now wait until they learn about shrimps and hermaphroditism in animals.
Northern shrimp, also commonly known as northern prawn, are a sequential hermaphrodite. This is a term used for animals that start their life as one sex and change to the other later in life. In the case of northern shrimp, they are born as males and become females at around four or five years of age.
In a group of anemonefish, a strict dominance hierarchy exists. The largest and most aggressive female is found at the top. Anemonefish are protandrous sequential hermaphrodites, meaning they develop into males first, and when they mature, they become females. If the female anemonefish is removed from the group, such as by death, one of the largest and most dominant males becomes a female.
If it’s like a car alarm it does nothing but annoy the people around.