Every group I know of that actually advocates for density does have this as their goal. It is a bit odd that the external reputation is that they do not, to the point that parallel orgs sometimes appear advocating for pretty much the same things but "with more emphasis on livability" or similar.
Really? Is this documented somewhere? What is the typical proposal for how they plan to keep the population constant, after creating all that space? I've not heard of this. It's always about how many more millions of people could live here if we rearranged things.
I've never heard of a density advocacy group being opposed to population growth. Density advocacy is practically synonymous with at least acceptance (if not advocacy) of urban population growth. Population growth is in fact like a sacred cow. You must never blame any urban problems on population growth; the cause is always not enough vertical build.
Is there any example of a density anywhere going on record that the metropolis in this local neck of the woods should somehow say no to more people, rather than building more?
> What is the typical proposal for how they plan to keep the population constant, after creating all that space?
Have other metropolitan areas do the same so there is no net migration.
> Is there any example of a density anywhere going on record that the metropolis in this local neck of the woods should somehow say no to more people, rather than building more?
There is a difference between refusing new people and having population growth as a goal. People exist, they have to live somewhere, increasing density increases the housing stock and gives them somewhere to live.
If one city is hostile to giving them somewhere to live and another isn't, people might move from the hostile place to the amiable place. But the solution to this is obviously to make the other city less hostile, not to make sure that all cities are maximally hostile.
The book "Mothers and Others" discusses this at length, positing not only did mothers have much more "Alloparental" support in the past, but this was the key fact that allowed the evolution of our big brains. That is, alloparental involvement was a necessary precursor to homo sapian big-brain evolution and the key thing that was lacking in other apes.
I've had some good bus experiences, in Mexico City and KunMing I've ridden in nice clean busses with dedicated lanes and raised platforms for easy entry/exit[1]. It's near as nice as rail and from what I understand quite a bit cheaper to build
It may be cheeper to build, though that is questionable. It is cheeper only because it takes advantage of existing roadway, but if you factor in the root cost of all of the existing infrastructure it uses than there's not much of a difference in cost between steel+gravel and concrete is there?
In any case, over time the price of the busses goes up steeply. You need to replace a bus after 20 years, where-as trams last 50-60 years. Prague is replacing their Tatra T3 [1] trams from the 60s, not because they are worn out (they still run like new) but because they are more dangerous in accidents for the driver (they have no crumple zone and worse brakes) and because they don't have wheel chair access. Other, poorer cities have even older trams that still run fine. When they upgrade, those old machines aren't scrapped, but are sold to more eastern ex-soviet contries as working vehicles and actually put into service there. When was the last time you road in a 50 year old bus?
> there's not much of a difference in cost between steel+gravel and concrete is there?
There is a difference, because a pure asphalt track is easy to lay, and especially easy to rework.
Train tracks, especially those running in asphalt (shared road between cars and trams), have a host of problems:
1) It's really expensive to build them - trains weigh a LOT and the rails need adequate foundations
2) It's really expensive to maintain them - you can't just go with a miller over the asphalt, because there are, obviously, the rails themselves but also delicate wiring for positioning/switch controls, signalling etc.; also, in most cases there are no alternate routes, which means you have two weeks of no service at all where a bus might just be re-routed one parallel street away.
3) It's really expensive to keep them operational: unlike with rised rails, street-level sunk rails act as sinks for everything from ordinary dirt from leaves to stones idiots place in the rail or stuff that falls into the rail from improperly secured vehicles.
4) They're friggin' dangerous hazards for bicyclists! I can't count the number of falls and crashes I had due to being forced to escape into a sunken rail.
5) Idiots with huge trucks or who are not careful when operating stuff like lifters or excavators near the overhead wiring. Happens surprisingly often that someone accidentally damages or destroys overhead wiring.
One real problem with Pragues tram system though, is that we use island stops (stops that are in the middle of the street, so you have to cross a lane to get to the tram stop). You can see why this is bad in this map of pedestrian collisions and deaths https://samizdat.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?a... The blue and yellow bubbles are pedestrian injuries, the red ones deaths. You see that along the grey lines (tram lines) there are clumps of injuries and deaths, those are where the tram stops are. So far, we haven't found a great way to solve this, except to put fencing up to discourage people from jumping out into the street to catch the tram...
On 2) you say "which means you have two weeks of no service at all". Well in Prague, we just use busses when the tram line is being repaired. Its like a downgrade. "Oh, tracks are being worked on, I'll have to take the x6 bus rather than the 6 tram." It sucks, but its far better than using busses all the time ;). And of course, you might think that it is wastefull to have a host of busses just waiting around to be turned into "replacement lines" for metro and tram and other busses that break down, but it is really usefull. And when there is a big event at the convention center at the edge of the city, those busses get used then too. So its not wasteful at all.
3) I know that they have to sweep the tracks, (Modern trams actually have brushes installed in the front) but when you have tram lines with a tram comming through once every two minutes at rush hour, carying thousands of people in a day it hardly seems like a large expense to have an old man in red overalls come in at night sometimes an polish and sweep out the tracks.
4) I know, this sucks. Especially when there is an illegally parked car, forcing you to lane change.
> Well in Prague, we just use busses when the tram line is being repaired. Its like a downgrade.
Yeah, we do that in Munich too, but it sucks real hard. Especially when the replacement buses are also in the same traffic jam created by the construction site... and all the replacement buses cost big money these days, given that there are nowhere near enough bus drivers to serve the demand.
ad 3) Yeah of course, but it's still a huge cost factor ;)
ad 4) I know someone who carries self-made stickers with penis stencils. He places these on idiot car owners' cars.
We made paper stickers reminding people that they are illegally parked and we place them on the wind sheild. If it rains, then the person will spend a good 15 minutes getting the gunk off.
I went to high school with this guy, and used his company as a payment processor when I was running a small retail shop. That was about 4 years ago. really did a good job nailing down the small merchant niche by removing dumb fees like 'drop fee' and 'statement fee'
It's been really weird to see everyone's reaction to this thing. Surreal almost. Didn't see Notch get this kind of hate when he shared his bonus with all employees. Perhaps it's because he works in the financial industry?
It is because he is promoting "evil" socialist ideas that go against the very grain of capitalism (essentially sharing the wealth, and sharing the profits).
He's upset a lot of rich and powerful people who don't want their poor underlings to start asking why they aren't benefiting from the company's growth or profit margins.
It would be fine for him to share the profits, if the profits were his to share. The lawsuit seems to be that he was paying himself salary instead of distributing profits to cut out the minority shareholder's from their rightful percentage of profits (turning profits into his own salary).
Then it sounds like to spite his brother (the minority partner) he came up with a self-promoting way to give those profits to other people; and enrich himself through speaking deals, etc. again at the expense of the minority partner.
This guy is not the first person in history to pay his employees well. You're sadly mistaken if you think this guy is some socialist hero to the working class.
He isn't. But he is seen that way by others, and that's why upset THEM. This is more about them and how they perceive it (and the associated media) than about him directly.
>Perhaps it's because he works in the financial industry?
It could be. There is definitely an adversarial relationship between owners and employees (both are competing for the same pie, in most models) and I'm comfortable guessing that many in the finance industry (including the industry media) identify more strongly with owners than employees. If such an identity is stronger, it's more than reasonable to expect that those with that identity will show undue bias towards those who seem to have a similar identity and against those who may be viewed as a type of adversary.
The industry appears to be founded on the idea of all profits flowing to owners. It seems reasonable that the industry would generally reject alternative models with little thought.
With Notch's situation, Mojang feels like a small team of people who built a single video game together (whether or not that's actually the case), so profit-share seems like a reasonable response. Gravity feels like just a "normal" company, a 9-5 white collar desk job, indistinguishable from other ones. Most people can relate to that kind of situation more than an indie game team.
I was going to suggest the same -- I don't think Notch would be doing 24 TV interviews in 3 days, including at Fox, about his company's payroll. I think it wouldn't stick, because he is foreign and the US news-watching public would assume it's just a weird thing that a foreigner might do.
I had to Google "notch bonus" to find out what you were talking about. Maybe when you don't have a press campaign accompanying things it flies under the radar and seems more sincere.
It highlight the difficulty of comparison, that this tool assumes a western diet. I'm talking about milk, cheese as part of the cost of living. Nearly all chesse is imported and milk is rare. Also boneless skinless chicken breasts?
Not sure the solve for this, just found it interesting.
OK I feel compelled to tell you that the 99% white billionare thing is incorrect. USA does have the most billionares but they are not all white and also China is currently in the #2 spot with India in #4.
Also if you are referring to the proplem of private prisons I do agree it's probably not a good thing but since less than 1/5 of prisons are privately run I don't think it is the main cause of the problem.
Yes, only 1/5 of the prisons, but it could still be that they wield a lot more influence than that figure suggests. There aren't very many lobbying for the imprisoned, so an organized private lobby of even a small number of private prisons might be enough to shift the scales significantly.
Same thing happened to me. Looks like it checks for one hard-coded answer when there could be many for a given puzzle. It should just check that your board satisfies the rules described in the tutorial instead.
The game should show the identical rows/columns instead of just highlighting every incorrect square... it can take a while to find out what's actually wrong with a solution.
$2-3 / day for food is doable (Cali groceries are a bit more expensive so maybe $4 here). Cut out all but the cheap meats. bread and veggies are super cheap (corn can be 5/$1 when it is in season)
no insurance. no internet (libraries are great). no car.
I never had expenses above $1000/month (not counting the month I paid $1000 to buy my first car) until I moved to the bay area and started making six figures.
