illirik

Greenland? You'd have an easier time growing coffee in Illinois or Iowa

Of course; that's why our ancestors first built walls around granaries.

A well-educated population is generally considered to be a good thing. That’s why schooling is compulsory in almost every country in the world.

Mackinac island is one, absolutely beautiful place. Although I think it has a lower population than where GP went

It looks like there's a sample size minimum - I looked at the older reports as I'm looking into buying a used car, and it seems like there's a floor around 100,000 registered vehicle-years. Mazdas don't sell particularly well, so it makes sense that there are any that pass that threshold. There are Mazdas on the previous report, though - https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf...

This is a solved problem - don't consume animal products. Doing so causes cancer in the consumer [1], untold suffering for the human producers, who are often children [2], and the deaths of billions of animals per year in the US alone. [3]

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-28/slaughter... [3] https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...

Most Millenials who can afford to rent an apartment can afford to buy a condo in a city - maybe not SF or NY, but a studio condo on Chicago's North Side, or in older buildings in the Loop, can be had under $150k. A newer studio or older one-bedroom can be had under $200k. Sure, there's a HOA, but it usually includes some amenities; the key difference in affordability is the dramatically lower down payment (the largest barrier to home ownership for most young people) than a large suburban house. A mid-six-figure McMansion is in a completely different price class - especially when accounting for the heating, cooling, and insurance costs of the much larger home.

Most "American Slices" do contain dairy, as it is a USDA requirement for the classification of "pasteurized process cheese product" that there is at least some cheese in the product.

I have made some exceptional vegan cheesesteaks with marinated seitan and pumpkin puree + nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce. The key is the bread - if you can head to a local bakery for a proper fresh hoagie roll, the rest will follow. I personally like grilled onions and Bavarian mustard on mine. Fantastic sandwich - just don't put lettuce and tomato on yours!

As an American sleeper train enthusiast, my recs are:

- If you find yourself in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, the Nightjet is IMHO the best sleeper train in the world on balance. Between very reasonable fares, high hotel rates in the cities it serves, and mostly new rolling stock, it's a bargain.

- If you live on the East Coast or Midwestern US, there are several Amtrak services that are reasonably priced when booked well in advance (3-6 months). The City of New Orleans (from Chicago) or the silver services (two different NYC - Florida trains, but they take different routes through NC, SC, and GA) have much more reasonable fares than the Western routes.

- You can often get a good deal on Via Rail in Canada; they still allow you to book a single berth, and they regularly release promo fares for specific dates. The deals are available at https://www.viarail.ca/en/offers/sleeper-plus-class-deals/ and you can scroll down to see the dates and routes that there are savings on. The best deals are from the major cities in Canada (especially Montreal) to points East on the Ocean - you can get a discount private cabin from e.g. Montreal to Halifax, but you're SOL if you want to go to Vancouver in anything other than a berth. Book a Corridor to get to Montreal. These are best booked close-in, unlike Amtrak.

However, if you have the means, book a room(ette) on the Empire Builder in winter. It's simply incredible.

It's not just fish.

The sheer number of animals that are slaughtered to produce meat for human consumption is absolutely mind-boggling. In addition to the fish, humans killed 72 billion chickens, 3.3 billion ducks, 1.3 billion pigs, over a half-billion geese, turkeys, rabbits, sheep, and goats (each!), over 300 million cattle, and over 70 million rodents for food in 2019 alone [1].

Animal agriculture overall generates more CO2 emissions than every automobile, ship, and airplane on Earth - more carbon than the entire transportation sector. An overwhelming majority of arable land on this planet is used to feed those animals, fated to death from birth, rather than humans - in many developing countries, humans starve while livestock are plumped for slaughter and export. [2]. 75% of historic deforestation in the Amazon, 55% of erosion, 60% of nitrogen pollution, and 44% of anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions (each) are a direct result of animal agriculture [3].

If you live in the US, like I do, it's not just the animals and the environment that suffer under animal agriculture. It's an open secret that undocumented children are exploited to work in slaughterhouses in this country [4] while politicians are actively rolling back protections for those exploited children [5] to ensure that boneless skinless chicken breasts stay cheap at WalMart.

There is no such thing as sustainable animal agriculture - it is a lie used to greenwash products, to make us feel righteous when we pay for corpses at the grocery store or restaurant. The only sane and ethical response to this devastation is to completely reject the economic exploitation of animals - to adopt a fully vegan philosophy. Of course, this does cause some difficulties in the modern context (especially in the US), but the trouble of learning to cook vegetables and seitan is nothing compared to the harm that animal agriculture causes to billions of humans and non-humans every year. (It also cured my high blood pressure and pre-diabetes in three months, but everyone knows vegetables are good for you :)

[1] https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL (https://web.archive.org/web/20211208184438/https://www.fao.o...) [2] https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf.... [3] https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/food/animal-agricult... [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-find-100-children-... [5] https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/03/13/arkansas-...

If you don't mind, which metro area is this? I have an interest in street grids and address numbering systems; this just sounded like a peculiarity I'd like to read up on.

It's not the people in general - many people, including every family member and friend of anyone who has ever been seriously ill while not being seriously wealthy, understands just how bad things are. However, when things are this bad, (and this is actually _the best things have ever been_ [1]), it's so easy to spread fear and anxiety that the situation could get worse, when you represent the people who profit from this situation. This effectively paralyzes public opinion. At this point, over half a million Americans work for health insurance companies _alone_, and health care spending overall is now over 17% of GDP [2]! Unfortunately, this rot is now structural.

[1] Before the Obama administration, your health insurance could be denied or cut off based on arbitrary reasons ("pre-existing conditions"), and if you did not have a job that provided health insurance, you had to pay this cost entirely yourself - unless you qualified for Medicaid through absolute destitution. The Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), despite being a massive compromise from universal health care, allowed the sick and poor to get subsidized insurance, shielding tens of millions of people from the worst outcomes of the system.

[2] https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20220506.381195/

Exactly this - life in the USA has felt like an unfamiliar board game, run by a rules lawyer who has a grudge against you (personally), my entire life. No wonder we have a shorter life expectancy than _Cuba_!

At this point, it's not even about "money" in the traditional sense (wealth, prestige, etc.); rather, it's about stability, the alleged "American dream". I live in Chicago, so I'll consider the local national laboratory, Argonne. They pay their software engineers $101,888 per year, according to Glassdoor ($71,640 after state and federal tax). Using the 28% rule most lenders use nowadays, with today's rates, that's a maximum mortgage payment of $1,671 at 7%. However, the median house price in DuPage County is $335,000 [1], and a 30-year mortgage (with 10% down) has a monthly payment of just over $2,000. No dice - even for a highly skilled professional living in one of the most affordable parts of the country. Keep in mind that you still need to pay 2.3% per annum property tax, besides owning a car and saving for retirement. It's just not nearly as feasible a path towards financial stability as taking a $"TECH" job with west coast pay.

[1] This is up 1.1% year-over-year, and only up 6.5% p.a. over the last three years - not a pandemic-driven bubble. Source is https://www.redfin.com/county/733/IL/DuPage-County/housing-m...

Exactly! People read "affordable location" and think it means somewhere boring and depressing, like Youngstown or Peoria. There are numerous, wonderful US cities where you can buy a respectable place for under $200,000 - they're just not on the coasts or in the sun belt. Move to West Rogers Park in Chicago and walk to the best Indian food you've ever had, or Brewer's Hill in Milwaukee and walk to a vegan brewery where all beers are $5. If you like the small-town feel, try Holland, MI or Stevens Point, WI. If the winters get you down, you can fly to Maui in January from O'Hare for $400 round-trip, or you could just wait 20 years for CO2 to do its thing.

It's 60K in the US so far this year.

n = 1, but my now-wife was and still is very happy with her Brilliant Earth lab diamond engagement ring. They do also sell natural diamonds, so be sure to select lab diamonds in the UI though.

We could reorganize our entire economy, so that we could live in a world with $200/pair sneakers, $500/month rent, and free universal healthcare. This alternate world would likely be much less carbon-intensive, have a higher life expectancy, and vastly reduced rates of depression and anxiety; unfortunately, as it could reduce profit for shareholders, it could never happen under capitalism

Jacobin is great if your politics swing that way. Zero ads or sponsored content or anything, and each issue goes pretty in depth into a timely theme. The latest issue, for example, is all about inflation

A fossil fuel plant will burn fuel to produce heat. Some of this heat will be used for generation, and the remainder is waste heat. A solar panel or wind turbine, on the other hand, does not produce significant amounts of heat in operation - a PV solar panel would only get somewhat warm, a wind turbine would only achieve some friction heating - to where it is not economical to harness this relatively small amount of energy (compared to waste heat from an exothermic generation process, like nuclear fission or hydrocarbon combustion)

This is how it's done in Chicago - neighborhoods full of 2-to-4-flats with one set of interior stairs, a 1000-sqft-ish 2br unit on each floor, and a back staircase / deck made of wood, where you can grill out and mingle with your neighbors. Good living

Most of NW Indiana is in Central time, anyway, so you're going past the exurbs into farmland to cross time zones.

To this day, super-duty pickups do not have to report fuel economy figures. I technically own a 1984 Ford F350, with a 460 cubic-inch (7.5 L) V8, that is rotting in a family member's yard in North Carolina, which (when operative) got 8-9 miles per gallon. It's about the size and length of a brand-new Honda Odyssey; the real split is between vehicles classed as commercial, and those that were not. Even today, you can buy an F250 with no EPA ratings due to the GWVR

From the "Why does this matter" link on the first page (https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/about):

"Companies are excluding Colorado from their remote employment opportunities in order to avoid sharing the salary range of their open positions.

In May of 2019 SB19-085, titled the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act, was signed into law in Colorado. It's a fairly short read if you're not familiar with it, but its main goal is enabling pay transparency to allow for people to know if they're being discriminated against with their wages and file a complaint with the CDLE.

The law went into effect January 1st, 2021.

The most visible part of the law has been the requirement for all job listings open to a CO resident to contain a salary range. If you've seen an increase in salary ranges on job postings recently you have this law to thank.

Some companies however have decided that excluding all Colorado residents for a remote job that can be filled by someone in any of the other 49 US states is better than sharing how much they're willing to pay..."

A house in Boulder costs a million dollars nowadays! Maybe cheaper than San Francisco, but Boulder is up to Seattle prices

Speaking from the perspective of having generally owned older trucks (currently a '97 Dodge Ram 1500, previously an '84 Ford F350) - conventionally built, body-on-frame pickups are easier to repair and maintain. Most minivans are monocoque, whereas full-size pickup trucks have enough space between the internals to make DIY repairs straightforward. On my 84 F350, I could fit my head between the tire and the wheel well to bleed the brakes easily; on my current '97 Ram, you can replace body panels using a socket wrench.

EVs may tilt the equation, but one thing Big Three US automakers have absolutely perfected for their trucks over the last 40 years is maintainability. Go on autotrader.com, search "Ford F-150" or "Dodge Ram 1500" and sort mileage high to low - can a 20 year old minivan travel roughly the same distance as the moon and back?

source: https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtm...

We're having difficulties getting consensus around the idea that racism is bad, which is a prerequisite for discussion

Why would I take a selfie with a children's book containing racist caricatures? I don't have any of these books and certainly don't want any.

So you believe that there is absolutely no form of speech whatsoever that should be protected as free speech?

There's a difference between "you shouldn't do hate speech" and some sort of 1984/V-for-Vendetta mechanism to ensure that nobody ever does hate speech. Laws and ethics are not the same thing.