HN user
Any dispute which has a Wikipedia page (like the Malaysia/Singapore water dispute) is:
- Too complicated to assign blame to one party
- Futile to rehash in HN comments
In the UK, the statue came first - phone boxes were modelled on Soane's tomb in a London graveyard near St Pancras station:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-tomb-and-the-t...
That's because rent of $1.5k is for the whole of a house, whereas the mortgage is only covering whichever part of the house you don't own.
My rent would be $3k, but I own one third of the house, so my mortgage is $2k.
The alternative would be paying $3k in rent and investing the $100k in equity. The cash-flow from the equity investment would off-set some of the cost of renting.
In the UK, lenders are resticted by the regulator - only 15% of their loans can be at greater than 4.5x income.
As a result 5x and 6x income mortgages tend to be easier to get the more you earn.
There is definitely non-linear pricing in the London housing market as one example.
When I was last looking -
Studio apartments and one bed room apartments rented for similar amounts, and so did two beds and three beds.
But the price jump from one bed to two bed was much larger than any of the other jumps.
You can speculate on many reasons why this might be the case (smallest size apartment for a family in the city, smallest size you can split with a friend, smallest size with space for an office).
There are exceptions and I'm sure that more research time could help you find them.
But one of the points made convincingly in the artle is that if you are poor you don't have a lot of energy, time or gas-money to do that kind of research.
Aluminium or Titanium frames make the best travel bikes.
- Unlike steel, they don't rust.
- Unlike carbon, they can cope with rough treatment (for example when loaded into the hold on a plane). They are less likely to be damaged, and the damage is more likely to lead to a gradual failure.
Titanium is reputed to be better but modern Aluminium frames are pretty light, pretty comfortable, and vastly cheaper.
I have an aluminium bike that I use whenever my trip involves a train ride or a flight.
The cycle lane on Kensington High Street (a major London East-to-West route) actually sped up car journeys.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/01/removed-lond...
When it was removed the study "calculated that average trip times eastbound increased from 5min 39sec to 8min 14sec, with those westbound rising from 5min 48sec to 6min 27sec."
I work on the basis of 80g of uncooked pasta per person for our family.
We aren't exactly skinny, either, despite being pretty active (an average of 70 miles of cycling a week).
The difference is probably made up with vegetables, fruit etc.
Not having a private drive is mostly an issue in London, where curbside chargers are already being built all over the city.
Here's an example of the light pole chargers that are being installed in residential areas in London:
https://www.ubitricity.co.uk/b2b-local-authorities/
They deliver 5.5 kW, which is fine for overnight charging.
They are also installing a few 43kw charging points for faster top-ups.
Here's an example of the light pole chargers that are being installed in residential areas in London:
https://www.ubitricity.co.uk/b2b-local-authorities/
They deliver 5.5 kW, which is fine for overnight charging.
They are also installing a few 43kw charging points for faster top-ups.
Not hard. We have taken the whole family camping by bike-train-bike. Even a small car would be a doddle.
The four year old is towed using a follow-me, all the gear goes in a couple of panniers.
We have spent a small part of our car-money on some very high quality gear, through. Small and light equipment is much easier to pack than Walmart camping gear.
Diplomatic buildings have often been strong points designed to keep staff safe in uncertain times. This is true even in safer locations; the new US embassy in London is very much a fort although the defensive features (like the water-filled moat/pond, and bollards hidden in the hedges) are well integrated into the landscaping.
The new site is probably considerably harder to assault than their old building, even though that looked more like a military building. The Grovesnor Square building was so ugly that even the official picture on the US Embassy website tries to hide it from view behind some trees!
https://uk.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/policy-history/rcg...
Thankfully the people of SF have voted for some change for the better.
https://sfbike.org/market-street-2020/
It isn't perfect, but, keep hopefully people will keep voting for improvements.
UK VED is a polution tax (not a road tax) and cycles don't pay it because they don't pollute. VED is a very small proportion of the UK general tax take and not ringfenced to funding roads.
UK roads are funded from the general tax pot and regular cyclists in the UK – those who cycle at least once a week – are disproportionately likely to have a household income of at least £50,000 per year which means they almost certainly pay more towards road maintainance than the general population (1).
In addition to this this, 83% of UK cyclists live in a household that pays VED in some form (2) anyway.
The argument that cyclists pay no tax and therefore don't deserve to use the roads is rubbish.
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/aug/10/cyc...
(2) https://www.eta.co.uk/2013/05/24/more-cyclists-pay-road-tax-...
There have been quite a few studies with conclusions like this:
"On average, the estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks relative to car driving for individuals shifting their mode of transport."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/
Cycling could be made better, but, it is already safer than getting fat in your car.
Given that poor people can't afford to hoard because of the cost of storage (especially in cities) and financing, isn't it better that rich people are encouraged to hoard when supply is plentiful?
The problem arises when rich people start hoarding at times when supply is constrained, because they can do it so much more rapidly and create a much greater shock to the system.
It was notable in London that severe shortages only really existed at stores you can drive to. Stores that you can only walk to have been much better stocked.
The U.S. did not use COVID-19 diagnostic tests produced by the WHO in favor of producing its own.
So it could have deviated on mask guidance, too.
The very best HDR cameras have roughly the same dynamic ranges as the human eye.
You can't display all of this range to people because of the limitations of display technology, but you can feed the full range to a facial recognition engine.
Security budgets might not stretch to top-end HDR equipment but the price keeps on coming down. The performance of a modern flagship phone is remarkable compared to a few years ago - and fixed surveillance cameras can have much bigger glass and sensors, making it cheaper to get super-human performance.
One new but related issue is that body-worn cameras can capture more low-light detail than the human eye. Police unions have argued against deploying these sensors, because, they want the evidential record to show what the officer could see - not what a cat could see.
It's hard not to talk about the most dominant thing in your life, and only a few people have the skill of being genuinely interested in the priorities of other people.
Some people are boring about their hobbies, some are boring about people, some are boring about work, some are boring about their kids.
If you find the conversation boring just remember they are probably just as bored at you droning on about blockchain or whatever it is you are keen to talk about.
I live in London, where escalator lane discipline is very good - mostly because if you fail to stand on the right you will get jostled by 80kg of fast moving commuter.
It's a culture shock going to places where people stand on both sides blocking the way through.
My builder bought goods in 100kg at a time by cargo bike from a local aggregation point.
The only things which couldn't be delivered this way were joists, which came by a small electric lorry.
Quite possibly.
I'm a line manager and amicable resignations are much cheaper than terminations when you add up goodwill, management time, and direct costs.
Yes, but fewer people are having children, which reduces the demand for suburban living.
The suburbs also have less attraction for me as a parent. In the old days you could let your kids roam a suburb freely - now you can't. So why not live in a city? You have the same restrictions, but also a lot more distractions such as free museums.
EVs are more efficient (in terms of emissions per mile) even when powered by fossil fuel grid generators, because power station generators are so much larger. They can also be fitted with big, centralised, emissions scrubbers.
And the generators can be further away from cities,
And the generators can be replaced with renewable or nuclear power without requiring any changes to the vehicle fleet.
It is miserable having a young family.
The first two years of having a child have been 70% crap, 20% sleep, 10% rewarding moments.
There are a couple of up-sides:
- The rewarding moments are pretty cool, and there are more all the time.
- You don't appreciate free time until you have none. I no longer procrastinate and overall I think I get more things done than I did with unlimited free time.
Singapore is pretty light on motorbikes compared to places like Hanoi.
I cycle year round in London and would rather cycle commute in Singapore. Once you are acclimatised to the humidity it's not that big a deal, and it's always similar so it's easy to plan for.
You do have to pull off the road to wait out a real tropical rain storm... but so do motorbikes. That's why they have shelters for then under the today bridges.
All these places are ace compared to most US cities, though.
Look up one of the Singapore cycling clubs. There are plenty (with lots of Australian and French members as well as locals).
There are some oddities to riding in Singapore, but once understood I found it a very enjoyable place to bike.
It's actually really nice to bike in Singapore, provided you can shower at work.
I cycled every day for a month along a mix of park connectors (cycle paths) and two and three lane roads.
I only had one close pass from a car because on nearly all roads they have a whole extra lane to use to pass you in so if you ride assertively (in the middle of a lane) they just go around you.
And the park connectors are beautiful, fast tarmac with no cars at all. With some creativity you can link them up to create a great commute to most places. My route home went past a Riverside pub - I was on segregated cycle lanes the rest of the way home so I could easily stop for a beer with little risk.
You do usually arrive soaking wet from sweat or the rain. But that's a minor inconvenience compared to being cold! Biking in Singapore is warm, fast, and safe - much better than most places I've commuted.
It's about ten or twenty years too early to establish the success of the Emirates Air Line. In London it's necessary to build infrastructure well before the demand appears because otherwise it's too late to thread it through high density development.
At the south end, there's an enormous new housing development being built next to the cable car stop. The southern station is also next to the terminus for the increasingly-popular river boat service. The boat service has taken at least 20 years (and several operator bankruptcies) to get (re)established and what was once a tourist-only route is now picking up more commuters as the frequency improves.
At the northern end, the stop is close to the Excel and Custom House station, where there will be a link to Crossrail.
As you mention there are existing tube and rail stations in the area but they are heavily overloaded. The DLR is packed when there's a show at the Excel, and the Jubilee line is so full at rush hour you often have to wait for several trains.
The cable car also adds a little bit more resilience to the network, allowing options when one of few eastern rail river crossings is running badly. I've taken the cable car plus the boat to get back to Westminster from the Excel when the DLR was closed by an accident.
Once the sponsorship runs out (more than half the cost was paid for by Emirates) and it becomes fully in TfL's control - we might see if it becomes a useful, practical, transport link rather than just an occasionally useful tourist attraction.
Sidewalks aren't flat, and they don't have priority at junctions.
This makes them unsuitable for commuting or serious cycling.
To make it a viable form of personal transport it's better to keep cyclists on the roads.