NeedMoreTea

> Surely when you look at grass and the sky

Sometimes maybe. Most of the time, who cares? Grey, clear or dark skies seem most important to distinguish. Do we mean the temperate daybreak blue, midday tropics blue, or depth of full moon night blue? Grass and other plants can have degrees of blue in there too. What about sea? Sometimes blue, sometimes green, most of the time somewhere in between. What probably matters most to a mariner is swell and temperature(?).

I suspect it only really started to matter after Perkin's mauve in the mid 19th century, and matters far more now in a world of a trillion pantone shades.

Which I think is a neat summary of current cars all having got over fat and bloated. The Jag F type is similarly too big (for my taste), but is one of a very few that manages to wear it well. An E type it is not, but it manages that "certain something".

It's an irrational "feel safer" though. Despite no legislated requirement for mixed size impact tests, enough have been done to see that tiny cars do surprisingly well. Whether the microscopic Smart Car against an max size old Volvo estate, or super mini against a Range Rover. They are categorically NOT destroyed in an impact with the SUV barely taking a scratch.

I mostly agree with the rest though. :) My solution would be to copy the Scandinavians with a yearly car tax derived from a combination of weight over say 500kg and emissions.

and what prey, does a global pi-hole grid give that an actual RaspPi and pi-hole can't? What does it add?

Given they are based in Delaware, USA my starting point is far below zero privacy trust: Nextdns are gathering maximum possible data from everyone's DNS queries and selling it, or proposing to use it for advertising soon(tm). Enough independent reviewing and auditing might eventually persuade me that's unfair, maybe. If they actually cared for privacy why not incorporate in the EU and proudly wear full GDPR compliance? Or CA's upcoming privacy legislation?

Oh dearie me. Hadn't seen one of those before. That over muscled slab fronted steroid abuser is not a patch on a DB5. Or 6. Or even a mid 70s Vantage. It doesn't look deserving of an Aston badge.

Actually, that's a really odd car. I looked around for more pictures ... it looks fine looking head on toward the front, as does a perfect side view. Every other angle looks oh so wrong. I have no idea how they achieved that! :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Martin_DB5#/media/File:A...

Using fossil fuel generated electricity is still more efficient than drilling oil, cracking it into petrol, along with lubricant oil to stop your ICE seizing, driving it to a petrol station, filling your car and burning it at awful efficiency.

Renewable sources of electricity are a huge improvement to be encouraged, but EVs running off fossil generated electricity are better than petrol or diesel ICE.

Hmm, as far as I can remember, every gore-tex item I've owned across the decades -- mainly from the better outdoorsy brands -- has needed a refresh, and warned to expect that on the label or leaflet. Some lasted longer than others. One that was left far too long without eventually gave about as much water protection as a cotton jacket. Whether any of them were "classic" gore-tex or not, I don't know. I've always understood it as the middle breathable layer with several bonded layers, and chemically waterproofed outer.

Wikipedia seems to agree about the outer, and only notes a decline in breathability in newer fabric by using a PU layer in place of teflon bonded to fabric found on the earliest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gore-Tex

In the same era few cars would see you better off. A Polo or Escort would be similarly totalled, a big Merc or Volvo would often happily demount the engine and punch it back into the cabin taking your legs with it...

The whole breathable/gore-tex thing is overrated as they all rely on liberal use of DWR chemicals that tend to be waterproof only for a while. So regular retreatment, which never seems to be as good, or acceptance of wetness is needed. :)

I'm surprised to see Patagonia in the worst of that site's categories, considering their stance on sustainability.

Europe clear cut most of their trees in the Middle Ages to such an extent that monarchs were forbidding the use of wood for numerous non-naval uses. It was one of those edicts forbidding use of wood in glass production, and a bunch of other uses that tipped the UK toward the industrial revolution. Coal became far more widely used, whereas it had previously been seen as dirty and to be avoided. Some see that lack of wood as a push to colonise.

If we're talking regeneratable resources, such as plants and wood, we've exceeded the capacity of the planet since about 1970. It's been measured by earth overshoot day[1], which has steadily been getting earlier since its first calculation of Dec 31st. In 2019 it was July 29. We would need 1.7 earths to sustainably supply the resources we use.

Humanity already uses over 50% of the earth's land -- the best, most productive, most fertile 50% for our homes and agriculture, and what's left is the least productive and unusable.

The idea that we're not running out on a finite planet, with exponentially growing population, and nearly all the productive landmass already in service of humanity is what doesn't make sense.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day

At the expense of increasing pedestrian fatalities.

That's true, so now it needs all new running gear, and becomes an insane labour of love like the Eagle E type.

Still fancy a try though. :)

I've only seen a Clubman in the street from the outside, and the estate bit looked like 20cm or so with the seats up. Obviously that's at the windows line so there's probably a bit more room lower down... So with seats up less than a Shepherd (or greyhound) shoulder width. Seats down, sure...

A coffin that fits 4 adults and a German Shepherd in the estate bit. That's quite snug, but no worse than a Polo, Beetle, Fiesta or 2CV of similar era.

But like most cars it spends most of its time carrying just one or two adults, maybe a bit of shopping, when it has ample room.

The sad thing is an original Isigonis style 1980s mini estate gives more chance to put a full size dog in the back, with the rear seats up, than the current massive Mini Clubman estate that's cramped for a Yorkie with the back doors closed. It really is comical seeing original Mini and new next to each other -- the new one is not, by any stretch, "mini".

I keep thinking my retirement project should be an EV 1980 mini estate with upmarket seats and instruments -- as that's honestly what I want to buy in an EV. Something starting that light should have lots of range and performance scope...

They sell clicks, but non-tracked, non-invasive keyword clicks. Which of course means a search for iphone 11 will have some paid ads to click on.

As they've built their user base on privacy and those unhappy with Google, it's very unlikely the user base would shrug and carry on if DDG switch to Google mode tracking with all the dubious extras of data collection, and retargeting etc. Not that it's going to work though, as DDG have um, DDG search. No platform, no phone, no analytics, home speaker, fonts, domain registry, email etc, ad nauseum. So where to collect the data until they're a FANG monster with a finger in every pie?

So we either see it coming a long time off, or DDG become a privacy focused monster with fingers in lots of privacy aware pies. Or stay as just DDG privacy friendly search.

Can't agree. Mild steel and bulk wasn't the strategic industry it was once considered by every nation, and was going as it was predicated on price. That's probably fine unless there's a major war.

The hugely expensive deep specialisms, and really unusual steels and steel products that were made in just three or four places in the world, one of them Sheffield, need not. cough Iraqi supergun -- though Sheffield Forgemasters are actually one of the few still around, thanks to govt underwriting due to their nuclear capability. Funny that. Nor need the manufacturing of some of the world's finest precision tool and instrument makers. A tiny few survive, despite government best effort, not because. Most were eagerly snapped up by US, German, French or Japanese -- if they still exist at all, it's as name made elsewhere and a fattening of someone's portfolio. Of course many disappeared without trace, and of course a fair selection that weren't worth saving having got fat and lazy, or overly unionised.

While morons were cropping up on UK news throughout the eighties and nineties trying to persuade us that making anything was obsolete (and so frequently that it quickly got as overused, tedious and cliched as the recent Theresa May election slogan "strong and stable government"), Germany quietly got on with new services and manufacturing. Their mittelstand(sp?) and technical training regularly cropping up as something for the rest of Europe to envy. UK disassembled the last of the technical colleges, apprenticeships, and all the regional centres of knowledge and excellence. No matter how keen you're unlikely to pick manufacturing for your new UK business, as we are exceptional in the extent of our disassembly of the sector.

How did Sheffield's future as a centre of telephone call centres work out? Or Central Belt's reinvention as world centre of electronic and IT manufacture? How did the focus on the City work, when right after the "big bang" Wall Street went on a shopping spree of stupendous size leaving few native survivors?

There used to be tens of thousands. In 1979 there was a policy decision to end UK manufacturing and focus on the City and services. No end of highly successful UK export businesses disappeared. Many of them quietly a world leader. Many of them famous names that had existed for a century or two.

Sheffield was the steel city with all the production, infrastructure and suppliers to feed all the cutlers, precision instrument makers, tool makers, scissor makers and all the other specialisms surrounding tool steel and stainless steel. The Potteries, well you can probably guess that one. So it went on around the regions of each city and across the country.

I go beyond it being a shame, it's criminal, or bloody well should be. We have had no chance of balanced export books since 1980.

If you search around the web, there's a lot of archive sites showing what was lost -- though in truth it was far more an intentional destruction.

Yeah, but it's just not very good. Set the UK tick box and it will still throw a lot of US results into the mix. Adding "UK" and "manchester" or whatever in the search does a much better job than DDG's country specific tick box. Of course even that isn't great as it'll often give a business in manchester NH, pop 100k over the city of 3m just down the motorway. Even with keywords and DDG's tick box set.

It's a minor annoyance that I've got used to, and hasn't persuaded me to go back to Google (I've used DDG as first choice for probably a little over 5 years now).

If DDG can't deliver the goods, !b (bing) is second choice, !mill (Million Short) probably third, then as appropriate, a mix of !azuk (amazon UK), !w, !ox (oxford dictionary) and a mix of others including !g as last resort. !g is so rarely better or helpful that I wonder why I still sometimes bother.

Edit: I think the real problem is with ICANN. .com should have been kept for global or multinational sites, and the USA used .co.us and .us generally for sites of national interest, as France uses .fr, Germany .de and UK .uk etc.

What you really mean in a google search is you want to buy something. You only think you don't want to buy. It doesn't matter that you've lost the leaflet for your Pioneer 10 Subwoofer and want to remember which wire goes where in your new house. Or just want to remember some detail of something you had years ago. Google is there to assure you that you really want to buy a shiny new set.

Not buying stuff you already own again serves neither the economy nor Google's advertising profit. Go on, buy another set. Infinite growth depends on it.

That really is their attitude to every product and service.

Don't think they were ever cleaned as vigorously as the article describes, but it's not so long since banks used to clean and roll coins. Now they mainly use plastic bags.

Not even sure if new coins fresh from the mint are still rolled, I can't remember seeing a roll for ages.

Better would be to revalue the currency by dividing by ten or twenty. Change would mean something again, and have some useful value.

Of course if you had quoted the full context of your supposedly damning gas quote:

"It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected."

lachrymatory gas: That's tear gas. To cause a great inconvenience yet leave no serious permanent effects. To reduce loss of life to a minimum. That's clearly not a memo calling for genocide.

Not at all. Where you solve the transportation of waste and getting in water through the river, only the most upstream city was getting potable water, downstream was after washing and waste went in. Wells frequently went down to a polluted or at least unsafe water table. Wells out of the towns and cities were generally safer. Few if any towns were the sole town on a river.

Tea was initially an elite drink in China, the expense in part explaining the rise of the rituals and ceremonies (and lots of equipment) surrounding it. Much the same happened with coffee.

Rome was indeed an exception thanks to their development and aqueducts, but that potable water was coming from well outside the city. In the outlying regions of the empire, without that infrastructure, wine seems to have been the usual, and water for bathing.

Remote enough is akin to upstream enough -- with no shite, washing and other pollutants, getting potable water from a remote spring or well is perfectly feasible.

Except it's not a myth. For centuries mead, ale or small (low alcohol) beer were the standard drinks throughout the day, occasionally cider from crab and wild apples for the poorest. Wine for those with a little more means. Tea and coffee were for the wealthy until the 19th century, and something to add the drug of choice, sugar, to. Something for the great and the good in the tea rooms and coffee houses of London, until they arrived in huge quantities bringing prices down to commodity level.

Awareness of microbes, boiling for sterility, and water treatment was a long time coming. Water was clean if far enough upstream, or you had a pristine well. In towns and cities, forget it. :)

Road to Serfdom is some of the most simplistic empty bilge I've read, bordering on unreadable. I guess it's pushing 35 years ago I read it, while I was still a keen supporter of the mainstream right, after an enthusiastic loan from a fellow Thatcherite friend. In reading it I found it so absurdly weak and obviously hollow that it started me questioning all "known facts" and "common sense" of my politics. That was the point that started my search for a range of economic and political viewpoints, reading deeper, and moved me away from Thatcherism to the centre ground!

The writing style was terrible, as every third sentence seems to close with something like "and this inevitably leads to socialism and serfdom, and eliminates freedom". Only a dozen or so pages in and I was thoroughly sick of this device, as it's becoming clear that's his main and just about only argument -- extreme repetition.

It's a short article padded to a book length rant that anything less than total laissez-faire market libertarianism leads to slavery, serfdom, social democracy, socialism, nazism or communism (He appears to understand no difference between any of these). That any tiny government plan, regulation or service must lead to totalitarianism and blackshirts.

So my memory is also of finding it hilarious, I suspect for very different reasons. I also remember being left completely baffled as to why it ever got to be popular. :)

You've inverted the meaning though. Actual title is "Socioeconomic Inequalities in Disability-free Life Expectancy in Older People from England and the United States", which may be too long for HN, but presents a very different impression of what the study may be about.

Perhaps "Socioeconomic Inequalities in Disability-free Life Expectancy in Older People in US and UK" would be better?

You don't seem to have noticed that in concluding "It’s fine for a responsible (read public-sector) technocrat to mine and process your data" you're replying to a quote that explicitly states "and not mining your data".

It's perfectly possible to deliver services using only the data necessary to deliver the service. Selling none of it to advertisers or other third parties, gathering nothing other than that necessary to make the service the best you can provide. Not only would it feel a much more equitable exchange for the customers providing the data, it would no doubt end up with a better service. Adding data mining for sale corrupts every service, as they twist to gather ever more for less, or poorer and poorer results. You become a data cow for the milking.

I guess Cory Doctorow got no input in what his article said?

That's roughly my interpretation too -- there's no way Japan could out-manufacture US industry, and the difference in materiel, ship building and aircraft production wins out, even if Midway had been a catastrophic US loss.

I suspect a couple of years longer is much nearer the mark than a few months as the Japanese dug to never surrender, but second guessing history is a no cost game... Who knows what other dominoes would have fallen, and where, in the extra time.