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Apr 24, 2020 06:17
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Grevling posted:I think the game has changed a lot since last time I played it because now it only puts me right next to very famous monuments. Must have. The one time I played it every time was just a road in the middle of a field or forest, there was nothing at all to indicate where you might be.
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Apr 24, 2020 06:18
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Geoguessr changed considerably since Google started charging for Google Maps embeds/API use. The free version of Geoguessr has some low rate alternative streetview service that is terrible. If you want to play the original Google Streetview version you're gonna have to buy a premium account.
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Apr 24, 2020 06:51
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Germany and the Netherlands, famously poorer than Greece. Wait, that's median wealth, so it's really a measure of inequality. Oh, that makes sense then. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 09:33 on Apr 24, 2020 |
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Apr 24, 2020 09:25
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Cat Mattress posted:Germany and the Netherlands, famously poorer than Greece. Home ownership is very low in Germany and very high in the Mediterranean countries, I guess that’s where that comes from. Generally it’s true though that median Germans are not as rich as people might think. We have a gargantuan low-wage working class. Honj Steak fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Apr 24, 2020 |
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Apr 24, 2020 09:36
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And when Germany says low wages, they loving mean it. The Hartz IV reforms were atrocious. In the Netherlands we don't have 1 single big reform to point to, but in the last say 20 years we've succeeded at creating a permanent underclass of temporary or otherwise precariously employed (often as "entrepreneurs without employees", for example mailmen were shoved into this category) people and they have 0 chance of building up any wealth, and in the case of the latter, they don't even build up a pension or have disability insurance anymore. The liberal parties are recognizing there is a huge gap between regular employment contracts and all this newfangled bullshit they've created and that this clearly isn't fair or desirable. Their proposed solutions are to bring regular employment contracts more in line with all the precarious bullshit. If they win another election or two (and they are set to do so) they will probably succeed, at which point most of the social-democracy victories of post WW2 labour will have been fully destroyed. Meanwhile people are increasingly voting for the fash. Unexplainable really. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Apr 24, 2020 |
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Apr 24, 2020 09:56
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_buk_YaV4&t=170s
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Apr 24, 2020 10:23
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Orange Devil posted:"entrepreneurs without employees" The Uber model. We've got that in France, it's called "auto-entrepreneur". That guy's not an employee, he's a subcontractor. Of course it's really just a way for the employer, sorry, contractor, to dodge charges and also avoid any responsibility so the employee, sorry, subcontractor can be fired at will without motive or indemnity. I guess the reason why this model is not as widespread in France as it is in Germany or the Netherlands is because the French are never not on strike. So even though there's the legal infrastructure in place, the government has trouble shoehorning everyone into this mold yet. But they try, they definitely constantly try (see also: why the French are always on strike).
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Apr 24, 2020 10:56
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Cat Mattress posted:Of course it's really just a way for the employer, sorry, contractor, to dodge charges and also avoid any responsibility so the employee, sorry, subcontractor can be fired at will without motive or indemnity. Yeah the whole purpose is to sideline decades of accumulated labour rights by creating a whole new category of labour whomst those rights have never been extended to (because they didn't exist at the time) and obviously not extending these rights now because "gently caress you, we have the power and you don't". And yeah, I don't know about Germany, but Dutch unions have been fully coopted and thus rendered useless since at least the 80s, so they let this happen or even helped make this happen. Dutch unions also don't understand why their membership just keeps dropping lower and lower but union management is content to just blame this on young people, workers and having been "too successful". gently caress Dutch unions. I have a Finnish friend whose mom was decently high up in a Finnish union and apparently things are similar there. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Apr 24, 2020 |
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Apr 24, 2020 11:35
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So unions are just completely neutered in the entire Western world then? Good to know.
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Apr 24, 2020 12:04
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German unions weren't really "coopted", contemporary unions are a tool to pacify workers to begin with, no need to neuter anything. (But that doesn't mean that they're not still the last line of defence for some stuff and they continuing decline is going won't make it even easier to abolish worker rights.)
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Apr 24, 2020 14:10
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If we get protections for gig and contract workers, what will be the next step? Just straight up bringing back vassalage and oaths of fealty?
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Apr 24, 2020 14:35
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:So unions are just completely neutered in the entire Western world then? Good to know. Is there anything that hasn't been neutered in the western world? Besides police, the IC, the military, etc
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Apr 24, 2020 15:04
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Milo and POTUS posted:Is there anything that hasn't been neutered in the western world? Besides police, the IC, the military, etc Unfortunately, men
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Apr 24, 2020 16:13
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This was really fun, thank you for the effortpost!
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Apr 24, 2020 16:51
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Milo and POTUS posted:Is there anything that hasn't been neutered in the western world? Besides police, the IC, the military, etc The military has also been neutered in much of the west, judging by US complaints about other NATO countries not pulling their weight.
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Apr 24, 2020 17:11
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Powered Descent posted:This was really fun, thank you for the effortpost! Hooray I'm glad you liked  Here's what I promised: New Hampshire! One of the few states that hasn't changed one bit since 1776. But its borders are still a little weird.First, the easy one: Vermont. Connecticut River, all the way up to 45° N. But then it makes a weird little jog west. Because the international border is Halls Stream, which is what New Hampshire follows north of Vermont, but Vermont is defined as south of 45° N and west of the Connecticut River. Thus, when the Connecticut River reaches 45° N, it has to go back west to Halls Stream. In fact, the ambiguity over which source of the Connecticut River should be considered the source led to a dispute with the United Kingdom in the 1830s - a very small region, about 3 times the size of Manhattan and with 300 people, broke away as the Republic of Indian Stream because both sides were trying to tax it.  Next, the border with Maine. Pretty clean and easy - it follows the Piscataqua River up to its source, then goes 2 degrees west of north from there. This is one of the oldest borders in the country. Now the interesting one: Massachusetts. First, the eastern part: It's not a straight line, but doesn't seem to follow any geography. OR DOES IT But look! South of it! The Merrimack River. The border is to run 3 miles north of the Merrimack River as far up as Pawtucket Falls. Then it's supposed to go west. Except... it didn't. It was the 18th century, surveying wasn't what it is today, and thus the line veered substantially north. Massachusetts Bay' original plans were much grander, though. They claimed the border should be a line 3 miles north of the Merrimack as a whole - in other words, a straight line north of the source of the river. This would have given it over half of New Hampshire. George II settled it as going until Pawtucket Falls, which is when the river begins to veer substantially north. Here's a work-in-progress, proof-of-concept kind of thing I've been toying with on and off for Wikipedia, of the borders of New Hampshire. I've done these for a lot of states and time periods but still not sure what to do with them.  Next time: New Connecticut takes a cue from Connecticut and punches above its weight
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Apr 24, 2020 19:37
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Why did they decide on two degrees west of north? e: Earlier agreement had said the line would run northwesterly, but no one ever said how much westerly it had to run, and George II’s council wanted to cut Massachusetts down to size. You’ve got to love legalism. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Apr 24, 2020 |
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Apr 24, 2020 23:29
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Apr 24, 2020 23:57
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https://twitter.com/maxfras/status/1253657777253343233?s=20
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Apr 25, 2020 01:46
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Was looking up information on the Eurasian lynx and found this, thought I'd share the maps, the site contains information on the population status of these animals in the various countries https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/carnivores/conservation_status.htm Brown Bear  Wolf  Eurasian lynx  Wolverine 
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Apr 26, 2020 12:48
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I wonder what the unit is. Is it euros? US dollars? Adjusted for purchasing power? I refuse to believe that median Slovak is wealthier than median Czech absent some exchange rate fuckery.
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Apr 26, 2020 12:57
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You would generally use PPP for this sort of thing, although you should obviously always mention it in the legend. And yeah, if you are going to give an absolute number, you also have to provide the currency (presumably it's €). This could be reposted to the PYF awful graphs thread. It does seem off that Slovakia is beating out not only Czechia, but also the Netherlands and Germany. It makes me wonder if they actually are using PPP. For reference, here is a similar Eurostat map from 2017: 
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Apr 26, 2020 13:10
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vetinari100 posted:I wonder what the unit is. Is it euros? US dollars? Adjusted for purchasing power? I refuse to believe that median Slovak is wealthier than median Czech absent some exchange rate fuckery.
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Apr 26, 2020 13:58
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Today's episode: The Green Mountain Boys There is a river in New England, the Connecticut River. It is a very important river, and served as the border between the Province of New York and the Province of New Hamsphire. Well, kind of. New York was defined in its letters patent as extended from the Connecticut to Delaware Bay; New Hampshire based its claim on the fact that, thanks to the earlier mentioned dispute with Massachusetts (where the border was going to be defined as "what is south of 3 miles north of the Merrimack is Massachusetts, and the rest is New Hampshire") that, since the Massachusetts border extended from said line west to a line 20 miles east of the Hudson, that hey, so does New Hampshire. So, New Hampshire started granting lands west of the Connecticut. And New York started granting lands east of it. The resulting disputes over these New Hampshire Grants led to the region not being all that on board with either state when the revolution began, the region petitioned to join Congress as a new state; New York forced this to be rejected. On January 15, 1777, the region declared independence as Ve... er, excuse me: New Connecticut. They changed this to Vermont six months later. I always like bringing this up because so very very few people know about this. But you might ask, why am I dedicating a post to Vermont? Its borders are relatively sane. On the north, the 45° N (as surveyed) border with Canada; on the east, the Connecticut River; on the south, Massachusetts; (you'll find that most states in the area are defined largely as "not Massachusetts") and on the west, Lake Champlain and some township borders: But as I said, it decided to act a touch like its namesake. On June 11, 1778, it claimed the East Union, a selection of not-always contiguous towns in New Hampshire that had petitioned to join Vermont:  ... and then gave up four months later because the Continental Congress was not on board. ... and then tried again in April 1781, this time with even more towns wanting in to Vermont!  But since Vermont was expanding east, there were those - including the famous Ethan Allen - who felt this needed to be balanced by some claims on the other side of the Green Mountains. Thus, in June 1781, it formally claimed the West Union, a small area between the current straight southwest border and the Hudson River:  Congress still wasn't on board and Vermont finally gave up on its expansion dreams completely in early 1782. It would be admitted as the 14th state in 1791. This whole story has been hellish to research; the extent of townships now versus townships then; changed names; poor surveying; etc. The most I could ever promise is a maybe. In fact, here is probably the best map on the internet of the whole situation and ... yeah. Not great:  So instead of a state tidily defined by three simple straight lines, one river, and one lake, we could have had that tumorous mass. Next time: Speaking of Connecticut, what the gently caress
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Apr 26, 2020 17:09
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A Buttery Pastry posted:It's US dollars. As mentioned, this might be down to inequality - the report where these numbers come from has, to given an example, the top 10% in the Netherlands hoarding twice as much of the total wealth as the top 10% in Slovakia. The 2019 report (from Credit Suisse) has average wealth between the two essentially the same, but median wealth in Slovakia is about twice that of the Czech Republic. Another clear indicator of the differences between the two is that the latter has about twice as much financial wealth per capita, while the latter has significantly more non-financial wealth. My guess before I looked it up was that the Slovaks had higher home ownership rates, and that bears out. Incidentally, it's quite a lot higher than in the Netherlands, and way higher than in Germany. Chalk me up as another poor map reader, I thought it was supposed to be something like GDP per inhabitant. Median wealth makes more sense, Germany has notoriously low home ownership rates, as you've said. Still bad labeling, though.
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Apr 26, 2020 17:15
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Golbez posted:Today's episode: The Green Mountain Boys
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Apr 26, 2020 22:27
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Shame, because Vermont being "between the Champlain Valley/Hudson and Connecticut, between 42º45'N and 45ºN" makes more sense than their East Union proposal.
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Apr 26, 2020 22:54
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Vermont was independent longer than Texas, had its own currency, and successfully fought against the United States and British Empire at the same time. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about the Connecticut stuff because I get a real bug up my rear end about it -- and indeed have before in this very thread!
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Apr 26, 2020 23:07
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Lord Hydronium posted:Great post, and now I'm wondering if there are Vermont revanchists. I won't rest until Vermont has claimed the lake from shore to shore
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Apr 27, 2020 00:37
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Lord Hydronium posted:Great post, and now I'm wondering if there are Vermont revanchists. Don't want Hinsdale, it's a shithole.
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Apr 27, 2020 01:43
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Today's episode: Connecticut is adorable. The Province of Connecticut was formed in 1636, with a charter that defined it as as a long strip running from Narragansset Bay on the east, all the way to the Pacific Ocean on the west (the "South Sea" as it was still called, since the first views of it from this side of the world happened from Central America), bounded on the south by Long Island Sound and west from there, and on the north by Massachusetts. Seriously, when I said "most of the states are defined as being 'not Massachusetts'," I wasn't kidding. The actual line from the charter: "... bounded... on the North by the Line of the Massachusetts plantation" However, obviously, their authority didn't extend much west of New Haven. But unlike almost all the other states, which readily surrendered their western claims to the federal government, (in exchange for the feds taking on their revolutionary war debts; Georgia was the longest holdout) Connecticut actually cared. Because, I mean, it's Connecticut. What else do they have going for them? So, first, Narragansset Bay. You can already tell something is amiss here, since that is solidly in Rhode Island, and it was granted to Rhode Island in 1663. In 1703, Connecticut and Rhode Island came to an agreement that their border would be, from Long Island Sound: Up the Pawcatuck River to the Mouth of the Ashaway River, a line from there to the "southwest corner of the Warwick Purchase" and then north to Massachusetts. On a map you can see that the eastern border of Connecticut is indeed two lines, slightly angled. The northern border was, of course, Massachusetts, and their southern border was defined as a line 3 miles south of the Charles River. Connecticut and Massachusetts Bay agreed in 1713 on a border, but in 1749 Connecticut decided they didn't care for it, and since the king had never signed off on it, they declared it void and took back some of the towns that they had lost. Massachusetts Bay appealed and the king came down on the side of Connecticut. In 1791, they tried to establish their border; no one would agree. They finally came to an agreement in 1804, and this is where the Southwick Jog, the famous notch that keeps Massachusetts from sliding into the sea, came about - by adjusting surveying errors, a long thin strip of land was assigned to Connecticut, and thus the block grant was traded to Massachusetts in an even trade of area. So far, so good. Enter: New York. Their charter obviously overlay Connecticut's, but things were okay. They agreed on a border roughly 20 miles east of the Hudson, as the charter described. So why the weird bend in the border? Greenwich and Stamford didn't like being in New York; taxes were lower in Connecticut. And it was such a strong feeling that, in 1683, they agreed to a trade. Connecticut got the rectangle that is now its panhandle, and in exchange, a long thin area known as "The Oblong" was transferred to New York.  (Random related fact: You cannot get from Connecticut to outside the country without passing through another state, as New York and Rhode Island own the waters of Long Island Sound east of Connecticut.) So, that all seems normal, right? But then you zoom out a little bit. Here is my map of Connecticut circa 1776 scaled so that it doesn't break the forums:  They had to give up the sea-to-sea grant with independence but still claimed west to the Mississippi River. And unlike the claims of Massachusetts and New York, they actually cared. Moving from the east: They recognized that New Jersey and New York existed but weren't too keen about Pennsylvania, and claimed a region west of the Delaware River, bound on the north and south by lines drawn west from Connecticut proper. Keen minds might notice this overlapped with Pennsylvania; so did Pennsylvania. (It actually also overlapped with a few miles of New York, but no one realized this at the time) This led to what have been called the Pennamite-Yankee Wars, which were conflicts happening off and on from 1769 to 1784. Now what might make Connecticut feel entitled to such a claim? Why, because it was: George III confirmed Connecticut's claim in 1771. The Continental Congress tried its best to resolve the situation, and declared that the region was Pennsylvania's. As you can see by where I said the wars continued until 1784, that didn't necessarily deter the Connecticuters, but we've come to expect that. So further west we get to the Pennsylvania/Virginia border. Virginia ceded its vast northwest to the federal government in 1784, but as far as Connecticut was concerned, they still owned their strip of the west. In 1786, they finally surrendered ... most of it. They retained a 120-mile-wide portion of the strip, west of Pennsylvania, as their Western Reserve. This name still lives on in many local institutions, notably Case Western Reserve University. The western end of the reserve was called the Firelands, which was intended for Connecticuters whose homes were burned during the war. The Western Reserve was finally ceded in 1800, condemning tiny Connecticut to languish trapped in New England. So I might say Rhode Island next time, but honestly that one's pretty boring, comparatively. The most interesting parts are how the eastern border shifted with Massachusetts over the years, and the fact that the northern border, intended to be 3 miles south of the Charles River, was actually surveyed as 5 miles south. Two miles doesn't sound like a lot, but with a state as small as Rhode Island it adds up, and just ask Georgia how much they want the sweet, sweet waters of the Tennessee River that remains tantalizingly 200 feet away from the border, in part because the border was surveyed as much as a mile south of where it should be. And as much as it might be interesting to Massachusetts... I kind of already have. I've described all the states around it, so all that's left is the border with New York, which is somewhat boring except for the tiny notch in the southwest. Massachusetts used to end in a point, but the town there, Boston Corner, was separated from the rest of the state by a mountain, and like so many examples of a town physically isolated from its own state's law enforcement, it became a den of sin, and was gifted to New York in 1855 so they could properly deal with it. Not sure what for next time, probably North Carolina/South Carolina. Delaware is great but I did that a few weeks ago!
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Apr 27, 2020 05:11
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Golbez posted:So, that all seems normal, right? But then you zoom out a little bit. Here is my map of Connecticut circa 1776 scaled so that it doesn't break the forums: West Connecticut and East Connecticut had their connecting cut.
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Apr 27, 2020 12:10
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Greater Connecticut includes the southern tip of Hokkaido and a chunk of the DPRK.
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Apr 27, 2020 12:20
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Moses Cleaveland, western Augustus Connecticutus and founder of the Second Hartford: Cleveland.
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Apr 27, 2020 13:17
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Golbez posted:So I might say Rhode Island next time, but honestly that one's pretty boring, comparatively. The most interesting parts are how the eastern border shifted with Massachusetts over the years, and the fact that the northern border, intended to be 3 miles south of the Charles River, was actually surveyed as 5 miles south. Two miles doesn't sound like a lot, but with a state as small as Rhode Island it adds up, and just ask Georgia how much they want the sweet, sweet waters of the Tennessee River that remains tantalizingly 200 feet away from the border, in part because the border was surveyed as much as a mile south of where it should be. i was wondering if you were going to bring this up lol it's actually a big deal - georgia doesn't have any significant rivers, and is vulnerable to drought. tennessee has an entire tributary of the mississippi river named after the state. the tri-state border between georgia, tennessee, and alabama should be squarely in the middle of the tennessee river, which would allow georgia to withdraw water for use in the northwest corner of the state. alas...  georgia has been bothering tennessee and the federal government about it since the error was discovered in the 1880s but there is absolutely no way the border is going to be moved because nobody wants to sort through all the bullshit that would happen if we start 'correcting' all the state borders
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Apr 27, 2020 14:16
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Georgia doesn’t have fat watercourses emanating from distant snowcapped mountains flowing by for the taking (looking at you, California), but plenty of rain falls on their territory and they don’t have a whole lot of excuse for going dry. It’s not like Georgia is contributing much to the Tennessee River. 
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Apr 27, 2020 14:49
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Platystemon posted:Georgia doesn’t have fat watercourses emanating from distant snowcapped mountains flowing by for the taking (looking at you, California), but plenty of rain falls on their territory except when it doesn't - half the state's population lives in the top 1/5th of the chattahoochee watershed, which is under a federally mediated dispute between georgia, alabama, and florida which threatens the ability of metro atlanta to draw more water from the main reservoir and river. notice also the number of watersheds that begin in the metro atlanta area. plus most of the area is pretty close to bedrock, so there's no groundwater to tap normally it rains enough to where this isn't a problem. there's been a shitload of rain so far this year. but when there isn't, it becomes a problem very quickly. this is why it's extra funny that a surveying mistake two centuries ago places the northern border of the state a literal stones throw from a river large enough to be navigable
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Apr 27, 2020 15:01
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Today's episode: The Carolinas The Province of Carolina was chartered in 1663, to consist of the region a bit south of Virginia and north of Florida; the 1665 charter made it even wider. And of course it went as far west as the South Sea. This made for a very large colony, and in the 17th century that was a problem. The capital was at Charles Town (now Charleston), which was far away from the only other real populations in the colony up north by Cape Fear. The colony was split in 1712. Literal tomes could be written on the border concocted between them. The original, simple plan was: Find the point on the coast 30 miles west from the mouth of the Cape Fear River, then run the line northwest to 35° N, then west from there. Simple, right? Except, you might notice, they didn't make it. It took them two years but in 1737 they stopped about 12 miles south of 35° N. So at this point the border between NC and SC is an incomplete straight line, but then again, few if any Englishmen lived in the middle of Carolina so no one cared. It wasn't until 1764 that they resumed work. They assumed the last line ended at 35° N, so they happily turned west, running an almost-westerly line to where it intersected the Charleston Road; many old borders are defined by roads and such since there were so few back then. 1772. Five years from independence and the two colonies still have no border between them, either surveyed or, hell, at this point, legal: The surveyed line so far has veered so far from the intent that there's no ideal border at all. The main issue now was to get the line from Charleston Road to the other side of the Catawba nation, which was intended to be in South Carolina. So the border had to snake up and around the borders of the Catawba, which is why there's the weird little bump by Charlotte. Then they ran the line west[ish] to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The final line along the Blue Ridge wasn't surveyed until 1815, and ran down to 35° N, finally landing where it belonged. (Side note: Note how both supposed east-west lines veer north? Apparently the mountains west of Charlotte are very high in magnetite and were skewing compass readings.) In fact, they were still dealing with this mess in 2014, when they did a massive resurvey and settled some issues, as handled well in this New York Times piece, which includes this map:  Speaking of North Carolina: Its border with Virginia was also poorly done. By independence it had only been surveyed as far as Bristol or so. Both sides surveyed further west in 1780, but they were two miles apart, and North Carolina gave up at the Cumberland Gap, while Virginia continued to the Tennessee River. The border was supposed to be 36°30' N, and now it veered substantially north of it. Kentucky and Tennessee (the children of Virginia and North Carolina, respectively) resolved this in 1820, by starting a new line at 36°30' N on the Mississippi River and running east to the Tennessee River; this is why Kentucky has its weird little foot. Next time: I think I've already discussed the Toledo Strip here, so the next one would seem to be Georgia and the Florida Purchase.
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Apr 27, 2020 19:48
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