NeoTar

You need to be careful about the phrase “considered a number” since I believe one, or unity, was also not considered a number by some ancient civilisation - i.e. a number was only multiple copies of unity.

[I believe this YouTube video goes into more detail in its discussion of why 1 was not considered Prime in the ancient world: https://youtu.be/R33RoMO6xeA]

Pauline comes back in Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of New Donk city.

And the Super Mario Land (Gameboy) series introduced Princess Daisy as a potential love interest- she’s now a mainstay of the series and often romantically linked with Luigi.

Very much like Dr Robotnik (western) becoming Dr. Eggman (Japanese) in Sonic titles since the late 90’s. In this case Eggman is played as an offensive nickname Sonic has given Dr. Robotnik.

I believe that in Mario lore they are explicitly the same character - either her name is “Peach Toadstool” (i.e. its surname and first name), or the Princess Toadstool is a title - like how the Prince of Wales, Queen Mother, and Princess Royal are all titles in the contemporary British monarchy.

Here is some UK government-adjacent advice on the lifespans of appliances (expected lifespans for products in rental properties): https://www.tenancydepositscheme.com/wp-content/uploads/2024...

(Landlords in the UK are obliged to register their tenant's deposit with a scheme upon the start of an tenancy, and raise any objections to the full return within a short period of the tenants move-out (possibly as short as 14 days) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenancy_deposit_scheme_(Englan...

I assume this means “legally permissible in said country”?

In the UK, 01, 02 area codes are land lines, 07 are mobiles, 08 are freephone or fixed price services, and 09 are premium services. 03 and 05 are in use but less common, 04 and 06 are unused.

True, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a 2 + 4 (e.g. 12 3456) style six digit number in the UK. 01234 567890 is probably what I’d expect; maybe 01234 567 890.

Better by some measure - LEGO is probably optimizing for different metrics:

- Number of distinct pieces (fewer is better),

- Complexity of build-process,

- Robustness,

The trouble for me comes where you want A, I also want A, but I claim to want A*, so that I can ‘compromise’ with you to agree A and another policy I want, B.

I have contemplated whether every law should be explicitly time limited. There are some theoretical arguments for it - all uncontroversial laws (e.g. no murdering) should be renewed, and other laws can be re—evaluated (e.g. a number of US states enacted laws in the 90s preventing under—18s having pagers, which are at best irrelevant today, ignoring all other facts)

The trouble is that perhaps our societies are now so polarised we’d never be able to agree to pass uncontroversial legislation without partisan horse trading.

You definitely are not wrong, but remote work can also help the kind of individuals highlighted indirectly.

Perhaps a simple example is through remote work meaning fewer commuters, and so less traffic, less crowded trains, etc.

But also consider that schools and hospitals need to be near centers of population - if people are moving out of cities into smaller towns, then, over time, schools in those towns will need to grow, and those in the cities shrink, thus (one would hope) allowing teachers and hospital workers more affordable accomodation, close to their work too.

But, on the other hand, roles for janitors and restaurant workers may be reduced (if people are WFH and not needing office cleaning, and going out for lunch).

This feels like a weird thing to optimise in most cases - how large are these localisations that deleting them is a benefit?

Interesting, since such plausible mishearing are often called ‘Eggcorns’ (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn)

But only about 20% of the arsenic.

If you want to significantly reduce the arsenic, it is apparently better to cook rice like pasta in a large amount of water, and then drain it (in a sieve / strainer)

"Access rights do not extend to the land surrounding a house or other dwelling (e.g. a static caravan) to the extent needed to provide residents with a reasonable measures of privacy. This is usually defined as the garden around or adjacent to the house that is intensively managed for the enjoyment of residents. " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code

The article goes on to give examples where this has been legally determined to be a significant area - over 5 hectares (12 acres) around a property ... for people like me who don't fully understand areas in this context, that would be a square of 220m (720 feet) to a side.

You are allowed to fence this area off, or take other security measures.

And ultimately - its not hugely different to the current situation. If I intend to commit a crime against you, is adding a trespass going to dissuade me?

> Also, what are they allowed to do?

If the law in England were to be similar to the one in Scotland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Outdoor_Access_Code), then "access rights can be exercised for recreational purposes, some educational activities and certain commercial purposes, and for crossing over land and water."

"Access rights do not extend to motorised activities... Access rights do not include the right to hunt, shoot or fish... Gathering items such as mushrooms or berries for commercial gain is not covered by access rights; but the customary picking of wild fungi and berries for personal consumption is not prohibited under the code."

"Wild camping, defined as lightweight camping by small numbers of people staying no more than two or three nights in any one place, is permitted under the code. ... The code requires that campers leave no trace, and must take away all litter, remove all traces of the tent pitch and of any open fire, and not cause any pollution"

So, homeless encampments are not permitted since these would not fall under this code.

Three Blue, One Brown has a decent video which perhaps helps get a handle on how one can use higher-dimensional spaces, without needing to wrap you head around trying to envision a four-dimensional cube, or similar.

https://youtu.be/zwAD6dRSVyI?si=QC1s1JcMopGWEkUR

I think the situation for actual PIN codes may be slightly better than suggested; sometimes (in the UK at least) your bank will assign you an initial PIN and I expect many people won’t change it, and by using a dump of passwords, you’ve probably captured some people who have created throwaway accounts and chosen the easiest possible password.

> F is a much better unit than C for everyday use.

People say this, and it confuses me.

Basically the only difference between the two is the absolute numbers and the resolution.

Regarding resolution, for me the difference between, say 22 C and 23 C isn’t consistently noticeable - it depends on what I’m wearing, my recent activity level, humidity, etc. having a finer resolution - i.e. between 72 and 73 F isn’t that useful. That is to say, I’d change my plans if it were say 8 C outside instead of 18 C, but I wouldn’t if it were 17 instead of 18.

Regarding absolute numbers - sure with Fahrenheit you don’t need to use negative numbers as much, but apparently you still need to across much of the US, and dealing with negative numbers is… fine? Having generally smaller numbers (i.e. most of Earth has natural temperatures of - 40 to +40) is probably better? And having that obvious distinction of when water freezes makes some sense maybe?

I honestly don’t thing either is particularly better for everyday use, it’s just that a lot of people are habituated to one or the other.

Gardening isn't for everyone. You are completely allowed to have your own opinions ! Although perhaps we have a gap in our language here, since you seem to be against growing vegetables/herbs exclusively rather than what I'd call gardening which includes growing all plants, flowers, etc. Having a 'nice' looking garden (or at least one where you can sit comfortably) is the outcome of that sort of gardening.

There are very few vegetables where growing them makes yourself much sense (economically). There are a few where you can 'fire and forget' basically, but even then it's a up-to few hours preparing the soil. In my climate zone, mint would be one - it's basically a weed, so it will grow and spread by itself.

Also - you can't get Basil in store where you are? In the UK and Germany it's available either as fresh leaves, or as small plants costing about probably $1-2 each.

Is this basically a restatement of the old cliche that only 50% of advertising works, but it's almost impossible to know which 50%.

He says "The company has spent billions and billions of dollars per year on projects that go nowhere for over a decade" - are these just the missed bets - the projects which if they had succeeded would have added billions and billions to the bottom line, but for any of a number of reasons, failed.

I think at some point in the early I had an extension (not sure if that is the right terminology) which would randomly change the name of Firefox to [random adjective] [random animal].

Not so far as I know, but mandatory tipping (i.e. adding a service charge to a bill) is illegal in many countries, and it wouldn't surprise me if having a tip screen on a payment terminal were against local regulations.

I wonder how humans would respond to a prompt '(without mechanical assistance) with 80% probability say Left, and with 20% say Right' across a population.

I can think of a few levels that people might try to think about the problem: Level 0: Ignore the probabilities and just pick whichever you feel like, (would tend to 50:50) Level 1: Say the most with the greatest probability - Left (would tend to 100:0) Level 2: Consider that most people are likely to say Left, so say Right instead (would tend to 0:100) Level 3: Try to think about what proportion of people would say Left, and what would say Right, and say whichever would return the balance closest to 80:20...

Presumably your result would depend on how many people thinking on each level you have in your sample...

One minor problem is that the paper ticket is anytime, but the contactless fare had peak/off-peak fares…

So if you buy a paper ticket at 0925, you’ll pay 6.70 GBP. If you touch in and travel immediately you’ll pay 3.40 GBP (peak fare), but if you stop for a coffee first and the time ticks over past 0930 before you touch in, you’ll get the off-peak 2.80 GBP fare.

(I think there is actually a little grace time, and it may be when you complete the journey which matters, but the principle holds).

Although the headline isn't great, the article does do what I've been taught to do by the BBC's More-or-Less programme, and ask 'is this a big number'.

It's very easy to not comprehend big figures, so there are a few techniques to make them relatable - bring it down to the cost of an individual and/or per year, and to compare to other costs.

Here they have chosen to compare it to the existing cost of the grid, and the existing maintenance and operation costs, but which seems like a good comparison (if you haven't read the article, it's about one third of the cost of the existing grid, or about three times the annual operation/maintenance costs)

An alternative would be to say it's a cost of about 500 USD per Californian, or about 50 USD/year which isn't nothing, but doesn't feel like an outrageous figure.

The user could be from a country where paying to receive phone-calls is unknown. From some brief Wikipedia research, this is only a common model in the USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiving_party_pays)

I was interested to learn that the 10.000 largest settlements in the world gets you get down to 48.000 population. I’m still trying to work out if that is a surprising figure or not.

Isn't the whole point about size of market to encourage openness and competition?

If I'm a five person start-up, compliance with rules can act as a barrier to entry, and keep a market to only established players. If certain rules only kick in when I am established enough to be able to comply, then that's encouraging smaller entities at the expense of larger.

Saying one should encourage open protocols and privacy is all well and good, but how can one do that, and more importantly, how can one enforce it when abusive companies purposefully act contrary to that.