dsomers

Counterpoint, I was once asked to take off my shoes in Germany. I can’t remember if it was Frankfurt or Munich — probably Frankfurt. That was just because I was randomly selected for more screening. All of the other times flying through those airports shoes were left on :-)

I feel for you. My grandparents were apart of the Italian diaspora too, but they ended up in Canada. I often thought how difficult it would be if I had to choose because both countries are close to my heart. I’ve seen a number of American friends that are also duel citizens have to deal with the stress and unfairness that you have. I just feel really lucky and privileged that I don’t have to be in the position to choose even though I no longer live in Canada or Italy.

How does Europe have it worse when the debt to GDP ratio of the combined Eurozone federal governments for example is lower than the US fed? Further, most eurozone countries, like Italy don’t have sub national debt(its regions and cities can’t legally have debt), where as states like California are massively in debt, but that sub national debt in the US is never calculated in debt ratios. Further, the last time I checked, debt held by private households in the US is also much higher on average.

I’m really shocked at how causally some HN commenter will discount the very real problem of online child pornography. It honestly disgusts me how people will hardly acknowledge it’s a real problem.

I disagree, the rate of vegetarianism has been increasing over the years and the rate of people demanding more ethical meat products e.g. free range eggs and chicken becoming more popular too. This is the free market catering to demand that was almost non existent 30 years ago.

Haha I’ve had this happen multiple time too. They try to convince you that they’re on you side, because if you make more they make more. But really, most of them would rather you take a lower offer than risk the deal not going through at all.

Sure, there are still plenty of places you can drive in Leiden. I guess the point I’m trying to make is small cities in North America favour car transportation to an extreme. It is to the point where it’s physically dangerous to walk to some places because their aren’t even sidewalks and traffic travels much faster inside the cities than you’d ever see in the Netherlands.

Compared to small cities in North America, Leiden infrastructure is amazing — as is a lot of Dutch towns. It not that you have to completely block off all roads either. It’s just that everywhere there are roads for cars, there’s also equal space for bike and pedestrians and public transit is invested in much more. If you want to see a video series that compares the two look up the YouTube channel notjustbikes

I’m not talking about Berlin or Paris. I’m taking about small European cities I’m familiar with that have vibrant walkable downtowns. Off the top of my head, Leiden Netherlands, Haarlem Netherlands, Peacara Italy, or Zug Switzerland.

I agree it’s improving from the 90s, but when I go back to the Midwest from Western Europe, the difference is dramatic simply in the number of people downtown in public spaces for cites with the same population.

Not true. Go to Leiden Netherlands and see how economically vibrant a small city can become if it incentives efficient land use and limits traffic in city centre in favour of pedestrian paths an public transit.

Lol, have you been to the Midwest? In small and medium sized cites there downtowns are often dead, including the small city I grew up in. All of them easily accessible by car. Dead city centres in North America more have to do with the post war experiment of subsidizing inefficient sprawling car dependent suburbs. If you want to actually understand this read more from the advocacy group Strong Towns[0] they also have a great YouTube channel. Now compare small Midwest cities to small cities in the Netherlands like Leiden or Haarlem and you’ll see limiting traffic from downtowns has little to do with how well they do economically.

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/

But won’t this make the fish sad?!

All the more reason to not use these companies for anything that’s even moderately important.

The choice for the prisoners is making $4.50 a day or sitting in their cell doing nothing to improve their life. Don’t act like this isn’t still exploitive to the point of it obviously being a false sense of choice —- especially with the BS that America will lock people up for. If a 14 year old kid in Alabama gets caught with a joint isn’t it convenient that the corporations in the state suddenly have access to a fresh new indentured servant — quite a nice replacement for slavery you guys have worked out for yourselves. If you want to see how civilized countries rehabilitate people see how prisons in Norway are run.

A bit of a tangent, but I think some people often criticize GDPR because it doesn’t have perfect enforcement, or some people are annoyed by the cookie banners.

However, a positive aspect I don’t hear talked about enough is how it has had a chilling effect (in the most positive pro consumer way possible) I’ve noticed in my industry people are just much more careful about user data now, compared to it hardly being talked about before GDPR. Just the threat of those fines has scared C levels enough to put at least some engineering resources on privacy and security where there was much less before from my experience.

I think they’re doing fine regardless.

Who benefits from this are UK banks and ultra wealthy that don’t want to follow incoming EU regulations on money laundering and tax avoidance that were a reaction the The Panama Papers leak.

Honestly these are such lame points that I hear again and again. I lived in Toronto, bad bike infrastructure, and now live in Amsterdam with great infrastructure. People here with limited mobility use electric wheelchairs in the bike lanes and therefore have more and cheaper and safer mobility options than in Toronto. A person in an electric mobility scoter can safely go from the city centre to the airport on the edge of the city. They also have the option to take a cab or a car of course, cars are still an option but they are not priorities over bikes here — you’re also totally ignoring that it’s dangerous for some disabled people to even use cars — but mobility scooters can be a safer option. Deliveries come in the morning on trucks, but that’s less necessary with more electric cargo bike being used every day.

Cars suck.

I suppose you don’t read anything about population demographics in Canada. If you did you’d realize we have a very low birth rate. Without immigration Ontario and Canada will fail, like Italy and Japan we’ll be stuck in economic stagnation and ever increasing debt load, until we can’t pay for basic social services or people are forced to work 80 hour weeks to get by.

When did your family come to Canada? Why do you think you should be the abetter of when it’s full? It’s been growing for 200 years and and at any point people could point to a Canadian city and say it’s full because that’s completely subjective in a country that could easily fit the world’s population.

You’re also completely missing the mark on what I’m saying a increasing density. I’m not talking about shoving people in tiny condos, I’m saying the housing that’s zoned for single detached houses should be zoned to be five story walk ups with beautiful courtyards like London, Paris, or the city I live in now, Amsterdam. These aren’t small condos, they’re large flats that families can live in, it’s not uncommon for families to have multiple floors. You know what people and kids do that don’t have back yards, they walk to a local park and interact with their community, and it make a much healthier and social community. Compared to most European capitals Toronto is a bland shithole, keep your ugly McMansion, keep your ugly car depended suburbs, keep your obesity, and bad food, keep your lame two weeks of vacation where you come to visit European cities you refuse to learn lessons from. Honestly get fucked, I’m over it, people like you are so ignorant it makes me never want to come back to Canada. There, are you happy, Toronto minus one person.

And your still wrong. Too much of Toronto is zoned for single family homes which is the main driver of lack of affordable housing. When you walk around midtown Berlin you don’t see any single detached houses with big front yards. What you see are mid rise apartment blocks that the city of Toronto literally makes illegal to build in large parts of the city. Then you have the federal government that has totally failed to pump the brakes on lending. This is 100% above bad planning by Canadians, stop blaming immigration it’s a lame cop out when the city only has a population density of about 4500 per sq km which is quite a bit on the low side for a major city. Look in the mirror.

It is hurting families because mostly only small 1 bedroom apartments get built which are more attractive to Airbnb investors. However zoning is probably the biggest problem, yes. Far too much of the city is zoned for single family housing.

Don’t listen to this guy. I’m Canadian and lived in Toronto for eight years. Toronto housing is expensive because of lax lending, bad zoning, and bad regulations. That’s it, Canadians are to blame for this. For an example Berlin is a similar physical size and population as Toronto, and has similar rate of high immigration, but has a lower cost of living relative to salaries. This is guy may not be racist, but he’s doing the classic lazy thing of blaming newcomers when its really the locals that did this to themselves.

There’s not a lot of evidence that it’s not the locals creating a bubble because of speculation and lax lending. If you don’t believe me look up how nicely private mortgage debt in Canada correlates with the growth in housing prices in Canadian cities. Canadians hold one of the highest rates of personal debt in the OECD.

Condos built in Toronto are mostly terrible for anyone that’s not single. They’re basically Airbnb speculation boxes in the sky. The city suffers badly from “the missing middle“ problem because of bad zoning. It’s a big part of why I moved away after living there 8 years.

Are you from the North? I know in Southern Italy red peppers are popular on some dishes. E.G. Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

I’m not a vegetarian, but I eat a lot less meat now than two years ago primarily because of climate change, but also because it now feels easy because I’ve found meat alternatives like this that I enjoy the taste of.

Is that because soy has been engineered that way and mung beans have not? I pose the question because I remember my grand uncle who has been a soy farmer his whole life telling me that when they switched to Monsanto seeds they got some huge multiple of crop yield, 3x? 4x? I can’t remember the exact multiple I just remember it seeming like a lot.

He did, he claimed a Bitcoin transaction takes half a million times more energy then a credit card transaction. 621 kwh

I applaud you for speaking rationally in the face of Bitcoin hysteria, but in my experience it has turned into a religion, and no amount of rational argument will sway these people.

Because this ‘currency’ is volatile like a small cap stock. This is the thing I always get a runaround about from Bitcoin advocates. Some say it’s a great currency, some say it’s a great investment. Well, by definition if it’s good at one thing, it’s bad a the other. Investments should provide good long term appreciation, and currency should be stable ideally not fluctuating in the double digit percentages in a given year. Bitcoin, you’re a fun experiment, but what’s the point of your existence?