The Netherlands has Tikkie, same thing. And my bank has instantaneous transfers all across the EU… I’ll never change bank
The Netherlands has Tikkie, same thing. And my bank has instantaneous transfers all across the EU… I’ll never change bank
As others have pointed out, it’s also a way to replace the soul of the city with something more economically interesting: clean apartments.
Amsterdam has a problem with gentrification on one side and “cheap” tourism on the other. This move seems to want to solve the later by amplifying the former…
It’s a bit confusing: the big number is not the index but the world wide ranking if the country. It’s made extra confusing because a big index is good, but a bug ranking is not…
For hard sci-fi I agree, but for soft one the difference becomes more and more tenuous.
As far as “best” go, I’m non plussed. Some of these I really liked, some… not so much.
Personal positive votes:
Perdido Street Station - absolutely loved it, great social commentary undertones while the story goes its own way in an incredibly vivid world
Fifth Season - great first book of a good series, good writing and good tension points
Saga - great art to match a great retelling of Romeo and Juliet in space, where all tropes are out the window
Personal “good but not great”: All Systems Red - fun light read, nothing more
Personal negative votes:
The Name of the Wind - it’s the archetypal fantasy story, with a lot of world building and little else, a Marie Sue as a main character and a love story with many many problems. I guess it’s there because it’s famous thus essential?
The Three Boby Problem - the writing is dry, the math is wrong, I can’t stand this book
American Goods - talking about dry writing style. And keeping the reader in the dark about completely arbitrary world rules. I did not enjoy it, often it feels Neil Gaiman writes to show you how much smarter he is than you. I will admit that Gaiman has been extremely influential, so I support it being on the list
Mistborn - page turner with little else to its name. The characters drop their life long ideals so easily to facilitate the plot, they are hardly believable
The other books in the list I haven’t read nor were on my reading list, most I hadn’t heard about before.
I loved its depiction of a complete world, where elements are introduced only for the flavor. It made it feel so lively, while destructuring the usual “Chekov’s gun” expectation. Most of the side stories also tie back into the immigration/discrimination theme that runs through the book.
I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
Good to know, next time ill go there for a party!
I saw some kids having themed Halloween parties, and in some small towns kids going door to door, but it’s very local, most places would not have that.
Where are you located?
I never noticed that I also thought of “her”. I read the book a while ago, so I don’t remember your reference, but I remember finding it refreshing to find a robot that was “obviously female” instead of undefined therefore male.
My comment might have had quite some negative reactions, but the discussions were good. And I got the wrath of feddit, as expected!
I can’t get over Germany closing its existing nuclear power plants. The costly job of construction was done! But Fukushima panic struck and they never stepped down from that decision. And now they are all shocked pikachu face that they can’t make the climate goals…
Same here: very far from top result, and links to this same article.
Ideally, yes. Practically, nature needs a lot of space to be able to act freely. Protecting only asking a River might not give nature enough margin of maneuver, so we might need to still take some actions.
A lot depends on your mindset. In particular nowadays, we are constantly focused on the future. Everything is seen as a stepping stone towards something else. So naturally, happiness becomes a faraway goal: “I’ll be happy when that happens”, but as son as that is reached, a new goal appears. To be happy, you need to live in the present. Accept the limitations of it, and thrive on the rest. Not every situation allows for happiness, but most allow for at least some happiness.
I also think that humans are social animals, so happiness should be found in the connections we have with others, friends, blood family and chosen family.
Sure, but that’s not what consumerism has been preaching, and not how elections are won. If you are interested in an ethical discussion, I fully agree with you. If you are interested in discussing how the world runs, you and I are outliers.
Between many other things: EU needs more immigration. But doing so the right way doesn’t feed the populist agenda, so we do it the most inhumane way we can manage, exploiting the immigrants without integrating them, expecting them to contribute for 5-10 years and then “go back to their country”.
How could we ever accept inconvenience or less billion-rich billionaires!
We know migrants are coming, why is it always an emergency every year?
The pacts with north African countries have been historically ethically disgusting and practically not very useful, why do we keep drafting them?
So infuriating!
Then Salvini wanting no EU, unless it benefits him… such a beacon of morality /s
Same here!