There’s a movement in Spain and people put stickers in their shop windows that say, “You can use my phone” so kids can call home without the need to carry their own phone.

This is world news. Which world capital are you talking about?

Check out the map men video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtBV3GgQLg8

Trains are designed to operate for 30 or more years so the turnover is slower than cars, which have an average age of 12 in USA.

12 foot ladder- https://archive.ph/iZqnd

12 foot ladder- https://archive.ph/XRppG

A somewhat shallow look at China’s HSR network that nevertheless provides some insights into how new lines are transforming some regions.

I don’t understand why western media is so reluctant to acknowledge the broader social, economic and political benefits these lines are intended to provide. Failing to consider such questions means they will never understand China.

I read an article about China’s HSR that stated that a line with a top speed of 350km/h was 90% more expensive to build than a line built for 250km/h. The trains don’t spend much time at top speed during short journeys either. https://www.economist.com/china/2017/01/13/china-has-built-the-worlds-largest-bullet-train-network

A cubic meter of air weighs 1kg according to a Big, Bigger, Biggest episode about France’s TGV. Japan’s new Maglev is significantly smaller than the Shinkansen and the tunnels it runs through are 20% bigger since standard HSR already has problems with tunnel boom that can be mitigated at the tunnel entrance and exit. I also wonder how trains traveling in opposite directions will handle passing each other at 1000km/h given China is already working on next gen trains with that speed as a goal.

Doubling the speed turns a 4 hour journey into a 2 hour journey saving you 2 hours. Double speed again and it drops to 1 hour so you only save 1 hour, double again and you save 30 minutes. So the time saving is cut in half each time.

Concorde only flew 2 routes; NYC to London and NYC to Paris so in exchange for training pilots and engineers and securing supply chains for the aircraft you got a tiny return on investment. BA also kept a spare aircraft permanently parked in New York that could step in if there were any problems with the primary craft, another significant expense.

Installing lie flat beds and suites in standard jumbo jets provided similar profits with way fewer headaches.

I feel that even if someone succeeds with Maglev it will at best be the Concorde of the railways due to the higher costs and inconvenience of using a niche technology with a limited supply chain and limited number of engineers available to build and maintain lines. Proprietary tech also limits your ability to shop around or negotiate better prices. Remember that Concode was profitable but was retired because it was uneconomical.

I also wanted to draw attention to the diminishing returns higher speeds deliver: 100km/h train = 4 hour journey 200km/h train = 2 hours 300km/h train = 1 hour 20 mins 400km/h train = 1 hour 500km/h train = 48 mins 600km/h train = 40 mins

This ignores acceleration and breaking times and the faster your train the sooner it has to start decelerating in order to avoid overshooting it’s destination. One overlooked time saving that HSR delivers is that the need to build straight tracks and skip stops to maintain speed means a more direct route to your destination delivered at the expense of the places in between. High speed service is actually a downgrade for many communities as the trains no longer serve local stations.

While in the past, parents who had a girl first were more likely to keep trying to have children in an effort to have a boy, the opposite is now true — couples who have a girl first are less likely to keep trying.

This line suggests that parents place less value on boys and it’s possible this will lead to them failing to vaccinate them or delaying seeking medical advice when they’re sick. I haven’t looked into it beyond that.

Shouldn’t the author of this piece be concerned that boys will be aborted and neglected in favour of girls? It’s interesting that the thought didn’t occur to him or her. They already found evidence of this by mentioning the higher number of couples who try again after having a boy rather than a girl. It’s not a huge leap to think they might not want to continue the pregnancy if it’s another boy.

I was expecting a much stronger argument based on the headline.

Personally I’d prefer regulation on how social media is structured and how algorithms operate. First thing I’d do is ban infinite scroll, which corporations like because it increases ‘engagement’ whilst harming the quality of the experience for their users.

They only want to ban social media and even then only the big ones with an exception for youtube.

These AI models require huge amounts of electricity. If governments wanted to they could destroy their ability to operate, like when China banned bitcoin mining.

They use spare hydro power during the off season so the net impact on the environment is negligible.

It’s shameful that we can’t think of something better to do with all that electricity. Data centers, supercomputers even LLMs would create something of social value.

Some are some aren’t. This crackdown kicked off after a Chinese celebrity was kidnapped by one of these gangs after being lured to Bangkok with an offer of an acting gig. The fact that multiple compounds were raided but not a single gangster was arrested stinks. The fact that it’s assumed all the workers are victims with hearts as pure as snow is bullshit. The AP isn’t even covering half the story in this article.

The Thais are making a big show of shutting down a couple of compounds in the hopes that the Chinese tourists will come back and forgive them for turning a blind eye for so long but they can’t even be bothered to identify or investigate the people who run them.

Many of them knowingly and willingly signed up to work as scammers and deserve to be sent to prison before they are sent home. I have little sympathy for them.