wozniacki's comments

This.

This needs to be repeated early and repeated often no matter what non-abnormal ideology you subscribe to. In as many words.

If you consider yourself a kind, decent & some what enlightened person and you do not procreate, in all likelihood the unkind or less kind people will do the procreating on your behalf. Mind you I did not even use the word tolerant which implies some measure of altruism; I'm merely saying kind & decent.

I do not know why people much older than us do not repeat this mantra more often.

I do not understand what could belie such intransigence.

What is so offensive about saying that line?

Say it early say it often.

  2) Greatly restricting smaller 
  foreign acts (especially from   
  the US) from performing in
  Canada for commercial purposes

  Yes, point #2 also applies to
  the US, but it's not enforced.
  But if you cross into Canada
  with musical instruments,
  they'll put the fear of God into
  you. 

This almost never has the intended effect of producing world class homegrown musical or cinema acts. Like almost a 100% failure rate especially when theres a shared language.

Lots of countries have this quota system where they try to artificially force feed homegrown music, tv shows and movies and it never works.

People always gravitate to the larger American sphere because it doesnt have such restrictions in place. They dont work anyway.

When I first saw Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah (2008) it was so fresh and un-Hollywood like in the presentation of the raw violence and vice, that it stunned me. I still cant stand most PG-fied and Disney-fied American films.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomorrah_(film)

Gomorra (2008) Official HD Trailer [1080p]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezYyxBZ7Ee0

Is there a compounding pharmacy aggregator online youve found trustworthy?

  another website which is a gif database of awesome shots from movies etc.
  It's like a reference database of camera work.

Is it https://eyecannndy.com/ ? Or a different one ?

Such a neat little tool! I shall use it and share it. Clever idea using the map to simultaneously display words. Small feature but hugely piques the interest of the user.

Yeah I'm sure handshake politics goes a long way in these neighborhoods often to the detriment of the unsuspecting, unconnected and un-special-interest-group attached renters and owners.

[1]

Protesters Gather at Google Lawyer’s Apartments

https://missionlocal.org/2014/04/protesters-gather-at-google...

I was waiting for someone to sneak in a anti-car angle into this and presto what have you ! Haha

While we are on the subject, does anyone know of a super high quality repeatedly microwave-able line of LIGHT and sturdy storageware?

I was waiting the whole time I read this to find a /s somewhere. Anywhere. Yikes.

I'm dismayed that no one so far has brought up a point that's begging to be made in these sorts of things.

While the point of the article has _some_ merit, there's also another equally valid contrary argument to be made.

Just because a book - however storied & fabled - exists out there, does not mean that you should strive to find some meaning, import or significant cogitable thought when one is not clearly and immediately present.

There's a whole industry of writers that exist to exclusively furnish meaning to the lofty thoughts of some distinguished authors, that that was simply never meant or not present in the authors own words. Sometimes the authors themselves invite and regale in this kind of festive chicanery. Sometimes not. But this sort of thing - far more than useful or warranted - does exist.

In other words some works of writing often fiction but not necessarily are just elaborate exercises in getting away with balderdash.

It pays to remember the enterprise of getting published in the past has not always been equitable as is the case today.

A virtual nobody off the street couldn't expect to even get his manuscript read by a publishing house, much less get published even for a limited run. So if you were already reputed or privileged or had the blessings of a wealthy house of patrons who bankrolled your previous works, you were more widely published and translated.

In other words far too many mediocre works of the past still get top billing, than they rightly deserve largely because no one called out their bullshit.

Yes, sometimes if you don't understand the author that is because the author never had the intentions of being understood in the first place or did not have much to say of value or import, however fleeting or ethereal or unyielding to lucid language, the authors thoughts were.

HN should buck this trend and not join in adulation.

This is absolutely fabulous - the simplicity of it and the opportunity it gives to novices like me, who are too often nonplussed by the Abletons and the Novations.

Great job resisting the urge to add bells and whistles !

You mean even the part where people get stuffed into already packed trains? [1] I get it. Japanese trains are some of the best anywhere but lets not make them into some downside-free experience, not including the amount of walking thats involved trying to get into and out of the maze of levels at some of the stations, dodging salarymen and other straphangers.[2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSuU3GOKWAY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCqBlwJy4M8

Please elaborate on the likelihood that China (if not Russia) has shown the willingness to go all out and wage a nuclear war, whether or not Chinas hand is forced by Russia.

The Chinese despite appearances and false bravado have never really demonstrated their resolve to indiscriminately kill millions of foreigners ( say Americans and Brits for example )- now have they?

Don't war strategists have a pulse for these things? Some experts in the past decade have said the reason we deal with President Xi despite setbacks is because whoever will replace Xi is bound to be more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Xi.

Is this true? Could you elaborate on this?

Not in the least bit.

Far too many of these supposed greats works of literature get an easy pass from uncritical also-rans of the world, who just want to move on in the name of different-strokes-for-different-folks without ever calling out the bs for what it really is. I'm not saying there aren't valid detractors of these works - there are - but far too often they're drowned out.

Far too many of these works hide behind the crutch of 'fiction' to spew utter hogwash without making an ounce of sense to the regular, impartial and non-dyed-in reader.

Far too many of these books - when coupled with a lackadaisical populace in general who are more concerned about seeming non-fussy - get that stellar mythical hallowed status and lore.

I'm not saying that there are not enough people who genuinely get entranced with these works (although if you run that through a fine comb your results may vary) - its that the gatekeepers of education seem to be entirely made up of these uncritical clowns who will nod away in affirmation, decade after decade in cementing the undeserved status of these works.

> no one writes more beautifully

Whats this obsession with beauty in language among some English-first speakers? Aren't meaning, insight and import of more consequence than beauty? Every single time I hear someone wax poetic about beauty and elegance in things it immediately sets off my bs meter. If you haven't got much of anything substantive to say, you use flowery artifices to mask it.

Also non-English-first speakers, do you see this to be a very English-thing or is this sort of fixation if not fetish with beauty in language and other things present in your current day language too?

This is one of those things that smacks of HN people thinking the world operates to their whims and fancies.

Go over to Amsterdam and see how little bicycling actually gets done outside of the core that HN loves to throw up as this cycling utopia.

Real people have real world needs. Bicycling meets very few of those. Especially in places that have barely four months of precipitation-free bicycling weather. Please stop thinking the world is like the urban cores of a handful of cities.

Whether we like it or not some facts:

a) Biking as exists in the U.S. / Canada is a leisure-class demographic activity and not a "bread-and-butter" earning activity. If you did a survey of bicyclists you'd find they are of a certain tax bracket nowhere remotely close to low-income. Study after study shows they skew high income earners / well educated.

b) The average non-wealthy American wants thinks his tax money is going to keeping the road infrastructure in good repair.

c) Outside of well-heeled zip codes we are not going to see bike lane infrastructure be given priority over such more pressing concerns.

d) We could all have great things if we were not warring all the time to get small things passed, much less a luxury ( in the scheme of things ) like bike lane infrastructure.

I'm not even talking about the opposition from businesses here.[1]

[1]

S.F.

Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read, “This Bike Lane Is Killing Small Businesses and Our Vibrant Community,” with a QR code for the San Francisco Small Business Coalition. |

https://content.sfstandard.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/in...

San Francisco Valencia Street Bike Lanes Bad for Business?

https://sfstandard.com/2023/12/08/san-francisco-small-busine...

Cambridge, Mass

‘It's a Disaster': Cambridge Store Owners Say Bike Lanes Are Bad for Business

https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/its-a-disaster-cambridg...

    Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes 
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357663
    Oct 2015 (20 comments)

The link contained therein (to the NatGeo article) has long been vacated & redirects to NatGeo's homepage. Here's the correct link:

Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151006-en...

Isnt it also true that no democratically elected or coup-installed Prime Minister in Pakistan's history has ever successfully completed a single full term in office, ever since their independence[1]?

And if that is true, isn't Pakistan a glorified tin-pot republic, thats democracy only on paper & manages to stay alive at the mercy of the propping-up prowess of U.S. and U.K., to act as a lily pad[2] of sorts in the region?

[1]

Every time the gov’t topples (no Pakistani Prime Minister has completed 5 years in office), corruption/looting reaches even higher levels… …to replenish and grow the bounty that was paid to buy out votes in elections and in the parliament. Sad, but v familiar to Pakistanis. 12:08 PM · Apr 9, 2022

https://twitter.com/bznotes/status/1512870199338287106

[2] Cooperative security location

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_security_location

Also for a country thats so technologically advanced, Japan loves paperwork. They have reams of paperwork that you are expected to furnish for something as simple as registering an office move from a building in one part of town to another building in another. Its mindboggling just how entrenched bureaucracies get if you give them an inch of room to play.