I also live somewhere that isn’t car-dependent (the Netherlands)
While I would like to see fewer and smaller cars, I don’t particularly mind the current state of things over here.
I also live somewhere that isn’t car-dependent (the Netherlands)
While I would like to see fewer and smaller cars, I don’t particularly mind the current state of things over here.
Sadly it’s tricky to separate the two.
Say if hypothethically we have a data center that is not connected to the grid, and is entirely running on solar power and battery storage.
If the grid still generates (part of) its electricity need using fossil fuels, those same solar panels and batteries could instead have been used to (further) decarbonize the grid.
While using solar power is good, increasing the overall unnecessary electricity consumption is still not great.
To me the idea of “fuck cars” is not so much about cars as a concept, but rather the scurge of car dependency.
You don’t want a society built around cars to the point that you cannot reasonably live your life without one.
That said, even in a perfect situation with ample public transit and walkable/cyclable cities everywhere, there will still be people in situations who need a car to get around. And for those people I’d prefer it if they would be driving around in compacts like this or smaller, rather than some of the cross-overs, SUVs and pickups you see today.
Some people will always need a car, and practical compacts like this would be perfect for that role.
The German state doesn’t recognise Palestine as a state currently, so probably not.
Only a few countries west of the former Iron Curtain recognise Palestine (Iceland and Sweden, and as of this year Norway, Ireland, and Spain)
I guess it wasn’t explicitly stated anywhere that the two systems were supposed to be different from each other. /s
Sometimes people do need a car, and if they do I would prefer it to be a small little thing like this rather than something larger.
These kinds of car are quite popular in Amsterdam, for instance
Guess I’ll be contacting my MEPs, and looking into which MEPs support and oppose this plan.
Though I am glad to see my country at least has stated it finds the proposal unacceptable.
What the hell man… The guy is just sharing his view on what OP asked…
Just because you disagree with the guy doesn’t mean you need to wish cancer upon him.
Have some decency for crying out loud.
Isn’t blackcurrant illegal in the US? I remember hearing that somewhere anyway.
Such a shame, cassis (blackcurrant soda) makes for such a tasty drink.
According to Cornald Maas (the Dutch commentator for the Eurovision) the “threatening motion”, as far as he is aware, was Joost pushing down the camera/phone, after asking not to be filmed.
A mix of Spotify (I have a premium account there), and my own collection of CDs which I have ripped and can access via Jellyfin for higher audio quality.
You don’t have to stay in a hotel in the city of Amsterdam to visit Amsterdam.
The Netherlands is a small and densely populated country, so you can simply stay a town or city over and the city proper is only a short train or tram ride away.
Last year my boyfriend and I visited the city with some friends coming over from America. We stayed in a rental in Amstelveen, and our friends stayed in a hotel in Zaandam.
AirBnB is already severly restricted in several parts of Amsterdam (though a court ruling last year did overturn those restrictions in some neighbourhoods)
I think you are missing the point why people take issue with overtourism.
Amsterdam isn’t a themepark, it’s a city where people actually live, grew up, have lives. And overtourism tends to hollow out what makes the city authentic. The houses get converted to AirBnB’s and hotels, the regular shops, pubs and restaurants can’t find regular customers anymore so start catering to tourists instead, etc. This results in a sort of Disneylandification of your city. It’s generally a nuisance to the inhabitants of a city.
Ultimately a city is for the people who live there, not the people who visit.
Tourism can be good for the local economy, but there is only so much people are willing to put up with.
Edit: Also, old hotels are allowed to be renovated, as long as the number of sleeping places in the city doesn’t increase
A new hotel in Amsterdam can only be built if another hotel closes, if the number of sleeping places doesn’t increase, and if the new hotel will be better, for example more sustainable.
Amsterdam has had an issue with overtourism long before NJB was making videos.
They’d probably not do much, but we don’t know that for sure. It could also pull NATO into a direct conflict with Russia.
And noone is particularly keen on finding out where exactly the border lies for retaliation by Russia.
So best we can do right now is provide Ukraine with the military support they need, without getting directly involved in the conflict ourselves.
Signing your rights away should never be possible, even if you get something in return. Allowing that is just making the system ripe for abuse.
At what point would you say you’ve met the threshold of something being valuable enough for forced arbitration to be allowable?
Personally I don’t think forced arbitration should exist for any law. It’s a way for large corporations to avoid legal responsibility.
I always find it odd how easy it seems to be to just sign your rights away in the US.
Monorails are usually not the most practical solution. In most places where you can build a monorail, a regular train is usually simpler and cheaper to build. Wuppertal has some very specific geography which causes a monorail following the path of the river Wupper to make sense, but that often doesn’t translate well to other places.
Tom Scott made a video about it at some point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4KZLcvMQWg
And a video on the Schwebebahn by The Tim Traveller:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IFh6wFTJiQ
That is assuming that those data centers are necessary. If the data center is doing something that is not really needed then it is in effect wasting power that could have been used for other purposes. (e.g. using surplus power to make steel or aluminium for instance)
While I do think that AI-tools can be increadibly useful, the current hype surrounding it very much looks like a bubble akin to the DotCom bubble to me. Companies left and right are jumping on the AI bandwagon for the sake of using the buzzword “AI” in their marketing speech.
I don’t consider that kind of use of datacenters to be necessary.