clara

n = 40, this is junk. they couldn’t even get 100 people for this?

these were all sampled from 1 company in amsterdam. the differences could be explained by company culture, or local culture, or whatever. more work needed.

ok, here’s the context. (click here)

the source of this file, regrettably, is the daily mail. broken clocks and all that. i will link the “article” that the video file was from, but you will need a hazmat suit going in, for both the cookies/trackers and low quality writing

here’s that source now. (click here)

for posters below saying they couldn’t find this, i understand it. we all get different search results, it’s possible you all got hugboxed and were unable to find the clip as a result

also, i don’t care to discuss the topic, i only wanted to link the source, because you were all struggling with it. i like finding sources :)

have a nice day 🥰

yep, you’re entirely right. for your area, it’s more effective to run wells for each person. the frustrating part being that, it implies that the city has been designed so, so badly, that individuals can’t actually share resources, without the per capita price going up if they do so.

even without depopulation, that’s a huge governmental failure. if individuals are having to run all their own utility setups and infrastructure, is that even a “city”? it sounds more like rural living but it’s all vaguely connected. presumably as a result of this low density, you have higher ongoing costs elsewhere? i.e commutes to work, cost of food, etc

if not, then it could be one of those taxpayer-subsidised things, where it feels cheaper for each resident, but the reality is that someone else is paying for it. i’m not good at wording what i mean in this case, but i will pass you to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI) to show it instead, he does a better job of explaining what i’m talking about

anyhow… that’s crazy! it’s entirely the thing i’m worried about seeing replicated large scale as a result of a reduction in population

i do get where you’re coming from, population density was less than it was. as a consequence, people had less access to resources. i would argue as a result of this, they also had less quality of life. the reason that urbanization has been a trend over the past 150 years that shows no sign of stopping, is because population urbanization is a multiplier on the effectiveness of quality of life, because it makes the cost to maintain higher quality of life cheaper per unit of life.¹

for example, yes, you can supply a neighbourhood with individual wells, granted. but surely it would be cheaper for your community to build one massive well, and then everyone in the neighbourhood can collect the water at the well? the community could all pay their share to maintain the well, and then the per unit cost of the well would be cheaper to build and maintain.

whilst you’re at it, since there’s only one well, you can put in a really fancy pump and purifier system. a really high quality rig, with low cost to run. that way, you only need to maintain 1 efficient pump and purifier, rather than 20 or 30 less efficient ones that would cost more fuel to run as an aggregate. the unit cost per person of the pump and purifier setup would be cheaper to run and maintain.

if you wanna go really bougie, you could all chip in to collectively install pipes to every house so that your local community doesn’t have to walk to the well. if you build slightly more pipes than you need, this would act as insurance so that if one pipe breaks, you don’t all lose supply, and the water could flow round… other pipes… and… …wait this just sounds like a municipal supply but with extra steps…

i know i’m being facetious, but the reality is that it is just not measurably cheaper to live out in isolated pockets, through supplying individual infrastructure on a per person basis.² economies of scale dictates this relationship.³ it’s inescapable.⁴. it’s inevitable.⁵ by all means, if it’s the only option someone has to provide utilities for themself, they should use it. but let’s not pretend that it’s more expensive to group up, live closer, and share the cost burden through communal resources.

i will trust you are aware of “economies of scale”, but i have linked a video here for those who are not aware, and also don’t want to read papers like a total nerd. ☝️🤓

[1]. (??? what would the units for quality of life per capita be i wonder? joy/kg? lol)

[2]. “The results indicate that cost savings can be achieved by increases in the scale of production…”, from “Productivity growth, economies of scale and scope in the water and sewerage industry: The Chilean case”, by Molinos-Senante and Maziotis, accessible at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8162666/

[3]. “…more spread out settlement (“Dispersion”) leads to diseconomies in distribution…”, from “Economies of scale, distribution costs and density effects in urban water supply: a spatial analysis of the role of infrastructure in urban agglomeration”, by Hugh B., accessible at https://etheses.lse.ac.uk/285/

[4]. “…agglomeration economies make firms and workers more productive in dense urban environments than in other locations.”, from “The economics of urban density”, by Duranton and Pupa, accssible at https://diegopuga.org/research.html#density

[5]. “Econometric analysis of the data from the Big Mac price survey revealed a significant positive effect of being in a rural area on the increase in prices.”, from “Identifying the size and geographic scope of short-term rural cost-of-living increases in the United States”, by Díaz-Dapena, Loveridge & Paredes, accessible at “https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-023-01244-z”

sure, i’ll try to explain briefly

“infrastructure”, i.e utilities, transport, bureacracy etc is built to support a fixed population within a city. when the population increases, you have to build more infrastructure to support this new population. this part is easy, you expand your cities at their edges, extend the utilities, and set up satellite bureacracy offices if needed

the tricky part is when you lose population. the correct move would be to demolish this infrastructure and scale back. trouble is, not only would this be wasteful, but it would also leave gaps in cities, since population decline doesn’t happen uniformly from a city edge. where exactly, do you demolish the infrastructure?

it would be nice if we live in a theoretical world where, as population decreases, the cities magically shrink at their edges, and suburban residents move closer in to fill the gaps. this is not how populations deplete from an area though (example: detroit, 1950 - 2020)

you will struggle to convince a suburban homeowner at the edge, to sell up and move to one of the gaps left behind by population loss. if we stop short of rewriting laws to force this population transfer, the end result is that you are left with a “swiss cheese” city. houses and settlements will be spread so thinly that becomes impossible for city goverments to provide “infrastructure” without providing it at a loss. your local goverment will then take debt and bankrupt, the infrastructure will collapse through lack of maintenance, and then the remaining population suffers big time

i want to note that i am not using this as an argument to support population growth. i am only stating the big, big problem that needs to be tackled somehow, concerning population loss. some big-brains are going to have to work this problem through, fast!

side note: interestingly, most NA cities are spread out and sprawled so much that they are suffering unaffordable infrastructure bills already, despite not suffering the effects of population loss. goodness knows how these places will fare when population loss actually hits…

google tries not to kill one of it’s products challenge (impossible)

a trillion is never enough

the current solution for that would be similar to the current “sponsor block” plugins, here’s an example

crowdsourced start and endpoints for embedded sponsorships

something like this tool, but for future embedded google adverts

good bot

the “open source hackers” are always going to win this one, for a simple reason. if the data of the youtube video is handed to a user at any point, then the information it contains can be scrubbed and cleaned of ads. no exceptions.

if google somehow solves all ad-blocking techniques within browser, then new plugins will be developed on the operating system side to put a black square of pixels and selectively mute audio over the advert each time. if they solve that too? then people will hack the display signal going out at the graphics card level so that it is cleaned before it hits the monitor. if they beat that using some stupid encryption trick? well, then people will develop usb plugin tools that physically plug into the monitors at the display end, that artificially add the black boxes and audio mutes at the monitor display side.

if they beat that? someone, someone will jerry rig a literal black square of paper on some servos and wires, and physical audio switch to do the same thing, an actual, physical advert blocker. i’m sure once someone works that out, a mass produced version would be quite popular as a monitor attachment (in a timeline that gets so fucked that we would need this).

if that doesn’t work? like, google starts coding malware to seek and destroy physical adblockers? then close your eyes and mute your headphones for 30 seconds, lol. the only way google is solving that one is with hitsquads and armed drones to make viewers RESUME VIEWING

as long as a youtube video is available to access without restriction, then google cannot dictate how the consumer experiences that video. google cannot win this.

you’re right, and i think that the thing that is being called out in the screenshot is not the money making per se, but the doom loop that everyone is forced to experience when trying to perform any basic information lookup using the internet in 2023. it goes something like this.

1. google “enshittification” to find that neat article you read a few months ago to post in a lemmy comment
2. first three or four results aren’t what you wanted, so keep scrolling.
3. click the result you want (beginning of doom loop)
4. “we value your privacy - so please click all the individual opt-outs, because GDPR didn’t say we can’t harass you with opt-outs to beat you into submission”
5. “subcribe to our newsletter! we definitely won’t leak this email to a third party”
6. “do you want to enable desktop notifications for this site?”
7. “this page would like to know your location (so we can serve you geo-targeted adverts)”
8. “get full access to our platform for xxx yyy price!” despite fake discounting being illegal in many countries
9. scroll down to start reading the first paragraph.
10. “…this is your 1st of 3 free articles this month. to receive 10 free articles a month, please register today!”
11. after dismissing all of this, you then scroll 2 paragraphs in, and find out actually, this wasn’t the article you needed.
12. press back on your browser a few times to wade back through all the privacy spam
13. scroll 2 more results down on google, maybe this next one was it?
14. goto 3. (you now repeat the doom loop)

this doom loop has to stop. yes, people and businesses need to make money under the current economic system we live in. but it doesn’t have to be like this.

but you know something? we all know where this is going.

some ““visionary”” san fran tech bro startup will have the “genius” idea of offering an interface between journo websites and customers, by offering a one-stop subscription shop. pay the tech bros once, they grant you access to all sites.

not unlike how uber operates as an interface between taxi drivers and customers, or how airbnb offers an interface between short term lets and customers, or how amazon offers an interface between cheap plastic vendors and customers, or how netflix operates as an interface between media content and customers, or how…

…the wheel turns.

yeah this is exactly the point lol. 😅

it’s so hard to escape out of the walled ecosystems because so much of our content is already written in these places, and so even if fediverse grows exponentially, it will still take at least a decade of content creation for “free/libre” content to outpace the old silos.

but we have to start now, to get to that future.

this comment is aimed at those future “just passing through” visitors, who are still on the fence with regards to the fediverse.

any internet power user will know, and be able to tell you that the internet feels wrong as of late. everything that you try to use is slightly broken for some reason. why is it becoming harder to use basic services that we took for granted 5 years ago?

unfortunately, the internet is changing once again, and it’s time to pick a side.

you can side with big corpo, stay in their walled ecosystems, and embrace enshittification.

or, you can side with the fediverse, break out of your silo, and take control of your own means of content participation.

the choice is yours.

if you like following concepts or “things” (reddit-style), then try here: https://join-lemmy.org/

or, if you prefer following individuals or “trends” (twitter-style), then try here: https://joinmastodon.org/

The so-called “spy clause” in the UK’s Online Safety Bill, which experts argued would have made end-to-end encryption all but impossible in the country, will no longer be enforced…

oh okay. so they’re still going to pass it into law anyway, and then pinky promise not to enforce it. right… 🤦

have you considered the EU? here’s some routes for you:

if you are degree qualified, then look into getting an EU blue card. it’s the EU’s answer to the green card, and it’s probably the best way for anyone who’s got the chops. it gives you a near free pick at where you specifically end up. try this page to get a feel of eligible locations, some of the locations need big boy salary, so might be off-limits

do you have any grandparents (or great-grandparents) that are from europe? some countries offer citizenship through descent. if you can prove the descent, then you can register as a citizen. 100% worth checking this. it’s a long shot, with a huge payout if it’s valid. common ones you can check are italy, ireland, hungary, germany (maybe?)

third option for you - “digital nomad” visas are a thing that’s growing. you pick up a remote job for one EU state, and then you can get a visa to live in… a different EU state!? you pay the taxes to the state that is giving you the remote job, and you live in the state that provides the visa. the idea being, where does it even matter where you work, if it’s a remote job? so long as your dues are paid, you can go wild! some digital nomad visas even let you bring family along. not all EU states offer this, you would have to do individual research.

if you are serious about moving somewhere, genuinely serious, then take actionable steps to do it, today. i am a couple years down the path of taking steps to move myself. i don’t know how old you are, but you don’t want to look back and think “i could have took measurable steps when i was younger to get out of here, and i didn’t”. wherever your chosen destination, make it your mission. keep your eyes on the prize.

and lastly, if it doesn’t work out, oh well? at least you tried! you will have gained life experience some americans would dream to get, and you should be able to move back simply. you can’t shake US citizenship that easily ;)

thank you so much for this 🙂 i shall make sure to have soda with food from now on. and also, i can give fanta zero and coke cherry zero a go again (with full stomach) and see what happens lol. appreciate the work 💪

ah okay, i’m way out of my depth then. thanks for the advice

my specific problems are with fanta zero and coke cherry zero. if not the aspartame, then is there a possible cause that isn’t confirmation bias, or caffeine? i don’t have problems with other drinks with caffeine, and i should stress that i drink 2L of water a day regardless of whether i have a can of soda (in addition). i.e, it’s not headaches from dehydration either.

i’m willing to accept the possibility that i am an idiot and it’s just confirmation bias, but if anyone knows any other possible causes, i’d be happy to learn 🙂

another question i have regarding point #2, how much sugar is too much to cause the effects you mention (i.e in one can?). for context, i live in the UK, and most cans of soda are restricted to 16.5g of sugar for the whole can, because of a sugar tax. is 16.5g in one go enough to cause liver damage?

thank you for reading

the issue put bluntly, is that in federation, your data cannot be 100% safe. even if this instance is secure and perfectly private, if this instance is then federated, that federated data can then be copied and have anything done with it, or to it.

or, to phrase it in a way that opened my eyes to this, quoting from someone else a month ago, “what makes you think you’re in control of your data on any instance?”

oh that’s why some soda drinks give me headache 😐 i just realised all the ones that used to make my head hurt, were all zero/diet versions. i switched back to full sugar ones a while back, now i see why i did.

i guess it’s a choice between teeth rot or cancer. i’ll take the teeth rot lol

this is why

there is a very good chance that this project by meta is the thin end of the wedge

(edited to include “the blogpost”, link here)