Not only for a surprisingly long time, but also in surprisingly good condition. For example at Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall archeologists have found not one or two, or even ten but over 5000 amazingly preserved Roman shoes that were apparently thrown away into the fortress's moat and survived buried in the mud <https://www.vindolanda.com/Blog/the-curators-favourite-shoes>.
Hilariously they're never found a pair of shoes, only singles. So that's why they think they were thrown away as rubbish, because one shoe broke so they threw it in the ditch. In the museum on site there's a fantastic "wall of shoes" on display where you can see the amazing leatherwork from 2000 years ago <https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/37305>.
> Hilariously they're never found a pair of shoes, only singles.
From that first link: “These two little treasures were part of the hoard of over 400 shoes excavated in 2016. One would probably think that we have lots of pairs of shoes however, we only have a few. But this pair was easier to identify as they were small and have a less usual construction style as they do not have a seam that stitches them up over the toe and they were also found close together.”
Also, looking at those shoes, many of them don’t look beyond repair to me. Quite a few look like they’d need only minor repairs.
My prior understanding was that before the industrial revolution dramatically reduced the labor costs, clothing was expensive. Most people only owned two or three outfits, and replacing one would cost a month's wages sort of expensive.
How could one afford to throw away a perfectly good non-matching shoe?
I lived on 2nd Ave NYC for a while which matched your observations on interacting with neighbours. However there's an interesting urbanist video [1] that suggests that even in a higher density neighbourhood with appartment buildings, the amount of traffic on the road affects both how many friends you have and how much you socialise with neighbours in your building. Ie in a car lite environment, everyone is friendlier.
Second this approach. If someone interrupts, just keep talking. Do not back down before the interrupter stops. Think of it as a conversational filibuster :-)
If both parties keep talking it will get awkward for everyone in the conversation. This is what you want, as it will lead to immediate understanding that an interruption happened and that it's not OK. You can calmly discuss afterwards that you were interrupted, and after a few occurrences even those with only a modicum of social awareness will get the message and change behaviour. And peer pressure can then help those stragglers.
Your comment is interesting because it hadn't even occurred to me that the parent comment might be being sarcastic. I thought the emphasis on love was being serious. My experience is older folks (maybe 80 and up? Not really sure) start to lose confidence or ability with driving and give it up. Hence need to walk and take public transport. So less cars and a more walkable neighborhood is a win for them as well as everybody else :-)
I was being sarcastic. The other comments on here are quite illuminating, discussing how many senior citizens love walking. That’s cool.
The problem with the car-free plan is that many senior citizens literally do not have the ability to walk unassisted. And the car-free plan seems to exclude these people in a dramatic way. That’s why I intended the parent comment to be sarcastic.
I get that some old people love to walk. But some old people LITERALLY ARE UNABLE to walk, and those are the ones who would love this plan the most. (I AM BEING SARCASTIC HERE).
Agreed, I've read you get about 4g peak deceleration going down stairs. But people seem to survive that process on a regular basis. So a temporary 10g is not a problem, and the effects of gravity loads on the human body are well studied and understood by military and aerospace organizations.
I think you've got a fair point. But democracy is the least worst system of government that we know of. This idea has been around for a long time. I know the Churchill quote 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.' Apparently he said this in the 1940s but he attributed it to some earlier source.
Modern well established democracies have just had a longer time to refine the system to a slightly less shitty version of the democracy that come before them.
So you might be right, but I wonder if it's the journey that matters? Ie is it that countries have to go through the process in order to get to a better place? So you can't just drop a democracy system from another country in place somewhere, and hope that it works. That of course doesn't mean you shouldn't learn from the mistakes of others.
I dislike the term "democracy". The correct term that characterizes the western systems (such as the US) is "checks and balances". Having multiple check and balances is the best way to limit corruption, having general elections is a very poor proxy. Just see how many countries have general elections (and so can call themselves "democracies") and are ruled by a president for life.
I'm a kiwi and did the reverse and moved to Scotland. I do know a number of people who were offered jobs in NZ while still abroad. Technical sales, developer, psychiatrist. That's just anecdotal, but it's definitely possible.
However my approach in moving to the UK was to actually show up to look for a job. Seems to me like it's very different having a faceless person send in a CV from the other side of the world, compared to them walking through your front door wearing a suit, shaking your hand and saying 'Hi, my name's Peter'. If you're right there in front of them they know you're serious, not just firing off random speculative applications. And human nature is that you form an opinion of someone within moments of meeting them, so if that opinion is positive you'll be treated very differently to an email sitting in their Inbox. If someone then asks 'Do you have a visa?' then you can explain that if they offer you the job then you will get the visa and have that conversion with them.
I understand that approach may be more difficult to commit to than applying remotely, due to current job, family, financial reasons - but it worked for me.
I tried that in Japan and the Netherlands while I was on my country-visiting tour. After a fruitless month in each, I moved on. The flights and living costs made it an expensive mistake. I'm not rich. The low cost of living in Kaohsiung means I've saved enough to pay for my visa fees, but that's over half my savings. Not to mention flights, food, accommodation while searching. All my previous jobs interviewed over Skype, although sometimes I was introduced by Facebook friends who I do know in real life.
One funny thing I've realized is that I like the smell of coal fires. It must have been horrible back when cities were choking on it, but coal is so completely phased out now that when I occasionally do smell coal smoke from a domestic fire or say a steam engine I really like it.
I did some work for an electricity utility and they wanted to get the pole IDs described in the article into our database, alongside the GIS data. The client explained that getting the IDs was kinda difficult and there were several different data sources for the various regions they provided service to. By and by we found a guy there who knew how everything worked and promised he'd get us the data that we needed - which he did.
But he told me an interesting story - the utility had about 50,000 power poles in their network. But due to various historical reasons and how their assets were digitized over the years he reckoned there were probably about 1000 of them that were on their maps, but that didn't actually exist anymore. And interestingly, he thought the inverse was also true; that there were perhaps 1000 poles out there that weren't on any of their maps. Big ten meter tall poles, some probably carrying live cables - didn't know they were there.
> that there were perhaps 1000 poles out there that weren't on any of there maps
I can totally see how this would happen. When I bought my house, the power/utility lines were hanging about four feet off the ground in my backyard. Apparently the previous owner didn't care.
I called the utility company to complain, and they sent someone out with a new full size pole, who basically just shoved it in the ground in the corner of my property to prop up the lines.
As far as I can tell, there are no identifying marks anywhere on the pole. No label, no inspection, no nothing. Except a sign that says "Danger, do not put ladder on this cable", which is on the fiber optic cable that runs along the pole.
This is common at every utility. Part of the issue is based on the fact that the GIS systems do not align with the paper systems 100% and the paper systems are typically regarded as the standard.
Another problem that must be considered is that utility workers, while highly competent at their profession, are not always great with working on computers. They generally write everything down on paper and then have one of the younger linemen input the changes into the electronic records system.
Also utilities often have several record systems in place, some being GIS based, and some being mobile computer based with check in with a central database. These systems are almost never developed and worked on by the same people, so inconsistencies abound. It's normal for the inventories to diverge, and for updates to take weeks to propagate from one system to another.
> "Another problem that must be considered is that utility workers, while highly competent at their profession, are not always great with working on computers."
You're absolutely correct on this point. When I was working as a transmission system operator the older guys (all in the 50s and 60s) would complain all day and night about the new "computer apps" that were introduced in our day to day workflow. They all preferred the old "pen and paper" way of doing things...Like you said, I'd be the who would end up putting the written switching procedures into the application we used since the older guys basically refused to learn it...
This is still a major problem in distribution. Some of the best workers are in their late 50s and they are familiar with older equipment in the field that the younger guys may have never seen.
They would much rather use pen and paper to report what they did or didn’t do, with little appreciation for the reporting that could be done with a bit of input on the computer.
Do your system operators us GIS to sectionalize lines and troubleshoot transmission/distribution issues, or are you talking about the engineers/planners?
Both sides use GIS to do their jobs. The scada part is a little different since one-line diagrams are all that is needed for that. But the dispatching is all GIS based.
We make significant revenue based on accurate maps and good data as well. Just fixing our attachment rental inventory and keeping it accurate pays for all of the GIS system and upkeep with money to spare.
I'm familiar with the SCADA part (I work as an EMS/SCADA devloper), but before my current role I was actually an operator and we used "red-line" drawings in conjunction with the SCADA system to troubleshoot down lines/relays/lockouts/etc. They were all digital for ease of use. On the transmission side of the house we didn't use GIS all that much, but the DOC folks used it as their primary source.
Hilariously they're never found a pair of shoes, only singles. So that's why they think they were thrown away as rubbish, because one shoe broke so they threw it in the ditch. In the museum on site there's a fantastic "wall of shoes" on display where you can see the amazing leatherwork from 2000 years ago <https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/37305>.