Ben Matthews

I’m aware of the racism issue, I even observed it myself in China, even many years ago.
But i’ve also seen similar problems in other corners of the world. Such cultural concepts can change slowly, as they did over here.
Anyway, I doubt this would dissuade people trying to connect what will become the world’s main supply of surplus young labour, with the world’s greatest demand for care-services, combined with spare apartments, money, and a milder climate. Not saying it’s good or bad, just trying to anticipate future changes.

That seems like a big change in one year. It may to some extent reflect delay, as on average chinese used to pair-up at a younger age than typical in europe, also maybe some feel old traditions aren’t necessary to keep a stable family with children. But the article says, the core factors are economic. Even so, as they have built so many surplus apartments, the [real] prices must drop, I wonder how many years before they are trying to sell the chinese dream to migrants from Africa or elsewhere.

Odd that Estacio de França is now the terminus only of lines from the opposite direction - but it makes sense to run all across the centre.

Trying to imagine what’s the application of mats of electric seaweed - if the energy could somehow make them self propelling, and self replicating, could get interesting, big potential surface area …?

Stability is indeed a strength of EU - effectively averaging over all the countries smooths over political oscillations - which is useful for tackling long-term policy problems (like climate). I’m not advocating majoritarian voting where 51% overrides 49%. However with ± 30 countries, one or two should not block the rest - the current system leads to transactional brinkmanship where the last hold-outs get some prize in return for postponed obstruction. I’ve seen similar (worse) problems in UN climate negotiations - also due to “consensus” principle.

Orban is not forever - whereas integrating a country to EU is a long slow process. Also Budapest is geographically a hub city (whose inhabitants didn’t - mostly- vote for fidesz anyway). I find it hard to believe that hungarian people are so fundamentally different from their neighbours. So does it make sense to undo citizens’ EU membership for this? Rather, we need some kind of suspension of rights of the current government based on specific behaviour, such as persistent obstruction, distortion of the national media, etc. (although such criteria could apply to others too which might get embarrassing). And in general, to remove all vetos (aka “consensus”) from EU processes.

Africa is huge- many people underestimate it, although in this case it is a bit too large compared to India in the middle. Also the colorscale makes Sahara and other low desert areas too green - the habitable part is not so great.

Wonder whether the popularity of the president will follow a similar pattern as in France, trying similar idea … ?

Note that Knesset has 120 seats (not obvious from the article). (also, of course, a large fraction of people between the river and the sea don’t get to vote for any of its seats)

So, what do we do with the greenest areas? Cover them with splodges of grey, of course…

It’s about future oil and gas expansion (FOGE), what matters to the atmosphere is the total - identifying potential threat. Effectively multiplying FOGE by area (as shown) doesn’t make sense, but neither does FOGE per capita (as most is exported, not consumed locally). I’d suggest just a sized blob for each country - then can show some other dimension with the color.

Hmm, publishing that will really help those Crimean beach hotels get customers for this summer…

Maybe in some cases, the party changed since they joined, and it’s a bipolar electoral system that effectively kills splits.

Maybe so. But can anybody tell us, what fraction of this big sum is private wealth, rather than government assets ? If it includes items like mansions in london and french riviera the value could be much less in a fire-sale - only so many sheikhs to take over, and they might get worried too. So the “local rich” might hope to pick up bargains.

What are we waiting for ?

I guess - coordination among the western governments - as if only some participate, those that don’t might gain from future investments from bullying autocracies. Also, there may be reciprocal losses whose impacts would be unbalanced.
But it seems to me the risks of setting such precedent are far outweighed by the risk of increasing irrelevance for our democratic values in a world of increasing autocracy, if we let p***n and team get away without paying for such destruction.
Maybe there is some way to do this incrementally, to provide more motivation to depose the tsar, stop, and quit, sooner rather than later?

Seems you have a few extra lines compared to openrailwaymap, are those all operational?
Pity so few cross-border connections, maybe we need an interactive map of the future network.

It’s only 5th December, seems unusually early for -58º. From Wikipedia - Yakutsk, maybe daily min should be about -37º now. I recall crossing Siberia by train in early December, rain in west, fresh snow in east, lakes still water, yet coming back in April you could still walk on Baikal. Seems odd, but they get extra problem of fires in winter, as fire hoses freeze, can’t extinguish them. Anyway polar vortex went wobbly recently, so we get alternating cold and warm waves - always look for both sides of regional anomalies.

Nice map of fascinating region, especially by showing population density so we are not over-weighting mountains and steppe. However, I could imagine that most people and families in that region are multi-lingual and of mixed ethnicity, so mono-colours may be misleading and accentuate divisions. Cities are often different from villages around. Modern group identities may relate more to preferences for a type of governance, than to old ethnic history. Times change. How would this map look like now, and for example, in 1800?

Ah, that time of year again, seems a pity to waste them, but very hard and sour, and I’m told we shouldn’t eat any pips. Polish friends slice them thin, put in a pan alternating with layers of sugar, leave some days to suck out the juice (osmosis), drain and mix with vodka for a tasty aperitif, thick and cloudy due to the pectin (?). I’ve not heard of fermenting them directly, but would be glad to know if anybody has a good method.

Good idea - hope it helps inspire innovation for de-mining, and also shows that bees can bounce back, if flowers do. By the way you can see the huge mined band -lack of agriculture - from satellite images (eg sentinel). Maybe this honey needs a song to help tell the story (recalling that “Where have all the flowers gone?” derives from a Don-cossack poem). Only a question, what if the flowers and bees don’t want to go away, after de-mining?
[ Incidentally, distributing honey as diplomacy is not unprecedented - I recall Poland putting pots of honey in climate convention conference bags. ]