I’m not sure the builder profits much more by using engineered timber given its expense compared to concrete. Given the environmental cost of building with concrete, it’s important to find alternative materials.

Even in your anecdote, it’s not as though the addition of a single floor was the cause of the fire, just like the material type wasn’t. It’s much easier for an incomplete building to go up in flames than a completed and occupied one.

Technology isn’t always a solution, but it’s not like pressurized stairwells, automatic hallway segmentation, or even sprinkler systems are things of science fiction. These are all pretty established techniques of fire control.

In terms of prevention, given the number one cause of fires in homes and buildings is in the kitchen, the easiest solution is opting out of the methane infrastructure in new projects. Though there’s a rather large industry that pushes for this practice to continue, so that’s a difficult thing to do.

Also, to bring it back to the topic relevant to this post, I’m not advocating to make escape harder in a burning building by eliminating stairwells. My point is precisely what’s in the content of the post - single stairwell buildings in other areas don’t have people on the upper floors dying hand over foot because they had to descend an extra flight or two.

If it was harder, I’m sure we would have heard about the trend of every building seven levels and up having dead bodies pile up in the stairwell after someone tried to flambé a quail.

While it isn’t clinical, I think the practice of building beyond a few levels with a single egress point in so many other countries is sufficient enough evidence to justify changing this building standard.

The multiple references to ‘fire safety organizations’ read to me like ‘fire departments’. Fire departments across North America already dictate what our roads (and therefore cities) look like. Seems like a logical leap they would also impose control over the corridors within buildings too.

I’ve seen some of the photos of people driving American-sized pickup trucks around Europe and I hope they get outlawed. Unfortunately, Europe and Asia do have so many more options - sometimes even by American companies much to my annoyance.

I occasionally look into getting a Kei car of some sort. Though it’s not really practical for me. Maybe one day, by the time a sub five inch flagship phone is developed perhaps.

Small vehicle sales represent less than a fifth of the market. Major manufacturers have ceased production of sedans and hatchbacks in favour of larger platform SUVs and pickup trucks.

I realise that vehicles aren’t really the focus here, but the smartphone market isn’t too dissimilar in certain ways. The major manufacturers have discontinued their smaller for factor devices citing ‘sales’, but those devices cost nearly what a larger one did so it’s reasonable that consumers would opt for the bigger screen, especially when it’s typically coupled with a larger battery and superior camera.

Also similar between these two markets, if you look overseas, or at older used models, or make any of a variety of compromises, you can find something if you’re determined. Or you don’t find something and just deal with the giant phone that sticks half out your pocket and you can’t sit down without removing it.

Personally, I’m enjoying watching the advances in folding phones. They are approaching Westworld standards pretty quick. Trouble of course will be when they get there, it’ll cost the same as a car and at that point it better unfold some wheels too.

I was only meaning that 1% chance bit in reference to someone that had chosen to donate their body to science.

I am for opt out instead of opt in, but making it mandatory would be a step too far. At the same time I find the two opinions of ‘my body my choice’ and ‘after death you cease to exist’ to be a bit counter posed.

I would instead suggest what already occurs in today’s reality: write your wishes down, and hope your wishes are followed by your descendants, or your family, or your executor, or your attorney.

Unfortunately for anyone’s wishes, that’s all they are - wishes. Unless one go to rather significant lengths to erect checks and balances to the following of your desires, whichever individual remains after our demise can simply do away with whatever they please and have an auction to the rich for extra parts while taking sponsorships from big oil.

I wish I could live in that timeline where all morgue attendants got a page when the world’s 1% needs a good looking kidney hahaha.

Similar to vehicles, smaller phones probably would sell just fine.

The issue would be that not many people would buy a phone 2/3 the size unless it was also 2/3 the price. Even if the manufacturing of such a device was 2/3 the cost (it wouldn’t be), the bottom line for the manufacturer would be same number of devices sold, but 1/3 less money.

Companies don’t do less money.

In fairness, pretty much any subject will have some negatives that could be pointed to and touted as an excuse for not doing something.

If there’s even a 1% chance of your body being properly useful to science in some way, and therefore humanity at large, it’s worth the odds.

Though I’d bet good money that the amount of mutilation and whatnot isn’t particularly common for science bound bodies. Much easier to steal some organs from the morgue bodies marked for non collection.

Yes, I’m rather disappointed in the ‘better of two options’ that was chosen. I just wish we could get away from first passed the post. Maybe one day.

I’m glad to hear this. Yet another reason to relocate.

Yes I suppose, just like anything, a nuance here would be whether or not we expect a person of such political authority to be able to have weekends at all.

On one hand, they’re still a person working a job and no one should be working 365 days a year On the other, the societal cost, in terms of income tax covering travel and security costs, of having a President that travels every weekend is a bit much.

If the President was only golfing on the weekends, and wasn’t charging the government to golf at his own clubs, then this whole thing of him taking leisure every weekend would be a harder thing to argue against without getting into that whole administration work life balance discussion.

Despite the name, it’s nice this isn’t a physical pass that some people will never hear about and still end up paying full pop at these places. Everyone that’s eligible will benefit. That’s great.

But won’t always be if we aren’t vigilant.

The study also shows a noticeable if difficult to measure reduction in number of entangled animals which is great.

When I was young, the grocers tossed the cardboard boxes from deliveries up by the registers for people to use. These days, I have to ask a worker for one as they’re restocking. This practice should return. It would reduce more waste than replacing single use bags with another plastic based bag alternative.

Not for nothing, but the headline of the article is talking about time spent golfing, and so is neon_nova’s comment.

The thing the President did isn’t the problem, or really even the frequency. The problem is the cost to the taxpayer.

‘20,000 American’s pay for President’s golf habit’ would be a better title.

Eight days so far during ‘work week’ time. If he was going on his own dime, this wouldn’t be worth talking about.

It just makes a better talking point to say ‘he’s golfed 37 days out of 152’ despite it not being about how he’s using his weekends (assuming we hold government to the same 5 on 2 off standard as most of us have) when it’s really about how much it’s costing.

A better headline would be ‘President spends income tax of 20,000 Americans on personal entertainment’.

Too bad burgers outpaced inflation then. It’d be nice to have a $1.50 option commonly available.

I agree about everything in your first point. I hadn’t previously considered that the novelty of a new technology would necessarily increase have disproportionately high initial cost.

That said, I feel like any calculation of cost against how many hours played is entirely subjective. Your suggestion of $0.75 / entertainment hour is quite different than what I consider ideal. Games will vary genre to genre, person to person, platform to platform.

A person with limited time might exclusively play shorter titles, or maybe just multiplayer titles. A person with significant free time might spent hundreds of hours replaying an RPG.

To be incredibly broad, I would say that games shouldn’t cost more per entertainment hour than half of what any given person earns at their job - but even that is quite subjective and should be taken with salt.

You make a good point, and I agree. I wasn’t thinking that it was the only thing on the market and therefore the price is whatever a new technology costs.

I tend to think of video games - being a form of entertainment - as a great way to be entertained while also being an incredibly low cost option for the amount of time I spend enjoying them.

Buying a $600 console just to enjoy a single $60 title is an extreme example but to me, if that game provides 100 hours of playtime, that seems well worth it. Cheaper than going to a theatre or most other forms of entertainment.

To be sure, I don’t do this, but I’ve always viewed gaming through a $/h lens, and could never understand why so many people saw it as a waste of time. That’s what I was thinking when I wrote that comment earlier - it seems to me that you get more playtime with some RPG from this decade than you would playing Pac-Man. Though perhaps I feel that way because games like Pac-Man don’t appeal to me.

Thinking about it, your point might be valid again, with the Atari being a new technology, people were likely to sink far more hours into a title than they might do with modern games since we have so many to choose from now. I’ve never thought about it that way. Thanks for pointing this out.