Just finished V Rising. I really liked it. For those who don’t know and are curious, it’s one of those games where, if you can’t beat a boss, you just have to get better. There’s some small things that make a fight easier, but it basically comes down to you understanding the enemy and learning to play better.
No particular order, but it seems I hit quite a few different genres.
Same with golfing, bowling, darts, etc. I think part of the enjoyment of these types of sports/games/competitions is to see how close to perfection you can get.
Relevant section of the article where it lays out what has been changing and what still needs to change:
… graft has been all but exterminated in some of the worst affected areas - for instance, government services such as issuing passports, permits and licences.
He also tells the BBC that significant progress had been made in reforming education and police.
Problem areas
Mr Kalmykov admits, however, that the government has been less successful in eradicating corruption in using natural resources (e.g. in mining and forestry), regulating monopolies and in large infrastructure projects.
“Progress has been slowest where big interests and big players meet,” he says.
According to him, “in the next five-ten years the government should focus on cleansing the judiciary, which will make the general system of public administration healthier”.
My understanding is that some of the benefits China would get from invading Taiwan is the control of Taiwan’s world-leading semiconductor industry. So making it public knowledge that any invading force (i.e. China) would not be able to take over their production capabilities is a small deterrent.
The last paragraph I quoted talks about suburban population transport percentages. So assuming it’s the same for inner Paris, the remainder would be walking and then public transportation.
Some good stats in the article:
… bicycles already surpass cars as a means of transportation in the interior of Paris, accounting for 11.2% of trips compared to 4.3%. A similar trend is seen in trips between the suburbs and the city center: 14% are made by bicycle and 11.8% by car.
Rue de Rivoli, with its two-way cycle lanes and its dedicated lane for buses and taxis …
… Paris has more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of facilities adapted for cyclists, including more than 300 km (186 m) of bike lanes and 52 km (32 m) of provisional lanes, according to the latest available municipal data, from 2021. The rest are lanes shared with cars or lanes only marked with paint on the ground.
By 2026, local officials want the entire city to be suitable for two-wheel transportation. To this end, it has set aside $250 million, $100 million more than in Hidalgo’s first term.
… only 27% of the “bike plan” has been carried out despite the fact that 62% of Hidalgo’s second term in office has already elapsed.
… indicated that 11.2% of trips in Paris were made by bike between 2022 and 2023, compared to 4.3% by car. The change in trend is clear. In 2021, two wheels still represented 5.6% of trips, while cars were 9%, according to Belliard.
… the research indicates that residents of the nearest suburbs also prefer to use the bike, with 14% of trips compared to 11.8% for cars. The figures are even better during rush hour, when 18.9% of trips are made by bike and only 6.6% by car. Travel on foot, however, continues to lead mobility within the municipality with 53%, followed by those made on public transit, with 30%. The study was carried out with 3,337 residents of the capital region who agreed to be fitted with a GPS tracker.
That’s a good point about disease and I think it could be a potential cause of the low genetic prevalence.
I don’t know about your roaming free option. I think if that were true, there would still be wild packs today or there would have been roving dog packs mentioned in historical text (possible but I don’t recall any mention of them). Alternatively, they would have inter-breed with European varieties and had a more significant impact on genetics, but that’s not seen.
While I agree that Europeans liked to remove/exterminate “uncivilized” things, that mostly applies to people. I suspect if the American dogs were significantly useful they would have made use of them.
This conversation allowed me to recall that the plains tribes utilized dogs as pack animals. Then once horses made their way onto the scene those tribes switched from dogs to horses for that role. I’m not sure what other “jobs” American dogs performed but I suspect if they were significantly utilized as pack animals they were probably breed for such and with that niche gone they may not have performed well in other “dog” tasks, compared to European varieties.
To conclude, for American dogs to be such a small percent of the current dog genome, I think, the European varieties had to significantly outlive their American counterparts. Whether because they were replaced by better performing European varieties/horses, because they died from European diseases, or a combination of those options.
After the arrival of Europeans, native American dogs almost completely disappeared, leaving a minimal genetic legacy in modern dog populations.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7116273/
I did not do a very deep dive but it looks like there were “domesticated” dogs in the Americans prior to Europeans, but they were almost completely replaced by their European counterparts. This leads me to believe the European versions were far superior for the intended usage. If the American version was indeed significantly inferior for their intended purposes, they may have been at or below the effectiveness/usefulness levels of semi-domesticated animals, like foxes.
Edit: The_Sasswagon brings up a good point about the effects of potential European diseases on American dogs.
Mods, perhaps a weekly post like this would be beneficial? Lowering the bar to entry with some available support and helping to keep converts.
From the article:
Voters who chose “uninstructed delegation” in Wisconsin’s presidential primary Tuesday more than doubled the 20,000 votes President Joe Biden won the state by in 2020, sending warning signs for his reelection chances in the battleground state.
Voters displeased with Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war organized into a “Listen to Wisconsin” campaign that mirrored other states like Michigan and Minnesota, where a similar “uncommitted” option took about 13% and 19% of the vote in the Democratic primary, respectively.
In Wisconsin, “uninstructed delegation” represented 9% of the vote on the Democratic side as of 10:15 p.m., taking about 42,269 votes. Around 408,610 voters have selected Biden as their choice, or 88%. About 3% voted for Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, who has ended his campaign and endorsed Biden.
Relevant text: