[-] memfree@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The researchers examined about 222,000 menu items from over 2,000 restaurants in Boston, about 1.6 million menu items from roughly 9,000 restaurants in Dubai, and about 3.1 million menu items from about 18,000 restaurants in London. In Boston, about 71 percent of the items were in the USDA database; in Dubai and London, that figure was 42 percent and 56 percent, respectively.

So only 3 cities, with London getting the best dataset.

In Dubai, the researchers did not have the same types of health data available but did observe a strong correlation between rental prices and the nutritional value of neighborhood-level food, suggesting that wealthier residents have better nourishment options.

This makes a case for "correlation does not mean causation". The title usues the word "link", but it sounds like poor neighborhoods have cheap restaurants because that's what customers can afford, which is just another way of saying there's a correlation between obesity and low incomes.

The research moves toward evaluating the complex mix of food available in any given area, which can be true even of areas with more limited options.

Okay, I appreciate that this is now adding to the data about what food options are available. So even though it sounds like something we already knew, having more proof from a different view is a Good Thing.

Notice that A is obesity prevalence and F is housing prices, which we'd expect to be opposites. There seems to be correlation with A and C. It would be easier to read all of this if F was reversed to 'lowest housing rates' or some such.
From source paper
Edit: above image of the London breakdown is from the cited paper which also breaks down the same factors for Boston and Dubai.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

Ah, yes, I remember those days with the text-only LYNX browser from the unix terminal and the joy of Netscape Navigator on machines that could handle windows. Searching was difficult until there was Alta Vista, which was AMAZING compared to the competition, but even it failed for D&D-style gamers who tried to search for "role playing games" and got back a list of a million sex sites and zero visible pen/paper/dice games. Happily, you could add boolean operator rules to get rid of some of that (NOT sex NOT babes NOT XXX) -- but you'd either be typing a lot of naughty words to skip or you'd have to remember the sites that catered to RPGs because searching could be very hit or miss.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

Here's a BBC article for comparison, with slightly different (initial) numbers : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd01g1gxro

At least 15 Palestinians, including eight children and two women, have been killed in an Israeli strike while queuing for nutritional supplements in front of a clinic in central Gaza, a hospital says.

The article does have video as well.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The article is mostly about a lack dense housing in the sunbelt. Two chunks:

By rigidly defining what a community is allowed to look like, suburban zoning has done more than simply shape the physical form of our cities. It has also made it all but impossible for many communities to adapt and grow, as human societies always have, which has created severe distortions in housing markets.

and

There’s no shortage of wonky policy ideas about how to fix housing in the US — and they go far beyond just zoning codes (you don’t want to hear me get started on building codes or impact fees). We will also need a society-wide paradigm shift beyond policy: The financial and real estate industries will need to relearn models for supporting incremental densification, which, experts consistently told me, have fallen by the wayside since the entrenchment of sprawl and restrictive zoning.

Personally, I'd like to see more towns where there's dense housing within walking distance of the mega strip mall... though some of those strips are too big for realistic pedestrian commuting.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Compared to who? Pelosi? Trump?

[-] memfree@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago

I've never had that happen (U.S.). I've either gone to the pound or accepted someone else's pet when they could no longer care for care for it (due to: illness/death/move requiring dubious 30 day animal quarantine).

[-] memfree@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

... there are still large hurdles to overcome before tidal energy can be adopted more widely, such as dealing with regulatory issues, potential environmental effects and conflicts with other ocean users.

I was wondering about that. What happens to the weather, animal habitats, and everything if you slow tides and currents with a larger number of these things? Still gotta be better than burning fossil fuels.

It’s very hard to take what is essentially a wind turbine normally found on land and put it under water, said Fraser Johnson, operations and maintenance manager at MeyGen. The record-setting turbine should keep going for at least another year before it needs to come out of the water for maintenance, he added.

With a sample size of ONE (okay, maybe four) that projection seems optimistic, but I'm hoping he's correct.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

My lawn isn't totally natural because I mow it, but I don't use any chemicals. Despite some trees and shrubs, my yard doesn't have ticks. We have grubs, mice, shrews, squirrels, birds, and occasional poison ivy that we pull up, but no ticks. They are in the park (with forest) a couple blocks away, but not in the trimmed lawns in my chunk of suburbia.

from Wikipedia:

Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation. The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn's edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

Oh there;s lots of new experiences in getting old: going through social security rigmarole, turning grey (or bald), finding yourself unable to do stuff you used to do, arthritis, gout, bone loss, needing a cane, getting up several times a night for the sake of your bladder...

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

We've known for decades that Texas has loose regulations allowing development to ignore flooding concerns. "Texas shoulders the most urban stormwater runoff of any state in the country ". After Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in 2017, everyone was talking about the development issue, but alas, mostly just about Houston instead the state as a whole.

Post Harvey, The Atlantic had a big piece on how, "The combination of climate change and aggressive development made an event like this almost inevitable."

Also from that 2017 disaster, The Washington Post concluded:

Thus, to ensure acceptable stormwater-system performance, jurisdictional agencies and officials must ensure that the type, timing and amount of real estate development are in sync with the capacity and configuration of the jurisdiction’s storm system. Many communities are at risk because of overbuilding or for allowing building in areas with inadequate infrastructure.

Some argued that "Houston isn't flooded because of its land use planning" ... but while the author there is an expert in urban planning, he is not an expert in hydrology.

Of course the recent tragedy was no where near Houston. It was closer to Austin and San Antonio. On Austin: "Flash flooding is a pressing concern for Austin, so much so that it has been labeled the "Flash Flood Alley" of Texas." On San Santonio:

San Antonio is a populated area in one of the most flash-flood prone regions in North America. SARA manages a series of structural controls (dams and drainage systems) to help prevent and/or reduce flood problems. For example, the San Antonio River Tunnels (see illustration) proved invaluable as they diverted water safely underneath downtown during the 1998 and 2002 floods.

I don't want to hear "No warning at all." This was a risk known for decades where the state and municipalities decided they'd rather allow an eventual catastrophe than spend the money needed to prevent one.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago

But the point of Fermi's Paradox is that we are not seeing evidence of alien intelligence anywhere. We don't expect it here on earth, but we look out in space and see no light/radio/other waves that look like messages; no energy bursts or other anomalies that don't have better explainations (though some have no explaination at all). The Great Filter is simply a hypothesis -- like the Dark Forest -- as to why we don't see evidence of intelligent life in space.

If we went back to caves, we'd have great-filtered ourselves.

[-] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago

I would make sure the owner knows about this behavior. Napping is probably the pup's coping mechanism to deal with a potentially scary/chaotic/dangerous new environment, BUT there might be a medical issue. If the pup is sleepy/low-energy all the time or is in pain such that moving hurts, the owner will probably want to tell their veterinarian.

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