What strikes me about that is how much "dead air" there is without background music and how much of a long-format that was for broadcast.
You just wouldn't get away with that on TV now, the closest thing is some twitch or youtube streams, but even they'd have relentless background music ( and donation/subscription thank you sounds ) and other media at the same time.
But an actual non-live, edited programme? This whole 90 minute programme would be edited down to a 10 minute segment with endless repetition and audio stings, even on the BBC.
To me this shows how much we've lost from the TV format and the ambition it once had. Somewhere since it has fallen into a weird combination of lack of ambition but with a self-congratulation, where programmes often restate what they are doing as being ground-breaking.
> This whole 90 minute programme would be edited down to a 10 minute segment
Don't forget that this 90 minute program is itself an edited down version of the original series: "It features four of the original programs in a compiled and edited feature."
> The rest of those don't really exist in the UK (yet!).
Chipotle and Lime scooters do exist in the UK (and have for a while.) Waymo (I'm assuming the driverless taxis here) are just starting to appear in London. Apparently there's an Orange Theory Fitness in Derby (which has the same logo as the US one and therefore I'm assuming it's the same company.)
(Amazon and some smaller stores have been doing "subscribe and save" for years. But I'm not sure if that's the same thing?)
> [curry shop]
There was a great Thai place on one of the North Acton industrial estates back in ~2010 - tiny place, scuffed formica tables, terrifying grandmother taking your order, similarly small menu. Still the best Pad Thai I've had.
You know you've found the right spot when you're the only white guy in a hundred metre radius of the place.
Small north-east of Scotland town, county cricket match at the cricket club between predominantly Indian and Pakistani teams. Food trucks came up from Leeds to do the catering. Every time I went up to one the guy behind the counter would look at me with wide eyes and say in a concerned tone of voice "You know what's in this, right? You know what you're eating?"
Dude, hit me with the desi shit, keep it coming. Yes of course I know what it is, it's not like I've never had mutton liver before. Here's 20 quid, package some up for me to stick in the freezer.
For me (considerably older than millenials) it's not choice fatigue or "default to bland and tested", it's "if I'm paying a small fortune for coffee / food[0], I do not want a crappy serving just because the barista/cook stubbed their toe / broke up / got bad news / etc. this morning and they're wildly off their game."
Starbucks, McDonalds, Papa Johns, etc. do not make "great" refreshments but they make them of a consistently sufficient level of quality that you can be sure you're not wasting your small fortune when you buy from them wherever you are.
At least in Australia pretty much all the chain places like McDonalds/subway etc suck so bad it’s incredible they are still in business. They aren’t even winning on price.
In the US I have noticed a huge quality gap between chain locations in the suburbs (pretty good) and in the city (abominable).
I don't think this is true in "glamor" cities, but in Baltimore where I live every Chipotle location is known to be terrible. Hostile employees, menu items constantly out of stock, orders wrong. People who patronize and love suburban locations are shocked.
I'm not sure if the independent restaurants are siphoning off all the decent employees (especially the managers who you'd think would try and make sure there's enough product to meet demand), or if it's just that much more difficult to get delivery trucks to city locations, or if corporate just wants to close the city locations and doesn't mind setting them up to fail, or what.
But it's stark.
That's not even getting into McDonald's or KFC which are legitimately ratchet in the city and pretty wholesome out in the burbs.
> Being forced to interact with people you haven't chosen to socialize is good for your mental health and for society.
That may well be true for some extroverted people, yes; it is 100% absolutely not true for "all people". You force me to interact with people I haven't chosen and there's a reasonably high probability that I'll subsequently choose to never interact with you again.[0]
> People interacting with different people are less afraid of the world, more trusting etc.
My childhood was largely interaction with people I didn't choose[1] and, nope, I am absolutely not "more trusting" as a result.
> Clustering into echochambers is bad for society as a whole.
Citation needed for that one.
[0] There is a slim chance that the people I haven't chosen to interact with turn out to be reasonable decent people who I don't annoy and, more importantly, don't annoy me.
[1] A bunch of enforced house moves and a paucity of decent locals at each new house/school.
> That may well be true for some extroverted people, yes
It's true for some of us introverted people as well, especially given that without some "reason" to get together, some of us might never interact with another person ever.
Indeed. But as a very introverted person, I find it much easier to socialize when it's on my terms. I get to choose where I go, the kinds of people I interact with, for how long.
Sure, it's very easy to just "not feel like it" and stay home alone for a week at a time. But I've found that this is usually a reaction to being forced into some situation I don't particularly enjoy, like being compressed like a sardine twice a day on my way to a noisy office where I can't get anything done.
Working from home has actually made me much more social. I'm not drained and annoyed with people at the end of the workday, so I have energy to attend social activities. And, paradoxically, I'm even somewhat closer to people at work: now that I don't have to hear them all day long, I'm much more open to actually interacting with them when I do see them.
Current reality? Of course its more on the (social)media level. Significant proportions of the society in many countries seem to be living in alternate realities.
Real life echo chambers reinforce that as well if you only interact with people with similar lifestyles and worldviews.
> That may well be true for some extroverted people, yes
I would certainly see that’s the case for the overwhelming majority people (certainly not for everyone, though)
> Real life echo chambers reinforce that as well if you only interact with people with similar lifestyles and worldviews.
I'm not sure that's a truism. But we'll have to agree to disagree here.
Certainly the reverse (anti-echo chambers?) isn't true (which casts doubt on the original statement, for me): cf current US Republicans politicians who constantly interact with people that have different lifestyles and worldviews[0] without it having the slightest effect on their own worldview.
See also: anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and, extreme[1] religious people; all of whom cannot fail to mix with people of opposing views nearly every day without it changing their minds.
[0] As a small example, they mingle, have lunch, holiday, serve on committees with, etc., their Democrat colleagues all the time and yet not a shred of sanity rubs off on them.
[1] The more culty end of the spectrum; you know the ones.
Back when I was running, I used the "lace lock" method[0] because a loose heel would drive me to distraction (and because I wore clown shoes with wide toe boxes, there's no pressure from the front to keep the foot stable.)
For sure. I've taken to using a similar method over the last couple of years as I've increased miles and needed to take steps (ha) to take better care of my feet over longer distances. I wouldn't recommend this setup for more active sports with lots of change of direction, but for steady plodding it provides a very consistent and dependable stride for a lot of miles.
Apparently available on AliExpress as a dev board[0]
[0] "ESP32-S31-Korvo-1 Development Board Espressif System AI Intelligent Multimedia Development Board Engineering Sample" for £54.79 from the (allegedly official) Espressif store at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005012333744553.html
But it was "none of -these- X" which (to me, at least) is a secondary signal for plurality indicating that "are" is (doubly) preferable to "is".
(I don't find "none of these components is ..." to be egregiously wrong but it definitely gives a brain hiccup where the "... are ..." variant is much smoother.)
> McCarthy, an Augustinian friar from the South Side who has known Pope Leo for 43 years, told the story as a reminder to parishioners that the pope “is like us,” and “a very humble guy.”
So humble that he was able to change his information over the phone by threatening directly to the president of the bank that he'd use a different bank if they didn't let him, and the president bent over backwards to meet this demand. He's just like us!
[0] https://howard-hodgkin.com/resource/painting-with-light-quan...
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