There is no more humility. Nothing is holy anymore.
Why can we rebuild it the way it was (as much as possible) and make the fire (and therefore ourselves) an asterisk in the Cathedral’s history? Why must we etch ourselves into everything?
> Why can we rebuild it the way it was (as much as possible) and make the fire (and therefore ourselves) an asterisk in the Cathedral’s history? Why must we etch ourselves into everything?
Because we have no choice but to do so: rebuilding it as much as possible identical to how it was is as much writing ourselves into it as novelty is, not that simple stasis has been the consistent rule in past work, anyway.
Whether Church or State or otherwise, communities are evolving entities and the work they produce says something about where they were. Supposing one both can and should mask that is a weird combination of hubris and self-hatred.
That's not to say that
restoration as much as practical to the status quo ante is always wrong, but instead that choosing that should be, and be recognized as, as much of an active statement about the present community as choosing novel elements as part of reconstruction is.
“Hubris and self hatred?” Can’t disagree on our hubris, but self-hatred? I can’t think of any time more narcisist than ourselves!
I want it rebuilt as close to the original because we are incapable of self-reflection.
Surely nothing we build can be devoid of ourselves, but why not leave behind subtlety?
The question is obviously rhetorical: Notre Dame is too big, too important an opportunity for some mediocre president and architect to leave their name in posterity.
Like you, some people complained when the Baron Haussmann transformed Paris or when Eiffel erected his Tower, or when the Louvre Pyramid was built. I see it as an opportunity to make it better. All buildings in Europe that have survived this long have evolved over the centuries. The Mezquita in Cordoba is also a great example with a mosque built around a cathedral.
Because it’s a “new world order” kind of project, not a religious one. See Celine Dion’s new brand, that sells death-designed clothes for babies, or anything new really: The goal is to change the world for the pleasure of change and loss of roots. The goal is to lose any attachment to any tradition, custom or legacy, and make every country the same mix of multicultural pot.
Upside is, you won’t need to travel in 2030, all countries will look the same.
FYI this is a far-right conspiracy theory, typically found among white supremacists. there is no evidence that a secret cabal is planning some kind of new world order or plotting to burn all the history books.
It can still happen without any central control. Popular culture changes. People generally don't respect churches as much as they used to. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's kids rebelling against their parents and wanting to stamp their mark on the world.
Also keep in mind this conspiracy theory is often followed by goalpost-changing along the lines of "well, obviously I didn't mean that they're all actually in a conspiracy, it's because they've been influence by [other conspiracy]", generally leading either to an infinite regress of adjusted claims, or talk about cultural Marxism claptrap and claims about how the Frankfurt School academics somehow nefariously orchestrated the next hundred years of global social change in the 1930s.
Is there anything particular you would like to know? I've heard a little about Setun from my parents, but nothing too exciting, I can ask around if you're interested.
For a little context: my mother studied cybernetics and father studied electrical engineering in USSR in 70s. They still have their college textbooks lying around, so I can try to dig something up for you from that era. But keep in mind, even in 70s it was obvious that USSR was decades behind USA. Heck, my first algorithm textbook was my parents' 2nd edition of Knuth's TAOCP (interestingly, my parents combined have 1 copy of 1st volume, 0 copies of 2nd volume, and 2 copies of 3rd volume).
DSSP, what’s so special about it? I sense LISPers and Forthers sense of “enlightenment” (which I have not obtained). But what is so special about DSSP that it’s considered a generalization of Forth?
Setun:
just about everything! I read it failed lately because bureaucrats stymied engineer’s creativity to do things the “Western” way (it seems this slowed the Soviet’s bomb since their scientists figures a better way to do something)
How were logic gates defined ? (Ie what type of ternary logic was used)
What were the voltage levels to represent the states?
I wanted to note that language's name in Russian (РАЯ, RAYA) is most likely a play on words. It is an abbreviation of phrase "Extensible Adaptive Language" and at the same time it is a female name. And Google Translate mistakenly translates is as "paradise", so one should read this header:
> Developed adaptive language PARADISE dialogue programming system PRSP
as "Extensible adaptive language RAYA for Dialogue (Interactive) Programming System (DSSP)". I think "Dialogue" here means something like REPL, where one can input commands and expressions and see the result.
I looked through Google Translate copy of the article about RAYA and DSSP - it is somewhat readable. Here are some words that machine translation gets wrong:
- PRSP, PSP, DPF -> incorrect translation for DSSP (Dialogue (Interactive) System for Structured Programming)
- paradise, heaven -> RAYA
- Developed adaptive language -> Extensible Adaptive Language
- "is known as descending programming" -> "is known as a waterfall model"
- "or as letters of the I / O alphabet" -> probably means "as letters for Input/Output of text"
- entered into -> introduced, added
- "Data types and their associated constraints and checks can be entered into problem-oriented language extensions." -> "can be introduced (added) by ... extensions"
- team -> command
- vertex -> top (of the stack)
- sub-top, sub-row, sub-vertex, sub-bottom, bottom, sub-bush, subspace, subshift -> second value from the top of the stack (I am surprised how many ways Google has to translate the same word)
- "assignment to her team! X value of the last (top) item" -> "assignment a top value from the stack to it using command !X"
- "Signal the end of the input and the command processor" -> Signal of the end of input and the command to processor ...
- binary additional code -> two's complement code
- "The byte output command to the terminal issues a letter on the screen..." -> "TOB", the command for byte output ...
- "present a modifiable factor of the variable K"-> represent a modifiable factor with a variable K
- The PRSP processor distinguishes words from the first seven letters, identifying them by polite comparison -> The DSSP processor uses only first seven characters of the word, identifying words with letter-by-letter comparison
- monologue -> "monoword", single-word command
- verbose commands -> multiword commands
- pre-team -> special command prefix, which authors call "pre-prefix", like "BYTE" before "VAR"
- The remainder is always divisible. -> The remainder has the sign of divisible
- subloviera, sublovier, subcouples, subloader, sublorer -> sub-dictionary (don't know where Google took those words, I doubt they exist)
Well I don’t think they should be down voted, but it is wrong.
Taiwan is de-jure a part of China. China just happens to be in the curious state of having two competing entities claiming to be the legitimate government.
Both ROC and Beijing agree Taiwan is China. The “C” in ROC is China!
Taiwanese people I know don’t believe this, and my impression is that the Taiwanese government’s continuing claim over China is mostly a matter of historical inertia and symbolism rather than a serious practical goal.
But many mainland Chinese do, and the government spends considerable effort cajoling/bullying the rest of the world to not recognize Taiwanese sovereignty. From what I can tell there is a real threat China might sometime attempt military conquest.
Anyway it’s complicated. Some in ROC want independence. Some don’t. Some would like to join Beijing (many investors from ROC). Most probably want the whole thing to be on the low and the ROC ignored lest the dragon is awakened.
But regardless what civilians want, being part of China affects the actions of Taipei more than any other issue.
I am not sure even de jure the situation is clear. I think the following is the case (but I'm not a legal scholar, so please correct me if I'm wrong!)
When Japan lost the war, Taiwan was governed by the Allied Powers, who appointed Chen Yi from the Kuomintang (KMT) as chief executive and garrison commander of what was called "Taiwan Province". The Peace Treaty with Japan (Treaty of San Francisco) and the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) both did not specify that Taiwan was a part of mainland China. I think formally/legally Taiwan was Japanese until 1952 but Japan was under allied control at the time. The question of Taiwan's legal status was left open in the aforementioned peace treaties. This is the legal/technical root cause for the problems with Taiwan's legal status even today.
So, as far as I can see: de facto Taiwan is an independent nation. And de jure it's ... unclear.
Finally, let's bear in mind that in a very real sense there is no such thing as "international law", much of what is called international law is really just voluntary consent of states.
Taiwan only holds on to the historical claim to ruling China because a change in status is feared to trigger the China's anti-secession laws, which in turn would lead to an invasion on Taiwan by China. Better not to "rock the boat" at this point.
(Taiwan probably also sees this as a bargaining chip, to be given up at an opportune moment (like the Kinmen Islands), in exchange for something else, e.g. China accepting Taiwan's independence. I suspect this would have been possible at some point when China was weak but seems unlikely now.)
My parents are as paranoid as I am (grew up in a US enabled dictatorship) so it was easy to get them to use Signal. If they weren’t so cool, I’d use FB or WhatsApp
But my aunts and uncles and cousins (who, ironically also grew up in this dictatorship) laugh and use Facebook.
That’s cool. I don’t talk to them often. They know I love them. And they know I won’t use FB.
It is. In my city at least. And at the federal level for landlords as well.
My local taxes depend on my land value + my house value.
Larger land, (or more desirable) more taxes.
In federal taxes, for a rental unit, you get a depreciation expense only on the value of the structure. Not on the land. So more valuable land vs. structure, less federal discount.
> My local taxes depend on my land value + my house value
Are they separate line items? Or combined? The difference matters.
My condo is taxed based on the whole value of the unit- which is something like 1/2 of the cost of a house in the same neighbourhood, which means I'm taxed about 1/2 of what they are. But I use 1/100th the amount of land they use. Meanwhile, the cost to the city in terms of infrastructure (pipes, roads, drainage, etc) is much lower than the houses in the subdivision down the road.
In effect, today's laws makes high-density-home owners subsidize the high cost of maintaining subdivisions by taxing on total value only. Switch it to 50% value and 50% land use, with explicit line items for each and you'll see more demand for high density housing.
> Meanwhile, the cost to the city in terms of infrastructure (pipes, roads, drainage, etc) is much lower than the houses in the subdivision down the road
The costs in terms of lots of services that aren't physical infrastructure scales with population, though, and for some services (or for adverse impacts that services don't fully mitigate) is also higher, rather than lower, for the same population when density is higher; e.g., crime rates per capita tend to go up with population density.
The base of the land value tax is the value of the land though. If the land is in the middle of a high population density area then the land is worth more and it generates more tax revenue.
The difference between this and property tax is that if you have a 12 story building on one piece of land and a 2 story building on the adjacent one, otherwise identical piece of land, they both pay the same tax, giving the second property owner more incentive to build.
You only do this in the places where you want everything to become skyscrapers. There is no real need for it in Des Monies or other places that already have reasonable housing costs.
“The difference matters” I don’t see how, but I don’t fully understand how your assessment works. My city’s assessment is close to the market value [1] for the whole property, so it’s a mute point.
Either way, they do give me a breakdown, which I agree is right (land about 33% of overall value).
Again, for rental properties, there is a disincentive to having low density housing (my condo value in a 20 story building is assessed as 20% land)
[1] close to what I believe I can sell the house for
Without getting into the numbers, this is the right approach:
Some people argue Property taxes vs Land Value taxes thinking it is roughly the same, and that althought it might change tax structure it wouldnt change rent prices.
But thats true if you look at it statically: dynamically, you make poeple in single family homes want to abandon them and sell them to developers, so you naturally turn an enemy (nimby) into an ally (sell for developers).
I’ve owned property in Virginia and California and both the counties I lived in break out the assessed value of you land and your property as separate line items on your bill. They do NOT break your payment into multiple lines.
For example, my current home is assessed as $150k land value and $350k house value for a total of $500k.
No but the assessor can - and in every place I’ve owned property, does - give you a breakdown.
Heck, the breakdown is required information in your federal taxes if you want the depreciation expense.
And for all of us who don’t live in crazy-land CA, we have to get assessed since my purchase price (I.e. market value) ten years ago is meaningless today.
For primary residences you could also do things like defer payment on the increases until sale, so no one is forced out of their home but the people who have huge capital gains do not also get a tax break. Rental property shouldn't need a special break though, if there's a housing shortage and prices are up it's very likely that rents are up too.
What’s the problem with Christian or comic bookstores?
Do the same problems apply to the Muslim or Jewish bookstore in my neighborhood? Should I be concerned with them - there’s funny symbols! (I don’t think there’s a Christian bookstore)?
Does St. Thomas Aquinas, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky belong in “Christian” bookstore, or in a “normal” bookstore?
If in a “Christian” bookstore, do you have a problem with Tolstoy?
If in a “normal” bookstore, is Tolstoy’s work no longer Christian?
Is “Persepolis” bad literature for being a comic book?
“Coal” plants burn carbon, making carbon dioxide. It’s colorless and pretty much harmless, excepting it’s inpact as a GHG.
However, coal contains (depending on the source), mercury, sulfur, radioactive elements, tars, rare earth elements.
Some of these are volatile when burned. Some become ash.
A plant running anthracite is naturally very clean.
The plant has to have scrubbers to remove the volatile ones.
Especially the yellow smoke (likely sulfur)
However, a one time emission of sulfur is likely insignificant.
Finally you mentioned it could be natural gas. Natural gas, mostly methane, is also colorless except it releases water vapor. Given the right conditions, you might see plumes of white smoke coming out - that’s harmless water vapor.
Why can we rebuild it the way it was (as much as possible) and make the fire (and therefore ourselves) an asterisk in the Cathedral’s history? Why must we etch ourselves into everything?
Want a glass cathedral? Go build one. Elsewhere.