Sounds like there’s also a lot of potential for soviet style gulags, forced labor camps, or basically just slavery. If that’s what USA is offering, many dictatorships would probably be glad to make a deal. Once USA figures out how to have gulgas on their own soil, the expenses will suddenly vanish entirely.

But isn’t that also a very expensive way to murder people? How can they afford a massive system like that?

What could possibly go right.

All of them have at least one. Usually it’s 2-4 emojis per post, but some have way more. Seems like a deliberate marketing tactic.

Economies of scale play a role too, and China certainly has that. Neglecting the environment and employee rights aren’t really a big deal in there, but in Germany they are. On top of that, there are also big differences in living standards, which is reflected in the wages. All of that stacked together, and you end up with massive price differences.

You need to add more slavery and exploitation to the production method to make it cheaper.

I get my American slang through Hollywood and Internet, so the curriculum may not be entirely comprehensive at times.

Oh. That’s a new one for me.

Had to look at my keyboard to translate that.

Here’s the link to the map.

People prefer to drive at the speed dictated by the road design. If it feels natural to drive at 60 km/h, people will do exactly that even if it is illegal. if it’s a narrow cobble stone path with poor visibility, it feels much more natural to slow down to something like 20…40 km/h. The legal speed limit might be higher, but people just don’t feel comfortable driving faster, so they won’t.

In rural areas you can find some absurdly tight bends that have been there for at least a hundred years and were probably designed by cattle or sheep. The speed limit could be 80 km/h, but there’s a warning about a tight bend and a recommended speed. You slow down to 60 km/h, but it feels kinda dangerous. You slow down to the recommended 40 km/h but it still feels uncomfortable. You finally pass the bend at 30 km/h and that felt like you barely made it.

Every now and then, you’ll also find some fearless people, who usually end up wrapping their car around the nearest tree. They are immune to speed limits and only mildly resistant to good road design. These concepts don’t apply to the people who are striving to win the Darwin Award, but they are still relevant to everyone else though.

The older parts of town definitely seem that way, although those streets weren’t really designed in the modern sense of the word. In suburbs though, you do have intentionally narrow sections and bump, occasionally even combined to a brutal choke point. Either way, people don’t want to drive there unless it’s absolutely necessary, so they’ll take the PT instead. Seems to be working.

Makes sense, but I’m not a traffic design engineer, so what do I know. I’m pretty sure traffic congestion has been studied extensively, so there should be a pretty good model on how they develop and what causes them. Speed might be one of those factors.

However, I have seen some videos about speed change causing congestion. Let’s say someone panics because of a moose on a highway, breaks abruptly for a while, and then moves on. That spot will continue to have some sort of congestion long after the incident took place.

Take a look at the description of these two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6LIYQRglnM

If that ever becomes a law, I would really like to see what’s the official legal way to describe that type of car.

Here’s one. The others tell the same story with different words.

speed limits are one of the most important

I’ve seen a few YT videos that tell you the exact opposite. If you design the streets to feel “dangerous” to the driver, they will naturally pay attention, slow down and make the streets safer for everyone. You could plant some more tress, make the streets narrower etc.

Sure, people can’t drive to places as fast, but that’s not really a problem. If more people decide to use public transport instead, it’s just going to make the city nicer for everyone.

Long ago, I made the observation that only small countries can have a reasonably humane system in place. The larger the country, the more likely it is to be a dictatorship of sorts. Obviously, history plays a significant role too, but population size is probably more than just a coincidence.

https://sheaffer.com/ seems to be American.

Oh, thank you so much! ♡

I wish I had a list like this a few years ago. Anyway, here are a few I would like to add to the list.

• https://www.diplomat-pen.com/en/ (Germany)
• https://www.jacquesherbin.com/en/ (France)
• https://www.kaweco-pen.com/ (Germany)
• https://www.visconti.it/en/ (Italy)

Then there’s also

• https://www.fabercastell.com/collections/fountain-pen

But it seems to be a bit complicated. It started as a German company, but then it went American at some point, and I don’t know what’s going on with them nowadays.