Yeah, it's a scale thing. In Lyon centre-ville, you'll see X over 1 along big avenues and boulevards. But I lived in the suburbs where it was tower after tower after tower, with all the shops only in the historic town center, which were just villages that had 100% residential areas tacked onto them. Sometimes you will have like a park or a commercial hub in bigger suburbs, but it's all segregated. Very different from what I experienced in China.
The thing with that system is that all the people living in those areas don't need to go anywhere to get their daily needs, they can just walk down and around the block. Food, deliveries, house services and utilities, it was all there. And these are small shops so people from outside wouldn't really bother to come since they'd have their own where they live.
And whatever isn't there locally, you can just get delivered from across town by the army of electric scooters.
And of course the public transit system is crazy good so I can just grab a cab, take a bus or the metro. I never missed my car, is what I'm saying.
But of course that's a giant city thing. The smaller the city, the less and less this is possible and the more people will use their car. I'm back in France now in a tiny town in the countryside (60k ppl) , and I couldn't function without a car.
One of the things I absolutely loved in China was the almost systematic X over 1 buildings everywhere. It created so much life in the residential areas! A lot of residential areas would have some sort of pedestrian central hub, and then on the outer layer, business at ground level with convenience shops, fruit shop, noddle shop, etc.
Coming back to France and its stupid zoning system is just so painful. Seeing all those lifeless suburbs, those lifeless housing estates, and everything concentrated in some shitty commercial areas separate from it all. Ugh.
I'm actually curious what they even import from the US that they can't find elsewhere or make themselves.
I'm wearing NB bought in a NB shop in Wuhan at European prices and they're... made in Indonesia. I'm guessing it's gonna be some really unique luxury shit like alcohol? Or cars? So nothing that's gonna affect Chinese people significantly, except perhaps to send them shopping in the EU and reinforce the Belt and Road and the railway connection with Europe (well, if Putin doesn't fuck things up. That's another story)
Man yeah, a country where you can be sent to an extra territorial jail with no due process and absolutely no recourse because the Man said so.
That sounds scary!
Brigador is amazing!
The flavor text is so good I went out of my way to purchase it all (in game money, but still). Even better, it gives you hints of powerful combos to try out, amongst the many many possible combinations.
It's a fantastic blend of Mechwarrior, with Syndicate graphics, with a brilliant soundtrack.
Such a gem!
Ma remarque finale c'est pour le fait que c'est comme ça partout, en vrai. L'enfer c'est les autres. Y'a toujours du drama peu importe où tu vas (j'ai bossé dans plusieurs régions et pas mal à l'étranger). Le truc c'est de se mettre bien avec les gens autour de soi, de se plaire à son poste, et le reste en /ignore.
If you enjoy zombi bashing but don't care for all the depressive atmosphere of Dying Light, but would rather kick some ass, I would recommend Dead Island (1 or 2).
The close combat fighting is visceral and fun and while the story has some real drama at times, it's generally upbeat.
Seriously, I've had Dying Light for years not every time I get too brought down by the overall vibe and constantly feeling so weak. Whereas DI had me shredding a tear at least once but you kick ass throughout.
Would be interesting to see how they distinguish "personal consumption" and "transformative" consumption.
The AI did quite literally what any human educating themselves would have done : reading entire libraries to improve themselves. Then make money from it. So if little Timmy pirates 3DS Max or Photoshop to get a job, it's fine yeah? Or a student trying to read their course without paying hundreds of dollars?
But wait, when Timmy reads a single virtual book, it's thievery? It's the loss of a sale? So how many sales were lost through all those virtual books stolen from paying customers by the AI?
They gotta decide one way or another at some point and stop taking the piss.
Also I wonder if the AI can actually remember the entire content of each book they read though. Or any. And if they do, then can that actually be proof, for each individual book thus regurgitated, that the copyright has been unfairly used since a full reproduction (or close enough as to fool a reader?) would be now available.
Tried to do a proper analysis of a bug in homologation that's preventing our future customer to test the product, while N+3 and N+4 demand twice-daily updates through video call with ten other managers on it. Two weeks of proper madness, that was.
Stopped the meetings for one fucking day and we had it fixed before 5pm.
For real.
I joined this team two years ago and at 46 was the oldest with our PO. The tech lead had to leave after my first year. Then the PO jumped ship after 19 years at the company. Now our N+2, who's mostly responsible for our PO leaving, is off dying in some hospital. The tech lead he finally got us, a mate of his, has done exactly 4 tickets in four months (I did 50 in my first four) and with good reason since he knows exactly none of the tech stack we use. At all. He's ready to quit, just hasn't found somewhere else.
The N+3, who joined at the same time as him, and knew the shit he was getting in, admitted to me this morning that he's having a tough time honestly.
The guys around me, all in their twenties and with one or two jobs under their belt have never seen shit like this and are all on the verge of ragequitting. Only thing keeping them is the difficulty of finding a job here as we're in the arse end of France.
The (paid) students are kinda all taking it in mouth agape.
Meanwhile I'm just like "eh, sure it's not perfect but it ain't so bad. You should see the last place I was at!".
And I still have to swallow twenty odd years of this shit?
Fuck me.
I can't wait to meet the two people who just did a round of interview...
Yeah, it's a scale thing. In Lyon centre-ville, you'll see X over 1 along big avenues and boulevards. But I lived in the suburbs where it was tower after tower after tower, with all the shops only in the historic town center, which were just villages that had 100% residential areas tacked onto them. Sometimes you will have like a park or a commercial hub in bigger suburbs, but it's all segregated. Very different from what I experienced in China.