i am currently playing a game called “is the smoke I’m smelling coming from something inside my apartment burning, a neighbour preparing for a barbecue, or the smoke from grassland fires that is currently covering the city?”
so far the answer is always b or c but it doesn’t do to get complacent
(the weather app on my phone currently says “smoke” in the place where it usually says cloudy or sunny or rainy or whatever. it is very dystopian)
This is what it looks like, btw
Tags:
#this doesn’t *quite* fit the remit of #today in Apocalypse Memes #but it has a very similar vibe #somebody please get that poor frog a better mask #weather #fire #apocalypse cw?
#today in Apocalypse Memes #climate change #our home and cherished land #(I do not personally live in BC) #(it’s towards the warm end of normal around here but not staggeringly hot and certainly not record-breaking) #((*yet*)) #weather
glad too see the weather network started drinking early tonight.
(they mean the storm crosses the international date line and not that we are about to be swallowed by a temporal anomaly that will perpetually trap us all in an eternal 2020. just in case you thought the latter seemed in character for the year)
Tags:
#weather #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog
I mean, I’m primarily leaving because of the rents, with a secondary helping of excessive low level disorder and general shittiness. but the coronavirus response makes clear that neither the government nor the people is able to make anything better.
at this point the primary argument in favor of sticking it out a bit is that I think new york got rolled hard enough on the first wave that we won’t have a substantial second one. but I was planning on this being my last year and I don’t think I’ll change that.
I enjoyed living here, and I’m glad I moved to new york when I did. but it’s time to go.
that’s the big q! I’m almost certainly staying in the US long term – all of my friends and family are here and it’s still the richest place on the earth, despite its various problems – so that narrows the options a lot. I’m getting to the point in life where I’m about ready to settle down, so ideally wherever I move is a strong contender for decades of residence.
I want to live near at least a mid size city, because I enjoy the products of modern civilization. on the east coast, the only city with a climate that is even borderline habitable is Boston.
the west coast is about to fall into the ocean but with some forethought it seems reasonable to bet on it staying attached for 30 years. and they have great weather patterns, so that’s the vague direction of attention. I have gut feelings about west coast cities but honestly should do some more research.
tbh I really wish america had a city that had tall buildings, decent weather, and wasn’t totally falling apart, but it really doesn’t. actually not sure if there are any cities in the world that meet all three criteria tbh
there are no cities in america that meet all three criteria, but there are plenty of cities in europe that do. if you relax your definition of “tall”. western europe isn’t a good long-term bet, but bremen has tallish buildings and decentish weather – it still gets too hot sometimes, but it’s not as bad as boston, which despite being so far north by american standards (it’s actually on about the same latitude as istanbul and madrid) gets hellish in the summer – and isn’t falling apart yet.
i don’t know what a good place would be for long-term settlement. in the absence of a better idea i’m inclined to stay in the still-habitable parts of the mid-atlantic – somewhere between martinsburg and westminster, probably. but given indefinite time and funds to investigate places to move, and safe air travel, i’d probably want to check out, like, boise.
if it doesn’t sound bad, it probably is bad – the point is that generic urbanites should stay out. many fleeing californians, new yorkers, etc. won’t learn from their mistakes, and will push for the same damn things in texas and virginia. some people who really ought to know better fled to austin, and i’ll try to be polite about it when they flee again.
if you relax your definition of “tall”. western europe isn’t a good long-term bet
yeah, I’m prepared to do this, since America only has two cities with tall buildings and they’re both falling apart and have subpar climates. north/western europe has good weather – it is the environment for which this particular ape is adapted. the problem with europe is money – afaict if I lived there I should expect a much lower salary and a generally lower standard of living. having lots of money lets you buy your way out of a lot of social problems, so I’d rather just do that and also live within a couple time zones of my friends and family.
boston, which despite being so far north by american standards (it’s actually on about the same latitude as istanbul and madrid)
Fake, Madrid is closer to parallel with New York. for Boston a better parallel would be Sofia or Bishkek
boise
if you think Boston is hellish in the summer I’ve got bad news for you about the entire continental interior. Boise’s not too humid in summer so I guess you can go outside at night, but you might want to look further north
anyway long term settlement isn’t real. ruining a place is a long term process, if it’s fine when you get there it’ll probably last long enough to make it work for you
The traditional place for people sick of the United States’ bullshit to fuck off to is southern Canada, and there are many good reasons for that. You can usually get the same timezone you were in before, you can visit the Old Country via land transport, the culture shock is pretty mild, you get used to the winter cold after a few years (it took me about six years to reach a point where -10C wasn’t a big deal anymore, and you can usually arrange to not go outside when it occasionally hits -20) and the summers rarely go above 85F or so, often spending long stretches in the 70s.
(I switched measurement systems in the middle there because I find that moving to a cooler climate and switching measurement systems at the same time helps you cultivate a useful double standard. 10C *feels warmer* than 50F, and just because -10C doesn’t seem so bad anymore doesn’t mean 14F will be fine (likewise, 90F being okay doesn’t mean 32C will be).)
My dad fucked off to Canada after seeing how badly the U.S. was handling the aftermath of 9/11, taking his family with him, and every so often I’m like “have I thanked you lately for getting me here?”.
(He’s said his second choice was New Zealand, but living upside-down would take a lot more getting used to, and while people on isolated islands are doing great right *now* it’s not *always* a plus.)
—
OP draws a weird dichotomy of people who don’t want to move being “people who base their entire personal identity on emotional attachment to a place”.
I wouldn’t say I strongly identify with this specific place, but I *do* strongly want *somewhere* decent to put down roots. My reluctance to move is primarily a reluctance to move *in full generality*, rather than a reluctance to move *away from here*.
(I feel kind of bad sometimes about not having done more exploration before settling down to exploit, but exploration of living-place options is expensive in more ways than one. I doubt I would find anything *enough* better to justify all the unpleasantness of instability, especially since I accidentally hit an area with a reputation for plentiful jobs in my field on the first try.)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #our home and cherished land #home of the brave #covid19 #illness tw? #weather
I can’t trust any take on Disney from someone so clearly ignorant of what he’s talking about that he can say this with a straight face:
“That is because in normal times you must choose perhaps four or five big rides, each lasting mere minutes, and spend hours waiting in line to be admitted to each.”
Dude, just showing up at a major Disney ride and expecting to be seated is like just showing up at a fancy restaurant and expecting to be seated: in both cases *you are supposed to make a reservation*. When I went in the autumn of 2015, ride reservations (“FastPasses”) were quite flexible (one-hour usage window) and very often available on a same-day basis: while we *had* reservations months in advance, we made last-minute adjustments to them pretty much every day (you can do this on your phone, thanks to the complimentary Wi-Fi [link]).
(Also a part of me is going “you’re complaining about how expensive everything is and yet you stayed at the fucking *Contemporary*??”, while another part goes “why did the Atlantic send some poor dude with a COVID-19-naive immune system to fucking *Florida*? they’re a bunch of Americans in the summer of 2020: did they *seriously* not have anybody who’d had it already that they could send instead?”)
Still, it’s interesting to hear some reporting from the field. Just…with some caveats.
That is all relatively recent, though. Fastpass was introduced in 1999; I definitely remember the process he describes from when I was growing up. And the author is of course describing how Disney “usually” is off of secondhand reports, since he’s never been before.
But yeah, the article is great as a description of how Disney is now. And the observations about it as being part of the American civic religion aren’t original but they are fairly good points.
I *suppose* you could call 21 years relatively recent compared to the total span of Disney World’s existence, but it’s simultaneously a long time.
I guess a generational thing does add another layer to the bit about his parents refusing to go there: *I* grew up hearing Dad complain about “standing in line for hours for every five minutes of ride” as the reason he refused to go to *Six Flags*, and perhaps even specifically as a reason why Disney was better than Six Flags.
(A bit of context: I was born in 1993 to a family that *was* upper-middle-class at the time and a mom that loves Disney World. I’ve been five times: 1998, 2000, 2001 (we were there on 9/11, it was a hell of a thing), 2004, and 2015. Our trips were generally around 1.5 – 2 weeks long: trying to cram everything into a long weekend is a recipe for exhaustion and FOMO.)
—
In additional to the description of how things were going on the ground, I thought the bits about the Disney World government having legitimacy in the eyes of its constituents, in a way the American government does not, were an interesting way of looking at it.
P.S. Oh, also we homeschooled, which meant we could arrange to go during the school year (usually in autumn, sometimes winter). So come to think of it, that’s another reason why my experience of Disney would paint it as less crowded (and with less miserable weather!) than many people claim.
(Florida in the autumn is basically the same as New Jersey in the summer: my body was already adapted to that temperature and humidity range in general, and in most cases had the advantage of having *recently used* said adaptations (since New Jersey summer had only just ended). (Though in 2015, when I’d spent the last eight years in Canada, I was pleasantly surprised by how intact my heat tolerance was. My body walked out of the airport into the 95F-and-very-humid dusk, went “Oh hey, it’s summer! I remember summer! I haven’t had summer in *years*!”, flicked a few settings, and happily continued on its way.))
Tags:
#reply via reblog #my childhood #Disney #politics cw #illness tw #home of the brave #covid19 #homeschool #weather
I see that we’ve reached the “open every door in your house at least twice a day or else you’ll be trapped forever” portion of the season.
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#what the fuck are you talking about #what the shit goes *on* up in Saskatchewan #*looks up weather report* #… #…remind me never to move there #(god no wonder people acted like we were moving to Siberia when we said we were going to Canada) #((Dad eventually started telling our American friends and family that we were moving to a place ”between Michigan and New York”)) #(((note for those of you reading this later who can’t go look at the weather report:))) #(((Regina is around -25C for the next few days with windchills around -35))) #(((meanwhile Kitchener is like))) #(((freezing +- 5))) #our home and cherished land #weather
It’s not even November yet, dammit. “First snowfall that sticks long enough for me to put a footprint in it” is supposed to be November ~5th around here.
On the bright side, it’s supposed to be back up to double-digits Celsius tomorrow, so it won’t stick too much longer than needed to put a footprint in it.
(But still.)
amango-tea said: Yeah, it’s flurrying right now and I am NONE TOO PLEASED ABOUT IT. Goddammit, weather!
My objection is: But where does it END? I’m already wearing my ex’s DC winter coat basically at all times. I can’t just keep getting more clothes to put on top of other clothes; that’ll get way too expensive and too bulky to deal with.
There are already some clothes I just can’t get around to unpacking, because too much ugh, because too many clothes. Ideally, I would like to have a small number of clothing items that are really cool, and just wash my whole wardrobe each week. Owning clothes that I won’t wear until a whole ‘nother season is /insane/. How am I supposed to /transport/ that? (If the answer is “live in the same place for a whole year” I’m screwed.)
Plus all clothing necessarily impedes the things I want to be outside for in the first place, and more clothing makes it worse. It blocks sunlight from reaching my skin, impedes motion to make dancing more taxing, and – by making the heat-trapping potential of my body inconsistent – it makes me sweat.
Maximum physical comfort would be being completely naked while the ambient temperature is comfortable on my skin. Any alternative where I make up for below-ideal temperatures by putting on layers of clothing can never compare, due to the inherent drawbacks of clothing and the fact that they scale with moar clothe.
So while getting warmer clothes as the weather gets worse may somewhat slow down the quality of life decline, it wouldn’t prevent it from happening. Given that clothes are also expensive and bulky and often sensory evil, I’m not sure how much it’s worth to go getting extra clothes I only wear for part of the year. (Plus I have at least one heavy part-of-the-year coat if needed – which has by itself been a nightmare to transport for the past three years.)
Thank you for the suggestion, though. I just don’t think it’s quite enough to deal with my particular seasonal issues. But if clothing-ownership constraints relax (ie: I can ever expect to stay in one place long enough to make owning bulky items not be prohibitively expensive), I may try this as part of a broad harm-reduction approach.
I once saw a list of tips for homeless people that suggested buying a set of winter clothes from a thrift store when the cold sets in, then dumping it back on the thrift store when it warms up, so that you’ve effectively “rented” the clothes for the winter.
It was aimed at people living on the street, therefore limited to what they can carry but *not* routinely having to ship their belongings long distances, so it might not be useful to you. (And there are the cost issues, of course.) But there *do* exist situations in which thrift-store clothes “rentals” are the least-bad option, so I thought I’d mention it in case (now or in the future) you end up in such a situation.
(My favourite level of clothing (controlling for weather) is turtleneck + hoodie + sweatpants, and I’ve lived in the same house for over a decade and would not be surprised if I continue living here (or otherwise retain access to its long-term storage) for decades more, so I can’t offer any advice based on actually knowing these feels. But at least I can pass along advice I’ve heard from others.)
Tags:
#reply via reblog #adventures in human capitalism #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #weather
it’s ninety-nine degrees outside, four fuck-thousand percent humidity, and my husband was like, “i’m gonna go for a bike ride.” and i was like “why. no. why. don’t put us on the news like that. local fool collapses on unnecessary journey. don’t do it.” so he says he doesn’t want to “hide in the house” because the sun is shining. bruh. honeybruh. “the sun is shining” does not cover it. its hot outside. its motherfucking hot as fuck outside. our outdoor plants have been crying into their hands all week. whole cars are melting into the sewer. our fucking patio umbrella developed sentience to ask me for lemonade this morning
@robotmango, you need to work for the weather forecast – this was both hilarious and so vivid it made me stand up and get some iced tea.
this is a great idea, thank you. here goes. my audition tape for the weather channel. dearly beloved. we are gathered here today to have a fucking funeral for the outdoors. it had a good run, with all its creeks and clouds and shit. pretty great. now it’s ten-thirty at night but still ninety-two asshole-sweating degrees and humid as fuck. everything is hot and slimy, like being a “borrower” that got trapped inside a bottle of shampoo and then accidentally microwaved. you can see on my doppler radar that nothing is moving around out there because everything is probably dead. the only alive thing is the mosquito currently trying to drill a hole in my leg. no surprise that all the shitbag mosquitos are fine, since the thermostat of hell is always at the devil’s preferred temperature. this forecast has gotten away from me a little, but in conclusion fuck the sun
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#weather #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #death mention
#weather #our home and cherished land #yeah pretty much #although the thing that happens in Jun – Aug or so doesn’t always reach a point where I’d be comfortable calling it ”summer” #”summer” should be consistently 25+ C and spending much of the time 30+ #southern Ontario often just kind of hovers around 20 for a few months before deciding to start heading towards fall #which to be fair is great for cooling costs #last year we almost never ran the air conditioner at all
Brinens and Things 