this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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For example, Britain's national mapping organisation's brand is associated in our national consciousness with going to a small shop in a quaint village to get a map showing how to walk up a mountain. It's called Ordnance Survey. If that sounds like Artillery Research to you, that's because the project started because the king wanted to know how to accurately bomb Scotland.

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[โ€“] tetris11@lemmy.ml 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Water. Fresh drinking water straight from the tap.

And yet I'm seeing lots of people in the UK start to buy bottled water. Worse: canned water.

The shittification of public services in favour of private products is a creep I'm not paying enough attention to

[โ€“] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 16 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I agree with the overall sentiment; but there is no way in hell that canned water is worse than plastic bottles.

Aluminium is infinitely more/easily recyclable than plastic, and has a much lower negative impact on the environment.

But to reiterate, filling up your own bottle from the tap is preferred - but if you have to buy water in a container: can > bottle

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's not really the metal that's bad, but the coating on the inside of the metal (in contact with your food/water), that raises concerns.

Glass is best, but food/water in glass containers are often considerably more expensive.

[โ€“] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I am aware; but when the options are an entirely plastic container (clear, and readily able to oxidise and leech microplastics when exposed to light over long periods of time) versus a lined metal can (which is at least opaque) - cans are remain the lesser of two evils.

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I don't disagree at all. I wish we had more options.

More glass with compatibility with mason jar lids would be a win for everyone. You can recycle 5them if you want, reuse them easily, and they can remain in circulation for a very long time.

The only caveat with glass is that you have too many idiots breaking them on sidewalks, bike lanes, and parks.

[โ€“] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Glass is also quite heavy, increasing logistics costs for transport - but in an ideal world where everything runs off renewable energy sources and stupid people didnโ€™t ruin things for the rest of us - glass would indeed be the ideal medium.

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

But glass is easy to sterilize at the point of purchase and refilled. There are "zero waste" stores that do something like this already, so there's nothing to bring in other than bulk product (instead of 100 cans or bottles).

Doesn't work everywhere in our current, high-profit, low-care business models.

[โ€“] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

I agree that metal is better than plastic, but it feels like they're trying to categorise water with soda as a commodity

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[โ€“] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Homelessness. But I don't occasionally think about it. I see it every day. In the richest nation in recorded history.

[โ€“] mouserat@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

And the wealth of only one single manchild is enough to pay housing for them all - at least in this nation...and probably in some more. (Just looked some numbers up - world economic forum reported in 2021 that there are 150 million people homeless in the world, that would be ~2700,- per individual homeless person, taking his net worth into account -for 770. 000 homeless people in the US it would be ~525. 000 per person)

[โ€“] OmgItBurns@discuss.online 3 points 6 days ago (3 children)

The problem is that homelessness is, weirdly, more complicated than just giving people homes. It's also about mental health issues (many of which we don't yet have the ability to effectively treat), community, purpose, and a ton of other things.

It's almost like everyone would benefit from a support system or safety net put in place by some community funded entity that would have the capability of putting those systems in place.

[โ€“] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 5 days ago

There are other problems for the homeless, but it makes treating those problems a lot easier when they have a home.

You're right-I didn't want to make it look simple. I'm just constantly stunned how wealth is distributed, which is one of many reasons for homelessness. A fair distribution could finance housing and support systems.

[โ€“] SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org 2 points 5 days ago

You can't treat any existing mental health issues while people are living on the street developing new ones.

It's always been a rich man's country. All for one, none for all.

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[โ€“] spittingimage@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

I have a thick rope of muscle in my mouth that I can control accurately enough to speak with, swallow with, and dig popcorn fragments out from between my teeth with.

Just one of nature's wacky solutions that applies to more than one problem. I should be grateful it doesn't have thorns on it.

[โ€“] digdilem@lemmy.ml 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

That milk forms such a big part of western diets considering where it comes from.

[โ€“] pebbles@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Yeah dude the more I think of milk as sexual assault the stranger it feels.

[โ€“] MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In the staff fridge at work someone used to label their milk as "breast milk" and people would go eeeww. Like it was snot or something. But from a cow's breasts? Fine! So weird.

[โ€“] embed_me@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago

Well humans do be gross

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[โ€“] mukt@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 days ago

Printed currency.

Homelessness.

[โ€“] babyincubi@beehaw.org 1 points 5 days ago
[โ€“] Sarcophagus@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago
[โ€“] phpinjected@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 5 days ago

life and death

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