The Shipping news [1] (Pulitzer and National Book Award winner) featured a house being moved over ice and Oscar and Lucinda [2] (Booker Award winner) featured a glass church being moved on water, as did their respective movies.
Rough Draft in Kingston, NY is another one. It's definitely my favorite bookshop right now. It helps to have a great coffee bar and booze bar and a cool historical building, but most of all it helps to be in a city to which hipsters have been migrating in droves in recent years. To be fair Rough Draft are as much a driver of that recent migration (along with other new similar businesses) as it is a beneficiary. They do a great job in curating their book selection, unfortunately the crowds and morning coffee queues keep me away more than I would like.
A driver won't just chose profitable over unprofitable, but also more profitable over less profitable, and this ends up hurting some passengers on less profitable / less desirable routes.
If you wanted a cab to Brooklyn from Manhattan 20+ years ago, you had to get in the back of the car before telling the driver where you wanted to go. Otherwise the driver would just drive off without you. The ride was definitely profitable, but they knew they'd pick up another Manhattan ride on the next block and so on - a more profitable option that to risk not having a fare back from Brooklyn. Many drivers wised up and wouldn't let you into the cab until you told them where you were going. It was a major PitA.
As someone who moved from Europe to the US, the pervasiveness of the military in televised professional and college football game is incredibly jarring to me yet is so normalized to Americans. Count the number of times there is a reference to the military, a cutaway to uniformed people in the stands or by the touchline, a clip of troops watching the game while deployed overseas, flyovers etc. Still, after 10 years, my reaction is "what has that got to do with sport?".
I've always assumed this to be a very deliberate strategy to build an implicit association between the "nobility" of sport and war, to boost recruitment and win over the hearts and minds of the American public for past, current and future military action.
Now count how many times you've seen any sign of the military at a sports event in Europe - rare to never. It's not normal and it's sad to me that it is so normalized in the US.
On the topic of computer history museums, I strongly recommend a visit to the American Computer & Robotics Museum in Bozeman, MT if you're in the area [1]. It's a small space born from a personal collection, which Edward O. Wilson describes as "inch for inch, the best museum in the world". An original cuneiform tablet, Principia Mathematica, Enigma machine, NASA artifacts, early Apple computers - All here and much, much more. Run, don't walk.
I'm sticking with the show but as a huge Foundation fan, it's bitterly disappointing so far. For me the reason comes clear in the accompanying (official) podcasts. The writers are so enamored with their own smarts, that the story takes second place to literary navel gazing. Rock bottom for me was when Brother Day - a supposedly omnipotent figure - travels across the galaxy to quell a religious uprising but just stands silent as a new leader takes up the mantle with an overwrought speech, one of many in the show. The taking of terminus was another example of characters that speak with great intelligence and then act dumb. Ugh. I'm only hoping the writers take the feedback from Season 1 and change course.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Japan does not allow dual citizenship ... rather your children are young enough that they have not had to declare their ultimate citizenship?
My wife and I are naturalized US citizens. My country of origin allows me to retain dual citizenship, as does the US, but my wife was obliged to renounce her Japanese citizenship when she became a US citizen. It's annoying and unfortunate that she had to do so.
I wish the English (and others following their lead) would stop using the phrase "British Isles" to include Ireland. Many Irish people find it highly offensive; at best it is simply inaccurate.
"In Ireland, the term "British Isles" is controversial, and there are objections to its usage. The Government of Ireland does not officially recognize the term, and its embassy in London discourages its use. Britain and Ireland is used as an alternative description" [1]
Ireland has not been a British Isle in more than a hundred years when 84% of the island re-gained its independence.
The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland may be over but there is still tension and violence in Northern Ireland between a subset of Catholics and Protestants. The sectarian violence still happens but does not get reported internationally because the scale is so much lower than it was up to 2010, but to say Inter-Christian conflict has been non-existent for a generation (25 years?) is wishful thinking at best.
[1] - https://twitter.com/zillowgonewild/status/152662553013669478...