[ [ 1529229219, [ "House decorations in west london. My next stops bring me back in time: visit two old go friends and their baby north of London, then an old Japan/London friend, then a college debate buddy. Then head over to Spain for a few days in Madrid, then a wedding in Granada, then a day in portugal. Then a day in NYC for the first time since I graduated." ] ], [ 1529232454, [ "Combined residential & commercial. West london was like another world - run-down houses with a very distinctive, seedy style, mixed with huge complexes. The desire of the government for control feels even stronger than the US. Maybe that desire is best expressed as a ratio of people who believe they know best and are willing to implement their vision by law, vs people who don't care." ] ], [ 1529233252, [ "Social bulletin board near Harrow and Weldstone station. Fire Safety, Exploitation Protection, Anti-racism, Sunday music, Taiqi training. It's touching how hard the system is working to help people, and I approve of all of this effort to build connections. It is annoying to have the failures of society presented so publicly, but it's good that people care and are willing to suffer it in order to increase happiness." ] ], [ 1529235594, [ "a" ] ], [ 1529235604, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529237378, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529237401, [] ], [ 1529237402, [ "bmx biking + camping" ] ], [ 1529241216, [ "Happy baby. They have a great outdoor veranda with a go board set up." ] ], [ 1529243806, [ "Quite weird to have the license plate linked to the dealership. Apparently the first two letters designate the district, and the second two mod 50 represent the year the car came out - this represents redding, 2016." ] ], [ 1529247202, [ "Amazingly lenient. In the US, if you look under 40 you'll get carded." ] ], [ 1529260493, [ "The old village" ] ], [ 1529260826, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529260889, [ "Very euphemistic gravestones - 'fell asleep', etc. And they don't charge by the letter." ] ], [ 1529261077, [ "They're wearing much worse than those in iceland. Acid rain having an effect?" ] ], [ 1529261317, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529308346, [ "There are very few signs, either ads or for guidance, on many local roads in the UK, even though downtown there are ads everywhere. They do have a lot more litter than Iceland, though." ] ], [ 1529310713, [ "Viewing a country through the lens of addiction is pretty easy. There are gambling shops and pubs everywhere. In the picture, the taller guy, whose pants were almost falling down, took money from the shorter guy, ran inside for him, then came back out with something for him to sign before heading back in. Is there some rate? or is he getting around a ban? Or is there some other person interested in how much he's gambling who he is avoiding by this?" ] ], [ 1529311866, [ "Pretty sweet 5br house with 20 acres for 2.25m... I wonder what kind of other restrictions come with this?" ] ], [ 1529335046, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529335046, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529337312, [ "This 24-hour clock near the prime meridian starts at zero, rather than the crazy '12:00' thing. I just realized that whether noon is AM or PM is actually not clearly defined, and varies by country & time." ] ], [ 1529337754, [ "The distinctive thing about parks is that nobody has slapped in some colorful flowers - they're fine leaving them looking just overgrown." ] ], [ 1529341072, [ "'Long boats' are some kind of legacy vacation activity. These things that a culture has, which would never be created new today, but occupy a place in history are irreplacable. As the world is homogenized, they'll eventually die out or be made into kitsch. That's why I favor quite a lot of local independence and inefficiency - the hope of discovering activities which are good but which a company would never be able to sell (since there's no business moat), and can't be found by local hill-climbing." ] ], [ 1529348704, [ "The barbican centre, in the city of london - already a key location for conspiracy theories about the knights templar, happens to have this crusader cross walkway." ] ], [ 1529355014, [ "Watching the UK score a goal and win to advance. Their alcohol culture here is amazing - outside the windows to the right were ledges for resting your drink on, on the street. What would happen if the US tried this? How nice can a culture be, and still be steady-state? The UK is already beyond that point, I guess." ] ], [ 1529393116, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529393677, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529393843, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529393852, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529394029, [ "The barbican is like a stanley kubrick movie. Humans just live in the cracks in the massive edifice, and are given what they need to survive, but serve a much greater machine." ] ], [ 1529399513, [ "Four young Chinese people on the way to Mardid." ] ], [ 1529421775, [ "'No racism, no Marxism, new rights: got, country, justice.' This looks like the slogan of one of the new far-right parties, but I couldn't narrow it down to just one." ] ], [ 1529421949, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529436585, [ "I went to a meetup of the 'effective altruist and rationality society of madrid' - pretty nice group of people. This is a lecture I sat in on while searching for them. The group itself is almost identical to the type of person you meet in SF - sincere and intellectual, and believes that most problems can be solved with more thought and discussion." ] ], [ 1529445795, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529447149, [ "The frame is much nicer than the painting." ] ], [ 1529462001, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529490811, [ "This brings me back to Costa Rica. Spain is not as far along the road of complete corporate control of sales channels as the US is - prices still reflect the cost to produce. At some point, stores realize that their cheaper varieties are undercutting the profit of their more expensive - so they drop the cheapest. This even applies to people who have brand loyalty - for people like that, the biggest competition for making another purchase comes from the existing supply. So even if the cost of producing something is only a few percent of the sale price, there is still huge value in shrinking it (de-contenting), to speed up the time of next purchase.", "Spain not having that at least in some areas is just wonderful. You can actually get some of the surplus that comes from cheap production methods." ] ], [ 1529491782, [ "There are motorcycles parked all over downtown. The country is so much more relaxed than England! There isn't anything to indicate that regulations have much effect, compared to the character of the people living in a place." ] ], [ 1529496470, [ "I just saw an interesting scene while walking through El Retiro. This guy was walking around a large fountain with an unusually steady gait. I wondered why, til I saw a police car on the exact opposite side, doing a loop. He were hiding! The cops drove away and he set up shop again, laying out hats and other knickknacks. It's something you'd often see in China too... Low level cops being sent to disrupt people just trying to make a living. In both cases the sellers are operating without a license and not paying taxes, and foreigners to some degree (in Beijing they were internal migrants, here they look to be from Africa). In both cases it seems hard to justify stopping people from providing a service that has customers. But it guess the cops might worry about the creation of an all-illegal network with lookouts, incentives to bribe cops, and a group of people ripe for exploitation. Right afterwards I bought a water from a local vendor, and he pulled change out of his personal wallet - that's not the act of someone who's paying accurate sales or income tax, either." ] ], [ 1529496478, [ "There's also a bias against people without strongly established reputations. Being able to drop everything and leave, and not lose too much, makes someone kind of scary to deal with... 'Fly by night' operators or sailors on leave. It's not really a fair bias, but effort to establish local connections makes people less scary - these guys know Spanish, and one of them has the Spanish flag draped around his shoulders, so they're taking steps to be more connected." ] ], [ 1529496493, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529496584, [ "more street sellers" ] ], [ 1529499276, [ "It's funny to think that the melody of 'carless whisper' will probably outlive the constitution. i.e. destroy all media and bring the population down to 1000, and you would still have someone who knows the tune.", "The rowboats are real wood, not the plastic square-bow models you get everywhere in China." ] ], [ 1529526490, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529527295, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529531082, [ "Schoolgirls out at 10pm on the night of the solstice to see west side story." ] ], [ 1529531240, [ "Everybody's watching the games." ] ], [ 1529564933, [ "Still on iceland time" ] ], [ 1529570025, [] ], [ 1529574727, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529591143, [ "this one is tough" ] ], [ 1529611092, [ "In iceland the speed limit is 90kph, and people drive 90-110. In spain and they go up to 140. Iceland was almost all two lane roads, but here they ahve room to pass; I followed a Mercedes which passed 10 people in sequence, each time going to the left lane, passing, then coming back to the right lane. In California everyone involved would have been sitting in the left lane, thinking 'i'm a fast one', and getting passed on the right." ] ], [ 1529612282, [ "Surprisingly, there's almost nothing but scrub for a few hundred miles south of Madrid all the way to Granada." ] ], [ 1529613140, [ "Somebody was still lighting candles at this isolated church 'Recuerdos de Santa Lucia', just starting to get grafitti'd." ] ], [ 1529644818, [ "There are even more roundabouts here than england; they produce a distinctive track." ] ], [ 1529644864, [ "Only a roundabout country has paths which just stop and turn around on a dime." ] ], [ 1529657524, [ "Kill" ] ], [ 1529665171, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529666551, [ "The most interesting thing about the Alhambra is how it all was designed with temperature control in mind. These hedges are set up to channel wind." ] ], [ 1529669823, [ "Immodest dress" ] ], [ 1529670234, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529670469, [ "I would like there to be one day of the month where you don't get let in unless you dress formally. It would make pictures look so much better if everybody was in a suit/dress. I realize that's anti-egalitarian of me. But going further, I'd also like a day where it costs 10x or 1000x as much to get in. That way you can make it special. Same theme as the comments above - let diversity in experience happen. I think the reason we don't do that is a justifiable fear that admins would hide behind that reason to raise the price for everyone. In general the norm of 'equality' is good; it does prevent economic exploration of other ways of distributing goods." ] ], [ 1529670730, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529671770, [ "The city itself is pretty great - a strong feeling of baked clay and tradition. Do they just not allow any modern development at all?" ] ], [ 1529703593, [ "The wedding party in front of the Alhambra" ] ], [ 1529775663, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529775881, [ "simpsons grafitti outside malaga" ] ], [ 1529784563, [ "Fabreges manhole cover" ] ], [ 1529784713, [ "Malaga reminds me of Taiwan - high, flat buildings taking up all the space with enough density to have stores everywhere." ] ], [ 1529784747, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529785077, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529785244, [ "I went back and looked up the poem that my college Japanese teacher spent some time on. Haikus are uniquely multi-translatable." ] ], [ 1529790198, [ "The bride is a famous spanish-language harry potter fanfic author!" ] ], [ 1529801444, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529809947, [ "street signs in Malaga." ] ], [ 1529828544, [ "Legacy feelings are really powerfully evoked in Portugal - symbols and religiousity is everywhere. All the streets have these complex royal insignia." ] ], [ 1529828869, [ "Fading metal business plates for dentists..." ] ], [ 1529830025, [ "I really liked the feel of portugal. Everything is solid." ] ], [ 1529830172, [ "Chinese supermarkets abound, grafitti, and steep grass." ] ], [ 1529830285, [ "This is the modern world." ] ], [ 1529830361, [ "Portugal has <1% muslim population. Not what I expected!" ] ], [ 1529830433, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529830539, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529833891, [ "Girl listening to violin, just down the street from the oldest bookstore in the world." ] ], [ 1529834978, [ "Canyon-like streets with no traffic on a sunday. When did we stop adding decoration to the outside of buildings? Is it just too expensive?" ] ], [ 1529835503, [ "Tattooed tourists or locals?" ] ], [ 1529837084, [ "I rented a bike (much easier system than other cities) and rode along the seaside. There are lots of bikers out in full gear." ] ], [ 1529838202, [ "some more brutalism" ] ], [ 1529838314, [ "I should have studied portuguese rather than spanish! Better cognates." ] ], [ 1529838376, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529838433, [ "Lots of art-grafitti along the bike path" ] ], [ 1529838572, [ "Which face do you see first?" ] ], [ 1529838721, [ "A dog playing fetch" ] ], [ 1529838945, [ "An argument about bike passage rights. The guard (in brown) chased down and started yelling at this guy who had temporarily opened the fence to get out of a construction area. As I approached, some other bikers addressed me in portuguese 'no pode faltar'. This was the only part of the trip where people addressed me in the local language." ] ], [ 1529839174, [ "This super intense graphic design is for fishing-related services." ] ], [ 1529839280, [ "Shaven-headed lady in a yellow suit doing fashion photography at noon on a hot day." ] ], [ 1529839742, [ "This is only a precursor to the massive grafitti in portugal." ] ], [ 1529840169, [ "Dapper man at the crosswalk - I'm surprised his outline doesn't have a fedora!" ] ], [ 1529841476, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529841765, [ "Another Chinese-run shop selling incense and grafitti bottles." ] ], [ 1529842105, [ "A young man proudly holding a cell phone accessory his dad just bought, outside a Chinese fruit market." ] ], [ 1529842319, [ "A typical Portuguese cafe/convenience store/sitdown restaurant. They're everywhere and serve all three purposes. This one had three guys drinking beer and doing ostentatious handshakes to a series of newcomers, along with retirees eating their lunch." ] ], [ 1529843560, ["kill"] ], [ 1529843961, [ "Typical Lisbon streets. Simple designs with decorations. The streets seem unregulated, but people behave well." ] ], [ 1529844104, ["kill"] ], [ 1529844356, [ "A 1 euro shop ABRE O OLHO" ] ], [ 1529867918, ["Idolatry? or just a good snack."] ], [ 1529868145, ["The Chinese Evangelical church of Portugal uses wechat! Scanning it still works, [6 months later], which is a change - for a while, wechat had forced expiration on QR codes, probably as some kind of dampening force for group joining and spreading."] ], [ 1529868808, [ "Three soccer games going on at once." ] ], [ 1529871714, ["Southern Europe's public billboards were a lot better than England's. Movers using what's app, and guys selling used video games & computer systems."] ], [ 1529871724, [ "Lisbon is the sleepiest big city I've ever been in. Everybody's walking around, not uptight or nervous, eating and chatting. Not much traffic on the roads. If the national motto were 'Puravida' I wouldn't be surprised. Someone's left their phone out, charting, in this abandoned, super high tech laundromat." ] ], [ 1529873593, ["Canyon-like evening street like a lullaby."] ], [ 1529873695, ["Everything about the design of the Hotel Do Chile was great - the elevator floor chooser like a giant cell phone, and the key (in reflection) modeled after an old mechanical punch card."] ], [ 1529914053, [ "kill" ] ], [ 1529916081, [ "Chinese ladies dancing in the public square near Rossio. I wonder if they are doing the government-advised songs, or going on their own?" ] ], [ 1529917106, [ "Big lines of tourists, all trying to buy tickets to Sintra. I'm always ssad " ] ], [ 1529921495, [ "IMG_20180625_101135.jpg", "2018:06:25 10:11:35", "Taken: 2018:06:25 10:11:35", "Taken: 2018:06:25 10:11:35", "Taken: Mon June 25 10:11:35" ] ], [ 1529921745, [ "IMG_20180625_101545.jpg", "2018:06:25 10:15:45", "Taken: 2018:06:25 10:15:45", "Taken: 2018:06:25 10:15:45", "Taken: Mon June 25 10:15:45" ] ], [ 1529922551, [] ], [ 1529922697, [] ], [ 1529924916, [ "IMG_20180625_110836.jpg", "2018:06:25 11:08:36", "Taken: 2018:06:25 11:08:36", "Taken: 2018:06:25 11:08:36", "Taken: Mon June 25 11:08:36" ] ], [ 1529925340, [ "IMG_20180625_111540.jpg", "2018:06:25 11:15:40", "Taken: 2018:06:25 11:15:40", "Taken: 2018:06:25 11:15:40", "Taken: Mon June 25 11:15:40" ] ], [ 1529926708, [] ], [ 1529930479, [] ], [ 1529931039, [ "IMG_20180625_125039.jpg", "2018:06:25 12:50:39", "Taken: 2018:06:25 12:50:39", "Taken: 2018:06:25 12:50:39", "Taken: Mon June 25 12:50:39" ] ], [ 1529931543, [ "IMG_20180625_125903.jpg", "2018:06:25 12:59:03", "Taken: 2018:06:25 12:59:03", "Taken: 2018:06:25 12:59:03", "Taken: Mon June 25 12:59:03" ] ], [ 1529931703, [ "IMG_20180625_130143.jpg", "2018:06:25 13:01:43", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:01:43", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:01:43", "Taken: Mon June 25 13:01:43" ] ], [ 1529932124, [ "IMG_20180625_130844.jpg", "2018:06:25 13:08:44", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:08:44", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:08:44", "Taken: Mon June 25 13:08:44" ] ], [ 1529932125, [] ], [ 1529932161, [] ], [ 1529932169, [ "IMG_20180625_130929.jpg", "2018:06:25 13:09:29", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:09:29", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:09:29", "Taken: Mon June 25 13:09:29" ] ], [ 1529932318, [] ], [ 1529933619, [ "IMG_20180625_133339.jpg", "2018:06:25 13:33:39", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:33:39", "Taken: 2018:06:25 13:33:39", "Taken: Mon June 25 13:33:39" ] ], [ 1529935778, [] ], [ 1529937308, [] ], [ 1529943042, [] ], [ 1529966669, [] ], [ 1529975998, [ "IMG_20180626_011958.jpg", "2018:06:26 01:19:58", "Taken: 2018:06:26 01:19:58", "Taken: 2018:06:26 01:19:58", "Taken: Tue June 26 01:19:58" ] ], [ 1530008979, [] ], [ 1530010022, [ "IMG_20180626_104702_1.jpg", "2018:06:26 10:47:02", "Taken: 2018:06:26 10:47:02", "Taken: 2018:06:26 10:47:02", "Taken: Tue June 26 10:47:02" ] ], [ 1530010784, [ "IMG_20180626_105943.jpg", "2018:06:26 10:59:44", "Taken: 2018:06:26 10:59:44", "Taken: 2018:06:26 10:59:44", "Taken: Tue June 26 10:59:44" ] ], [ 1530011016, [ "IMG_20180626_110336.jpg", "2018:06:26 11:03:36", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:03:36", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:03:36", "Taken: Tue June 26 11:03:36" ] ], [ 1530012127, [] ], [ 1530012419, [ "IMG_20180626_112659.jpg", "2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: Tue June 26 11:26:59" ] ], [ 1530012419, [ "IMG_20180626_112659.jpg", "2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:26:59", "Taken: Tue June 26 11:26:59" ] ], [ 1530012582, [ "IMG_20180626_112942.jpg", "2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: Tue June 26 11:29:42" ] ], [ 1530012582, [ "IMG_20180626_112942.jpg", "2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: 2018:06:26 11:29:42", "Taken: Tue June 26 11:29:42" ] ], [ 1530016421, [ "IMG_20180626_123341.jpg" ] ], [ 1530016421, [ "IMG_20180626_123341.jpg" ] ], [ 1530018805, [] ], [ 1530021748, [ "IMG_20180626_140228.jpg" ] ], [ 1530021748, [ "IMG_20180626_140228.jpg" ] ], [ 1530021833, [ "IMG_20180626_140353.jpg" ] ], [ 1530021833, [ "IMG_20180626_140353.jpg" ] ], [ 1530021841, [ "IMG_20180626_140401.jpg" ] ], [ 1530021841, [ "IMG_20180626_140401.jpg" ] ], [ 1530040755, [ "IMG_20180626_191915.jpg", "2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: 2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: 2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: Tue June 26 19:19:15" ] ], [ 1530040755, [ "IMG_20180626_191915.jpg", "2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: 2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: 2018:06:26 19:19:15", "Taken: Tue June 26 19:19:15" ] ], [ 1530043598, [] ], [ 1530048327, [ "262", "Taken: Jun 26, 2018, 9:25:27 PM UTC", "Screenshot_20180626-142527.png", "Taken: 2018:06:26 14:25:27", "Taken: Tue June 26 14:25:27" ] ], [ 1530048327, [ "262", "Taken: Jun 26, 2018, 9:25:27 PM UTC", "Screenshot_20180626-142527.png", "Taken: 2018:06:26 14:25:27", "Taken: Tue June 26 14:25:27" ] ], [ 1530123967, [ "IMG_20180627_182607.jpg", "2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: 2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: 2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: Wed June 27 18:26:07" ] ], [ 1530123967, [ "IMG_20180627_182607.jpg", "2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: 2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: 2018:06:27 18:26:07", "Taken: Wed June 27 18:26:07" ] ], [ 1530263728, [ "IMG_20180629_091528.jpg", "2018:06:29 09:15:28", "Taken: 2018:06:29 09:15:28", "Taken: 2018:06:29 09:15:28", "Taken: Fri June 29 09:15:28" ] ] ]