[theluckycountry]

Amazing amount of work newfie, imagine doing it by barrow lol. Breaking the rock by hand! That's the old way hey. No unemployment back then. Is that a steel mesh laid over the bridge?

When I had the property the track in got pretty eroded over the years and before sale I decided to have it leveled out, that and have some huge piles of crap buried. The guy that came was a farmer doing some cashies on the side, had a brand new bobcat on a brand new tilt tray, a small tracked unit but very efficient. Four hours later he'd done all the roadwork and dug a big 2m deep trench, tossed in all the garbage and covered it over. He asked for like $350. I gave him $400 and thanked him profusely.

As I often do I pondered the time and effort it would have taken to do that without oil. I sometimes ride off for hours through the mountains to some scenic waterfall or lookout, and sometimes ponder the same thing. Amazing roads carved through mountains and the machine I ride on, and all for personal pleasure and convenience mostly. I know the history of those roads, some were carved out by gangs of convicts. Some by pioneering families over decades.

[Newfie]

As a temporary measure I placed a 12” culvert, 16’ long, about 24” below grade to bottom of trench. Took me 2 days to do and 2 weeks to recover.

[Plantagenet]

Good work on that bridge, Newfie.

The big problem with roads up here in Alaska is melting permafrost. With global warming things are getting bad fast.

There are big, large, and even huge bodies of ice in the ground underlying central and northern Alaska, and these are starting to melt. The highway departments have to go out every few years and fill in the dips with more concrete. Sometimes they get tired of that and they go out and dig enormous holes to remove all the ice......during one recent job near the university they dug up over 30 feet of asphalt that had been used to fill in sags that formed year after year due to the melting ground ice.


Permafrost sags in road near Wrangell National Park, Alaska

Even worse, some houses and cabins have ice bodies under them that are melting ----- for instance my lake cabin and its little house. Every few years we have to go re-level the cabin and the boat house. I skipped releveling the boat house for a a few years because I was man-hauling gravel down a slope to fill a different giant hole that was forming on my route down to the lakeshore , and by the time I got back to the boathouse it had sunk about a foot into wet, mucky dirt. I had to hire people to dig the boathouse of the muck and get it back up on blocks.......which themselves are now sinking into the muck.

Sheesh!

[theluckycountry]

As a temporary measure I placed a 12” culvert, 16’ long, about 24” below grade to bottom of trench. Took me 2 days to do and 2 weeks to recover.

Yeah it gets like that when you're over 60. 50's was the teeth, now the bones and muscles betray us. I wonder how many people think of things like this going into their old age? In cities on suburban blocks there are many maintenance jobs, tree trimming, re-roofing, painting, plumbing. It's all a financial burden and the cumulative cost is getting out of the reach of the old-age pensioners. You look around and you see old houses that are in obvious need of maintenance but they are still standing, still livable. Those are the older homes, the well built homes. Imagine a modern pine-frame blueboard home left to rot for 30 years, would there be anything still standing?

[yellowcanoe]

As a temporary measure I placed a 12” culvert, 16’ long, about 24” below grade to bottom of trench. Took me 2 days to do and 2 weeks to recover.

Yeah it gets like that when you're over 60. 50's was the teeth, now the bones and muscles betray us. I wonder how many people think of things like this going into their old age? In cities on suburban blocks there are many maintenance jobs, tree trimming, re-roofing, painting, plumbing. It's all a financial burden and the cumulative cost is getting out of the reach of the old-age pensioners. You look around and you see old houses that are in obvious need of maintenance but they are still standing, still livable. Those are the older homes, the well built homes. Imagine a modern pine-frame blueboard home left to rot for 30 years, would there be anything still standing?

Well I'm sure hoping my 66 year old body will hang in there for a few more years. We just bought a water front cabin last year and the only reason we could afford it is because it was so run down -- pretty much abandoned for at least five years. Working on trying to level the cottage and replace a rotted out floor joist and other rotted material was hard. I also had to build a large boat rack that is partially roofed to reduce the snow load on boats-- we brought up two of our canoes and family and friends added another canoe, two kayaks, two wind surfers and a paddle boat! The big challenge though would be building a new cottage as the present structure is too small to accommodate our children and grandchildren. I don't think we can afford to hire a contractor to build a cottage so we are more likely going to have to purchase a kit cottage that we can assemble ourselves. It's a bit funny that we are in the process of trying to build a cottage at an age where many cottage owners are thinking their time as a cottage owner will be coming to an end as they are no longer able to maintain it.

[Plantagenet]

It's a bit funny that we are in the process of trying to build a cottage at an age where many cottage owners are thinking their time as a cottage owner will be coming to an end as they are no longer able to maintain it.

You have a lot of company.

There are many many older people who buy second home or waterfront cabins.

Under the US system most people dont have a lot of free time or extra money until they are almost too old to enjoy it.

Hopefully you lived life as fully as possible before you got old, and now having a waterfront cabin will be a little bit of joy for you as you get even older.

I'm lucky because real estate prices were quite low here in Alaska in the past and I bought a lake cabin and big hunk of land about 30 years ago Its been great, although keeping up with repairs and maintenance definitely gets harder as you get older.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU AND YOUR NEW WATERFRONT PARADISE!!!



Cheers!

[theluckycountry]

You guys have it lucky up there, there isn't that much free lakeside land in Oz and what is, typically is farmland. There is a dam near me with it's artificial lake, it has some cabins for sale but like many rural dams the water level varies greatly. 2/3 of the land around it is grazing land, nearly all the rest state forest and just a little clutch of cabins that are expensive. Over the border in the 'lakes' region it's again expensive with the non agricultural areas more or less house blocks where people live all year round. It's a dry country. If you've got a half a million spare you could by a tract of farmland adjacent to a river I suppose but you'd have to do more than just bum around there 3 months of the year, rates and land tax would make it an expensive holiday.

I just discovered an alarming trend too, council rates for serviced rural areas are going up higher than for city blocks. The rates, to pay for water, sewage, bins and roadworks etc are based on land values, or they used to be? Now they have another formula that seems to be based on cost of maintaining infrastructure divided by the population lol. In some towns the rates have doubled in 2 years! So have insurance premiums for houses, and that along with the food inflation is really putting the squeeze on many old age pensioners who have no reserves. It's not too bad where I am but our rates are higher than comparable city rates. I view it as a premium for the great lifestyle out here but many who grew up here and didn't have the opportunities of a city income are now struggling. A lot of older cars on the roads.

Mind you the towns where the rates are going astronomical are over the border in NSW, that state is the premier state, like California, a financial basket case.

Tenterfield Shire Council is $5 million in deficit, with a low base of ratepayers and, among other expenses, 146 bridges and a 1,700km road network to maintain.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-15/ ... /101971698

Peak Oil! Where the cost of doing business as usual, of maintaining oil based infrastructure, becomes prohibitive.

[ralfy]

It's like that point about economic order quantities, etc., where each town has only a few days' worth of supplies because of the high cost of transporting urban middle class conveniences to the countryside.

[yellowcanoe]

Hopefully you lived life as fully as possible before you got old, and now having a waterfront cabin will be a little bit of joy for you as you get even older.

I've been lucky to have a university job that gave me more vacation time than most people in Canada get. I've been able to do a lot of backpacking and wilderness canoe tripping. A portage trail into the interior of Algonquin Park is located right across the lake from our cabin and our property used to provide access to another lake in Algonquin Park. My father managed to live to the age of 84 despite being a smoker for much of his life and disliking exercise. My mom's family also has good longevity so I hope given that I've never been a smoker, get regular exercise and eat well I will have many good years left.

[Newfie]

At about 55 I managed to finagle a way to get 8 weeks vacation a year, 3 weeks paid and 5 unpaid. I just decided to live sufficiently frugal that we could afford it. Later I changed jobs and there I was part time with full time benefits. We worked it out so that for our last 2 year's we worked one week and took a week off. One week in the city, then bolt for the boat.

Now 73 I still work pretty hard. When I lay up too much then I get run down physically and emotionally. When we got back to the boat this year I felt lousy, how wouldnI keep going? After a week on the boat I was all right again. It felt like it took 10 years off my age.

I am still doing my own aloft mast work which is pretty good. Of course I can tell my decline, sadly. But why hasten it?

For me living in cities is deadly to my soul and my body.

[Plantagenet]

Like YellowCanoe in Canada I was also lucky enough to obtain a university position here in Alaska.....this meant 3 months "off" in the summer and another month off at winter break.

I never got much summer vacation because my scientific research program was quite successful, and I mostly wound up spending big hunks of my summers flying into remote localities all over Alaska and doing field work using helicopters, float planes, kayaks, zodiacs, 4 wheelers etc. to access field localities on volcanoes, glaciers, active faults, and other cool stuff all over Alaska. Eventually I was elected as an officer in two different national and international scientific organizations, and then I began to travel during the academic year to attend numerous organisational meetings in Washington DC, Zurich, Beijing, and other cities, and I also participated in international scientific conferences so I travelled around the world to those as well during the school year. And I also did foreign scientific work with various collaborators in Europe and China, and did more fieldwork there in cool places like Tibet. I was very busy with university teaching and writing scientific papers and participating in multiple projects with fieldwork and travel and all that pretty much filled up both the summers and the main part of the academic year.


How I spent my summers in Alaska......

And then there were sabbaticals---year long opportunities to leave the university and travel and live and work with colleagues overseas.

Of course I also took some personal vacations, but these were almost always over winter break. Each winter I travelled all over the US and Mexico and then I started going to Europe each winter break. It turned out that travelling "off season" on trips through Europe is really great. The locals would all be complaining about how cold Spain or France or Greece was, but the hotels were cheap and having just arrived from Alaska the winter weather in Europe always seemed really really nice to me.

You'd think that being away from the university so much of the time to do field work and attend scientific meetings would be frowned upon, but it's quite the opposite. The more I did overseas field work and foreign travel for my science projects, the more scientific papers I wrote, and the more service work I did an officer of the two scientific organisations, the more important my university thought I was, and the more freedom they would give me to do even more foreign travel and work and science.

It was the good life for sure. I had so much fun I can still hardly believe it. And the best thing of all is that I don't feel an iota of guilt because of all the benefits to humanity that came from my teaching, service and research---at least that what my university said at the nice little ceremony where they gave me various honors when I retired.

Cheers!

[Newfie]

Good on you Plant. Sounds like a great life.

How is retirement treating you?

[mousepad]

Of course I also took some personal vacations,

That is crazy. If I had to travel for work as much, I certainly wouldn't also want to travel for leasure.

And the best thing of all is that I don't feel an iota of guilt because of all the benefits to humanity that came from my teaching,

hahaha. Oh my. I'm wondering if a good plumber does more for humanity than all the jet-setting of high flying science nerds combined.

But I'm glad you enjoyed what you're doing. That's most important.

[theluckycountry]

Increasing Psychopathic Behavior Is A Sign That Society Is On The Verge Of Breaking Down

Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals - The economy, politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now, and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake, eventually the ice is going to break. The question is, how do we know when that moment will be?

As cultural systems begins to dissolve due to political clashes and economic decline the real evil tends to slither out of the woodwork. It happens slowly at first, then all at once. A sure sign of accelerating collapse is the growing prevalence of psychopaths and psychopathic behavior in the open.

The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences. They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with.

In the past ten years there has been a dramatic uptick in mass violence and theft. With the advent of social media it is now easier than ever for spontaneously planned riots to form with little warning, and in most cases these mobs are random in who and what they attack. They might organize in the name of politics or activism, but they tend to lash out at whatever targets are closest or easiest rather than the people they blame for their travails.

In most cases these events result in simple property destruction in urban areas, but more and more there has been an underlying and aggressive impulse to hurt people. There will come a time very soon when the the goal is not just to steal or vandalize, but to use instability as a smokescreen; a distraction the provides opportunities to harm others.

Article continues... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/inc ... aking-down

Now understand that there is a portion of any given adult population that has these same tendencies. They never grew up. They want to take or destroy what they cannot have; they are only waiting for the opportunity to do so without repercussions.

At this phase of a breakdown when the dominoes begin to topple, law enforcement generally folds and retreats, leaving the public with no first line of defense. Gangs and looters organize quickly and take territory rather than just taking people's possessions. Organized crime at the local level leads to large scale death and minimal opposition. People are so isolated and busy trying to scrape together a meager economic lifeline that they have no time or motivation to fight back.

The point of no return comes when regular people are afraid to leave their homes. Organization at the neighborhood level with an aggressive posture must be enacted or the most vicious attacks will be visited on the population.

I would say a good portion of the united states is on the brink of this collapse right now. It's clear the police forces are hamstrung by woke ideology and the threat of imprisonment for performing their duties. When ever a real riot takes place they retreat, as they did in the massive LA riots. Eventually you could see a collapse into a Mexican state, one essentially controlled at the street level by gangs. A failed state in other words.

The New world order when it comes will bring control and order to many nations, but outside of a massive UN style peacekeeping force being imported and stationed on American soil I can't see these trends being reversed. I can't think of a single case where a nation fell into barbarism and then recovered to a former state of law and order. That's what this is all about. Law and Order. The New world order will not be about bringing peace anyway, it will about economic control, that much is obvious.

Whatever culture America possessed in the early half of the 20th century has been destroyed by a general transition into what you could call the classic "sins" of sexual immorality; substance abuse, greed, sloth, and of course a turning away from the christian principles of honesty and hard work that build western culture in the first place. Masses of disenfranchised minorities have only added to the dilemma. Crime and perversion rules now, at all levels of society. Other nations in the West share a lot of these issues but the US is leading the way, as always.

People will take umbrage at the mention of christian principles because of all the evil religions have wrought in that name. But the simple fact is the origins of the peaceful societies we enjoyed growing up were due to the laws drawn from the old testament, the 10 commandments, the logical Proverbs like "spare the rod and spoil the child" That's a far cry from other religious teachings that advocate cutting off hands and the denigration of women etc.

[mousepad]

" That's a far cry from other religious teachings that advocate cutting off hands and the denigration of women etc.

Are you talking about the arabic murder cult? That ain't no religion. It's just a cult.

[Newfie]

The Death of Cities provokes contemplation on urban dynamics. Thoughts may navigate through concerns about urban decay, shifts to remote work, or hopes for revitalization. It's a reflection on the evolving nature of cities, sparking discussions on their future, resilience, and the impact of societal changes.

Richard,

Welcome aboard. First posts require Moderator approval and I did not get the notice right away. Sorry for the late approval.

I worked in mass transit, not a planner, but you get to rub shoulder.

I quite agree that there is a lot to think about and contemplate. And I suspect the road forward will have many surprises for us.

[noobtube]

Increasing Psychopathic Behavior Is A Sign That Society Is On The Verge Of Breaking Down

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/increasing-psychopathic-behavior-sign-society-verge-breaking-down

ZeroHedge is once again completely mis-representing the cause of the decline and social decay of the United States.

I would say a good portion of the united states is on the brink of this collapse right now. It's clear the police forces are hamstrung by woke ideology and the threat of imprisonment for performing their duties. When ever a real riot takes place they retreat, as they did in the massive LA riots. Eventually you could see a collapse into a Mexican state, one essentially controlled at the street level by gangs. A failed state in other words.

The LA riots happened 30 years ago. It has no relevance to the craziness you see today. Regardless of your position on the validity of the reason for its start, you knew what caused it. There was a specific act that caused it.

What caused the Jan. 6th riot? Now, that was something never seen before.

Or, what caused the plot to kidnap a governor in the United States? This is madness.

The police in the United States are completely militarized. They murder pregnant women. They shoot unarmed children. They attack the infirmed and disabled.

Police in the United States killed 1,300 Americans last year. That is more than all of Europe/NATO COMBINED, times 10. And, this is supposed to be the leader of the free world?

The New world order when it comes will bring control and order to many nations, but outside of a massive UN style peacekeeping force being imported and stationed on American soil I can't see these trends being reversed. I can't think of a single case where a nation fell into barbarism and then recovered to a former state of law and order. That's what this is all about. Law and Order. The New world order will not be about bringing peace anyway, it will about economic control, that much is obvious.

There has never been Law and Order in the United States. That has just been clever marketing and propaganda. People were kept in line with hopes and promises of the American Dream. But, as George Carlin once said, you have to be asleep, to believe it.

Whatever culture America possessed in the early half of the 20th century has been destroyed by a general transition into what you could call the classic "sins" of sexual immorality; substance abuse, greed, sloth, and of course a turning away from the christian principles of honesty and hard work that build western culture in the first place. Masses of disenfranchised minorities have only added to the dilemma. Crime and perversion rules now, at all levels of society. Other nations in the West share a lot of these issues but the US is leading the way, as always.

The United States has always been a country of simps, suckers, sellouts, and sycophants. The only reason things have been so good here is a wild abundance of food, energy, desirable land, and navigable waterways. There are weak countries on both borders and protective waters on both coasts. Everyone in America should have enough for a comfortable, peaceful, and abundant life. Yet, there is this need to attack rather than help fellow Americans, to feel better about yourself. Without a natural enemy, the United States government constantly has to create "the enemy" to keep everyone else in line.

There has never been more than 5 years of peace. There hasn't been a "defensive" war in 200 years.

Immigration certainly is aggravating the situation.

People will take umbrage at the mention of christian principles because of all the evil religions have wrought in that name. But the simple fact is the origins of the peaceful societies we enjoyed growing up were due to the laws drawn from the old testament, the 10 commandments, the logical Proverbs like "spare the rod and spoil the child" That's a far cry from other religious teachings that advocate cutting off hands and the denigration of women etc.

The United States was never a religious country. The 1st Amendment made that clear. And, there is no mention of religion, let alone Christianity, in the Declaration of Independence nor the original constitution. That was deliberate.

The only thing holding everything together is an abundance of food. There has never been famine in America nor starvation. America's problems are ones of plenty. How do people behave when their basic needs are met? Do they become peaceful and cooperative. Or, do they become selfish, conceited, raging assholes that thinks the whole world revolves around them and what they want?

That is American exceptionalism.

[yellowcanoe]

Like YellowCanoe in Canada I was also lucky enough to obtain a university position here in Alaska.....this meant 3 months "off" in the summer and another month off at winter break.

I never got much summer vacation because my scientific research program was quite successful, and I mostly wound up spending big hunks of my summers flying into remote localities all over Alaska and doing field work using helicopters, float planes, kayaks, zodiacs, 4 wheelers etc. to access field localities on volcanoes, glaciers, active faults, and other cool stuff all over Alaska. Eventually I was elected as an officer in two different national and international scientific organizations, and then I began to travel during the academic year to attend numerous organisational meetings in Washington DC, Zurich, Beijing, and other cities, and I also participated in international scientific conferences so I travelled around the world to those as well during the school year. And I also did foreign scientific work with various collaborators in Europe and China, and did more fieldwork there in cool places like Tibet. I was very busy with university teaching and writing scientific papers and participating in multiple projects with fieldwork and travel and all that pretty much filled up both the summers and the main part of the academic year.

I'm an IT specialist, not an academic. My group took over support for the Earth Sciences department and it sure was fun working with faculty who did field work and field trips with students all over the world. They previously had a dedicated IT support person who had a MSc degree in Earth Sciences and they were concerned about who would take care of providing IT support at their annual field school. My manager told them that they wouldn't have any problem getting Yellowcanoe to come out to field school!

[theluckycountry]

I'm an IT specialist, not an academic.

And that explains why your posts are rational real-world based. Academics are simply over-educated high school or college students that have spent their lives regurgitating the same lessons over and over. And since the entire educational system is strictly controlled by the government, academics unwittingly become little government mouthpieces.

The sad part of it all is that they believe they are smart. Intelligent in their fields, sure, but completely ignorant as to how the world works, or even how a lawnmower works for that matter. And naturally, being teachers, they can't be told anything because they know it all. I would never entertain one as an acquaintance let alone a friend. Stupidity is dangerous.

Society
Stupid Teachers are a Feature of the System, not a Bug

Bottom-tier high school graduates go into Education, which is the major with the lowest average IQ. I recall studies claiming that the average IQ among students is around 97, and, fittingly, faculty in Education are the dumbest bunch at university, too. It surely is not ideal, from the perspective of perpetuating society, to have people who are dumb as bricks LARP as teachers. Yet, this is where we are in the West. Unfortunately, the people who run society see nothing wrong with this. Quite certainly, they consider it highly beneficial that teachers are so incredibly dim-witted.

stupid people rarely have strong convictions. They will see little reason to object to fresh propaganda. Just like Joe Normie, who spouted pacifist phrases and denounced national borders, turned into a raving war-monger who supports sending billions to the Ukraine and defend its borders, so will our near-retard teachers spread whatever new message they receive.

https://blog.aaronsleazy.com/index.php/ ... not-a-bug/

Sounds like plant alright.

[theluckycountry]

Increasing Psychopathic Behavior Is A Sign That Society Is On The Verge Of Breaking Down

The United States has always been a country of simps, suckers, sellouts, and sycophants. The only reason things have been so good here is a wild abundance of food, energy, desirable land, and navigable waterways. There are weak countries on both borders and protective waters on both coasts. Everyone in America should have enough for a comfortable, peaceful, and abundant life. Yet, there is this need to attack rather than help fellow Americans, to feel better about yourself. Without a natural enemy, the United States government constantly has to create "the enemy" to keep everyone else in line...

The only thing holding everything together is an abundance of food. There has never been famine in America nor starvation. America's problems are ones of plenty. How do people behave when their basic needs are met? Do they become peaceful and cooperative. Or, do they become selfish, conceited, raging assholes that thinks the whole world revolves around them and what they want?

That is American exceptionalism.

Well I stand corrected, Indeed a lot the "peaceful society" I attribute to that nation was during a short period after the second WW when the male population was a lot lower and there was abundant jobs and money for all. So what you're saying is that the US is basically a society similar to that of Mexico and that it hasn't collapsed to those levels yet?

I was reading and watching vids about hurricane Otis that recently destroyed Acapulco. It was a fascinating story since there was little warning, it was simply a tropical storm offshore but it strengthened to a category 5 hurricane in less that 12 hours. Acapulco, the jewel of the 1960's movie stars no longer exists. The Mexican government sent in 25,000 troops to quell the violence but could not. Total lawlessness, a failed state certainly. Of course it wasn't always that way, but it is now. From your comments I presume America will follow the self-same path to lawlessness. What good are police in armored vehicles when they are outnumbered 1000:1?

https://abcnews.go.com/International/vi ... -105175704