I still cannot believe I'm living in a timeline where the US president is emotionally a 3-year-old and throws a temper tantrum in the public when his parents don't get him a shiny thing he has done absolutely nothing to deserve.
He is not, remotely, “like them all”, and I think if you are dealing with your remorse this way then, respectfully, you have a little more work to do, not least because it will give you the skills to help you negotiate the current moment where the tech industry has some people who are aberrant in similar ways.
The threat posed by Trump to the USA was evident from the day he announced his candidacy. That his whole presidency would one way or another be about his awful approach to immigration and to Ukraine was evident by the time of the Republican National Convention.
That he would try to overturn an election that he lost was evident before he ran for one.
If you cannot see that this man’s pathology is dangerous, I worry you cannot see dangerous pathology in several current tech CEOs (at least two, fairly arguably four or five).
And that’s putting aside the pathology of some of the people who have spent the decade since Trump’s win rising to the top of the kakistocracy (there’s been some overlap)
I don't mean to bring low value demagougue, I can't help but ask myself, when Hitler rose to power, then being jailed and then rose to power even more, did the normal people who wanted nothing to do with his bs felt the same?
Ah yes, the timeline where the US president is a convicted sex offender, 34 times convicted felon, tried to overtake a democratically elected president, stored top secret nuclear secrets in his toilet, orchestrated a cover up of the biggest pedophile ring in history, is an active russian agent, and all we talk about is ...his tantrums....
> It is unfathomable to me how anyone can defend or relativize this despicable behavior.
From the perspective of a person who is neither a US citizen nor living in the USA: I (and many of my fellow countrymen/countrywomen) will relativize and defend a lot of Trump's tantrums since they give you so much material to laugh about.
It's honestly somewhat refreshing. Politicians are all sociopaths who say all the right things while keeping their true thoughts secret. Trump calls other countries shitholes, and that's actually what he thinks. No doubt it's a diplomatic nightmare but I can't help but muster a small amount of respect for the sheer brazenness of it.
And how does that compare with the Epstein level shenanigans of trump? The cheating on all his wives? The banging of a p0rn star with no protection? Grab them by … all these rape accusations?
Since we are talking about shithouses in Norway and international politics, I should mention as a Frenchman the existence of French toilets with the colours of the French flags and the France national motto displayed on top. In front of the Norwegian parliament in Oslo.
Really loving such responses to POTUS, I hope they don't spend too much of our tax money on addressing his childishness though, although, in PR this probably has good ROI :)
I'm increasingly convinced that awful public restrooms are mostly a North America thing. Travelling in Iceland a few years ago I was shocked at how nice the restrooms at the major gas stations were (N1 stands out). Full-height doors and stall walls, meticulous cleanliness, no weird smells.
At a gas station off the ring road in the middle of nowhere.
Awful everything is an American thing. We are cheap and boring in the name of lining some rich wackos pockets. It’s pathetic how gross most of the bathrooms are at national and state parks. These are the Crown Jewels of outdoor areas and we have disgusting, under maintenanced toilets with single ply (if you’re lucky).
I can assure you that as a fellow European, both this amazing jab at the Clown in Chief and the beautiful vistas have renewed my interest in travelling to Norway as soon as I can, so I'm pretty sure it will pay off!
So there's also all the stuff about the wonders of Japanese toilets with heated seats and bidets etc. and I was amazed at how many of what are really low budget toilets in like mid-tier shopping malls, fast food restaurants and rural train stations had the full deal. And how clean they were. Toilets in those kinds of places here are often a mess and it's not uncommon to find the toilet seat missing entirely, so nobody's installing a expensive fancy seat in a public bathroom.
The flip side is if you go off more rural, you can run into the type of toilet that Japanese people consider a "Japanese toilet". Complete opposite of the tech wonders that the rest of the world pictures when they hear Japanese toilet. Because they're pretty much relegated to toilets without much investment at this point, they're also usually much less maintained than other toilets too.
Perfect Days is in my top 10 movies of all times - a must watch for everyone.
ps - I learned the beautiful word / concept komorebi from the film: "dappled, shimmering light and shadow created when sunlight filters through the leaves of trees"
Some of the most beautiful English-language writing I've read is describing the interplay of light and shadow under a canopy. This is an area where I think having a single word description is a linguistic loss.
Technically you're supposed to wait around and consume your product at the shop where you've bought it, but I didn't have any objections to doing one-in one-out, so as long as I bought a new drink I just dropped the refuse from the last one at the store where I bought the next one.
Yet no trash cans. It's a frustrating trade off, especially with all the vending machines. If you don't have a backpack, you're stuck carrying trash. If you do, it gets messy.
Also, this does not hold in Hokkaido. I taught English in Obihiro (well, Makubetsu) and you had to plan your trash and restroom breaks.
Yes, there's litter in Australia of course, but most Australians are taught from a young age to leave nothing but footprints and trek out whatever they bring with them when moving about a city, a park, wild areas.
Relative lack of litter and glares from Australians when tossing stuff on ground as a tourist is apparently enough to make a number of those daft "10 things about Australia ..." videos and listicles.
And I was taught to put it in a public trash receptacle. There is a middle ground here between tossing it on the ground and lugging it with you for hours.
Wait, so the lack of trash cans gives you moral agency to toss trash anywhere? This is the exact argument that large polluters give to just do whatever because its impossible to meter properly.
As per usual, that’s British slang which was carried over to Australia. Almost all slang phrases Americans associate with Australia are British in origin and still in wide use, as you’d expect given the history of both countries.
It's also commonly used in the US. I've never heard it of it being associated with the commonwealth at all - based on the vulgarity I always assumed it was a native production.
Nope, sorry, Norwegians actually tax mining / energy corporations (so the government has money to spend on... designer dunnies!), instead of just giving away their non-renewable natural resources to billionaires for free. That's un-Australian!
That's such an appalling misrepresentation of what happens here in Australia that even Konrad Benjamin himself would correct you. State, Territory and Federal governments all take revenue for non-renewable resource extraction.
You're aware of the revolving door between politics and resources right? You can't take a bribe in advance, but you sure as hell can take a kickback later.
Their resource company is effectively the government and reducing their climate impact is basically impossible without killing their economy. I think we'd rather not be in that position.
> In 2019, fossil fuels contributed 48 percent of Norway’s export revenues of around $53 billion. And that number is much, much larger today, thanks to ballooning demand for natural gas in the wake of the Ukraine war.
How do you propose they kill the public company exactly? At least in Australia, govt. revenue is barely reliant on fossil fuels.
Norway is more reliant on oil/gas money than almost every country on Earth. e.g. to its small population it produces significantly more oil per capita than Saudi Arabia. So yeah for instance it is/was way easier for Britain to kill its privatized oil industry.
I'm from Australia and always assumed the word "shithouse" was mostly used here, and at first glance assumed this post was an amusing joke by an Aussie (though - being somewhat cutesy with a Trump-ism?) rather than a Norwegian government website.
Though I might be wrong - I doubt this word comes up in tech blogs and academic conferences very often?
It's kinda funny. But I'm a Norwegian, and I can tell you that Norway actually is a shitty country in so many ways. It likes to tell the world how fantastic it is, but there are just so many things that are structurally pathetic, weak, or inadequate about it.
Norway has been severely mismanaged for decades now, and soon the chickens are coming home to roost. Sadly, karma will be a bitch.
I hiked Norwegian fjords above Bergen a couple of times in the past, highly recommend it if you ever get a chance.
Also: Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, valued at $2.2 trillion; over 50% are investments in US assets; close to $200 billion in US Treasury securities; and is a major shareholder in US corporations, especially across the tech sector.
So well done Norway, this is how you deal with clowns, not debate or argue on social media, but rub their face in your pure awesomness.
Norway has done a great job with what they've been given, but remember that they've had the national equivalent of being born into a rich family - they have had enormous wealth from natural resources in the form of North Sea oil.
You say it like it's given that natural resources wealth is distributed for population like it's in Norway. Its not. It takes a lot of work. Otherwise you get shithole countries where warlords/corporations/mafia take over control of resources and enrich them selves instead of raising global wellbeing.
You can only compare Norway to richest of the gulf states like UAE, though (e.g. Saudi Arabia produces less oil per capita than Norway). Put 10x more people in Norway and keep the same amount of oil like in many of those “shithole” countries and you’d end up with a slightly different situation
Fair, but so does UK, Canada - which might be one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources I think? - and especially US of A.
But how these countries use their resources is quite different.
The UK had a tiny amount of oil compared to Norway if you adjusted by population so it’s not a fair comparison. Also I’m not sure the share of the revenue the British government was getting was massively much lower than the case in Norway.
The UK government has had a huge income from the North Sea but unlike Norway we didn't invest it. We spent it as fast (or faster) than we received it. When modern Conservatives wax lyrical about Thatcher's economic miracle they seem unaware that it was mostly just oil revenue.
Also their taxes are proportional to wealth and everyone pays them, so good public service. It's not that hard to understand and there is no need to circle around it.
Besides aesthetics, there are so many functional aspects that sets apart good from shitty bathrooms.
Things I evaluate when I use public restrooms include: are they 100% touch free (doors, toilets, taps)? Recycled towels for drying or air dryers where your hands invariable touch the unit?
Plus, there were persistent stories of terrifying beasts that lived in the sewers and bit people’s bottoms. Of course those stories could have just been invented by people who were waiting on line, to help people get done quicker.
Maybe more what amazing things you you can achieve for your people when the citizens are the shareholders of the economic benefits of your country’s natural resources?
How much better would the US or UK or wherever else be if our wealth of natural resources was shared instead of hoarded by private land-owners and SuperMegaCorp?
Norway drills about 1/4 of the barrels we do here in the US, but reaps more than double the revenue into public coffers. ~78% tax rate in Norway vs a published rate of 21% in the US (and a real rate of <10%).
True but even if it was 100% the amount of money per capita would be tiny compared to Norway. Only some of the smaller gulf states are comparable to Norway.
When you get a dollar bill, you can actually tell whether it's from oil or not? I can't..
What's really amazing are the lengths by which people justify they cannot have a nice society. It's easy to see, mathematically, the willingness to share has no relation to absolute GDP or where it comes from.
Way to miss the point. Any government can take any share from economy and redistribute it more fairly. There is nothing specific to oil that makes society more equal.
The argument "but Norway has oil" is so tiring. So what, US has a big tech with huge profits. Why can't you have a UBI from ads? Of course you can.
Generally building public works becomes quite difficult when you have one dominant sector pushing up wages (oil and gas in this case). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect
Your message is snarky, but yes, it's amazing what you can do with oil money AND high IQ; compare Norway to many other countries which also have oil money but do not have high IQ.
Norway would still be an amazing country if it had no oil at all.
I’m not sure I would bring high IQ into this. Norwegians tended to own their own farms, they knew how to manage resources. The winters taught them to plan ahead.
Most importantly, Norway realised it had to avoid spending all its oil money to be responsible. An Iraqi immigrant helped establish this policy. Wouldn’t give him all credit as some give the impression of, but I think it’s interesting that people from the Middle East do have the right ideas. But the environment they’re in prevents their voices from being heard.
It reminds me that the mediocrity of an enormous amount of the U.S. is really quite voluntary. Enormous potential. Enormous wealth. Just cannot figure out how to socialize the prosperity.
This is cope from another country. Where are you from? I am Swedish.
Now, first, Norway was a poor country until oil, yes.
However, plenty of countries have oil. Why are they so crap to live in? Russia, Venezuela, USA even Canada, UAE? Why are they so crap? Be from those countries and visit Norway and cry.
Visit Scandinavia and cry, Americans are floored by Stockholm and Copenhagen. "wow there aren't overweight people everywhere, beautiful architecture, "walkable" (this is normal lol)"" - this is years and years before ozempic (I concider ozempic cheating) Sadly now I feel like it is 25% indians, 25% arabs and only 50% Swedes left in my country...
So, where are you from?
If its "oil money" - why aren't Russia, Venezuela, USA even Canada, UAE as good of a country to live in?
Norway was not that poor before oil. That’s a myth. Relative to some other European countries, yes. But it was still a country with a long history of trade, industry and natural resources.
Though I’m not surprised a Swede thinks of us mainly as poor farmers ;)
(no bad feelings, you literally had an empire so the attitude is understandable)
Sorry, I have that image due to, just the image of a "poor" fishing country. Now we envy you and I heard all my life that we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.
That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.
Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"
Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
> we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.
Hopefully you'll be treated "with love" on your binge drinking trip to Gdańsk because simply buying and drinking a bottle of wine is a challenge back home.
For anybody who was interested in the stats: The correct number is c. 20 perc are immigrants.
The largest group is from Finland followed by Iraq and Iran. It's a bit higher in the capital.
I wouldn’t say poor, fishing was the backbone for over a thousand years and generated its fair share of wealth, so did timber. Seafood is still second after oil, even if oil of course is much bigger.
Norway benefits greatly from being a massive country with a small population and enormous natural resources. This makes governing far simpler compared to many other countries, and the culture is of course vastly different too.
I’ve only ever been to Lofoten but it was lovely, I think that’s how humans are supposed to live, too bad I can’t afford to move there.
Sorry, I have that image due to, just the image of a "poor" fishing country. Now we envy you and I heard all my life that we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.
That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.
Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"
Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
On the topic of great shithouses, I highly recommend the 2023 Japanese drama Perfect Days. It's about a quiet man that works for Tokyo Toilets, cleaning a set of architecturally interesting public toilets around the Shibuya district. The movie itself is compelling -- a fascinating study of a man and purpose, very similar to Paterson[1] -- but the whole thing is like taking a trip to Tokyo, with an enormous number of gorgeous shots of fascinating scenes. Also a lot of shots of someone cleaning toilets.
My home has thirty-eight rooms on thirty-six worlds. No doors: the arched entrances are farcaster portals, a few opaqued with privacy curtains, most open to observation and entry.
...
The architect, a student of the legendary Millon DeHaVre, has incorporated several small jokes into the house’s design: the steps go down to the tower room, of course, but equally droll is the exit from the eyrie which leads to the exercise room on the lowest level of Lusus’s deepest Hive, or perhaps the guest bathroom which consists of toilet, bidet, sink and shower stall on an open, wall-less raft afloat on the violet seaworld of Mare Infinitus.
I'm still not sure whether Donald himself is just dumb or whether he knows he can get away with saying things because his voters are dumb. Neither option looks good in an international context...
Not only the Norway thing, but he also (pretends?) doesn't understand how NATO works. Being angry about NATO members, a defensive treaty, not joining an offensive campaign in Iran.
> I'm still not sure whether Donald himself is just dumb
Yes.
He has failed upward in an insane way. A combination of his petty exploitation of people's good nature and subordinates desperate to be trickled down upon have propelled him to a level of power and wealth he is not fit for outside of his greediness.
You obviously can. An EU delegation had to explain the EU to Trump using colored cards as if he was a small child and it took many attempts before he got it. So the deciding quality must be something else.
You're assuming that understanding it was his priority in the first place. It wasn't.
Imagine a painter saying "these software engineers are profoundly stupid, I spent a whole day explaining to one how different color combinations are differently interpreted by different cultures and he still wouldn't get it".
Trump stans: "actually he's very intelligent, he just has a gift for focusing on what the average voter cares about and talking in their terms rather than those of elites"
Trump: "Not many people know this, but dumb is spelled with a 'b' "
That happened when Trump was discussing trade issues with the EU. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission at the time, had to prepare colorful flash cards in simple language to explain the issues to Trump, because Trump didn't know at all what he was talking about.
A similar thing happened between him and Merkel, when Trump didn't understand that the EU was a unified trading bloc with a common market and that making separate trade agreements with Germany was not possible. Trump allegedly asked Merkel more than 10 times why he could not do that.
I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world. This goes beyond personal sympathies and antipathies; he is objectively a very unintelligent person and his exceptionally poor manners make things only worse.
> I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world.
The US is a very big and diverse place with a lot of different people and perspectives. However, most of us actually do understand what a laughing stock the president is. It’s the response that ends up being what we’re judged upon. The responses that perform insane mental gymnastics to absolve him (such as gp) cast most of us in a bad light as thoughtless parrots. There’s also a big nationalist response that leads people to defend a president that they know is an embarrassment because “USA.” There are also those of us who work in silence to educate and allow the embarrassments to carry on humiliating themselves
There's nothing more amusing than watching a butt-hurt thin-skinned Trump cult member lose his shit and pathetically attempt to defend him whenever somebody makes a joke at his expense that's funny because it's true.
Trump's reaction to Robby Roadsteamer singing "Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane" was priceless. If he wasn't on the plane, then why doesn't he release all the Trump-Epstein Files (TM) like he promised?
Enjoy the midterm elections, and keep up the performance for our amusement. Now do "Trump's not racist"! Then "Trump's not demented!" Then "Trump's not a rapist!" Then "Trump's not a pedophile!"
I believe that it simply speaks to his worldview. It's an institution in Norway, so he expects that Norwegian leaders can and should pressure the organization into awarding him. This is what he would do.
> In January 1944 an attempt by the Quisling government to take over the functions of the Nobel Committee led to the resignation of Jahn and other committee members. The Swedish consulate-general in Oslo formally took over the management of the Foundation's Oslo property on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.[14]
Norway won't play Trump's games. Just because the government appoints members to a committee doesn't mean it will (or even can) fire those people to force a decision it wants.
I don't disagree, but the name is pretty much where trump gets Norway from. He doesn't comprehend that our heads of states dont have the power to influence this in the first place.
It is the committee that is based in Norway. Doesn’t mean it is Norway the country. Just like US does not control the decisions of UN just because UN is located in US.
Well, it's a bit more muddled than that, to quote wikipedia:
"
Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. In his will, Alfred Nobel tasked the parliament of Norway with selecting the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite its members being appointed by Parliament, the committee is a private body tasked with awarding a private prize. In recent decades, most committee members were retired politicians.
"
A diverse Committee that makes its own decisions, and politicians abstain from influencing it. Because it is intended to be independent, and people see value in that, so they honour it. Nobody needs from the outside to have a say, because politics and the committee trust each other to do the right thing. It's alien, I know.
Are they just peeing now? One of my indelible memories in India from 20 years ago is seeing a rickshaw driver in Connaught Place, the heart of historically respectable Delhi and no isolated slum, crouching behind his rickshaw and defecating right there on the street.
We have it too in The Netherlands "wildplassen", since the Dutch "wild" (as in "in the wild") can indeed also be translated as "wild" (as in uncontrolled), the standard response when caught is "No officer, I was, in fact, peeing very calmly."
The Dutch even have educational public service survival guides, and canal side bars will lend you a free pisriem or piemelpijp to prevent accidental death.
Meanwhile in London we have public... urinals. Just a few minutes from the city center. People urinating in the open. Opposite to where my wife goes to dancing classes. UK is really fucking abysmal sometimes.
Well, that's a pretty good ad from Visit Norway: now I'd really like to visit.
In fact, if they weren't so damn rich and everything so expensive compared to my Southern European way of live, I'd consider moving there just to enjoy the gorgeous nature.
Just the fact that the level of politics dropped this low and this is being celebrated is something that makes me feel that we are on a 100% downward slope on our civilizational collapse with no turning back.
How tf the most powerful country on earth became such an openly corrupted clownshow?
It might be that just your knowledge of history is lacking.
Look for example to America (i mean the continent, there is no country named that). Civilisation brought extinction to various indigenous tribes, but in norther and central america. It brought slavery. In a way, we are over that now, aren't we?
Look for example to Europe (I'm so glad that no european country is so full of it and call itself just "Europe"). They had hundreds of wars in a 10 year period. Some small ... but some like the 30 year long war more devastating than even the 2nd world war.Sure, some people there (look into ex-jugoslavia or look into Russia) still think that mass-killing people is good. Oh, did I mention 2nd world war? Then look there, too. And how one society thought they have the right to extinguish Jews, Gypsies, Jehovas Witnesses, mental ill people and basically any political opponent. I still think we can say that we are over such a thing.
Look for example to Asia. There was a country that waged war on China because China was not buying enough Opium. Or look like the asian golden horde devastated with utter cruelty whole (at the time) mega-cities. And they brough the bubonic plague on top of it ...
Or look at Africa. I mentioned the slaver for America ... but actually african tribes captured people from other tribes and sold them. We can't say that slavery is totally abolished in Africa (I heard the Boko Haram does it) --- but certainly not at the scale it used to be.
If you think that society develops backwards, then just looking at how things used to be 100, 200 or 500 years.
I don't wanna absolve any of the evil shits in Trump's circle, or among the MAGA crowd, of blame in this. But I think the biggest issue of all is the anglosphere's love for first past the post electoral systems. There's no excuse for FPTP, and while they often have a positive side effect in giving crazies zero representation, they're vulnerable to crazies taking unchecked control of the system.
Sure, MAGA would've been a large congressional embarrassment in a proportional system. But they wouldn't run the show.
There's a good number of differences between "shithouse countries" and countries that care enough about the wellbeing of their citizens to have good, clean, and free public toilets.
We should definitely make not using that phrase one of them.
Imagine building such objects and a graceful website only to have the visitor be confronted with "Shit" right at the beginning. Try this Norway: 'Outhouse'.
I think the hundred of thousands of tourists packing the roads all summer didn't get your memo.
You can do expensive vacation or cheap vacation, and both are possible in Norway. You can get a cheap flight and sleep in a tent, or you can drive your car through Sweden.
Norway has everyman's right, so for some holidaymakers that means no accommodation costs. It is also popular to do one's grocery shopping on the Swedish side of the border, or even drive up from Germany with a full load of food for the length of the holiday.
> Not thinking something is worth what it cost doesn't mean you can't afford it.
Make it the official motto of entire Scandinavia. "This burrito is 30 EUR and a seat in a shuttle coach is 50 EUR, but I have to eat something and get to the airport". In certain circumstances I can even afford a 1000 EUR burrito.
Scandinavia (except for Norway) is no more expensive to tour than the rest of Europe. After Covid they caught up in price.
But you don't go to Norway for the burritos or beer pints or hotels, but for the nature and outdoors experiences. Which are free. So if you really want it, then you can have it without breaking the bank. But if you want a traditional holiday of drinking and eating and guided tours, then Norway isn't it.
Also donated to Bernie, once – then ShareBlue gave it to a Clinton.
This political whoredom works best against our own interests.
The threat posed by Trump to the USA was evident from the day he announced his candidacy. That his whole presidency would one way or another be about his awful approach to immigration and to Ukraine was evident by the time of the Republican National Convention.
That he would try to overturn an election that he lost was evident before he ran for one.
If you cannot see that this man’s pathology is dangerous, I worry you cannot see dangerous pathology in several current tech CEOs (at least two, fairly arguably four or five).
And that’s putting aside the pathology of some of the people who have spent the decade since Trump’s win rising to the top of the kakistocracy (there’s been some overlap)
31.6% of all eligible voters.
36% of eligible voters didn't even vote in 2024.
From the perspective of a person who is neither a US citizen nor living in the USA: I (and many of my fellow countrymen/countrywomen) will relativize and defend a lot of Trump's tantrums since they give you so much material to laugh about.
:-)
"Norway has become a shithouse country, actually"
Not a head of state, but I nominate:
Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (Владимир Вольфович Жириновский), "Russia's Trump".
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Zhirinovsky
https://koro.no/prosjekter/liberte/
At a gas station off the ring road in the middle of nowhere.
Mainland Europe's free public restrooms are not nicer than the US.
The flip side is if you go off more rural, you can run into the type of toilet that Japanese people consider a "Japanese toilet". Complete opposite of the tech wonders that the rest of the world pictures when they hear Japanese toilet. Because they're pretty much relegated to toilets without much investment at this point, they're also usually much less maintained than other toilets too.
ps - I learned the beautiful word / concept komorebi from the film: "dappled, shimmering light and shadow created when sunlight filters through the leaves of trees"
Technically you're supposed to wait around and consume your product at the shop where you've bought it, but I didn't have any objections to doing one-in one-out, so as long as I bought a new drink I just dropped the refuse from the last one at the store where I bought the next one.
Also, this does not hold in Hokkaido. I taught English in Obihiro (well, Makubetsu) and you had to plan your trash and restroom breaks.
Yes, there's litter in Australia of course, but most Australians are taught from a young age to leave nothing but footprints and trek out whatever they bring with them when moving about a city, a park, wild areas.
Relative lack of litter and glares from Australians when tossing stuff on ground as a tourist is apparently enough to make a number of those daft "10 things about Australia ..." videos and listicles.
What?
> Carry your trash with you.
What do you think I did with it? I don't litter.
It's just not at all enjoyable carrying two empty bottles for miles with just my hands while I have other things to carry.
But there are many to choose from. “Face like a dropped pie” is another gem.
You're aware of the revolving door between politics and resources right? You can't take a bribe in advance, but you sure as hell can take a kickback later.
How do you propose they kill the public company exactly? At least in Australia, govt. revenue is barely reliant on fossil fuels.
However, Saudi Arabia needs higher prices than Norway to balance the budget, so Saudi Arabia will likely cut first.
eg: https://www.absolutely-australia.com.au/culture-and-history/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_(2006_film)
I Hope Your Chooks Turn Into Emus (and kick your dunny down) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpg22KSrswc
Just as Australians share a love of the BBQ with parts of the USofA.
Though I might be wrong - I doubt this word comes up in tech blogs and academic conferences very often?
Norway has been severely mismanaged for decades now, and soon the chickens are coming home to roost. Sadly, karma will be a bitch.
Also: Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, valued at $2.2 trillion; over 50% are investments in US assets; close to $200 billion in US Treasury securities; and is a major shareholder in US corporations, especially across the tech sector.
So well done Norway, this is how you deal with clowns, not debate or argue on social media, but rub their face in your pure awesomness.
The major differentiator for Norway is policy, not oil quantity.
If you can't trade with the rest of the world your life gets hard very quickly
But how these countries use their resources is quite different.
… Oh wait …
There were signs in the article lol
Things I evaluate when I use public restrooms include: are they 100% touch free (doors, toilets, taps)? Recycled towels for drying or air dryers where your hands invariable touch the unit?
etc.
The ones at Sketch near me are funky https://live.staticflickr.com/881/42433327302_280548ddd2_b.j...
How much better would the US or UK or wherever else be if our wealth of natural resources was shared instead of hoarded by private land-owners and SuperMegaCorp?
Norway drills about 1/4 of the barrels we do here in the US, but reaps more than double the revenue into public coffers. ~78% tax rate in Norway vs a published rate of 21% in the US (and a real rate of <10%).
It's super impressive, isn't it!
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
What's really amazing are the lengths by which people justify they cannot have a nice society. It's easy to see, mathematically, the willingness to share has no relation to absolute GDP or where it comes from.
The argument "but Norway has oil" is so tiring. So what, US has a big tech with huge profits. Why can't you have a UBI from ads? Of course you can.
Norway would still be an amazing country if it had no oil at all.
Most importantly, Norway realised it had to avoid spending all its oil money to be responsible. An Iraqi immigrant helped establish this policy. Wouldn’t give him all credit as some give the impression of, but I think it’s interesting that people from the Middle East do have the right ideas. But the environment they’re in prevents their voices from being heard.
Now, first, Norway was a poor country until oil, yes.
However, plenty of countries have oil. Why are they so crap to live in? Russia, Venezuela, USA even Canada, UAE? Why are they so crap? Be from those countries and visit Norway and cry.
Visit Scandinavia and cry, Americans are floored by Stockholm and Copenhagen. "wow there aren't overweight people everywhere, beautiful architecture, "walkable" (this is normal lol)"" - this is years and years before ozempic (I concider ozempic cheating) Sadly now I feel like it is 25% indians, 25% arabs and only 50% Swedes left in my country...
So, where are you from?
If its "oil money" - why aren't Russia, Venezuela, USA even Canada, UAE as good of a country to live in?
Thanks!
*Answer me instead of downvoting. Thank you.
Though I’m not surprised a Swede thinks of us mainly as poor farmers ;) (no bad feelings, you literally had an empire so the attitude is understandable)
That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.
Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"
Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
Hopefully you'll be treated "with love" on your binge drinking trip to Gdańsk because simply buying and drinking a bottle of wine is a challenge back home.
I don't need to downvote you for your nationalism, but I do need to downvote you for your casual racism.
I’ve only ever been to Lofoten but it was lovely, I think that’s how humans are supposed to live, too bad I can’t afford to move there.
Sorry, I have that image due to, just the image of a "poor" fishing country. Now we envy you and I heard all my life that we in Sweden are Norways poles/polacks due to cheap labour from Sweden.
That said we in Sweden where extremely poor too, see the famous book "Utvandrarna" for how it could be so miserable that people left.
Now we are the ones causing issues - "det svenske tilstander"
Well, I say "we" but these are not the Kalles Kaviar looking people. It could get to that point though...
"Trump calls Norway a ‘shithouse country’" - https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/10/27/trump-calls-norway...
Rather: many people who are not US citizens or don't live in the USA don't really care about the gossip around Donald Trump's most recent tantrum.
Not only the Norway thing, but he also (pretends?) doesn't understand how NATO works. Being angry about NATO members, a defensive treaty, not joining an offensive campaign in Iran.
Yes.
He has failed upward in an insane way. A combination of his petty exploitation of people's good nature and subordinates desperate to be trickled down upon have propelled him to a level of power and wealth he is not fit for outside of his greediness.
Imagine a painter saying "these software engineers are profoundly stupid, I spent a whole day explaining to one how different color combinations are differently interpreted by different cultures and he still wouldn't get it".
Trump: "Not many people know this, but dumb is spelled with a 'b' "
A similar thing happened between him and Merkel, when Trump didn't understand that the EU was a unified trading bloc with a common market and that making separate trade agreements with Germany was not possible. Trump allegedly asked Merkel more than 10 times why he could not do that.
I don't think Americans still understand what a laughing stock their president is to the rest of the world. This goes beyond personal sympathies and antipathies; he is objectively a very unintelligent person and his exceptionally poor manners make things only worse.
The US is a very big and diverse place with a lot of different people and perspectives. However, most of us actually do understand what a laughing stock the president is. It’s the response that ends up being what we’re judged upon. The responses that perform insane mental gymnastics to absolve him (such as gp) cast most of us in a bad light as thoughtless parrots. There’s also a big nationalist response that leads people to defend a president that they know is an embarrassment because “USA.” There are also those of us who work in silence to educate and allow the embarrassments to carry on humiliating themselves
Trump's reaction to Robby Roadsteamer singing "Trump went on the Jeffrey Epstein plane" was priceless. If he wasn't on the plane, then why doesn't he release all the Trump-Epstein Files (TM) like he promised?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2Tj-j9IcdIc
Enjoy the midterm elections, and keep up the performance for our amusement. Now do "Trump's not racist"! Then "Trump's not demented!" Then "Trump's not a rapist!" Then "Trump's not a pedophile!"
> In January 1944 an attempt by the Quisling government to take over the functions of the Nobel Committee led to the resignation of Jahn and other committee members. The Swedish consulate-general in Oslo formally took over the management of the Foundation's Oslo property on behalf of the Nobel Foundation.[14]
Norway won't play Trump's games. Just because the government appoints members to a committee doesn't mean it will (or even can) fire those people to force a decision it wants.
" Five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. In his will, Alfred Nobel tasked the parliament of Norway with selecting the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite its members being appointed by Parliament, the committee is a private body tasked with awarding a private prize. In recent decades, most committee members were retired politicians. "
Lots of shit coming out of Norway lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrgWp9_J1UY
Is Norway really a non-white country? ;-)
(That is, an outhouse with a great view, which is different than finding ones which are architectural masterpieces.)
I can find no trace of those results online. Perhaps someone here has better success?
In fact, if they weren't so damn rich and everything so expensive compared to my Southern European way of live, I'd consider moving there just to enjoy the gorgeous nature.
Look for example to America (i mean the continent, there is no country named that). Civilisation brought extinction to various indigenous tribes, but in norther and central america. It brought slavery. In a way, we are over that now, aren't we?
Look for example to Europe (I'm so glad that no european country is so full of it and call itself just "Europe"). They had hundreds of wars in a 10 year period. Some small ... but some like the 30 year long war more devastating than even the 2nd world war.Sure, some people there (look into ex-jugoslavia or look into Russia) still think that mass-killing people is good. Oh, did I mention 2nd world war? Then look there, too. And how one society thought they have the right to extinguish Jews, Gypsies, Jehovas Witnesses, mental ill people and basically any political opponent. I still think we can say that we are over such a thing.
Look for example to Asia. There was a country that waged war on China because China was not buying enough Opium. Or look like the asian golden horde devastated with utter cruelty whole (at the time) mega-cities. And they brough the bubonic plague on top of it ...
Or look at Africa. I mentioned the slaver for America ... but actually african tribes captured people from other tribes and sold them. We can't say that slavery is totally abolished in Africa (I heard the Boko Haram does it) --- but certainly not at the scale it used to be.
If you think that society develops backwards, then just looking at how things used to be 100, 200 or 500 years.
Sure, MAGA would've been a large congressional embarrassment in a proportional system. But they wouldn't run the show.
We should definitely make not using that phrase one of them.
you do realize that half your country had voted for the guy three times?
You can do expensive vacation or cheap vacation, and both are possible in Norway. You can get a cheap flight and sleep in a tent, or you can drive your car through Sweden.
Or you can fly in and stay on expensive hotels.
Not thinking something is worth what it cost doesn't mean you can't afford it.
Make it the official motto of entire Scandinavia. "This burrito is 30 EUR and a seat in a shuttle coach is 50 EUR, but I have to eat something and get to the airport". In certain circumstances I can even afford a 1000 EUR burrito.
But you don't go to Norway for the burritos or beer pints or hotels, but for the nature and outdoors experiences. Which are free. So if you really want it, then you can have it without breaking the bank. But if you want a traditional holiday of drinking and eating and guided tours, then Norway isn't it.
Bad accessibility, not just for the fatties but also elderlies.