FailForward @FailForward@social.cleverlibre.org

@jwildeboer I am for it. But this will clearly also be a huge political job to accomplish. For one, you don't want double-voting in two countries and such.

@jwildeboer Absolutely! I am quite pissed by this since many years. Just look at Brexit: to a large extent a decision about residents who had absolutely no say in the whole game, while paying taxes and otherwise bearing all the other obligations.

Of course I understand why the situation is as it is and why it's not so straightforward for non-citizens to have a voting right, but with increasing mobility (and promoted by EU institutions), we are ending up with a huge group of disenfranchised EU citizens. These people don't have a voting right where they live and instead have voting right where they don't live. This needs some fixing...

@lxo
Every commercial for-profit company aims to become a monopoly and use this position to extract profit. Just the vast majority cannot achieve that status globally - but that does not make their CEOs innocent anyhow. Bill Gates is not unusual in this.

@hanswolters
You mean probably South Holland, not Germany. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidse_Rijn

Yes that story fascinates me as an example of big **voluntary and cooperative** infrastructure project in medieval times. Unlike elsewhere, where big projects were undertaken by an authoritative ruler, in South and North Holland villages and cities cooperated on joint solving of problems of downstream silting of the Rhine river. Downstream towns had a problem with river navigation and it could have been only solved father upstream. Without presence of a united region government control, that is not an easy problem to solve even nowadays - look at e.g., the problems in upper Nile. I've read about this in a book on history of the Poldermodel. Thanks for the reminder.

@freemo Thanks. Nice maps. Of course I know how drainage systems work, but I did not know there are natural connectors (you know, we built the Panama channel, but it would probably not "occur" on its own). On a second thought, though, it of course makes sense that occasionally Nature would produce such a thing. So to learn that there is such a creek (and more of such bifurcation rivers) is indeed interesting. And the split of the continent in the case of that creek is just so nice: right through the middle :-).

@freemo It's not natural. Danube-Rhine channel is man made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine%E2%80%93Main%E2%80%93Danube_Canal

@hanswolters

Today was not in vain: I learned something interesting :-).

Alright, here is the Wikipedia article on this bifurcation creek/river: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parting_of_the_Waters

As for continental Europe, two things come as relevant:
* Nerodimka river draining into Black and Aegean seas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerodimka_(river); and perhaps
* Danube sinkhole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube_Sinkhole connecting Black Sea and North Sea drainage systems

Further interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_drainage_systems

@hanswolters

Fascinating. Is there such a thing in Europe? I am not aware...

# Chris Grey's upcoming book _Brexit Unfolded. How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to)_

Prof. Chris Grey of the blog "Brexit & Beyond" fame will publish a book on Brexit.

* announced at the end of the post: https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2021/03/brexit-unhinged.html
* can be pre-ordered in the UK.

Now I am curious whether and how his publisher will make it available in the EU.

# Isolated ecosystem of Movile Cave, Romania

http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movile_Cave

> Movile Cave has been cut off for millions of years. Its air is thick with harmful gases, yet it is home to an array of strange animals

An older article on BBC web about a cave in Romania, with an isolated ecosystem of animals living off of sulphuric chemosynthesis, methane and carbon dioxide. The bacteria in the case are "trapped" there since 5+ millions of years, various animals for several millions (2+) years.

I did not know there are isolated ecosystems on Earth. Very interesting.

@jwildeboer I am not shortsighted and got "interesting results" last time too :-). Perhaps just lame? 😄

# Movement in Bitcoin-land re energy consumption

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/china-bitcoin-mining-hub-to-shut-down-cryptocurrency-projects.html

I read here that a Chinese province with significant presence of miners is about to ban Bitcoin mining because of missing targets on energy consumption.

If more governments wake up to this (as we hear recently more and more about Bitcoin energy consumption and carbon footprint), this might get interesting for the bubble folk. 🍿

@benk

Perhaps because they have memory?

Seriously, I think it's not such a silly idea. When Europeans think about themselves, they see themselves in history (just look at how cities are built, you never run away from history). It seems to me (speculation!) that Americans tend to be too forward-looking, as if their history before WWII did not even exist (except for occasion nod to founding fathers or civil war).

@invalidfire Look at GitLab issue boards (or other issue trackers, which often include kanban/issue status boards). For some reason people overlook these.