Simon Riggs has died

As italian, this kills me, what if there’s leftover? The restaurant just throws it away? Food? For class snobbery? Like the restaurant can’t reuse it, no? So it’s just thrown away?

You're definitely not speaking about the UK as a whole, this is completely normal and rooted in not wanting to waste food.

... almost never happens in the UK.

Maybe it's a regional thing?

Seemed to be fairly common in London when I lived there for a few years.

"Asking your waiter to wrap up the rest of your food to go almost never happens in the UK."

It happens, I've done it. Certainly at pizza restaurants and such where we've over-ordered. It's easy to chuck half a pizza or whatever in a takeaway box, and they're always happy to do so.

It's just less common in the UK because meals generally aren't so oversized like they can be in the US. In the UK we usually order what we can eat. If there's food left on my plate, it's because it didn't taste good and I don't want it.

It's hard to explain why we don't do it in the UK

Due to various factors, we can't afford to make more food for that price. So we charge the same (or more) for less food on the plate compared to other countries.

Also, like almost everything cultural in the UK, I expect it is rooted in class snobbery. If you need to take away, maybe this indicates that you're poor and need to make a meal last. These aren't conscious prejudices, they're relics of the past and subconscious.

This is just you having a hammer and everything looking like a nail. If you're shamefully poor, you're not eating out at all. Cheap takeaway food like fish and chips is definitely not shameful, and people of all socioeconomic classes eat it.

It's hard to explain why we don't do it in the UK

I wonder if you're assuming I'm not from the UK, I am. I've seen it regularly, across strata. You are not speaking for the entire nation.

Clearly (judging by the mixed comments where some say it's not common, and some say it is) this is a regional thing, but the assumption being made in that thread, and your comment, is untrue.

Also this anecdote is from 2006, nearly twenty years ago. It definitely wasn't popular then and now is only likely in certain types of establishment (probably places that do deliveries).

I do it -- 'please put that meat in a container for me' -- and have for a couple of decades. But then I rarely can afford to go out and most places provide normal portions you finish in one sitting.

> If you need to take away, maybe this indicates that you're poor and need to make a meal last.

I'd say it's the other way around: The British norm of eating everything on your plate was traditionally to avoid food waste.

And even though supermarket food is incredibly cheap these days, the norm is maintained by parents who want their children to eat their vegetables.

So Brits rarely see one another asking for to-go boxes even though many restaurants will offer them for free.

You start to realise how people cope with those huge portions sizes in the US. Many people don't eat everything in one sitting.

Yep. It conflicts with the "clean your plate!" mentality many kids were brought up with, but realizing that a meal you buy is often really enough for two meals and that it's OK to take some back with you can help both your weight and your wallet.

No it’s not - we’ve done this many times in London in all sorts of places, chains, small restaurants and even a very fancy restaurant (the waiters there looked positively happy when we asked).

We don’t do it often only because we don’t over-order as a general rule (c.f. my wife’s Chinese family in Canada who over-order every time we go out and take whatever is left home).

I do it all the time, mainly to keep for the dog. I was asked this week at a pizza place if I wanted to take the rest home too. I don't think it's as uncommon as you think.

This simply isn't true anymore. Even pre-covid, many restaurants were delivering food and it was becoming normal to box up leftovers.

I've had upmarket steakhouses offer to box up my remaining food despite them not offering delivery.

One of the somewhat delightful things I’ve learned as an adult is - you can just ask people for anything, and they’ll do it, much more often than you might think.

So true.

I used to drink a lot of pop/soda. When I initially cut back I stopped buying two liters for the house and only drank when eating out or the like. It always shocked my table mates to see me asking for a to-go cup for my drink.

But now I see those same people getting their drinks to go too, especially after the lockdowns and everywhere was offering curbside drinks.

For Danes, half the experience of a meal is the presentation. They would not want to eat an already half-eaten meal out of a styrofoam box.

So now we have covered PostgreSQL and food waste, how about the topic of avoiding small aircraft for transportation (because they are so much more risky compared to larger commercial aircraft)?

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

The original posted thread is talking about it, and making a sweeping generalization, I am commenting on that generalization.

I can confirm that. The cultural attitude in Germany is that food should not be wasted. One of my favourite café bars in Heidelberg, when it closes, gives away the unsold pastries to the people who are still there -- sometimes a whole bag full.

I’ve only ever seen it done in pizza places that already have takeaway boxes available.

Then we put it in the fridge, never to be eaten.

Yeah man, screw the VCs! That’s why we’re communicating through an open source platform… oh.

Well at least this site isn’t created by a VC… oh.

Things are nuanced. VCs can fund valuable useful things sometimes.

While I agree with your sentiment, maintaining software like postgreSQL is a full time job. But your last sentence seems to apply to everything on the internet lately. People used to do podcasts, create guitar tabs or publish cooking recipes because it was their hobby and they wanted others to participate. Now everything seems about making money.

What's wrong with trying to get rich? Please explain.

Monetization-era

100% agree on this. Ansible sell out and Hashicorp are fine examples of this.

The main alternative to open source monetization is XKCD 2347 (one guy in Nebraska). PostgreSQL appears to have hit that sweet middle ground that is so rare in open source.

https://xkcd.com/2347/

MySQL

What‘s the point of it, by the way? Why would one start a new project based on MySQL instead of postgres today?

What’s wrong with AGPL

I’d guess Microsoft ends up replacing Redis with Garnet[0] in their stack at some point.

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/introducing-ga...

I don't have an answer but I'd love to know this too. Why has Postgres got this unique staying power?

PostgreSQL's development never looked like design by committee.

Design by committee is not really common in the PostgreSQL community. Instead people just work on whatever they or their employer wants to. Makes having a roadmap or cohesive plan impossible but the issues of design by committee rarely show up.

Postgres is one of the top open source projects of all time. That doesn’t mean everything is perfect with no room for improvement but almost anyone could learn from what’s worked there.

I kinda wish computer systems were more involved in planes.

Computer systems have controlled the movement of elevators for 50+ years. They stop the elevator moving when the door isn't shut very effectively. They have certainly saved more lives compared to even a well trained elevator operator.

With today's tech, it would be possible to make a computer that prevents stall of any aerofoil. Anytime an aerofoil is nearing stall conditions, do whatever is necessary to prevent it stalling by actuating control sticks in the direction to prevent the stall.

There’s a balance of risks in T&G vs full-stop taxi-backs. On the day of the individual flight, taxi backs are surely safer. But if they let you get in less than half of the circuits (as would be common at busy GA airports) or if they cause your proficiency training to become twice as expensive, the overall system safety difference isn’t clear.

I come down on the side of being willing to do touch and goes in any aircraft (and have shared circuits with heavy jets doing touch and goes, so it’s done at all levels).

From the video, this does look like a botched climb from either an intended T&G or bounced landing after a series of T&Gs, so I’ve got to agree with your point about the “that day” safety here.

Even if the accident pilot had intended a stop-and-go and assuming reports of a bounce are accurate, it was too late. Trying to force a landing risks porpoising. Going around after a bad bounce is the safer choice — but a high workload event: full power, first notch of flaps, nose forward, and the all-important right rudder.

As the old quotation goes, Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous, But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

Are pilots four point strapped? The video looks like a heavy impact with a whip effect from the wing hitting the ground, but the forces involved look generally in the class of automobile impact. Is GA lax on restraints?

Are there "airbags" in GA, or accidental deployment too high a failure risk?

https://youtube.com/shorts/kSRcmjLllHY?si=-_yAfyExAq79veRn

Yeah. It's great

You can see an SR-71 there!

Those are hell of big contributions.

It'd be worth billions if Postgres was a greed-driven enterprise (like Redis, Elastic, Mongo). And this value is now available and enjoyed by everyone on Earth.

The average death rate for motorcycles and general aviation is around 1 death per 100,000 hours. Just an average, as you observe.

BTW, flying a small plane costs maybe $40/hour in fuel, but if your life is worth $12.5M (the statistical value of a human life these days) then the cost of the risk is $125/hour, three times as much. This tells me it's likely a good idea to include an emergency whole-plane parachute system on general aviation aircraft, even at the cost of fuel efficiency.