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A Fond Farewell

farmersalmanac.com

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Re: A Fond Farewell

#161

Post by KPGv2 »

dannyphantom wrote: post #59
Waterluvian wrote: post #38

What exactly is the Farmer’s Almanac? I always thought it was basically a big set of historical data that helped provide a sort of statistical foundation for choices, even if the why isn’t explained. Which seems like I can completely understand it as a practical tool in the past but fairly obsolete in modern times. Or did it evolve, too, and was essentially modern science and maths, dressed in the trappings of a belo…

Kinda all of the above. It did evolve into a scientific(-adjacent) thing, if that makes sense. My boyfriend’s parents have all of them sitting on a dedicated shelf. Interesting to read through. They definitely leaned into being a cultural artifact. Jokes, anecdotes, stories, how-tos, homeopathic recipes for things like cough syrups, etc. They all look kinda the same so either brand consistency or to keep the nostalgi…

FYI your links are about two different publications with similar names (the former is older and not shutting down*).

Re: A Fond Farewell

#162

Post by spijdar »

localhost wrote: post #143
gaoshan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aspect of small local stores functioning as a social hub really hits hard. The social hub, such as it is now, can be so much larger and less personal that it really does feel like a loss (a negative even). Is the social hub now something like Instagram or a specific forum/subreddit/space for a school or neighborhood? These are really insufficient replacements and people that grew up knowing nothing else likely do…

But why do social hubs need to be places of financial transactions? I was in Delft recently and I really loved their library/community center. Full of music practice rooms, people playing board games on the ground floor, a coffee bar and it was full of people at 8pm. It is open from 9am - 11pm M-F. You walk or cycle there (free indoor bicycle parking). There is a movie theater across the "street" (no cars).

I don’t think it’s about being “places of financial transactions” so much as it’s about places of shared necessity. Everyone has to eat, so everyone goes to the grocery store.

Community centers are great and I’m not going to argue against having “non-commercial recreation”, but the thing about having local stores as social hubs is they might be the only universally shared place of a community. Not everyone is going to want (or be able!) to visit a library, but everyone does need food and other consumables/goods.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#163

Post by etchalon »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #141
gaoshan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aspect of small local stores functioning as a social hub really hits hard. The social hub, such as it is now, can be so much larger and less personal that it really does feel like a loss (a negative even). Is the social hub now something like Instagram or a specific forum/subreddit/space for a school or neighborhood? These are really insufficient replacements and people that grew up knowing nothing else likely do…

But if it’s so valuable… why aren’t people willing to pay for it? Forgoing luxuries like a vacation to support local stores full of people you know and trust, that might charge 20% more for the same product, seems like an obvious thing… That almost no Americans do in reality.

Most people struggle to just to stay in front of their bills. It has nothing to do with "willing" and has everything to do with "able".

Re: A Fond Farewell

#165

Post by hencq »

mastazi wrote: post #112
ninalanyon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other side of the pond there are more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Moore%27s_Almanack in England published since 1697 and a similarly named one (without the k) in Ireland, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Moore%27s_Almanac since 1764

In Italy, where I grew up, my grandparents used to read the Almanacco di Barbanera; the first edition came out in 1762. It is still around https://www.barbanera.it/

Similarly in the Netherlands, my grandparents used to have the Enkhuizer Almanak. Also still around after 430 years https://www.almanak.nl/

Re: A Fond Farewell

#166

Post by DFHippie »

wat10000 wrote: post #146
MichaelZuo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if it’s so valuable… why aren’t people willing to pay for it? Forgoing luxuries like a vacation to support local stores full of people you know and trust, that might charge 20% more for the same product, seems like an obvious thing… That almost no Americans do in reality.

Because if I do that, I lose my vacation and I don’t gain a local store full of people I know and trust. Collective action problems aren’t solved by individually performing the action, and therefore the fact that people aren’t doing it doesn’t show they don’t want it.

Any problem with externalized costs or benefits is a collective action problem. You get a benefit everyone pays for or you incur a cost which everyone pays. The individual incentive is to freeload on the resources of others. It is functionally theft.

Regulation and other government actions can solve these problems by internalizing these costs/benefits. Any solution to these problems involves collective control of individual actions, which is to say, government at some scale.

There is some irony in the people who say "taxation is theft" ignoring the theft of the commons counteracted by taxation and the government services it supports.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#167

Post by breakpointalpha »

localhost wrote: post #143
gaoshan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The aspect of small local stores functioning as a social hub really hits hard. The social hub, such as it is now, can be so much larger and less personal that it really does feel like a loss (a negative even). Is the social hub now something like Instagram or a specific forum/subreddit/space for a school or neighborhood? These are really insufficient replacements and people that grew up knowing nothing else likely do…

But why do social hubs need to be places of financial transactions? I was in Delft recently and I really loved their library/community center. Full of music practice rooms, people playing board games on the ground floor, a coffee bar and it was full of people at 8pm. It is open from 9am - 11pm M-F. You walk or cycle there (free indoor bicycle parking). There is a movie theater across the "street" (no cars).

They didn't need to be transactional spaces, they need to be spaces that attract people regularly.

The local chicken farmer who works 16 hours a day to keep his farm running isn't going out of his way three times a week to visit the community center for board game night.

He's definitely in the local Tractor Supply store three times a week though...

It's about creating community where people naturally gather, not creating a gathering space then hoping people show up.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#168

Post by bunderbunder »

spijdar wrote: post #162
localhost wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do social hubs need to be places of financial transactions? I was in Delft recently and I really loved their library/community center. Full of music practice rooms, people playing board games on the ground floor, a coffee bar and it was full of people at 8pm. It is open from 9am - 11pm M-F. You walk or cycle there (free indoor bicycle parking). There is a movie theater across the "street" (no cars).

I don’t think it’s about being “places of financial transactions” so much as it’s about places of shared necessity. Everyone has to eat, so everyone goes to the grocery store. Community centers are great and I’m not going to argue against having “non-commercial recreation”, but the thing about having local stores as social hubs is they might be the only universally shared place of a community. Not everyone is going t…

The "shared necessity" factor also means that you regularly meet acquaintances there by accident. It just doesn't happen at the Wal-Mart or Home-Depot 15 miles away anywhere near as often as it would happen at the town general store or the local main street shopping district. Possibly because nobody actually spends time at a big box store or strip mall; they're such deeply unpleasant spaces that you basically just do what absolutely must be done and get out. So now a little extra stroll around to window shop has been replaced by extra time in the car to drive 15 miles across town in the other direction to go to some other big box store.

It's not just a small towns thing, either. The main street shopping district I had in mind just now is in the middle of Chicago. And it doesn't happen so much there, either, anymore, in the post retail apocalypse era. Now it's all bars and restaurants so people go there for a very reduced range of reasons.

Re: A Fond Farewell

#169

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #155
kstrauser wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s big “look at me” energy, coupled with that user citing years way more often than most. Some person: I like yams. Person in question: Me too, since I had my first one in 01985 or so.

That's an interesting - and falsifiable - observation. Quick check: 1984 rates 15103 mentions, 01984 42. So about 0.3%. For 2015 it is 69000 vs 89 for 02015. But not all of those are years, there are some other cases in there as well.

[deleted]

Re: A Fond Farewell

#170

Post by localhost »

spijdar wrote: post #162
localhost wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do social hubs need to be places of financial transactions? I was in Delft recently and I really loved their library/community center. Full of music practice rooms, people playing board games on the ground floor, a coffee bar and it was full of people at 8pm. It is open from 9am - 11pm M-F. You walk or cycle there (free indoor bicycle parking). There is a movie theater across the "street" (no cars).

I don’t think it’s about being “places of financial transactions” so much as it’s about places of shared necessity. Everyone has to eat, so everyone goes to the grocery store. Community centers are great and I’m not going to argue against having “non-commercial recreation”, but the thing about having local stores as social hubs is they might be the only universally shared place of a community. Not everyone is going t…

I would say that "don't let perfect be the enemy of the good" here. Would universal be better? Sure. But what I saw is so much better than what we currently have here in the US.

The point is that OPEN (the name of the Delft library) is really a community center and not a library. Yes, it happens to have books. But it also has a stage for musical performances, art rooms, tables, wifi, washrooms, coffee. I would say that the only thing that is missing is a gym; there are small dance rooms in there but that's not quite the same.

But the essence here is walkable communities. Suburbs and exurbs are hostile to even small local stores because you have to drive everywhere to do anything. There is no community in visiting my Costco or even my QFC.

Take a look for yourself: https://www.opendelft.info

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