I had no plans to view cherry blossoms in Tokyo. Over years I visited Japan several times but never around April when cherry blossoms bloom. This time I was there in mid-February. While not exactly sunny, the day was warm and pleasant to be outside.
I headed to Shinjuku Gyoen, which is a large park in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward. The place was a botanical garden since the late 19th century. It is known for its cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums. But the cherry blossom viewing season goes from the end of March to the end April. I was there more than five weeks earlier. The winter garden map highlighted a number of blooming flowers. Blooming Japanese apricots were great but they didn’t draw the crowd.
Shinjuku Gyoen: Japanese apricot
Shinjuku Gyoen: Japanese apricot
Most of the visitors could be found around blooming sakura trees, the kanzakura variety (Prunus x kanzakura). The tree is a hybrid between Prunus campanulata and Prunus jamazakura. Its name means “cold cherry,” however, it is cold sensitive and does not grow north of Tokyo. Kanzakura usually blooms from late February to early March. Fortunately for me, this time it started blooming a couple of weeks earlier in Tokyo.
Shinjuku Gyoen: kanzakura
Shinjuku Gyoen: kanzakura
Shinjuku Gyoen: kanzakura
Shinjuku Gyoen: kanzakura
Shinjuku Gyoen
Shinjuku Gyoen
Shinjuku Gyoen Garden was a delight to visit even in February.
Shinjuku Gyoen Garden was a delight to visit even in February.
It looks like a delight. I like your pictures.
Agreed, great photos!
^^
Thanks for sharing.
Memphis: Cherry Road runs through Audubon Park and is lined with Yoshino . . . which also provides a lovely frame for a par five.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a proper botanical garden.
Maybe I’ll look for a local one that isn’t the fucking arboretum.
They have an arboretum just for that??
Yes. Avoid it in spring – the air will be clogged with plant sperm.
Yeah.
It’s beautiful, but you have to peruse the joint with a bunch of UK grad students, and smell the farts they so love to enjoy.
“Fortunately for me, this time it started blooming a couple of weeks earlier in Tokyo.”
How terrible, global warming strikes again.
Thanks for the photos, they’re beautiful.
Beautiful photos. I love cherry blossom season here, though I rarely go to the tidal basin. I don’t need to, the cherries are everywhere.
I’m not the biggest Japanophile in the world, but I do love Japanese gardens.
There is both an English and French garden section in Shinjuku Gyoen. Roses blooming in December reminds me of being in New Orlean in the same period.
The Mother and Child Forest is different. Lots of photographers and painters throughout too.
https://ibb.co/DCwr4NY
https://ibb.co/tM1hfK1
I have a cherry tree. Every spring it gets lots of blossoms, but it only ever produces a few cherries a year. I wonder if it is due to soil (it’s near a pine grove), shade (the pine grove blocks any southern exposure) or animals (I have deer that come and eat all my fruit before it’s ripe).
https://extension.umaine.edu/fruit/growing-fruit-trees-in-maine/pollination-requirements/#:~:text=Fruit%20trees%20that%20do%20not,tree%20of%20the%20same%20variety.
Fruit trees that do not require cross pollination by a different variety are self-fruitful. They bear fruit when one variety is planted alone. Most peach and tart cherry varieties are self-fertile and can be expected to bear fruit with pollen from the same tree or another tree of the same variety. Some varieties of quince and sweet cherry are also self-fertile.
A fruit tree that is partially self-fertile will have a small number of fruit when planted alone, but will bear more fruit when planted with another variety. Some varieties of plum are partially self-fertile. However, planting two or more varieties will ensure that trees consistently bear fruit.
Fruit trees that require cross pollination by another variety are self-unfruitful. In this case, pollen from the same variety is not capable of reaching the unfertilized seed or ovule within the flower. The pollen grain is prevented from growing through the floral tube and never reaches the ovule, so the blossom drops instead of growing into a fruit. In these self-incompatible species, pollen from a different variety is needed for fertilization. Apples, pears, apricots, and many sweet cherries and plums are self-unfruitful and should be planted with other varieties of the same species,
My guess is that your variety of cherry is only partially self-fertile. You may see improvements if you plant a different variety of cherry tree nearby.
We have a beautiful weeping cherry tree that was trained in a spiral. But I’m pretty sure a very late freeze last year (after derby day which is the local calendar date for planting) killed it, which is very upsetting. We’re going to give it the spring to see if it comes back to life some, but I have my doubts.
Finally getting lake effect snow, warning til 4 Saturday, yippee!
Lake effect snow is probably done here in Cleveland. The lake is about 80% frozen at this point. So, less snow, more bitter cold (and really cold winds).
We’re getting more snow in NYC this winter than probably the last ten years combined. Not that it’s a lot – but the winters where it snows once or twice and disappears the next day seem to be over.
Indeed. Daughter was born in the blizzard of 2010/11; the Winters have been very mild since then. It’s warm enough right now that all the snow has a 1/8” crust of ice. I just dug out both cars and switched spaces after using the truck to knock down the banks so the Fit could move (I wonder how it would look with a spoiler).
Spoiler alert: dorky.
Yes, yes it does. For a brief time in high school, there was a trend of finding the smallest pickup truck, lowering it to the ground, and attaching gee-gaws like ludicrously oversized spoilers. This was SW Florida in the 1980s, so an equivalent number of students were heavily into the opposite end of the spectrum and had giant, lifted 4x4s that they took out mudding in the sloughs every weekend.
Where in SW FL?
I thought you looked like a swamp rat!
?
Sarasota and Charlotte Counties – the beach on one side, miles and miles of pine trees and palmetto scrub on the other.
My brother lives in Ft Myers.
I was born and raised in Dade.
My mom almost moved us to Ft. Myers in the 80s. After listening to my grandma bitch about the heat and the bugs, I was NOT looking forward to it.
Ft. Myers had a fantastic record store, Rainbow Records (IIRC). It was also one of two options for shopping mall trips; we were about equidistant from Sarasota and Ft. Myers.
We’re getting the most snow we’ve had in Central KY than since 2015.
We average about 12-15” a year of snow. Not much. We’ve already gone above that this year by a goodly margin.
But in 2015 we got 2 snows that were both over 15”, which helped me realize why it’s called an average. Some years we won’t get more than a handful of dustings, others we get dumped on.
And it also galvanized my belief that the language change in weather, which has gone from “Average” to “Normal”, is particularly devious.
They don’t really talk in averages anymore. It’s now “Temps will be running a few degrees above/below normal, which is bullshit sleight of hand trickery. There is no “normal” temperature. There are averages and means, but no “normal.”
This all seemed to start at about the same time they started naming winter storms and other things like SUPERSTORM SANDY.
Thanks guys. It was almost exactly a year ago. I must have even mentioned it in a late night thread at the time.
I remember. Two years since my own last visit. Can’t believe it’s been that long.
Great photos and enjoyed the read.
Those are lovely.
Black cherry is all we have here and its flowers are not remarkable. The fruit and wood is fantastic but the flowers are tiny. Now, dogwood on the other hand…
I wonder if after all of the damage from the hurricane and now this ice storm we will have any flowers, fruits or nuts. All of my huckleberries were just starting to bloom when the ice showed up, dammit.
Beautiful pictures grrizzly. Thank you.
We have lots of dogwood and red bud trees around here – they are beautiful during spring. There used to be an abundance of Bradford Pear tress in the area – most of them have been killed off by wind and ice storms. They are now listed as an invasive species and planting them is discouraged.
I forgot about the redbuds. We have lots of those.
All of the species here make excellent food for wildlife. I have been planting fruit and nut trees all of my life for that purpose.
*I am very jealous of dbleagle, he has macadamias. They wont grow here. Some years back a nursery was sending out free macadamia trees all around the world to see where they can survive. They sent me four of them. I had a serious sad when they died the first winter after planting them.
Bradford Pears are pretty, but weak as fuck. A strong enough fart will break them.
They require religious pruning. I have one in the front yard that looks like Moses passed a lot of Jews through.
V-shaped where last year’s ice storm hit.
We’ve had more ice this year, but it didn’t get followed up by wind, so no tree killing so far.
Among the things I really enjoyed about the Richmond area before it started to morph into Berkeley on the James was the proliferation of dogwoods, magnolias, and azaleas. Spring is a beautiful time of year here when everything is in bloom.
I have a dogwood in my yard.
A friend of mine in PA was starting dogwoods from seed from one in his yard and selling them at flea markets. He gave me one a few years back.
I was a little worried about it. It didn’t seem to be doing well, but it has hung in there. No flowers yet.
Our dogwood tree (a red dogwood) took almost 10 years from when it was planted to flower with more than just a couple dozen buds.
It was like that for years. We’d get a few flowers, and that’s it. But then one year, BAM! The whole thing was covered up in flowers and has been since.
Dogwoods are tough to plant. If you can get it to take it will do great but those first couple of years are touch and go.
Today in curious headlines:
No mention that the guy is the freaking DA of San Francisco until you read the article.
Chesa Boudin. A real piece of work and his parents are even worse.
Fun fact, one of them planted a bomb under the senate floor. Ask lefties if that was an insurrection, see the hypocrisy in the system.
Next time write the article as a Haiku.
Sounds awful… Haiku.
The worst form of poetry
It makes me angry.
Ordering others
Specifying their style
You sound too proggy
/Not a haiku, more a senryu
I don’t like haiku
It leaves me feeling undone
Grrizzly photographs
Pink cherry tree blooms in Japan
Glibs appreciate them
Tonight on GlibZoom:
https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmybeer/comments/ljimdp/hmb_while_i_test_out_my_new_power_straw/
I’d like to see him do that a couple of times with a Belgian Quad.
Good way to set a record Aggie ring dunk
Thanks and Gigem
you’re not onnadem!?
Damn right I am!
go figure
hey, maybe we were both the same place once, over in Dallas, 01 January 2005 ?
I was probably drunk somewhere in BCS on that date.
Unexpected blooms
Turning Winter into Spring
Glibs always astound
Just walked out and checked the roads. Looks like I am no longer trapped and the sound of traffic out on the highway sounds normal. Excellent. I hope all of. you stayed warm and safe.
Nice.
It’s snowing here. I was out earlier this morning. The roads were sloppy but passable if you took appropriate care and have good tires.
The storm that is supposed to drop 3-6″ will maybe drop 2-3″. I haven’t cleared my driveway yet. The tiny amount of snow didn’t hamper my attempts to get in and out.
I’ll clear the snow tomorrow morning. It’s supposed to snow off and on through the night.
Still below freezing here today, but the sun is bright enough to heat the roads and melt the ice (if the sun can actually hit the pavement).
We’ll see fitty degrees next week but back down to 8 tonight.
I wasn’t kidding
All these haiku irritate
rage builds inside me
Settle down there Chester Bennington.
Who?
Make references I can get.
How else will I know if you’re trying to insult me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4
Lead singer of Linkin Park, committed suicide a couple of years ago. A lot of emo lyrics from my teens.
He was.
Or else he’s a filthy Linkin Park fan. I choose to believe otherwise.
I liked Hybrid Theory.
So there.
To be fair, LP did some interesting stuff musically. I mostly object to Chester Bennington’s weak-assed songwriting.
I don’t know if someone who’s name is ‘evilsheldon’ should be throwing any shade at something for weak-assed writing.
Was that sarcasm?
Are you claiming the Big Bang Theory isn’t weak assed writing?
Sheldon isn’t a reference to the Big Bang Theory, but a 90’s era kids cartoon show. I forget the name of it off the top of my head. At least, I’m going off the picture. I remember the character.
Or maybe I’m wrong. I was thinking of the ’90’s cartoon Recess, but I can’t find a character named Sheldon on it. Thought that’s where the avatar was from.
*sigh*
Yes, EvilSheldon is a reference to The Big Bang Theory.
No, I don’t like The Big Bang Theory, I fucking hate it. My shooting friends hung the nickname on me because I apparently share some of Sheldon Cooper’s tics.
And my avatar is from a fairly obscure indie platformer game called UnEpic. It actually looks a little like me in real life, if you subtract 20 years and squint.
Nice, Suthen. The sun has burst forth, and the wind seems to have died down. I’ll go carve out a path through my drift to the truck in a little while.
I am amazed at how quickly it is melting away. I imagine it is because the cold didnt last long enough to cool the ground appreciably. Snow comes seldom here and disappears quickly.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/huawei-turns-pig-farming-during-041616910.html
We had to write haikus in the 6th grade. Mine was something like this.
I dislike haiku
I really dislike haiku
I dislike haiku
I didn’t get a good grade on that one.
They’re not supposed to rhyme. So of course you got a poor grade.
I made $40 in 7th grade writing poetry for other students to turn in as their own.
I never had to do haiku, but I did have to write in iambic pentameter in college.
“The English Department can go to hell…”
My grade was passing, but not by much.
Just for the cheek, and the fact that it actually is 5-7-5, I would’ve given you an “A.”
That’s one expensive remote controlled car:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mars-landing-nasa-perseverance-rover-touchdown/
We’ve done that before…I wanna see footage of the drone flying around.
Shinjuku Gyoen Garden
ATM machine ?
Thank you grzzly! Very enjoyable stroll through memory lane. I’ve been a couple times but never late enough for sakura blossoms.
https://ibb.co/znzmKrf
Iconic scene. I came across almost an exact duplicate in an inflight magazine several months later.
https://ibb.co/80srYpw
Aggressive carp in the ponds
https://ibb.co/PYCK7Ss
Proper refreshments even if the tea house is closed
https://ibb.co/c8Jk409
Nicest and most orderly homeless encampments I’ve ever seen.
Your time of visit was pretty good, too. Bizarrely, I stayed in Nishi-Shinjuku twice and didn’t visit Shinjuku Gyoen even once. Once was in July, the other time in October. No idea why I didn’t go until my last trip. Probably spent too much time with the monkeys.
Ah! Another thing I’ve never actually seen. Has been on the todo list since the first visit but keeps getting pushed down in favor of other stuff.
Several stays at the Hilton and still haven’t gone to the Metropolitan Government buildings either.
The world is small. I stayed at the same Hilton and visited the Metropolitan Government building.
$100 says they were filming the whole thing:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/women-20s-dressed-grannies-covid-19-vaccine-florida/story?id=75984671
Aggressive carp in the ponds
There’s something to build a haiku around.
Looking for my socks
aggressive carp in the ponds
fish sammich for lunch
Excellent photographs!
If one is looking for a nice group of cherry blossoms in the spring, and doesn’t want to travel to Japan or Dee Cee, the Macon, Georgia has you covered. Kind of an unexpected place for it, but there you are.
Bonus for makin’ the Macon journey, if you’re an aerophile: 20 minutes down the road is the town of Warner Robins and its air force base, which houses the largest collection of USAF aircraft anywhere in the world not named Wright-Patterson.
/glances across the country at KK
We have quite a collection in Tucson, too.
Bonus for makin’ the Macon journey, if you’re an aerophile: 20 minutes down the road is the town of Warner Robins and its air force base, which houses the largest collection of USAF aircraft anywhere in the world not named Wright-Patterson.
Speaking of airplanes- I watched a thing last night about the Douglas Stiletto. An early and very unsuccessful attempt at a supersonic plane for the Air Force. A miserable failure which repeatedly tried to kill anybody dumb enough to fly it.
Built a 1/48 scale model of that plane when I was but a wee lad. Looked cool as Hell. Stupidly fragile, though — everything was insanely skinny and easily bent/snapped.
Used it to design the F-104 Starfighter… aka “the Widowmaker”.
When I was growing up a new kid moved in a couple of houses down. When we met I ask him where he was from and he said one oh robbins. I was puzzled, never heard of any city that started with numbers before.
It’s actually +3° Celsius (+37° Fahrenheit) on my back deck right now, and nobody is happier about that than my dog. ”Walkies!”
Memphis: snow dogs refuse to come back inside after bathroom breaks; bears and pandas going wild at the zoo
We’re above freezing! WOOHOO!
32 here! Woo! It’s been a while as well, minus a brief heat wave a couple days ago.
I sometimes forget that you are Canadian. Celcius buddies. We obviously science way harder than those Fahrenheit tubes.
*rubes
Ducking autocorrect
It is science. It is known.
“One of us! One of us! One of us!”
True libertarians would never use Celsius.
?
True libertarians would create their own temperature scale.
“It’s five cables over frodnik out there! Damn, but that’s cold!”
it would be delightful to just dick around with some Lorenz transforms and see if some basic truths can simply be sussed out of thin air and it turned out that
1°R = 1776 + ((5.56*e)^(beers/day) * (0.357*Evan)^(-2) * π^(boobs/guitar))
Hmmmph.
I’m betting that wild-ass guess of a formula has an R² of around 0.85, 0.9 no problem.
SCIANCE!
Kelvin?
Absolutely.
* golf clap *
Lord that Old World certainty over us a little more, why don’t ya?
Utter shibboleths
Reinforce unspoken bond
Conditional friend
This is a topical one for me because a long-term friendship seems to have taken a slightly sour turn when I didn’t jump in enthusiastically to the Rush-bashing. This comes off the back of the recent incident where I didn’t share in the ad-hom bombing of Bennifer Shrimpo.
Not expressing opinions is easy, but the game has changed, and it’s not good enough just to not play anymore. Not playing is a sign that I am a badthink evil person. Of course, I’m a long way from being a disciple of Rush or Shapiro, regardless of what I said playing devil’s advocate for Rush yesterday, but to the certain person and/or people, I’m “far right”. On the one hand, if they actually wanted to talk about this, and I thought it wasn’t completely futile, they might understand that my particular worldview is somewhat different. But, it doesn’t actually matter, because they’re not even really interested in engaging Rush or Shapiro on their actual arguments. I mean, that’s some low hanging fruit to mow down on first principles in a lot of cases, but they can’t even do that. Instead, they rely purely on character assassination, slander, inuendo, etc, because they can’t even be bothered to engage with, or accurately and honestly describe what it is they object to.
My friends and I disagree on lots of things, but they’re still my friends, ’cause we’re all adults.
I’m sorry ’bout your friend.
My current tactic is to just remain positive and give them a bit of space, which I think is the best. That helps with perspective and it just sort of calms down, we hope.
I know what you mean
but there’s not one the game
some people live in buckets based on their identity politics, but it doesn’t mean your world needs to
and it doesn’t mean they are in charge of the rules
If there is one the game I’d worry about, it’s collectives; just because other people resort to shabby shortcuts doesn’t mean that we do.
I take everyone one act at a time, one discussion at a time. If I refer to stereotypes, I’m usually doing so to make fun of myself, my family, my demographic, or vox populi.
For example, not all Republicans are Trump gobblers.
I get that. Very true. I just meant that I don’t talk politics with friends, but recently just not participating or responding with the right thing seems to be becoming as bad as saying the wrong thing. I won’t lie or be coerced into saying something I disagree with. I think that ultimately they respect that, and if they’re upset then I give it time. Stay positive, patient, and calm. I think a lot about that these days. Be what you want to see in the world, and all that.
Stay positive, patient, and calm.
Yeah, like Enough said.
Problem is: people vote their identity. Very few are listening at all. There was a time when you could point to the Depression or the Holodomor or cold fusion and explain easily: sorry, friend, I wish it worked like that, but here’s some science, economics, and history for us to reflect upon as we discuss what philosophies we might carry and which policies we might support.
oh well; the days of smoking cigarettes in the dorm hallway and arguing about this shit all night might be behind me
One thing that is surprisingly successful for me is when prodded about not chiming in/piling on is to say “I’m sorry, I’m trying not to be so negative/hateful/etc.” It’s passive-agressive, shaming, and self-righteous. A lot of people seem to respond to that.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/no-lockdown-sweden-sees-covid-deaths-plummet-quicker-fully-locked-down-uk
My little theories have had a set-back. I was fairly gloating 100 to 70 days ago as total per capita deaths continue to converge (state to state and country to country).
Since, though, there’s seems to be some stratification which is not consistent with my theory that the virus is just virusing and all management efforts are folly. I could still be right, and it’s just data, and summer is a long way away.
FWIW, NY, NJ, MA, and CT are still sucking (kudos CA: enjoy being an outlier), so there’s that.
It’s pretty crazy how quickly it’s been downgraded in the news cycle. I was expecting it to be quick but this is pretty impressive.
The tests, reported numbers, measurement scales… all GIGO.
Who the fuck could possibly untangle this mess? It looks a lot like an engineered virus that got through the population unusually fast, but is still subject to the virus laws.
I don’t much care anymore. Cases are plummeting and it’s time to go to work.
I worked in warranty for about three years: everything is just a proxy, but the dollars are real
*surprised face*
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-fed-report/update-1-fed-sees-considerable-risk-of-ongoing-u-s-business-failures-idUSL1N2KP1PK
The best thing to do at this point, is to make it as easy as possible to start a business. Like Hong Kong where you only need to fill out a single one page form. Our government will not do this.
Late to the party, but thanks grrizzly!
Gorgeous pics of a place I’ll probably never visit.
Holy hit piece:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9278495/Winter-storm-death-toll-hits-47-including-30-Texas-boy-11-died-unheated-mobile-home.html
I’ll just laugh at their attempt to make Cruz the main headline. Not the failed energy policies that were pursued at the state level and encouraged by federal policy set by Dems.
Scapegoating is particularly effective.
Ron Paul on today’s podcast says part of the problem was lack of turbine inspection, or underinspection (via internet, when done at all) due to Covid.
But yeah, not a great look for TC.
While 11 years olds are dying in their homes, thousands of sea turtles are saved.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/thousands-of-cold-stunned-sea-turtles-being-rescued-in-texas/2555572/?_osource=taboola-recirc
https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/proud-puffs-black-owned-cereal_n_6028a642c5b6d667582d5fb7?ri18n=true ?
If I started a cereal named ‘proud puffs’ I would definitely make it to the Huffington Post’s headline. But i don’t think they’d be as nice to me.
I know when I think of the black community, I think of veganism, personally.
Damn white supremacy.
Also, supporting bunk science. As if calling it vegan makes some chocolaty carb loaded cereal “healthy.”
I mean, good for the guy starting his own business. If he finds a niche for people who want to support a black owned cereal company, more power to him. But spare me the bullshit.
Being vegan doesn’t make it healthy, but it does make it , most likely, taste like shit.
Apropos
The word search on the box is the best part. Sorry to break it to you, Stuart Smalley, but self-affirmations don’t work.
I’ve got an email folder at work I call Stuart Smalley that I rake all the happy horseshit missives into
the shape of a Black fist
Are black fists a different shape than white fists?
According to Miss Manners, proper etiquette demands Black
firstsfists.Not the Bee?
We’ve turned the corner on the coof.
The vast majority of the stories about Texas were NOT about how this storm is going to result in a “surge of cases.”
It must be time for Biden to “build the economy back better.”
I’m shocked. Fully expected to see “covid sufferers hardest hit” pieces.
Here you go.
Ugh, is anything not politicized anymore?
Nope.
Next question?
Wow, great pix, thanks. I heard a rumor that spring is just around the corner here but all I see is snow. Those blossoms provide some hope.
My kids keep cajoling me into playing on the Nintendo Switch with them. We have radically different ideas of what constitutes a good game. I find Bendy and the Ink Machine to be enraging and dull at the same time. They think Super Mario World and Zelda: A link To The Past to be archaic and cartoony.
The correct answer is Mario Kartand Super Smash Bros.
Super Mario 3D World/Bowser’s Fury.
The 3D World allows up to four players (local/internet) at the same time. Bowser’s Fury is an open world game (fairly short overall, first ending is after about 4 hours) that plays two players (Mario and Bowser Jr.). I’ve been enjoying decompressing running around in Bowser’s Fury the past week.
Ooh… thank you both. We all enjoy Cuphead immensely, but it’s a very difficult game and it’s a tossup as to who will rage-quit first, me or my seven year old.
Have you considered putting them up for adoption?
Joking joking…
“They think Super Mario World and Zelda: A link To The Past to be archaic and cartoony.”
Have you considered a few extra beatings?
Jesus wept…
His kid is named Jesus?
And he shall be Levon!
If you really want to hate your family play Overcooked with them.
https://www.fox29.com/news/bomb-squad-responds-to-suspicious-package-that-turns-out-to-be-a-bag-of-kittens
I noticed my cable bill was actually LESS than usual, and found a credit labeled “Sports Program Credit.” Anyone see something like that? Is it a tacit admission that few, if any, sports have been worth watching for the last year?
::looks around, realizes she’s the last person on Earth who still has cable TV. Skulks away in shame::
The bulk of the reason I got rid of it was because of that damn “sports franchise fee.”
DirecTV dropped somewhere between 5% and 10%. I don’t remember what they said the reason was.
I still have cable.
shame
nothing wrong with paying for a value and convenience proposition
we’ve got cable and everything else on top of it
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/uk-supreme-court-says-uber-drivers-are-not-independent-contractors/
UK Supreme Court says Uber drivers are not independent contractors
So the UK Supreme Court ruled Friday that Uber drivers are legally Uber workers, not independent business owners who happen to get most of their business from Uber.
“Drivers are in a position of subordination and dependency in relation to Uber such that they have little or no ability to improve their economic position through professional or entrepreneurial skill,” said Lord George Leggatt, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, as he handed down the ruling.
One consequence is that Uber drivers must be paid at least the minimum wage. And importantly, the high court held that drivers must be paid not only for the time when they’re driving but also for time they’re logged in to the app waiting for another fare.
The Gig is dead.
Long live the Gig.
If Uber has any sense they’ll just pull out of the UK.
These rulings aren’t popular with consumers no matter their political leanings or the majority of people who actually work these gigs. The ones who aren’t idiots enjoy the flexibility that comes with the contractor label.
So, pull out of the UK. Force these politicians and courts to deal with their unpopular decisions. If you play ball here and try to adapt your model to suit the ruling, you are only going to encourage more of the same.
If only the judiciary would stay in their lane.