Create accountLogin

Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Only available when logged in.
toot.wales is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
We are the Mastodon social network for Wales and the Welsh, at home and abroad! Y rhwydwaith cymdeithasol annibynnol i Gymru, wedi'i bweru gan Mastodon!

Administered by:

Server stats:

713
active users

toot.wales: AboutStatusProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.3.7

#qualityoflife

4 posts4 participants0 posts today
Public *
Wen

Historical reversals.

Americans, it’s time to move to Europe

A slightly superficial article iun many ways, but having lived in the US and now living in Europe (Scotland) with a US partner (who would not go back) a lot of it is good stuff. And that is before you have to consider the current fascist danger or even trivial things such as gun crime.

archive.today/2025.04.17-14294

#Emigrate #Scientists #QualityOfLife#USPol #FinancialTimes #Opinion

screenshot : reads I live emotionally between the two continents. As a British student in the US in the early 1990s, I thought it was the greatest country on Earth. I acquired an American wife and kids, but we ended up in Paris. Over decades of transatlantic visits, I've tracked the lives of American friends and relatives. I now feel that even somehow setting aside the mammoth issues of Trump and freedom, most Europeans live better than most Americans. There's one big exception: the mega-rich. If you're among the wealthy Americans awaiting another tax cut from Congress, then congratulations: the Trump administration is at least trying to run the country for your benefit. You're unlikely to get that from European governments. Similarly, most Americans in tech or finance will find undynamic Europe frustrating. That leaves about 99 per cent of the population for whom emigrating to Europe would be a life win. The biggest potential beneficiaries are adults under the age of 35: unable to afford a home or even childcare in America's biggest cities, but young enough to acquire a new language and circle of friends.
Screenshot, reads 'Once here, your salary may shrink, but your costs definitely will. The Eurozone's income per capita is about three-quarters that of the US, after correcting for purchasing power, says the World Bank. Americans in Europe might need to cut down on consumer goods. On the upside, they will be able to afford housing, education and healthcare. The average premium for family health insurance in the US is $25,572, reports the Kaiser Family Foundation. That's more than the average post-tax wage in much of Europe. Fun here is cheaper too. A multinational organisation I know brought its national chapters together for a dinner in Madrid. When the bill came, the Americans were so startled by its tininess that they photographed it, saying they would hang it framed in the Washington office.
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"The thing about Europe is that it lacks an absolutist attachment to free speech. See how judges in Romania and France derailed the careers of hard-right politicians, who have convinced themselves (with little evidence) that it was their ideology rather than their lawbreaking that got them in trouble. Yet to many Europeans the idea that free expression is under threat seems odd. Europeans can say almost anything they want, both in theory and in practice. Europe’s universities never became hotbeds of speech-policing by one breed of culture warrior or the other. You can express a controversial view on any European campus (outside Hungary, at least) without fear of losing your tenure or your grant. No detention centres await foreign students who hold the wrong views on Gaza; news outfits are not sued for interviewing opposition politicians. Law firms are not compelled to kow-tow to presidents as penance for having worked for their political foes.
(...)
The thing about Europe is that it is like an open-air museum, yesterday’s continent. Is its model even sustainable? A good question—one that presupposes the European model is worth defending. It is a place blessed with walkable cities, long life expectancies and vaccinated kids who do not need to be trained to dodge school shooters. Charlemagne’s realm is a place of many flaws, lots of them enduring. But in their own plodding way, Europeans have created a place where they are guaranteed rights to what others yearn for: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

economist.com/europe/2025/04/1

Illustration of the statue of liberty sailing off on a boat with the EU flag on it, her plinth is in the foreground with a notice pinned on it that says gone to Europe
The Economist · The thing about Europe: it’s the actual land of the free nowBy The Economist
#Europe#FreeSpeech#FreedomOfSpeech
Public *
Bohemian Peasant

I lament the fact that the City of #Salem budget is in such bad shape that the #libraries, #parks, and #seniorcenter are considered “optional” for funding. But here we are.

Please vote to keep these essential public services open and operating for the next five years. Your “Yes” vote on May 20 for the levy will support jobs and quality of life in Salem.

#PublicServices #qualityoflife #Oregon #library

yesforsalem.org/

Yes for Salem: Parks, Libraries, Center 50+Yes for Salem: Parks, Libraries, Center 50+ | Measure 25-214 | Salem, OregonLearn about Measure 24-514 and how it supports Salem's parks, libraries, and senior services. Discover reasons to vote YES and make Salem a great place for all of us.
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"The study, led by researchers at Brown University, found that the wealthiest Americans lived shorter lives than the wealthiest Europeans. In fact, wealthy Northern and Western Europeans had death rates 35 percent lower than the wealthiest Americans, whose lifespans were more like the poorest in Northern and Western Europe—which includes countries such as France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

"The findings are a stark reminder that even the wealthiest Americans are not shielded from the systemic issues in the US contributing to lower life expectancy, such as economic inequality or risk factors like stress, diet or environmental hazards," lead study author Irene Papanicolas, a professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown, said in a news release.

The study looked at health and wealth data of more than 73,000 adults across the US and Europe who were 50 to 85 years old in 2010. There were more than 19,000 from the US, nearly 27,000 from Northern and Western Europe, nearly 19,000 from Eastern Europe, and nearly 9,000 from Southern Europe. For each region, participants were divided into wealth quartiles, with the first being the poorest and the fourth being the richest. The researchers then followed participants until 2022, tracking deaths."

arstechnica.com/health/2025/04

Ars Technica · Wealthy Americans have death rates on par with poor EuropeansBy Beth Mole
#USA#Europe#LifeExpectancy
Public *
these machines will destroy US.

so been using arch for the past few days...
couple things I like and don't like...

  1. boot times are nuts, like way faster than any other os I've run on this particular laptop (t480s)
  2. latest gnome, latest kernel and maybe updates are too often? I know there is a testing phase but I've heard horror stories of arch breaking.....might just be a user thing
  3. I already run majority of my apps as flatpaks, so system is light and quick
  4. battery life seems slightly improved, likely due to less resources and background processes

I don't do much gaming, theming, tweaks, no custom kernels, no extra fonts, none of that for me, so I am interested on the longevity and stability going forward. So far I am impressed. Using ext4 so backups should be pretty basic.

#archlinux#qualityoflife#linux
Public
unfa🇺🇦

Here's a KDE Plasma 6 power feature you probably had no idea existed.

Hit Meta+T on your keyboard.

You can define tiles on each of your screens.

Now grab a window and hold shift - it will snap to the closest tile!

This way you can arrange windows on your screen(s) in a way that will keep them sharing your screen's area without ever overlapping.

Doing this manually always took so much time and was so fiddly...

You're welcome!

Screenshot of a display with KDE Tile Editor active showing default 3 tiles.
#KDE#Plasma#Linux
Public
GryphonSK

We need a real party that can not only defeat the Nazis, but bring the country up to 2025 regarding the #QualityOfLife for the 98%, like in Scandinavia, etc.
No more 1990s corporate crap from @thedemocrats!
No more economically right-wing parties!
No more Republican-lite “ #liberals !”
Wake up @RepJeffries!
We're tired of being a third world #capitalist #dystopia!
#NoMoreBillionaires as donors!

youtu.be/2lMRJr_yflQ?si=Rd_ByF

YouTubeWhy the Democratic Party is NOT Going to Save Us From FascismBy The Humanist Report
Public *
Cobic

dopracenakole.cz/45048/v-dopra

Do práce na kole · V dopravě musíme mít vizi a odvahu, říká hradecký náměstek. Východočeská metropole vstoupila do Síně slávy Cykloměsta 2024 - Do práce na koleV polovině ledna jsme se vypravili do Hradce Králové, abychom město oficiálně uvedli do Síně slávy Cykloměsta 2024. Stejně jako loni se východočeská metropole umístila na nejvyšší příčce v anketě cyklopřívětivých měst a podle pravidel se tedy odebírá právě do Síně slávy. Pan Lukáš Řádek, náměstek hradecké primátorky od nás tedy přebral již druhou plaketu. Gratulujeme.
#dopracenakole#HradecKralove#BikeLife
Public
Joseph Lim :mastodon:

More #Indians #losinghope of improved quality of life under #Modi, survey shows
🇮🇳😷"More than 37% of respondents in a #prebudget #survey said they expect the overall #qualityoflife for #ordinary #people to #deteriorate over the next year, the highest such % since 2013.. ⅔ of survey respondents said #inflation remains #unchecked & prices hv gone up since Modi became PM in 2014, while more than half said the rate of inflation has “adversely” affected their quality of #life"
straitstimes.com/asia/south-as

The Straits Times · More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey showsMore than 37% of survey respondents expect their quality of life to deteriorate over the next year. Read more at straitstimes.com.
ExploreLive feeds
About