Hello from the Netherlands! In this video I’m comparing Dutch and UK approaches to urban planning – from street design and greenery, to cycling and even bins and street lights. I think there’s a lot we can learn from the Netherlands which would make the UK’s towns and cities even better – which may even save public sector services and the NHS some money too.
00:00 – Intro
00:10 – Urecht motorway to canal
02:10 – Greenery
04:32 – Paving
05:20 – Good Street Design
08:40 – Bins
09:39 – Amsterdam
14:44 – Cycling
17:48 – Amsterdam Noord
20:38 – Brandevoort
23:13 – Street lights
Great video from Streetscapes going into much more detail about why Dutch street design is genius: • What New York Could Learn From Amsterdam’s…
More information from Not Just Bikes about Amsterdam’s plan to remove 10,000 car parking spaces from its city centre: • Why Amsterdam is Removing 10,000 Parking S…
A bit about the parking spaces removed from one Amsterdam canal to be replaced with a park on top and underground parking beneath: https://www.zja.nl/en/Albert-Cuypgara…
The development of Amsterdam Noord: https://bureauvaneig.nl/project/elzen…
More information about Brandevoort: https://www.visitbrabant.com/en/locat…
Sources:
Age UK, 2025. Lifting The Lid: Looking for a better understanding of local authorities and public toilet provision in London. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/bp-assets/gl…
Case, M. 2010. Why Not Abolish Laws of Urinary Segregation? In Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing. Molotch, H. & Noren, L.
Donohue, J. 2005. Fantasies of Empire: The Empire Theatre of Varieties and the Licensing Controversy of 1894.
Hall, E., 1977, in Destiny Obscure: Autobiographies of childhood, education and family from the 1820s to the 1920s. Burnett, J., ed. 1984. pg 125
Kogan, T. S. 2010. Sex Separation: The Cure-All For Victorian Social Anxiety. In Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing. Molotch, H. & Noren, L.
McCabe, S. 2012. The Provision of Underground Public Conveniences in London with Reference to Gender Differentials, 1850s-1980s. https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/6093/1/MA…
Nazerali, I., Ramster, G., & Bichard, J-A. Publicly Accessible Toilets after COVID-19. Public Toilets Research Unit, Royal College of Art.
Penner, B. 2001. A World of Unmentionable Suffering: Women’s Public Conveniences In Victorian London. In Journal of Design History Vol. 14 No.1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3527271
Penner, B., 2013. The First Public Toilet? Rose Street, Soho. In Victorian Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring 2013), pp. 26-30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24496993
Ramster G., Greed, C., & Bichard, J-O. How Inclusion Can Exclude: The Case of Public Toilet Provision for Women.
Rappaport, E. D. 2000. Shopping For Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End.
Shaw, B. 1909. The Unmentionable Case For Women’s Suffrage. In Practical Politics: Twentieth-Century Views on Politics and Economics, 1976. Hubenka, L. J., ed.
Stanwell-Smith, R., et al., 2019. Taking The P***: The Decline Of The Great British Public Toilet. Royal Society For Public Health. https://www.rsph.org.uk/static/upload…
What makes someone real?
And if we met a machine that could feel, how would we even know?
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In Blade Runner, the Voight-Kampff test measures empathy, not intelligence, not memory. Just an involuntary emotional response. But what happens when the machines we build can fake that too?
In this episode, we’re breaking down the science and story behind the Voight-Kampff test. From Turing’s original challenge to AI mimicry, to the rise of affective computing and the real-world limits of how we define consciousness.
This isn’t just about science fiction anymore.
It’s about how we decide what counts as sentient and what happens if we’re wrong.
Topics Covered:
-What the Voight-Kampff test really measured
-Why empathy doesn’t guarantee humanity
-The shift from detection to control in Blade Runner 2049
-Why we still don’t have a test for consciousness
-What AI mimicry tells us (and hides from us)
And why language like “reasoning” and “emotion” misleads us when applied to machines
This one’s for the sci-fi fans, the AI researchers, and anyone who’s ever wondered what proof would ever be enough.
Are you still translating French in your head? It’s likely why you’re struggling to speak and understand French with the fluency you want!
In this lesson, I’ll explain how you can stop translating in your head and start thinking in French instead. You’ll learn exactly why translating slows you down, why many French expressions don’t make sense when you do it, and I’ll give you some practical ways to make your brain start naturally thinking in French (just like a native speaker).
I’ll give you a simple 7-day ‘French Thinking Challenge’ to help you start building this habit, plus some listen-and-repeat exercises of real, everyday spoken French.
Want to speak French with confidence and ease? Let’s get you thinking in French!
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0:00 – Intro
0:47 – Problem Definition
1:31 – Why French Requires Different Thinking
3:18 – French Immersion Method
4:19 – Practical Implementation
7:52 – 7-Day French Thinking Challenge
10:32 – Listen & Repeat
msamba 