Growing up, I always wanted to be in the heart of the city—a densely populated, well-connected place (which is why I moved to Singapore). But gradually, I’m starting to crave a quieter life… something more remote, peaceful, and slow-paced.

I’ve spent countless hours dreaming about living in a small town in the French Alps, a secluded village in Bali (away from the tourist spots), maybe on a boat, or nestled in a Norwegian fjord with a breathtaking view, perhaps a smaller town in French Brittany, or a tranquil town in New Zealand.

As romantic as the idea sounds, I’m not entirely sure I could actually go so far off the grid, away from airports and civilization. After all, our family is quite international, so we need to fly to visit—plus, my wife isn’t exactly on board with the idea right now 😅.

• All of computing is moving to the cloud at a rapid clip, including (government) parts you might want to keep under your own control
• Europe has no relevant ‘hyperscaler’ cloud providers at all, and there is a desire to change this by policy means
• Competing with the IKEA-concept is nearly impossible. Offering IKEA-like products but then with a smaller range is not an attractive proposition. You can’t replicate IKEA without a LOT of upfront work
• Replicating a company like Airbus (or ASML) is similarly very hard: both companies (and their ecosystems) are one of the very few places where you can buy modern wide body jets and extreme UV wafer steppers. Their products are technically incredibly advanced.
• The ‘hyperscaler’ cloud providers (like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba) are both IKEA and Airbus/ASML hard to replicate. They offer a huge and complete range services that are also incredibly advanced and years ahead of commodity products
• Europe has precisely nothing that competes, and is 100% dependent on the ‘IKEA clouds’. We only have partial companies.
• Fixing that situation will not be possible through legislation, standardisation or concerted government action. You can’t procure a competitive mega cloud into existence. Europe did assemble Airbus from its component parts but it was very hard
• Although IKEA exists, you can still get (better) furniture from more specialised places. A European owned email, communication and collaboration cloud might be a feasible idea
• European procurement law makes it entirely doable for governments to order their services from such European communication clouds
• From that, a more viable European cloud ecosystem could perhaps evolve

Source: Taking the Airbus to the IKEA Cloud by Bert Hubert

We do have some (smaller) cloud (Scaleway) and datacenter players (Leaseweb, could use some innovation) and some inbetween (OVH, Hetzner)... But none are really a true cloud provider with serverless, all the storage stuff, etc.

Evroc is trying just that -- being a real competitor to GCP and AWS -- but that'll need a lot of funding, and it's been rather quiet from their end for a few months.

To be seen what'll come out of it ...

Then again, I've recently (year or two) seen a push from medium-sized companies to get away from the cloud (Basecamp/Hey for one, but they are not alone) -- at least the big players -- due to exaggerated vendor lock-in and pricing.

Keep seeing more and more topics, threads and sites about it. And it's probably not getting half as much attention as it deserves.

Here's a summary from Danny Mekić post:

• The European Commission wants to turn digital communication apps into mass surveillance tools by automatically scanning EU citizens' live conversations, photos and videos for criminal offenses, even if they are not suspected of a crime.
• Hundreds of academics, privacy regulators and EU legal experts have condemned the proposal, arguing it grossly violates privacy rights and the technology cannot accurately detect criminal activity.
• When the EU Council meeting showed insufficient support for the proposal, the Commissioner launched a paid advertising campaign on social media targeting specific countries to sway public opinion.
• The campaign used emotionally manipulative images and music to suggest opponents did not want to protect children, while also misleadingly claiming majority European support.
• The ads were microtargeted to exclude people interested in privacy, Euroscepticism, Christianity and other critical political/religious groups, creating an uncritical echo chamber.
• This microtargeting violates the social media platform's policies, the Digital Services Act, and GDPR.
• When a proposal lacks sufficient support, the proper response is to withdraw or amend it, not pressure doubting members through manipulative disinformation campaigns.
• By setting aside European values, the Commission is endangering the foundations of the European Union.
• The Commission should take down the ad campaigns and refrain from future attempts to bend public opinion through illegal targeted ads.
• The document was written by a jurist and technologist who is critical of the Commission's overreach and disregard for democratic processes and individual rights.

Via Kagi: Undermining Democracy: The European Commission's Controversial Push for Digital Surveillance

Via Kottke.

The Pudding once again has a good publication to detail Dark Patterns used among some big brands. Too few people know what they are and that they serve a purpose.

When you sign up for digital service, sometimes they make it difficult to unsubscribe. You see these tricks every time you order a product online, use a search engine, sign up for a streaming service, or join a social media community. They’re so common in subscription and shopping websites that they have a name: Dark Patterns.

By Caroline Sinders, The Pudding

As consumers, it's time we demand better.

Maybe it's time we properly document the main abusers (or do we need to call the EU to enact protection laws again because they can't be trusted)?

The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try to gain power "under the guise of 'super-patriotism' and 'super-Americanism.'" And they would use three techniques:

First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and conquer would be a "well-planned 'hate campaign' against minority races, religions, and other groups."

Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better than everyone else. "In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred and suspicion toward the people of all other nations."

Third, fascists would insist that "the world has but two choices — either fascism or communism, and they label as 'communists' everyone who refuses to support them."

Source: Kottke

Well, well, look at that.

Exactly what's happening now (LGBTQ+, women/abortion, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, etc).

And exactly the same is happening in Europe.

I’m very fortunate to have a handful of new trees, some grass and public seating bookend the street I live in. One of my favourite times of the day to be out on my balcony is dusk, because when the sun starts setting and the hustle and bustle of the city subsides, a group of Indian myna birds, attracted by that greenery, playfully chirps and flies between the trees. The tweeting draws out neighbours, too, and creates a beautiful moment of connection through nature in an otherwise man-made environment.

An increasing body of research tells us that interaction with nature is associated with better body and brain health. Birds play a particular role in this, in part because they are some of the only animals able to venture into highly developed areas and give out calls audible to the human ear, providing a direct link to the natural world.

The pleasure we get from encountering nature can be explained through the biophilia hypothesis, the idea that humans have an innate affinity for life and living systems: “Human preferences toward things in nature, while refined through experience and culture, are hypothetically the product of biological evolution.”

This theory is guiding academic work but also urban and architectural design. For example, there is solid evidence that having a window looking out to living plants helps speed up the healing process of patients in hospitals. In educational settings, exposure to nature seems to help kids focus better, feel less anxious and improve memory.

It’s fair to conclude then that we need nature. But does nature need us? Probably not. Clive Thompson calls this the biophilia paradox: “Biophilia is asymmetric. We have biophilia, but nature doesn’t have ‘anthrophilia’. In fact, it’s the opposite: If humanity were to vanish tomorrow, the remaining plants and animals would set about rapidly reclaiming all the asphalted-over world we’ve created.”

There is a tragic irony here: our modern existence is largely incompatible with our biophilic need for nature. Our attempt to be closer to nature often comes at a cost to nature.

“We humans should be living a little more densely, to give nature more space away from us. Meanwhile, to satisfy our biophilia, we should be designing more nature into these denser human environments – using everything from an increased number of street-plants to town parks to ‘living walls’ on houses, and buildings that use more natural materials. … We need plants close to us – and far away from us. That’s the biophilia paradox.”

Source: Dense Discovery

My local council recently bought a bunch of warehouses and turned them into a public park with a playground. What used to be a barren, semi-industrial area suddenly came alive with people and plants. Everyone visiting the park looked in surprise at the playground wondering the same thing: ‘Where have all of these kids been hiding?’

Today’s urban spaces are designed for cars and commerce, making them particularly hostile towards kids. With most streets being considered unsafe, there has been a huge drop in outdoor play. This study, for example, claims that today just 27% of children play outside their homes, compared to 71% of the baby boomer generation. Or look at this fascinating map showing how an eight year old’s ‘range of exploration’ has changed from ~10 km a few generations ago to a mere ~300 metres today.

This short piece makes some cogent points about how our society tends to divide children into two categories undeserving of autonomy – ‘angels’ and ‘demons’:

“On one hand children are considered too small, vulnerable and innocent to roam and play in urban spaces because of traffic, ‘stranger-danger’ and other hazards. On the other hand, teenagers are constructed as a public threat and should not be allowed to hang out on the streets with their bikes, skateboards and presumably bad intentions. … Children and young people are increasingly sequestered in homes, cars or institutional spaces for adult-controlled education and play.”

Research tells us that limiting children’s sense of safety and autonomy also hampers their mental and social wellbeing. And yet, we continue to design spaces that completely robs them of their right to participate in public life. “Children should not be reduced to mere ‘future investments’ or ‘adults of tomorrow’. They are also people with present-day rights to citizenship, participation and autonomy in their living environments.”

As a kid who grew up in the country, I spent my summers roaming the neighbourhood, local fields and woods. I was pretty shocked to hear about friends in Melbourne having spent much of their early teenage years inside shopping malls. They did so because we gradually made every public space unsafe or unwelcoming for them. The irony of now blaming them for being glued to screens all day!

Many of us (especially people like me who don’t have kids of their own) move about a city oblivious to the lack of infrastructure suitable for young people. Away from home, their ability to move freely is often constrained to fenced off spaces: playgrounds, daycare centres, school yards, sports grounds. They are often chauffeured between these spaces in the very thing that makes streets unsafe for them: cars.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We know that designing cities for children ends up benefitting everyone which is why all of us should be demanding child-friendly, slow streets and engage in community efforts to take back public space from cars. Just watch any video of a Bike Bus in action and witness the joy of reclaiming our streets.

Source: Dense Discovery

Do you know the difference between ‘Best Before’ and ‘Sell By’? ‘Display Until’ and ‘Use By’?

Many of us don't, and it’s causing a whopping ten per cent of Europe’s food waste - 9,000,000 tonnes across Europe each year.

Source: TooGoodToGo

[...]

The story illustrates the level of violence we accept amongst children in otherwise non-violent societies, but it gets even worse: differing speeds of development lead to huge differences in size and strength, meaning bullying is often like getting picked on by a Shaq-like giant.

[...]

Yes, in the developed world “corporal punishment” (literally “bodily punishment”, an eloquently Latinized euphemism for “beatings”) is on the decline, but if a 19th-century person told you that though wife-beating was still legal, it was on the decline, you’d look at them at least a little bit askance.

Corporal punishment, while permitted for children, is never allowed for adults, even for convicted murderers. It's legal to beat a child for talking out of turn, but not for adults who have repeatedly, viciously, murdered people (*).

Countries that do beat people for talking out of turn are universally regarded as brutal dictatorships, just so long as those beaten include grown-ups.

[...]

Children are expected to never resort to violence. If on the playground they’re hit, they should not hit back, but find an authority figure instead. Generally, this authority will do nothing meaningful, and the only result will be the status penalty of being labeled a tattle-tale, resulting in an even more vulnerable personal position.

[...]

Meanwhile, if a reasonable adult simply feels threatened, such as from having popcorn thrown at them (**), they can shoot someone to death.

[...]

The value of truth as a virtue and liars as dishonorable is universally held, except when speaking to children.

[...]

Source

Very insightful article, and many of what they touch on is true in a western society.

(*) Singapore is an exception.

(**) Probably only in the US.

"Moving some of our passenger operations to other UK airports at such short notice is also not realistic," the airline said. "Ensuring ground readiness to handle and turnaround a widebody long-haul aircraft with 500 passengers onboard is not as simple as finding a parking spot at a mall."

Source: BBC

It's worth asking how come (European) airports were unprepared for this rebound. I've travelled quite a bit within Asia¹ the past few months, and I fail to see any of the same problems Europe is facing.

It seems like the big airports are affected most (AMS, LHR, FRA, MUC), whereas regional airports have long queues but due to lower loads are not affected as much. But then again, information is not super transparent, and it's hard to figure out how many flights are cancelled in Brussels or Copenhagen as opposed to Amsterdam.

And Iceland seems to have plenty of staff... ;)

Stockholm airport a couple of weeks ago was a disaster in terms of massive queues (the only reason it was smooth for us, was because we had priority lane and were lucky to be able to skip the hour-long queues).

We can't blame the sudden opening/dropping of Covid regulations either, as Europe has been significantly more lax and easy going than most Asian countries that basically went from lockdown/full test regiment/quarantine to opening up in a matter of days or weeks.

One could also argue Asia does not have the same workers' protection/unions/training/safety standards (which may be true in some cases, not sure about training for example) and generally salaries/costs are lower (i.e.: you could hire four for the price of one).

It's also unfair to shove the costs back to the airlines (that need to rebook or refund passengers), while having to fly empty planes during Covid to retain their airport slots...

Note that most of the problems seem to affect departures (transit/arrivals are generally smooth).

Maybe having the entire ground-staff exist out of (underpaid) immigrations/interim/temp workers was not a sustainable model to start with, and that's finally showing.

Do better, Europe.

1: Bali seems to be the exception: customs had super long queues, and their new visa regulations (i.e.: many people now need to buy a visa-on-arrival, when that wasn't needed before) added to confusion and people being sent back to buy their VoA. 

DB joins Star Alliance. Wonderful news.

Just like Air France-KLM is already offering Thalys tickets for some of its flights from Brussels: instead of departing from BRU airport to AMS or CDG; just take a train from Brussels South.

It looks like Lufthansa, and soon all of Star Alliance, will offer more comprehensive (long-haul) tickets including a train ride to or from your final destination.

Can only applaud this: planes are here to stay; but I’d 100% prefer to take the train (at least a high-speed one like Thalys, Eurostar or the Shinkansen) over a small CRJ9, A220 or other sardine cans for my layover flight (BRU doesn’t have a lot of decent direct connections to Asia). These inter-city flights (short distance, frequent take-off and landing) heavily contributing to noise and environmental pollution.

Europe will also impose additional tax on short flights, so hopefully this may make the entire journey a bit cheaper (and more relaxing).

Oh, and if I get miles for this, it’s even better (and I’m going to guess a lot of people think the same: earning miles on train rides, yay).

Deutsche Bahn is the first company outside the aviation industry to become a partner in an international airline alliance.

Deutsche Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn are already working together on the German transport market and are offering joint tickets. This service could also be opened up to the customers of the other Alliance members.

Source: Aviation24

Several layers of corruption. Bring forth the criminal charges and put these people in prison.

[...]

Last year she found out her 65-year-old mother had 1,100 micrograms of PFOS per liter of blood—a concentration more typically found in industrial wastewater. Her 68-year-old father had about 800. Her 19-year-old daughter tested at 300. D’Hollander’s own level had come down to about 100, which she attributes to not eating eggs and to breastfeeding, a theory backed up by studies showing mothers pass on high amounts of the chemical through their milk. She and her mother both have malfunctioning thyroids, a condition now associated with PFOS, and doctors have told them that at some point the drugs they take for the condition will stop working. Other health problems associated with high PFOS levels include high cholesterol, diabetes, hormone and immune disorders, and even diminished vaccine efficacy.

[...]

One sample showed 257,000 micrograms per liter, according to a 3M-commissioned study submitted to the Flemish waste management agency. For context, Minnesota’s current safe limit is 0.015 micrograms per liter.

[...]

After more than a decade of fighting, Flemish officials were eager to go ahead with the Oosterweel. They needed 3M’s help. In November 2018, Lantis and 3M signed their secret pact allowing the most dangerous of the toxic dirt (with 70 to 1,000 micrograms of PFOS per kilo) to be dumped on 3M’s site. Lantis argued Flemish regulations allowed it to move the soil without treating it as toxic waste as long as it served a function, in this case a security wall. Lantis estimated it would cost €63 million to move all that soil. 3M’s cost would be €75,000.

[...]

The Province of Antwerp planned to move roughly 4 million cubic meters of soil from the tunnel-highway project to a nature reserve far south.

[...]

Alongside health anxieties, farmers in the area have lost business. Koen Doggen grows organic vegetables that he sells to consumers through a subscription service. He says tests last summer showed his soil had more than twice the level of PFOS at which the government says sanitization is required. “I considered quitting,” he says. “I didn’t know if I wanted to work on contaminated soil. I breathe it in daily in the summer and wash it off my skin every evening. I wondered how I could ever sell this product again now that Zwijndrecht has become PFOS land, like it’s Chernobyl.”

[...]

High concentrations of PFBSA had made it into fish in the estuary of the western side of the Scheldt leading into the North Sea, according to a study paid for by residents of Zwijndrecht late last year. Flounder in the estuary had 24 micrograms of PFOS, seven times above safe limits for people who eat fish once a week.

[...]

Last autumn, 3M’s chief medical officer, Oyebode Taiwo, flew to Antwerp from the US to defend the company in Parliament. He argued that blood tests showing high PFOS levels weren’t proof the chemical caused the health problems that individuals were experiencing. “It could be due to reverse causation, meaning that it’s not the exposure that is causing the health outcome, but it is the health outcome that is causing the exposure to build up,” he said.

In other words, he argued certain people with specific health conditions are more prone to build up PFAS chemicals in their blood. Scientifically, the idea is dubious. Legally, it’s absurd, says Berezofsky. She points to the “eggshell skull” rule accepted in US law. “If I walk down the street and I hit somebody over the head, a normal person with a normal skull may just feel a bump. Somebody who has a skull made of an eggshell might die,” she says. “I’m still responsible. The fact that they have an eggshell skull does not relieve me of the liability of what I did.”

[...]

Source: Bloomberg

Having been fortunate enough to have seen quite a few parts of the world, and having been in Singapore for 6 years now -- I've been able to start comparing places and looking at the "where next" question.

With Ila on the way, both as a parent and if I were a kid still -- where would I want to grow up?

Growing up wasn't a fan of Grimbergen because it was quite dull (but then again, it was very close to Brussels, and easily connected to Antwerp): I wanted a city, and that's why I moved to Antwerp (and later Singapore).

Yet, now that I also value quality of life, Singapore is not very high on that list either. There's an insane pressure on kids to be top of class and to perform, limited to no safe outdoor activities unless you live in a place with a pool/tennis court (everything else feels fake, you can't get dirty as a kid), the lack of ownself transport methods (bike, skateboard, etc) to go to school/friends (public transport rocks, but that's never as convenient as a bike for short distances).

I'm currently having mixed feelings between the big house in a quiet neighbourhood (not Suburbia, but something more like Finland/Norway outside of cities, with a forest, next to your home) vs. being in a city like Copenhagen.

While I would love to being closer to nature, I'd probably miss the benefits of the city life (like being close to an airport -- we need to visit Belgium and Singapore after all, take-away food, quick and easy shopping, more friends/school options, a cinema, etc).

By the way, Johan has a good blog about living off-grid -- which is a bit too extreme for me.

A city like Amsterdam or Copenhagen is probably a safer choice: less green, but easy and safe to get around as a pedestrian/biker, while still being in relative distance of nature or an escape out of the city.

And no, I won't head back to Brussels; it's a terrible for kids. It's the wild west, where cars rule and the police won't act.

Ghent and Antwerp are investing in car-free zones and making it pedestrian friendly, but I hate Antwerp's lack of greenery (many beautiful trees are cut, everything is stone and concrete and feels like death. Moreover, it's one big traffic jam due to lack of a sustainable solution to keep the cars out).

Oh, and I got myself a Halfbike. So I'll definitely be looking at places with biking lanes. ;)

Why many big corporates cannot be trusted.

When is a cargo of Russian diesel not a cargo of Russian diesel? The answer is when Shell Plc, the largest European oil company, turns it into what traders refer to as a Latvian blend. The point is to market a barrel in which only 49.99% comes from Russia; in Shell’s eyes, as long as the other 50.01 percent is sourced elsewhere, the oil cargo isn’t technically of Russian origin.

Source: Bloomberg

Scum.

Bert Hubert did an analysis of the Dutch Electrical Power numbers. This is a continuation of his first post.

Nuclear. These numbers appear to be correct, and come from our single operational nuclear power plant in Borselle.

Fossil gas. I think this includes only our ‘regular’ natural gas power plants. However, other sources authoritatively say we also burn a steady 458 MW of ‘biogas’.

Coal. Probably complete.

Waste. The Netherlands incinerates a lot of waste, and this leads to the production of electrical power. Not a lot though.

Wind onshore. Turns out this number only includes wind farms directly connected to TenneT. In other words, there is a lot more onshore wind power than reported in this number.

Wind offshore. Most people consider this number to be good & to include all the offshore wind farms.

Other. No one knows what this is (!!), except it sometimes peaks to 5 GW. But not recently. Goes up and down between 50 and 600 MW more or less.

Dutch Electrical Power Numbers part 2

If Europe is serious about becoming energy independent (from Russia today, from someone else tomorrow), it's time to publish transparent data on energy sources.

Hello, open data, anyone?

While I am sadly allergic (... in my eyes, of all places) to moulds -- these things are super pretty. This is the time for humanityto do more research on moulds and mycelium. I am convinced there's hidden potential in fungi.

Via Kottke, via barrywebbimages.

Images copyrighted by Barry Webb. Check out the Instagram account. <3

Via NY Times.

[...]

Europe has a shared past that dates back 2,000 years. Its influences have been the same, from Greek culture to Roman culture, the Church, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, the emergence of Nation-States, the colonial period, the world wars… Despite recent immigration, its countries are racially and culturally similar, as Europeans quickly discover in their Erasmus student exchanges. It isn’t united in diversity6. It’s united in values.

As long as it focuses on its differences, each country’s sovereignty will prevail. And the more sovereignty stands at the country level, the less power the Union has. Until European citizens realize that their nationalism weakens the European Union, the region will be weak.

So Europeans must put Europe first. For that, though, you need a common project that everybody is excited about. But what is that project?

[...]

Equality of religion is the reason why Turkey should be a candidate to the EU, and why the European knee-jerk reaction against it isn’t right. But this goes both ways. All of the above are questionable in Erdogan’s Turkey, who has been in power for over 20 years, and who has led the country down the path of more authoritarianism, less freedom, and less equality. These are the issues that don’t make Turkey an imminent candidate to join the EU. Not the fact that it’s a Muslim-majority country.

Europeans’ inability to explain this is a calamity, rooted in the fact that Europe doesn’t talk about its common values, focused as it is on diversity and trade. The European Union doesn’t fight for anything. It doesn’t stand for anything. Until Russian tanks invade Ukraine.

[...]

European nations have been so obsessed with their own glorious past, avoiding war, and pushing economic growth, that most of them—especially the big ones—haven’t realized they are small nations yet. Once they realize it, they will be ready to shed their baggage: their national identities. Only when they build a European identity stronger than the regional ones will Europe be ready to unite. Will they become a true nation.

[...]

The first rule of a nation is that you need to decide what you stand for. The EU stands for human rights, but you never hear that. It’s not central to the discourse. Human Rights are not encapsulated into a catchy little sentence that everybody can recite. Until they become central to everything the EU does, Europe won’t unite around its values.

[...]

So here are five necessary ingredients to make the EU into a global superpower:

- Focus more on what Europeans have in common than on their differences.
- Put universal human rights at the center of European discourse.
- Make English co-official across the EU.
- Unify the military.
- Unify the foreign policy.

Without that, the EU will remain a backwater.

By Tomas Pueyo - Source.

Europe should get better marketing and rethink the way it promotes its values. Too much right-wing politicians have abused this.

"When NATO announced in 2002 its plan for a major wave of expansion that would include three former Soviet republics—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—Putin barely reacted. He certainly did not threaten to invade any of the countries to keep them out of NATO. Asked specifically in late 2001 whether he opposed the Baltic states’ membership in NATO, he stated, “We, of course, are not in a position to tell people what to do. We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations in a particular way."

"NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never attacked the Soviet Union or Russia, and it never will. Putin knows that. But Putin is threatened by a successful democracy in Ukraine. He cannot tolerate a successful, flourishing, and democratic Ukraine on his borders, especially if the Ukrainian people also begin to prosper economically. That undermines the Kremlin’s own regime stability and proposed rationale for autocratic state leadership."

Source: Journal of Democracy

My German is relatively basic, but this is true for Dutch as well. 42 is pronounced twee-en-veertig ("two and forty").

Spoken language was in existence before written language. Many numerals existing today were created long before reading was practised, so if there is any direction in a language at all, German does not "read" "backwards", it speaks "backwards".

But then, very likely numerals are not named with regard to direction at all, but for the logic behind counting. In Breton, the number eighteen has the name tri-ouch "three (times) six" – I cannot discern any direction in this numeral. In Finnish, eighteen is called kah-deksan-toista "two (from) ten (in the) second (ten)". The logic seems to be to view the decades and then say how far into which decade we are. Again, there is no reading direction implied in the number name. Similar to this Finnish logic, Old Norse used a counting system not based on tens, but on dozens and multiples of the divisors of twelve (e.g. 60 = "Schock" in German). "364 days" in Old Norse is fiora dagar ens fiortha hundraths "four days into the fourth hundred (= 120)". (Please note that "hundred" once meant 120.) I don't claim to understand the logic behind "einundzwanzig", but the question might be to understand the thinking behind numerals and find out about historic counting systems, not about reading direction.

In Old English, a language descended from Germanic dialects, numerals where "backwards", too: fēowertīene "four-teen", ān and twentiġ "one and twenty" etc., and you can still find remnants of an old vigesimal (base 20) counting system, e.g. "score" for 20.

There are many more languages that speak or read (some of) their numbers "backwards", among them Greek, Latin (both directions possible), Celtic languages etc., and of course languages that actually read right to left like Arabic, where our written numbers come from. The question could be rephrased as: Why does English read their numbers in the wrong direction? Because obviously the "backwards" way is older and may even be more widespread (there are thousands of languages and we don't know how they count; why should English be the norm from which to judge numerals?).

[...]

user1914

Source via Stackexchange.

Octopuses, crabs and lobsters will receive greater welfare protection in UK law following an LSE report which demonstrates that there is strong scientific evidence that these animals have the capacity to experience pain, distress or harm.

The UK government has today confirmed that the scope of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill will be extended to all decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs.

by LSE

More like this, please.

I believe the EU (or some members of) already had similar laws. I am not sure if they go as far, though.

We have to rethink the food industry. And these laws help go into the right direction.