Seems like in this day and age, the cheaper the phone the more features you get ... you can get a cheapo phone (100-150 euro) with a huge 2-day battery, two physical SIM slots AND an SD card slot, headphone jack, ok-ish cameras ... usually they're huge, 6.5" or more ...

People tend to claim that, but I disagree ... once you try your hand at action painting or other styles of abstract expressionism, you'll notice that it by no means "easy" ... sure, it's not the same thing as painting like Bob Ross or the painters of the olden days, but to create a lively, polyfocal surface that's not just a gray, nondescript mess, is a skill of it's own.

It's not random noise (and I'd say if you think it is you need to train your senses better) ... if you've actually seen a Pollock "in the canvas", there's so many tiny little structures and details to discover, there's typically a balance of colors, structures, and densities. Fairly complex paintings, phenomenologically speaking.

Exactly, the vernacular of the past was based on the materials that were available and practical at the time, for the demands of the time. Whatever came out was just the practical way to build under these conditions, not necessarily a choice.

In that sense, the rectangular box IS the vernacular of our time. Practical materials that fulfill the needs people have to present-day homes. Straight walls, insulation, energy efficiency. Of course you can plaster on a fake facade but it's a choice, not a consequence.

Yep, I've lived in old buildings most of my life (very german predilection for the "Altbau" I guess) and I'm not sure whether people are aware how much energy it costs.

I love 3.5m ceilings and 2.5m high windows, I love thick walls made from solid stone, that's how I grew up, in a rented place in a wonderful turn-of the century building. ... it's not even expensive to rent compared to where I live now. But heating alone costs enough that it could pay for a single room somewhere else. And given that the walls are thick, but not insulated, you have to make sure you heat it, make sure you don't put things too close to the wall, otherwise you might have to battle moisture and moldy walls. In fact, if the windows insulate too well it might even be a drawback because the moisture can't escape, and you have to air the rooms (the very german habit of "Stoßlüften") frequently to not get mold.

The rectengular zero-energy buildings of today, you probably don't need to heat much. Friends of mine used to live in a building like that. Well insulated, three-pane windows, all that. They barely had to turn the heat on in the middle of winter. Body heat, residual heat from cooking and what not, it's practically enough to keep the place warm.

I'd think it was always quite expensive to build like that, and what we see today is what survived. A lot of (european) vernacular architecture is just ... not that.

In fact I'd think the "old" houses in the comic, would need constant maintenance. Paint the wooden windows, make sure they don't distort, a new roof every 20-30 years. The places you see in a deserted italian, french or spanish village might have been uninhabited for a few decades, and are basically ruins.

Look at it from the perspective of 1977 or just before, when the scripts were written. I wasn't alive back then, but from what you read, it was a time when (real-world) devices came with manuals, schematics, block diagrams, and if they were missing you could probably find them or get them from the manufacturer.

Apple I and II are just hitting the market, with a strong background in DIY culture, and in the unlikely case you had access to one of these (or something like an Altair 8800 etc), you'd probably know how to fix a blown cap with a soldering iron.

Maybe I'm glorifying the past here but, Star Wars was written at a time when things, including computers, were expected to be repairable. So what you're writing really only makes sense from a contemporary 2020-ies perspective, nobody would have raised an eyebrow at that detail in 1977 ... probably.

Potentially, yes, but the official apps available are all using Google Maps ... so I'm not sure how much of an improvement that would be over just using GMaps to begin with

Neat ... the public transport issue is unfortunately a big one, and the hardest to solve :(

Not just the live updates and departure/arrival times, but starting with the sheer existence. In the (reasonably big) city where I live the only thing to be found in OSM/CoMaps/OrganicMaps is the subway.

No buses (including nightbuses for when the subway doesn't run), no commuter rail for the surrounding cities and suburbs, no tram ...

Not sure where this data could be accessed ...

EDIT: Now that I'm looking at it again, it seems that at least some bus lines are available in OrganicMaps, but you have to look for a stop, click on the line, and it will show you the route. It's not integrated with the route lookup feature though :(

I think many people are imagining it wrong, though ... it's not like every house in Barcelona has a parking garage, especially in the old town, but also in newer dense neighborhoods. It's just my estimate based on observation but I would say apartment buildings WITH a parking garage are the exception rather than the norm. If they have a garage, you still have to pay extra for the spot usually.

As a resident you can apply for resident street parking, which gives you preferential parking in the parking zones associated with your neighborhood. That's not free, either, but you can park at a discount.

But typically renting an apartment doesn't come with any guarantee that you'll have guaranteed immediate access to parking close to your place ... heck, if you're living in the old town you might have trouble finding a place to put your bicycle ....

EDIT: the article only mentions selling, not renting, so, not sure how that compares really ...

I still view the Japanese model as ideal ...

Parking on the roadside (outside the official parking spots, which you have to pay for) will usually get you a ticket or towed ... free public roadside parking is mostly a thing of the past in most densely-populated places, really ...

Since when is a parking spot a right? At least where I have lived so far, no apartment ever came with a guarantee for a parking spot, either you had to pay for a resident permit in your respective zone, or find a public spot, with free public parking (thankfully) becoming a rare occurrence these days ... very few buildings I ever lived in had a garage ...