All posts tagged: limits

Alaska limits cruise ship passengers in capital city after 1.6m visitors last year | Travel and transport

Alaska limits cruise ship passengers in capital city after 1.6m visitors last year | Travel and transport

Published by skeptic

Alaska’s capital city is to limit the numbers of cruise ship passengers arriving at the port amid concerns over tourism’s growing impact, but a leading critic of the industry has said further measures to protect Alaskans’ quality of life are needed. Located on the Gastineau Channel in southern Alaska, Juneau has a population of 32,000 and last year received a record 1.65 million cruise ship passengers – a 23% increase from the previous high. While many businesses encourage the bonanza of tourist dollars, other people are bothered by buzzing helicopters, crowded streets and hiking trails, and damage to the local environment. Seeking to balance the economic benefits against the effects of high numbers of visitors, the city reached an agreement last week with the Cruise Lines International Association in Alaska that will limit daily cruise passenger arrivals to 16,000 from Sundays to Fridays and to 12,000 on Saturdays. Juneau’s tourism manager, Alexandra Pierce, said: “The city’s position is that we do not have room for cruise growth with our current infrastructure and we have negotiated …

The limits of utopia – The Atlantic

The limits of utopia – The Atlantic

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This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. Some 50 years ago, the architect and writer Peter Blake put himself on trial in the pages of The Atlantic. In a dramatic monologue equal parts polemic and confession, he pled guilty to having once upheld what he had come to see as the false precepts of architectural modernism: the insistence that a building’s design should express its function; the utopian faith in urban planning, giant public-housing towers, and prefabricated houses; even the presumption that cities—in new costumes of glass, steel, and concrete—would be the sites of an improved future civilization. A modernist by training, Blake believed that the movement had failed to produce either a more beautiful or a more equitable world in the postwar decades—and this failure necessitated a reconsideration of modernism’s basic tenets. Did form really follow function, or was that just a shibboleth? “The premises upon which we have almost literally built our world are crumbling,” he …

Commentary: Mount Fuji overtourism furore tests limits of Japan’s hospitality

Commentary: Mount Fuji overtourism furore tests limits of Japan’s hospitality

Published by Sam

COURTESY MAY BE REACHING ITS LIMITS The government has been promoting the country to foreign visitors for years with immense success: Arrivals this year are expected to surpass the 2019 pre-COVID record, according to travel agency JTB. Yet from increasingly unaffordable hotels to suitcase-clogged streets becoming nigh-unwalkable, everywhere you look the downsides are mounting for ordinary residents. This dissatisfaction was articulated by one acerbic restaurant owner who last month took to social media to express mounting frustration with having to deal with tourists looking for English menus and service in their native language. The time and hassle involved in dealing with them didn’t make sense for travellers who don’t spend much anyway, the owner explained. The complaints split opinion, with some sympathising, while others defended the country’s vaunted omotenashi hospitality – a word so synonymous with the Japanese welcome that it just made it into the Oxford English Dictionary (“good hospitality, characterised by thoughtfulness, close attention to detail, and the anticipation of a guest’s needs”, in case you were wondering). But just as in Fujikawaguchiko, …

Frank Stella, Artist Who Pushed Abstraction to Its Limits, Dies at 87

Frank Stella, Artist Who Pushed Abstraction to Its Limits, Dies at 87

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Frank Stella, an artist who brought abstraction into brave new directions, defining an era with his “Black Paintings” of the 1950s, died on Saturday at 87. The New York Times reported that he had been battling lymphoma. Stella was among the many artists who responded to the growth of Abstract Expressionism in the postwar years. His spare paintings, made as a riposte to that movement, were particularly challenging, since they contained no color at all and were not intended to provide visual stimulation in any way. As he famously told the Minimalist sculptor Donald Judd, speaking of his own work, “What you see is what you see.” Related Articles He would come to redefine painting over and over again during the 1950s and ’60s. In a subversive move, with his work having approached a zero-degree form of abstraction, his paintings turned maximal, enlisting eye-popping combinations of colors arrayed in dazzling patterns. He also produced shaped canvases that broke the medium from its rectangular confines and moved it into the realm of sculpture. In the decades …

Nepal court limits Everest climbing permits

Nepal court limits Everest climbing permits

Published by Sam

Nepal’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to limit the number of mountaineering permits issued for Everest and other peaks, a lawyer confirmed Friday, just as expeditions prepare for the spring climbing season. Issued on: 03/05/2024 – 17:03 2 min The Himalayan republic is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm. The verdict was issued in late April but a summary was only published this week. Lawyer Deepak Bikram Mishra, who had filed a petition urging permits to be curtailed, told AFP that the court had responded to public concerns about Nepal’s mountains and its environment. “It has ordered a limit to the number of climbers… and also given measures for waste management and preservation of the mountain’s environment,” Mishra said. The verdict’s summary said that the mountains’ capacity “must be respected” and an appropriate maximum number of permits should be determined. The full text of the verdict has not been published and the summary does not …

‘I want to push the limits’: ‘quad god’ Ilia Malinin on his mission to save figure skating – and do a quintuple | Figure skating

‘I want to push the limits’: ‘quad god’ Ilia Malinin on his mission to save figure skating – and do a quintuple | Figure skating

Published by skeptic

“I always try to be a gamechanger or innovator,” says Ilia Malinin, the American prodigy who has cut a swathe through the world of figure skating. In March in Montreal, the 19-year-old roared to his first world championship with a star-making long programme set to music from the TV show Succession. It was immediately hailed as the greatest athletic display in the sport’s history. Malinin became the second person ever to land six quadruple jumps in a single programme, and the first to do it with a quadruple axel, the heart-stopping four-and-a-half-revolution jump that had never been landed in competition until he came along. Skating with verve and pace to the lumbering strings, dissonant piano chords and swaggering 808s of Nicholas Britell’s crowd-pleasing score, he won the sport’s biggest competition outside the Olympics with a record-shattering free-skate score more than 24 points clear of his closest rival. The quad axel is figure skating’s most difficult element because skaters face forward as they launch, requiring them to complete an additional half revolution. So dangerous that most …

Saying These 3 Little Words Limits Your Self-Love

Saying These 3 Little Words Limits Your Self-Love

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We’ve all uttered the phrase, “I feel fat” at some point in our lives, right? Maybe we didn’t think much of it then. After all, it’s a common phrase those around us tend to use. But putting yourself down can lead to harmful behaviors later on. So, why is this phrase so damaging, and how can we learn to connect with our emotions better? Psychologist Dr. Nicole Andreoli explains why saying, “I’m fat” is damaging in our self-love journey. Saying “I Feel Fat” Limits Your Self-Love “The phrase I hear most often is ‘I feel fat’,” says Andreoli, “But this phrase is harmful as it impacts our emotions and what we do next.” We may unconsciously begin to eat less in hopes of getting skinnier. Or we may overeat to become curvier. However, the issue with this phrase extends far beyond the actions we take. Rather, it adds emotion to a word that isn’t supposed to have emotion. “‘Feeling fat’isn’t a thing,” says Andreoli. And you’re pointing the blame in the wrong direction. What you …

Welsh government set to announce changes to 20mph limits | UK News

Welsh government set to announce changes to 20mph limits | UK News

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The Welsh government is set to announce changes to the default 20mph speed limit. The default limit in Wales‘s built-up areas changed in September last year – a pledge that was part of the Labour party’s manifesto for the 2021 Senedd election. The policy proved controversial after a call for the limit to be scrapped broke Senedd records for the most-signed petition on its website. Former deputy climate change minister Lee Waters, who spearheaded the rollout, announced last month he would quit the role and delete his X account after receiving abuse. And now, the newly-appointed transport secretary Ken Skates is expected to say his immediate priority on 20mph is to listen to the people of Wales. ‘Targeted change’ Mr Skates is expected to tell the Senedd in a speech that the government intends to work with councils across the country to deliver targeted change to the 20mph implementation. The Welsh Conservatives – the largest opposition group in the Senedd – have said they believe the announcement is “another example of Labour ministers paying lip …

New law proposed for drivers caught breaking UK 20mph speed limits | UK | News

New law proposed for drivers caught breaking UK 20mph speed limits | UK | News

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Drivers should be spared penalty points if they edge over the speed limit in a 20mph zone, according to former Education Secretary Kit Malthouse. The senior Conservative MP is trying to change the law to help drivers who feel “almost persecuted” by the “explosion” in traffic cameras. He also wants to tackle the scourge of disruptive roadworks. His new law would mean that no roadworks on an A-road can be left unattended at any time. His Private Members Bill comes as political parties compete for the support of drivers ahead of the general election. There was fury in Labour-run Wales when 20mph was made the default limit in residential areas, with nearly 470,000 people signing a petition calling for the “disastrous” law to be scrapped. Wales’ new transport minister last week promised changes, saying the zones should be targeted at schools, hospitals and nurseries. Under Mr Malthouse’s plans, anyone caught speeding between 20mph and 30mph would not get penalty points but would have to attend a speed awareness course. The AA reported this year that …