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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   33638 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 24, 2025

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abandoned Walmart (shoplifting killed it)

That’s impressive. It is difficult to kill a Walmart.

I don't know about the US, but the toughest stores here are dollar stores. I don't think I've ever seen one die.

I’ve seen dollar stores die. It’s gas station convenience stores(in local parlance- ‘corner stores’) that won’t die.

Near where I used to live we had an intersection where three corners were gas stations and the other corner was a 7-11, no gas.

It's a four lane divided road. The gas stations on the far side of the intersection, where one could take a right after passing through the intersection, and then take another right to continue on the same route, have always had the same branding and ownership.

The one gas station that was on the near side, where you'd have to exit and be immediately at the stop light, would change ownership every couple of years, and eventually failed completely.

Traffic gets very backed up in this area, and I'm guessing people didn't want to deal with re-entering with a line of cars that wouldn't be kind enough to let them in. Just a few seconds further would take you to a station where eventually traffic would get blocked by a red and you could re-enter without depending on the kindness of strangers.

That property sat unused for about a decade, reportedly because of the great expense involved in neutralizing the underground gas tanks to meet environmental standards.

eventually traffic would get blocked by a red

Fun fact: One of the downsides of roundabouts is that they do not provide these breaks in traffic, so they can cause problems downstream.

They can also cause problems upstream:

(Assumes driving on the right / CCW flow through the roundabout.) If you have a roundabout with heavy traffic flow from, say, the South entrance to the West exit, you can get perpetual backups for traffic coming from the East.

And then you have to do goofy stuff like "traffic-metering signals", which turn the roundabout back into an old-fashioned traffic circle…

I’ve heard the trick is to make sure you have an area of effect anti-regeneration ward.

Does a section of the city commonly called “the warzone” and officially termed “The International District” count as “an area of effect anti-regeneration ward”?

Not sure but it does sound like it would at least disrupt worker drones trying to cast healing spells. A tactic worth trying when faced with such enemy!

Last time I saw it done, breaking a mirror worked.

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