I actually prefer Japanese web design too for actually reading stuff once I've found it.

The problem is finding it, navigating, doing anything with interactive portals, the security of info transfer is often very dubious, copying text can be a hassle (even on sites with non copyrighted text, often right click is disabled so you gotta root around the page source), etc.

Aside from those things, I find it much nicer for long form content, than similar pages in the rest of the world, like for example FT, the Economist site, most wordpress or substack layouts, most blogs, etc. There's just something about their simple ass CSS that probably had zero thought put to accessibility that is really pleasant for reading longer pieces of text.

For almost every other kind of site though, it's an immediate pain point.

Reuters, AP. Then you also have the Economist. Some local newspapers. On the more American side, NPR is pretty good. 538, private eye. Some OSINT groups if you're into that kind of thing, as well as independent journalists, in that vein, see Bellingcat. Beyond that it depends what you're into; Foreign Affairs and Financial Times are generic recommendations for how American policy wonks think about foreign policy and for finance mostly in the US/EU, respectively.

Basically beyond Reuters, AP, The Econ, you have to dig, depending on what you're interested in. And, note, that the quickest way to make you suitably sceptical of whatever else you read in The Econ is to read it talk about something you actually know about. And I mean that aside from its obvious political bias, which I expect adults to be able to compartmentalize adequately without snooty comment.

"we're full, go away"

Only people who don't understand economics maintain this view. Immigrants are statistically more likely to start businesses, they create jobs and are a net benefit. They also have more kids than national average. This said, we probably shouldn't frame immigration in purely economic terms, as it is fundamentally a social phenomenon.

In that light, we need to focus on making the system well oriented for immigrants; this is easier for well educated people in critical industries; harder for those that are not (see Sweden's recent experiences.)

But mostly this is an issue of broader policy change to make life and integration easier for these people, policies that broadly will affect and benefit poorer Britons as well. (We also might want to re-examine our understanding of integration, it's not clear that pursuing a model of cultural conversion or whatever is beneficial or nthat this is ecessary to have them accept British values or various liberal social positions that most of us might support, like a social net, access to abortion, etc)

Care itself is going to become one of the UK's largest employers. As of now, it's poorly paid, many people don't want to do it, stories of abuse are unfortunately too common (might be lessened with better pay, different hours.) Ultimately we need people to fill these jobs, so we need to make them more desirable, but this is also going to put a strain on other industries. How many employers of late has one heard whining that they just can't find the people? Jobs aren't paying enough - many can't - and while it's a lot easier than it was for low skilled workers to upskill or hop through the necessary bureaucracy for lower skilled jobs (many require certifications etc), it's not as good as it could be.

In terms of having kids and it being taxed - childless people already are taxed, indirectly. Childless and single, doubly so. We need incentives to have kids, part of which will simply be making life more liveable for the average person, with kids or not. (So many people just can't afford to.) I've rambled a lot and gtg, so I'll leave up incentives to your imagination. Maybe I'll add a comment below this one with concrete policy later.

Hello, another tea person.

First, don't pigeonhole yourself into only pu if you've never tried pu. It can be an acquired taste, and the world of tea is huge. Also, if you try one pu and don't like it, don't write it off.

I'll go point by point here:

• What is pu?
• Where can I buy it?
• How do I make it?

What is pǔ'ěrchá?

In a general sense, puer is a tea processed in a specific manner that comes from in and around Yunnan province in China. It is generally considered a subtype of hēichá ('black tea', no, not that black tea - that is hóngchá or 'red tea' in Chinese), but not always, and some people even consider heicha a subtype of puer. More on this later. What does the processing look like? Quite a bit like green tea, usually, actually, with some additional steps.

1. Tea grown, tea picked. A very important step with a lot of variables and specifics that I won't touch on here.
2. The picked leaves are withered in the sun on bamboo sheets. This step is optional, but observed for most of the puer that I drink, at least. Also, this stage isn't as simple as it sounds, they pay a lot of attention to it, and obviously if it rains it's not good.
3. A kill green process. This is done via exposure to high heat - for puer, this is done in a big wok, an oven, or a rotating oven-type machine. (Other methods exist - sencha is steamed, for example, and white tea doesn't undergo a kill green step at all.) For pu, the kill green is less absolute - some enzymes are less active, so that some oxidisation can continue.
4. The tea is usually then rolled, by hand or machine.
5. Then it is dried in (usually indirect) sunlight.
6. It is then stored, loose like this. This is maocha, a term that tends to just refer to tea that hasn't finished processing. This is the last step before pressing for sheng puer. For shou puer, it is piled up in a moist, warm environment, to speed up all that microbial goodness. This was fisrt done in the middle of last century, likely to imitate the flavour of aged puer - the result is actually quite different, but still delicious.
7. Both are pressed. Fermentation can still occur after this.

That out of the way, let me clarify something - the relation between heicha and puer. Heicha in general is tea that has that wet piling stage in the processing - and so shou puer is a kind of heicha, itś just heicha that comes from Yunnan/Yunnan-near areas. In practice, though, terms aren't really applied as strictly as we might expect, so this is most a rule of thumb than anything. All this is to say is there is a lot of heicha that isn't shou puer that is worth trying.

Where can I buy it?

r/tea has got your back. Some sellers to check out are Yunnan Sourcing, Crimson Lotus Tea, Bitterleaf Tea, white2tea, etc. There is a vendor list somewhere there. There is also an r/puer that can help.

Some notes on how to go about exploring the big world of puer.

First, you might find you like sheng at a specific age or from a specific region/terroir/cultivar more than others - these can all make the tea taste quite different. I advise trying some young shengs (say, current year - 5 years old), some middle aged shengs (five to somewhere like 8 or ten years old) and then aged sheng (beyond that 8-10 year mark) - the latter can be quite expensive, mind.

For shou, I would say age is less important, so maybe just get whatever seems good for the most part, but eventually pick a really old cake or two to try.

In addition to where it is grown, the plants, and the processing, and how old it is, storage matters.Şo that is another factor to bear in mind.

Finally, don't close yourself off to other teas. Try Indian and Sri Lankan blacks, Nepali teas, white teas - pressed and unpressed - from India, Africa, China, Vietnam, try sencha, try dancong, try yancha, try anxi oolongs, try all the hongs, try sencha. Explore!

How do I brew it?

At the most basic level, a mug will do. Leaf + mug + water = tea.

But, a pot can open up the ability to play with parameters. Also, many people find young sheng in a mug to be too strong (I like it!). Puer for the most part is fine in a mug as well, but, if you try broken leaf teas, you will want a pot with a filter (shou tends to be broken, but the bits tend to sink. A lot of heicha this isn't the case with though, so if you try fu zhuan or something, maybe use a pot.)

For a beginner, I would recommend a porcelain pot at 100-200ml. 100ml is more flexible I think (though honestly even 100ml can be a bit large for all but sencha, pu, and white for me), but I like 200ml for pu. A gaiwan also works, and some people use other things like shiboridashi (works well for maocha). A metal pot will do in a pinch (so long as it isn't low quality steel - you don't want metallic taste) and some people like glass, but I don't. A sidenote is that for Indian blacks, a larger pot is also useful (I like 300-400ml). Sencha can be fiddly to brew in most things that lack a filter, but it's much easier doing sencha in a pot without a perfect filter than trying to brew good anxi oolong in a flat kyusu!

But, perfectionism aside, any pot you have for pu is fine. (For other teas, it matters more, I guess).

Now, I would say the specific steps of brewing vary a lot depending on prefernce. I would shoot for probably 6-12g:200ml (keep it on the lower end to see if it's too strong), use boiling water, and go with 45s first steep, 1 minute after, 1 minute 30s or 2 minutes, 2 or 3 minutes, etc. This is how I like it - and I almost always use 12g, except with shu, where I sometimes go even higher (though usually I'll use a smaller pot for that, say 8-10g in 100ml pot), but some people like doing faster pours of a few seconds.

Oh, also, rinse the tea for like 10 seconds before doing the first steep. Just throw the rinse away.

If you've any questions hmu or ask on the r/tea or r/puer subs.