This really feels insane, even for this day and age. Which makes me think we’re probably not getting the entire story.

If true, it’s downright silly. Back in the 80’s, we were out of the house unsupervised for hours. Parents just about encouraged you take candy from friendly strangers or to hitch a ride in their cool white van with ‘Free Puppies’ written on it. As long as you made it home without broken bones, they didn’t care. Ask anyone from my generation.

At that point I’d just go full legal mononym like Cher and Teller.

I hope they put our Dutch rifles and bullets to good use. Let’s take off some zeroes.

‘Serving sizes’ are absolute nonsense. They are always wildly out of step with reality. Only reason they put it on there is so manufacturers can claim “our product isn’t bad, it only contains X calories per serving”.

Meanwhile, they put serving sizes fit for ants on packages that clearly aren’t meant to be shared and don’t reflect reasonable consumption. For example, a serving size of three jelly beans is silly by any stretch of the imagination. So is putting ‘serving sizes’ on a soda can. And a sleeve of Oreos? One cookie is a serving. Yeah, we all know that’s not how you eat Oreos…

Re: Gladio: no, not the bad bits that cropped up eventually, but the original purpose of fighting an oppressive regime that’s taken hold within your own borders. Don’t take it TOO seriously :D

I’d love to see a bloodless political revolution. But past history leads me to believe there’s gonna be guns involved somewhere down the line for there to be actual change.

With respect to The Internationale, that’s just not a banger like Bella Ciao is. If I’m thinking of ‘let’s oppose a fascist regime and/or do some Operation Gladio shit in 1970’s Italy while carrying submachineguns, dressed in leather jackets and balaclavas’, Bella Ciao is a much more appropriate choice for a modern era.

A lot of the versions of The Internationale that I’ve heard sound more like school plays. It’s not something one would describe as ‘rousing’.

Sooooo… better start learning the words to Bella Ciao huh?

I really enjoyed my helicopter ride as well - a sightseeing flight on vacation. That was on a Schweitzer S300; a small helicopter with a bench seat in the front. So you’re sitting right next to the pilot with an almost unobstructed forward vision. So cool. Definitely not something for people with a fear of heights.

Flown in, as a passenger. I’d have said ‘piloted’ if I was the pilot.

And yes, that’s an odd trio of aircraft, considering most people only really fly on airliners. I’ve been on a Boeing 747 in a museum, but have never flown in an airliner.

It’s magical, right? It’s what got me interested in aviation - the physics, the science, the engineering to make it work. And we’ve gotten so good at it, air travel is now available to most people, it’s safe and convenient.

I’ve flown exactly three times in my life: a hot air balloon, a helicopter and a DC3. Each was magical in its own way. I’ve also done a fair bit of plane spotting. Seeing an Airbus A380 landing right in front of you is amazing. It really is the size of a large apartment block with wings. Truly awe inspiring.

Aviation is fucking awesome!

All of this is stressing me out… i’m going to Starbucks.

Preferably out the back of a C130 just off the coast of Florida.

Dutch guy here. I definitely knew he was a terrible clown when it came to business, well before he ever ran for office.

I mean… he’s so bad at running a business, he had several casinos go bankrupt. And those are pretty much a license to print money if you run them halfway decent. He also failed at stuff like running his own airline and a host of other ventures. I also knew he was at one time involved with the WWE, I knew about The Apprentice, Home Alone…

Basically, if you were alive in the 90’s, you had plenty of opportunity to know about this clown of a ‘businessman’. When he ran, I figured it was a joke - a publicity stunt. Imagine my surprise when Americans actually voted for him!

Yep, I’ve worn contacts since I was three years old. In my nearly 40 years of wearing them, it’s happened maybe five times that they slid to the side. There’s no reason to freak out when it happens; I usually just close my eye and gently nudge the lens back with my finger on my eyelid.

Of course, it helps to know that it can’t physically get ‘behind your eye’ even though it certainly feels that way.

Look at history. The 2003 Iraq war and subsequent occupation resulted in at least 150.000 deaths, at the absolute lowest estimate. The biggest estimate is over a million.

Afghanistan? 176.000

Gulf War? 50.000

Yugoslav war? 130.000

Vietnam War? 970.000 to 3 million.

And those are conflicts that the US was directly involved in with boots on the ground. Few people lost sleep over any of those civilian casualties. Could you even point to Kosovo on a map?

What’s another 50.000 dead Palestinians you ask? A rounding error on a footnote of history. It’s a statistic. And that’s ignoring the fact that this is happening in another country with only indirect US support.

People SHOULD care about the Palestinians. But it’s just not relevant to the day to day lives of average Americans.

I know, right? This sort of thing would get you a neat title like ‘enemy of democracy’ and a suitably unpleasant execution method. Like getting dropped from an aircraft into the ocean.

It’s… probably… good the US doesn’t do it. But that’s definitely the sort of crime you should avoid anywhere outside of the US and Europe.

Yep, pretty much this. I grew up with computers. The first one I used was a C64 in school. We got our first family PC in 1996. I was 14 back then.

If you wanted to do basically anything, you had to figure it out or read an actual manual. We had to fight with drivers and such in order to get any game or device working. It was part of the fun; you had to be nerdy to want to do that.

Nowadays, even my completely tech illiterate dad can use an iPad to browse, e-mail, stream stuff and connect on social media.

To be clear: my dad phoned me this morning asking how he could set the time on his digital Casio watch. And he’s using an iPad!! That’s how easy we were able to make tech, so even a toddler can use it.

I feel very lucky that I grew up with tech and can solve most problems on my own.

I don’t smell burnt toast, but clearly I’ve had a stroke if that’s supposed to be readable.

Unfortunately I don’t have it anymore or I’d post it for sure :D I took it years ago on an ancient iPod Touch that now has a spicy pillow for a battery and is completely dead.

You’re not far off. My basic outfit since 2020 is a pair of blue jeans and a burgundy polo shirt. I picked red because the previous series was blue, and also because I’m a Tom Scott fan.

I’m probably going to transition to green polo shirts for a while as it’s been red since the pandemic. But the next color usually is determined by whatever polo shirt I can find in my size, and in stock so I can buy five to seven of them.

I am a wildly boring person when it comes to fashion.