The guy was a fuckwit, but that looked like a rough way to go. Has to be hard for relatives, knowing that the video is out there.

I hear ya on the skirt/kilt thing.

Heck, at work we’re officially not allowed to wear shorts according to the dusty old company manual that passed my desk many moons ago. I’ve never tested that rule myself, and never really see others wearing them either. Because you just KNOW that it’s going to get you comments from other colleagues. And that’s just shorts.

A kilt certainly seems like a very comfortable option during summer, but only if you don’t really need to carry a bunch of stuff. Cargo shorts always were my preference during summer as a kid and teen.

Society would certainly be better off if we stopped giving a shit about what’s masculine and feminine in terms of clothing and just let everyone wear everything they want without judgement. If a woman can wear a skirt, so should you and I if se want to.

Of course, you can always just start with a kilt to honor your ‘Scottish heritage’. If you look at a family tree long enough, there’s bound to be someone Scottish… ish somewhere :D And the Scots certainly don’t mind - anyone’s allowed to wear a kilt if they want to.

The whole pocket fiasco is wild to me as a guy.

I work with a lot of women and I also have a sister. All of them will complain about pockets being too small, but all of them also wear form fitting clothes that were clearly built to appeal to a fashion sense, rather than a practical one. Even the more practical oriented women amongst them opt for something that looks nice, but isn’t the most practical it could be

But here’s the thing. I’m not telling them what to wear. In fact, every woman is free to shop in the men’s section or to choose pants with actual pocket from the women’s section. You can buy CARGO PANTS. You are legally allowed to do so as a woman. The patriarchy is not stopping you.

Whenever the pockets thing comes up, I love to show them what I’m carrying. XL size phone, large wallet, Airpods, knife, keys… I can literally stick a Nintendo Switch in my pants pocket. And those are just casual jeans. If I had cargo pants, I could carry a backpack’s worth of gear.

So why don’t women do that? They literally have a term for ‘boyfriend jeans’ but refuse to wear something actually practical because it’s not as feminine. I imagine they don’t want comments from other women, because I as a guy am utterly delighted to see a woman wear something practical.

Microsoft is going the way of Boeing; trade in the actual people who know how to build a good product (the engineers/seasoned developers) and replace them with management fuckwits.

Case in point the recent update to Windows 11, which outright bricked a whole bunch of PC’s - again.

And just look how they’re handling the forced move to Windows 11. Well, fuck’em. I’m going to Linux. Windows is dead.

I’m not on any side, merely stating the arguments used.

In general, I agree with you. If that region chooses to separate, they should be allowed to do so. Much like the Brexit.

But like Brexit has shown, separation also brings some complex issues. And we are talking about something that impacts at least the 8 million people living there, a lot of whom don’t WANT to separate.

There really should be an independent, internationally monitored referendum to settle this matter and let the people decide what they want, without interference from outside the region.

Catalonia is a Spanish region, but there’s a movement that really wants the region to be independent. To basically become its own country.

There have been numerous referendums, protests and all manner of political intrigue.

Now, some people will of course be very much against this region separating from Spain for any number of reasons. It would create economic uncertainty, and adds new barriers. Even within the region not everyone is a fan of independence.

So yeah, that poster might feel particularly strongly about wanting to keep that region, or just a particular dislike for them.

I’ll take that for sure. Absolutely loooove winter. I downright detest summer. It’s too bright, too warm, sweaty, makes me irritable and I’m less productive in general.

To quote The Weeknd: I come alive in the fall time. My mood improves, everything gets cosy and comfortable. Fall and winter bring nice things like christmas, hot chocolate, gorgeous colors in nature, nice sweaters, warm jackets. Absolutely love it.

Not exactly surprising, considering the TV’s and monitors are outpacing the contemt creators and gaming development.

A lot of gamers don’t even have GPU’s that can crank out 4K at the frame rates most monitors are capable of. So 8K won’t do much for you. And movies and regular TV? Man, I’m happy there’s 4K available.

A 4K screen will be more than most folks need right now, so buying an 8K at the moment is just wasted money. Like buying a Ferrari and only ever driving 25 mph.

There’s a reason we have the term ‘horse money’, let’s put it like that.

You take a chihuahua to the vet, it’s going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. But a horse isn’t a chihuahua. The bills scale exponentially. Then there’s the stabling costs, transportation, farrier, tack, etc. Etc. Buying a horse is the dumbest thing you can do except for buying a boat.

Basically, all in, figure on something between 8k and 10k per year. Assuming good health, you can ride a horse daily, but they’re not exactly convenient for your grocery shopping. Though I have done a drive through on one :D

Clearly this individual shouldn’t have access to them. We don’t know the guy’s history, but there certainly have been cases where people had known mental issues and still retained access to guns. That’s definitely a particularly scary thought.

It absolutely does happen here. Like this one for example: guy chases young girl with an axe after messing with his doorbell.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2438126-man-wordt-boos-om-belletje-trekken-en-verwondt-man-met-bijl

Don’t mess with the wrong people. You never know what’s going to push them over the edge.

There’s always someone way crazier than you think, right in your own neighbourhood. And you never know what tiny thing will push them over the edge to do something like that.

So yeah, parents really need to teach their kids not to do annoying things like that. It can get them seriously hurt - or worse - messing with the wrong people. Us adults know that, children need to be taught that.

Vegas never really recovered properly from covid, but the current economic situation and the political climate aren’t helping either.

Vegas prices went through the roof post-covid, since people had extra money and were spend-happy. This caused price increases across the board, but it also drew the wrong people to Vegas, increasing crime and other problems.

And with the economy being what it is now, people aren’t willing to spend that much in Vegas. And international tourists are actively avoiding the US. Pre-pandemic, 20 percent of Vegas tourism was international tourists.

Vegas needs to cut prices so deeply that international tourists go ‘fuck it, we’ll go anyway’.

Yep. As a child of the ‘80’s, life was definitely like that for the most part.

A lot of it comes down to both smartphones and the loss of ‘third spaces’ in general. I read an article in Newsweek this morning about an MIT study that analysed footage from between 1978 and 1980 and compared those same spaces today.

It shows people are now walking faster and not hanging in groups as much. There’s less eye contact and less engagement in general.

As stereotypical as it sounds, hanging out with your friends at the mall was just what you did. We spent hours just hanging around game stores and such. It connected you with people you knew and people you didn’t. Hang out with someone in the mall for 30 minutes and you’re now friends.

The current generation is a lot different. There’s no real physical, organic hangout. And when there is, it’s now more often seen as a nuisance rather than an integral part of the social fabric.

I definitely feel like the author of that article posted here missed the mark. The 80’s were definitely radically different from today.

Personally, I’m a really long form guy :D Particularly on technical subjects and/or disasters. For example, ‘Well there’s your problem’ tends to run at least 2, usually closer to 3 hours. And ‘Brick Immortar’ recently put out a 3+ hour video on the SS Marine Electric disaster.

That’s the stuff that really makes me excited. So I definitely support loooong form creators where possible.

You’re not wrong on that thought. But it’s even worse: with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, people aren’t even really seeing proper YouTube videos, just short snippets. God only knows what that’s doing to people’s attention spans, but I doubt it’s good.

I feel like I’m a dying breed: people who can enjoy long form content without needing a dopamine hit every five seconds.

Yeah, we can tell…

Unfortunately it’s not just a US problem. It’s more of a general issue. People ‘read’ a lot, but generally the wrong things. Like social media. And it’s causing people to lose their ‘reading muscles’ so to speak.

When I first got online in 1995, forum posts were much longer and more insightful. These days you see a lot of ‘tl;dr’ attitudes.

In my opinion, reading is a fundamental part of the human experience and important in people’s general development. Reading needs to be encouraged if possible, enforced if necessary. But there’s a lot of resistance to that.

God yes. I absolutely LOVE a well written manual.

Even if you THINK you know how a thing works, it’s always good to find out the quirks and gotchas, not to mention functionality that might not be obvious at first glance.

In fact, I read the manuals before buying an item or piece of software. They tend to be much more enlightening about a product’s limitations than the marketing material is.

Conversely, it really annoys the fuck out of me when people come on forums and ask a really basic question that’s answered on page 2 of the manual. It shows that someone is incredibly lazy and incapable of basic problem solving. And they have the audacity to get offended when you tell them it’s covered in the manual.

The companies did this to themselves.

Even if I subscribed to every single service that let me, I still wouldn’t be able to watch the majority of movies and series. Because a lot of is locked behind region distribution deals.

For example, even if I subscribe to every anime service available here in Europe, I still wouldn’t get stuff that’s only licensed for distribution in Japan. Short of importing a DVD, there’s no way to see it legally. And some things aren’t available to purchase anywhere.

If they literally won’t let me pay for it in any way, shape or form… it’s hard to argue against piracy.

Piracy is, was and will always be be an access problem. Just look at music piracy. Nobody’s really pirating that these days because stream is cheap and convenient. Heck, I don’t even really pay for it as it’s included with my YouTube Premium.

You’re welcome, enjoy your odd new fact :D

Stuff like this is why I really enjoy The West Wing. It often has interesting real world arguments that it plays out smartly. A bit too optimistic in our current political climate, but still fun to watch.