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.

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.

No no - I’m saying that’s usually the longest uninterrupted stretch of me wearing identical outfits. I might throw on a sweater if it’s a REALLY cold day, or a T-shirt if it’s way too hot, but otherwise I’m rocking a plain burgundy polo shirt and jeans all seasons.

The clothes themselves obviously last much longer.

Clothes really don’t interest me much beyond being functional and fitting OK. I also don’t wear expensive brands. I do spend good money on good shoes though, as those are important for your feet health.

Sounds reasonable if you’re comparing suits for sure. Especially since you can tailor it yourself and no doubt get a better fit than something off the rack.

I’m thinking more general like for example a regular shirt or pants. The jeans I’m wearing cost 35 euros, and I imagine I’d end up spending way more on material alone.

Now that you mentioned that suit twice, I’m just gonna ask: got a pic? I’m picturing something like what the Joker wears, but I imagine your suit is probably a bit less tacky :D

As a guy, I definitely don’t give two shits about anyone wearing the same outfit. Heck, I dress like a cartoon character: I buy seven identical shirts, seven identical pants and just wear that until things need replacing.

To an outside observer, it would look like I literally have one outfit that I wear for two months straight. I very rarely switch up a shirt when it’s either too hot or cold, but other than that, I like to keep it really simple.

Huge respect to people who can do that. I do like watching some sewing channels on YouTube occasionally as it looks relaxing. But I’m definitely way too busy and clumsy for that. I’d end up sewing two fingers together.

It also looks like an expensive thing, right? Whenever I see someone buying cloth it’s always wildly expensive. Not to mention the other stuff you need to make things properly.

My brother and I have a younger sister. When she was a teen, we were blown away by the fact that girls’/women’s clothes don’t have pockets. Or worse, that there’s even FAKE pockets. Meanwhile, I was wearing cargo pants throughout high school.

Women carry more stuff than us men. Clearly they do NEED pockets. And yet they don’t get them. I’ve never even seen a fake pocket on men’s jeans.

Right now, I’m wearing pants with pockets so wide, I can fit a Nintendo Switch or a smaller tablet in them. I could fit TWO large phones AND my wallet in one of them.

Women are definitely missing out on having proper pockets.

Ugh, can relate. I love to read; I used to go through two books per week as a kid during middle school and high school. Not even just fiction, but non-fiction about topics that interested me like space and aviation. I even read books on my Palm Pilot PDA, well before e-readers were a thing.

So as you can imagine, I had an exceptional vocabulary compared to classmates. This had some annoying effects as well. Whenever I did written assignments for a new class with a different teacher, they’d always accuse me of either cheating or plagiarism. Because I was using way more ‘difficult words’ than classmates. A two minute conversation usually cleared it up; they quickly found out that I did in fact do the work and understood the assignment.

I don’t envy teachers today. Reading comprehension has declined sharply, and kids just don’t like to read as much as they did when I was young. Despite the fact that books are now way more accessible to them. I fear it’s going to result in an illiterate generation…

Most people are incredibly lazy when it comes to writing.

Over on Reddit, there’s a subreddit where you needed to write a 500 character text post to accompany your picture. That’s to prevent it from becoming just another photo dumping ground. After all, it is a DISCUSSION forum. DISCUSSION, for emphasis.

Well, that rule - which had existed since the sub was formed - got more and more criticism the past few years. It was deemed ‘too difficult’, ‘elitist’ and other such nonsense. And of course, with people’s terrible reading comprehension, that’s a barrier as well.

For reference, 500 characters is less than two tweets. So most people should be able to write that.

God, I miss the early internet when people put actual effort into writing posts.

Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s what it boils down to. I always see it like this: even if I don’t get the result I want, I’ll at least have the satisfaction that my vote cancelled out someone else’s who’s voting against my interests.

So make sure you show up, or someone else who DOES gets to decide for you.

I’m amazed they even go to that much trouble, or that condemned have a choice in the matter. Just a single bullet to the back of the head should suffice. No need to get creative or prolong any suffering.

If the state feels like it must kill someone, do it with a quick and effective method. This just feels needlessly cruel.

I get it; the entire system sucks. Even here in the Netherlands with a dozen political parties, you rarely get the government you want. But there’s still things you can do even if you really don’t want to vote in this particular election.

You can support groups that promote voting reform, like ranked choice voting. You can and should vote in all local elections. You can even RUN in many local elections, since candidates frequently run unopposed. You can help inform others about the voting process and get poorly represented groups to vote. If all else fails, there’s always the option of shooting your least favorite politician or doing an Oklahoma City. But try those other things first, OK?