What’s there to innovate, really? That ship has sailed back in the ‘90’s.

Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericksson and a bunch of other companies put out a ton of really neat phones. Tech moved so fast, every six months you’d see new leaps: introducing a color screen, Bluetooth, new ringtone formats, WAP, installable apps, etc.

These days we’ve pretty much settled on boring rectangular slabs. Innovation means yet another camera, a .01 mm thinner phone, a faster screen… none of it really exciting.

We all need phones. And yes, iPhones just work. There’s nothing wrong with buying a thing that just works. I don’t need my toaster to ‘innovate’ either - just to make toast predictably, you know?

People always get confused by this.

The ‘Miranda rights’ are actually called the ‘Miranda warning’. Their purpose is to prevent people from self-incrimination: you have the right to remain silent and talk to a lawyer before answering questions. It also warns that anything you DO say can be used against you.

Now, the thing that people get wrong is: these warnings only apply when an officer starts asking you questions related to a potential crime. You still are legally required to cooperate and to give your name and personal details regardless.

So, an officer can legally arrest you without reading the Miranda warning. But if say, a detective will question you later, they still need to give you those warnings. Basically, the only reason most cops read them while arresting is so it’s covered in case they or anyone down the line DOES ask questions.

Not having your ‘Miranda rights’ read is not a get out of jail free card. At best, it could render some evidence inadmissible in court.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning

I’m a bit of an aviation nut. While it’s not a new plane, it’s certainly not the oldest one flying by far.

Aircraft have a rigorous maintenance schedule. Some components are replaced based on hours used, others are on a calendar schedule: replace it regardless of hours. There are also so-called C- and D-checks: the plane basically gets completely taken apart every 6 to 10 years.

IF DONE CORRECTLY - this means the aircraft will be in excellent condition, even if it reaches that age.

Now, this being Russia in wartime, I wouldn’t be surprised that proper maintenance wasn’t performed. Especially since the AN-24 has an excellent reputation as a rugged, dependable plane. They probably used those resources elsewhere.

Of course, even the best maintained planes can crash. We’ll see what any investigation reveals.

Well… the satanists I’ve met definitely seemed like a Linux crowd, so it’s not the worst suggestion prior to sacrificing a goat or something of that nature.

As someone born in the early 80’s, just for once I’d like a nice, boring decade. Pretty please.

Saw the fall of communism, the Balkan wars, 9/11, the rise and fall of the internet, the dotcom bust, the 2008 financial crisis, Arab Spring, Brexit, global pandemic, war in Europe again, US politics, middle-east still fucked as usual. And then there’s climate change to fuck over everything in general.

So yeah, I’d love a decade where nothing happens. Heck, I’ll take a boring six months at this point. Gimme a fucking break.

Yep. The 50’s was dudes working in the asbestos plants, chemical plants and automotive plants without any sort of PPE. I mean, folks in general were eating off of actually radioactive dinner plates made of (depleted) uranium and lead was in everything down to kids toys.

Health and safety for workers was better than the 1800’s, but certainly a far cry from what we have today.

You know the saying: ignorance is bliss. There’s a lot of perfectly content people out there, barely more conscious than a house plant.

This is one of those things that might not always be immediately obvious if you’re not plugged into that specific community.

I’ve never met a furry either. But completely by chance, I found out that my city of 160.000 people has a group who does regular furry walks. Basically, they’ll do a walk and meet the public once a month. I had no freaking clue we had that here. It wasn’t a thing I was looking for and never ran into. It was completely by chance that I read an article about it.

So uh, furries are probably closer than you think is my point 😀

Well, I deal professionally with people involved in politics, as well as voters. I can assure you the average adult voter is just about as poorly informed as the average 16 year old, if not more so. At least a 16 year old will have had a recent lesson on politics and civics in general.

Frankly, there should be an actual test before you should be allowed to vote. Some people are so completely misinformed about the process that they do far more harm than good.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone remotely fitting that description wearing a pair of these…

Oakley Radar EV path in ‘retina burn’ colorway.

You’d think that would be eye opening and somewhat concerning to folks. But I’ve found what tends to happen is ‘record fatigue’.

We’ve had ‘record high’ temperatures here in the Netherlands frequently the past few years. Meaning, the news will report ‘it’s the hottest july 1st since the start of the measurements’ and that ‘the previously hottest july 1st was in 2017’

Basically, it’s telling you two things:

• it’s a record high temperature
• the time between these records is decreasing.

Which obviously means things are getting worse. But most people just shrug and go ‘Gee, another record high temperature, how boring, those happen so often’.

Same thing with other types of problematic weather. At least stuff like record rainfall or flooding is hard to ignore.

Shit, in the netherlands we basically live off of that stuff. The per capita consumption is two kilograms, which puts ut at the tol of the list of global consumption.

Every supermarket pretty much has an aisle dedicated to licorice in all forms. Sweet, salty, spicy, soft, hard, dipped in chocolate… you name it.

I’m amazed some people don’t like it. Though I’ll concede I’ve obviously grown up eating it since before I could talk.

Well not everyone, obviously. But that’s why it’s voluntary.

I’ve certainly done stuff that’s outside of the scope of my personal job. Our company owner actually scrubs the toilets in our building and that guy owns an actual yacht 🤷‍♂️

Well if it’s voluntary and the staff gets paid their usual wage - one would assume a higher one than the warehouse folks get - I don’t really see the problem. It doesn’t make sense to try and hire folks for just a few days of peak workload. Not if you can manage it by shifting some folks around. Heck, I’m sure some will appreciate the change of scenery.

I had so many experiences like that. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I was reading books in English (my second language) about topics such as aeronautics and space exploration. I was reading far, far above the level of any classmates. And that lead persisted all through college.

Every time a new teacher would give us an essay assignment, I’d get called out to stay after class once they graded it. And they’d casually accuse me of plagiarism.

My usual response? Quiz me, right the fuck now, on any paragraph you want from that 20 page paper. And ask me the definition of any word you’re unfamiliar with. That shut them up right quick.

A large vocabulary is its own reward, but not so much when those who’re supposed to teach you are lacking in that department.

Exactly. Back in 1995, my dad could never get online. Heck, he couldn’t even remotely figure out a PC. We tried to teach him some basics like ‘click with the left mouse button to open something’, but he was downright scared of the thing. He never, ever touched it.

But ‘thanks’ to the iPad, he’s e-mailing, on Facebook, on YouTube, TikTok etc. Which also has the unfortunate effect of subjecting him to boomer brainrot. He’s now more actively misinformed than he used to be because of that fucking iPad.

We’ve made the web accessible to people who shouldn’t be on it. Because it’s hurting them and hurting society as a whole.

I’ve been online since 1995. I weep for what we lost. The web should have stayed a nerd domain. We’d have been better off as a society.

Do watch Andor. It’s not just good Star Wars, it’s ‘good TV’ in general. And I say that as someone who hates modern Star Wars with a passion. Andor’s excellent.

God yes. I was one of the first people to buy it. Back when you had to send Notch himself five bucks to play it. I was interested in the concept, but frankly didn’t think it would have much appeal beyond people who enjoy completely self-guided experiences with no set goals.

How wrong I was.

It’s been wild seeing it rise to the top of the pop culture heap, become popular with 12 year olds and eventually result in me seeing a movie starring Jack Black based on it.

It’s wild that it started with me and a handful of guys sending Notch a fiver.

Goddamnit yes. It’s why I’m very pro-gatekeeping. Because people who are new to a hobby because it got popular tend to ruin every-fucking-thing.

For example: flight simulator. That used to be an exclusively nerd domain up until the FS2020 version, which was released on Xbox. The result: a massive influx of new garbage payware and a decline in quality of established brands. While also making the sim worse in order to chase broader appeal. It’s gotten a bit better after covid went away and the normies dropped the hobby, thankfully.

Also: film photography. The popularity of instagram and YouTube ‘influencers’ got a lot of people into our hobby the past decade. It’s lead to increased gear prices, film being more difficult to get and the forums flooding with the dumbest possible questions, since these newcomers are allergic as fuck to reading manuals or watching any tutorial longer than thirty seconds. It’s also lead camera manufacturers to chase this new demographic by making their cameras shittier and more ‘instagram-friendly’. Here’s looking at you, Fujifilm and your shitty X-half.

Take it from someone who’s been around a bit: if you like a thing, keep newcomers away from it. Gatekeep it like the Berlin Fucking Wall, lest they completely fuck up your hobby.