Living in the same latitudes I could only take it as a compliment.
Living in the same latitudes I could only take it as a compliment.
It's getting harder every year.
I remember well the constant fear of nuclear war in the 1980's.
I remember the wonder we felt when the Berlin Wall fell and Soviet Union collapsed. A hope of a tomorrow free of fear.
I remember the dreadful recession of the early 1990's and the steep economical rise that followed it.
I remember the amazing advancements in technology and the standard of living in the late 1990's. And at the same time, it felt like the world was coming to it's senses.
I was 21 in the year 2000. The world was full of promise, technological advancements were just pouring in, old mortal enemies were finding common ground and it seemed that we were slowly heading towards a Star Trek - like post scarcity utopia.
This age of hope eneded by the finance crisis of 2007-2008. Russia tried the waters with the war in Georgia. The general atmosphere of the world turned towards gloom again. And the downward spiral just seems to keeps going and going....
Yet I continue the work I started when I chose teaching as my profession in those golden years of hope. The kids are very different today, any class from 20 years ago would be a piece of cake compared with the problems they have now. But if a change for the better is to come, it will come from the kids. My generation is hopelessly lost in consumer greed and watching mindless "reality" shows that they somehow feel more important than real life.
I alone cannot be the change we need, but I CAN educate a few hundred kids and with good luck, maybe a dozen or few of them will have a some effect for a better future.
I've had general anesthesia, it was just like falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
If death is like that, then there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
Yes. For years now. And I am horrified.
I am a teacher and I've had students who could not find the article about lions from the animal encyclopedia I handed to them. And when I helped them to find it, one started crying, one tried to read it (stopped after a minute or so) and one asked "Isn't there some lion video we could watch instead?". It was two pages with a lot of pictures. But it was too much for these 5th graders.
Reading proper books has become almost impossible to kids because their attention span is almost non-existent with written material.
We've tried to add more emphasis on basic reading skills in the early grades for some time now, but it seems to have very little effect.
My dad used to travel a lot in the 80's due to his job. I asked him to bring Turkish Delights if he ever came across them. I was so stoked when he opened his suitcase and handed me a fancy wooden box full of them.
This was one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.
The swamps of Dagobah.
This is worse than terrible. Now Trump gets to play martyr and it rallies up his base, even the ones who were in doubt after his conviction.
And as the chaos ensues, Putin is laughing at his throne.
No magic tricks or diet fads.
Eat less, move more.
Eat more vegetables and salad, cut down bread and meat.
Stop drinking sodas and juices with extra sugar in them and learn to quench your thirst with water.
Limit eating candy or cookies to one day per a week, if you can't let them go entirely.
Winning?
When we met, we were both pretty broken from past experiences. She had had a line of bad relationships and I had my own issues. She was creative, smart and very beautiful, way out of my league.
With her I was happy for the first time in my adult life and I loved her just as she was. We enjoyed the same things and our friends talked of us as a "perfect couple". And for a time everything truly was pretty perfect.
Then one day she called me and said: "I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore."
After the initial shock I managed to say: "I love you and want you to be happy. If this makes you happy, so be it."
And that was it. I was emotionally devastated.
I never saw her again. Nine months later a common friend told me she had a baby coming in the next month. Apparently she had switched me for a better candidate and gotten herself pregnant almost instantly.
Realizing this broke me even more. I guess our time together had fixed her to a point where she was ready to start a family, just not with me. According to my friend she got three kids with the same guy and is very happy with her life.
It took me years to recover from this and I don't think that I'll ever really get "over it".
Go eat some Krokodil.
I see two possibilities:
Hard to say.
The biggest challenge would be to get out of the city and make the trip to my family's farm safely. It would take about a week on foot/bikes using less known roads with all the supplies/weapons that would be crucial.
If I could get to the farm, rest would be fairly easy. I can farm, fish and and hunt. Heating works with wood. Fresh water is not a problem, nor is refrigeration with an ice cellar. My family has an old mill that we could restore to get flour and I think I could retrofit it to produce hydroelectricity in a year or so.
I'd trade access to electricity to get horses and other farm animals.
Almost every neighbour is related to me, so forming a defensive alliance should be possible.
I have the gear and the knowhow to make things work, it's the not-getting-killed part at the start that's hard.
One kid sniffed lighter gas and jacked off during 9th grade chemistry class. He passed out and fell off his chair and hit his head to the floor with his dick still clutched in his hand.
The teacher was so terrified that she couldn't do anything but stutter and shake violently. Me and a couple of my friends dragged the idiot outside to get fresh air while waiting for the ambulance.
The sniffer came back to school the next day like nothing had ever happened. This incident was never again discussed in any way by the teachers or other faculty members.
There were lots of totally crazy shit happening on a weekly basis. The early 90's were pretty wild where I grew up.
Very fast reflexes and I can see in the dark far better than most people.
I had never realized that my eyes were different until my compulsory miltary service. I could reasily read maps when others couldn't see shit and I never stumbled during night training in the forest.
Fast reflexes are generally pretty cool to havel, but it's not fun when a knife falls off the kitchen table and it is impossible to stop your own hand trying to catch it.
My "learned talent" is fixing mechanical devices. When I was 6 or 7 I took apart and fixed the family VCR so I could finish watching the Smurfs. My mom found me studying the jammed mechanism, with all the parts lying on the living room carpet. She had a fit and wanted to collect the parts away, I started crying and told her that I'll never get it back together if she messes up their places. She watched as I released the stuck tape wheel and reassembled the device. And it worked.
I've fixed countless devices with just visual analysis and pure intuition after that.
I like to repair and restore broken vintage audio gear.
"Wow, this 60's Sansui amp and those 70's AR speakers are practically free! I already have all the tools I need to repair them, it'll be fun and cheap. When I get these restored, I won't need anything else ever again!"
How little did I know.
I've eaten a rat.
In my youth I was trekking in Thailand and we arrived to our next destination late at night and we were starving. The only option to get food was a street grill which served only two foods: rat-on-a-stick and some kind of a fried jellyfish-on-a-stick.
The rat was actually pretty good. My friend chose the jellyfish and regretted this instantly.
Jesus. That theory is the one my professors talked about in university, as an example of "how to never teach anyone anything".
I use mine almost on a daily basis, with my headphones and when I connect my phone to my stereo system.
I do have Chromecast Audio hooked up and I own good wireless Hi-Fi earbuds, but I prefer to use cables. They just work better, no interference or any other hassle.
Yes. Our leaders should've pushed Russia back in 2014. This cannot be denied.
But we've also been the main theatre of two world wars that left our cities in ruins and we're still clearing old munitions from our lands - the destruction of life and material was immense. North America has never seen such level of human suffering and I hope you never will. Wanting to avoid a third world war by all means necessary is imperative for us, even so much that is has undermined this goal by emboldening the eternal enemy, Russia.
One also should remember that Europe is neither a country or a nation. Nor is the EU a federation like the US. Just one country can block extremely important decisions - like Hungary is doing while licking Putin's boots, because their greedy leader wants to keep buying cheap Russian gas and oil to keep his voters happy. EU also includes many countries who have never trusted Russia and never will.
The price of peace is eternal vigilance. Many of us had forgotten this simple truth and now Ukraine is paying the price.
I've tasted both cat and dog kibbles, my kids used to love eating them when they were toddlers. I just wanted to know if I was missing out on something.
Neither tasted good, but the cat kibbles weren't nearly as bad as dog kibbles. There most likely are brand differences, but my curiosity was satisfied by the sampling I had available at the time.
In any scenario Russia cannot be allowed to win.
Should they succeed in Ukraine, they will continue their aggressive and brutal expansionism and try to spread the horror that is "Russki Mir" across the Eastern Europe.
So yes, we fucking do care.
Like I said, the start would be the hardest part. Cars or any other motor vehicles would be out of the question.
f this scenario would happen during the winter, it would effectively block all the lesser known forest roads for vehicle use. Doing the trip with skis would easily halve my travel time, even with the supply sled and heavy backpacks. 30-50km per day would be easy, when one wouldn't have to go around all the lakes and rivers. We don't get much daylight here in the far north so travelling in the cover of darkness would be ideal. I can find my way in dark forests with ease.
In the summer, the trip would be much more problematic. My country has countless number of old, unmarked roads and forest paths that are usually suitable for mountain bikes. This would be my first option. The second would be crossing the forests by foot which would be very safe, but it would take time.
My relatives would take care of the farm until I would arrive, of that I am certain - and they are very capable of doing so. My family has stuck around those parts for hundreds of years and we aim to keep it that way in any scenario ;)
I bought a 2 gen iPod Nano 8GB in 2007 and I have used this amazing device almost daily ever since. The original battery somehow still managed to hold a 5-6h charge last spring, but after the summer it can only do 2-3h of continous playback. I already ordered a replacement battery.
The jogwheel can be easily operated through your pocket fabric which makes it far superior to touchscreens.
I intend to keep using it as long as I can and I've already picked up a few spare ones in case it breaks beyond repair.
Finnish legislation strictly forbids storing nukes inside our borders, even transporting them via our territory is a no-no. But laws can be changed.
Putin's whining about nuking Finland is ridiculous. Most of the time the prevailing winds here blow to the general eastern direction, detonating a nuke or few above our capital would nicely contaminate both St.Petersburg and the Finnish Gulf right in front of it. And using tactical/strategic nukes against our defences would happen near the Karelian border, which would irradiate Putin's and his cronies precious dachas located in the stolen Karelia.
So they most likely won't be doing that. But on the other hand Russia has clearly demonstrated that their actions are not based on rational thinking, so it remains to be seen.
I remember reading some scientic article that examined what would happen if we eradicated the mosquitos entirely.
Surprisingly, they came to the conclusion that they'd just be gone and we would be a lot happier without the nuisance and the diseases they spread.
No other species is dependent on mosquitos as a food source, they could easily find enough to eat with them gone. Mosquitos apparently serve no known vital purpose in their ecosystems, although it was mentioned that males of some species have some little value as secondary pollinators.
Yep, there were some war games in northern Norway/Sweden, US regular troops landed with helicopters right next to a camouflaged Finnish command/communications position which was mostly manned by conscripts. The referees deemed that the US troops got surprised and were defeated by the lightly armed Finns.
In Finland many high school seniors go to an overnight booze cruise some time before their final exams. It can get pretty wild.
My older daughter looked exactly the like her mother at the same age when she was 3-6 years old. When I compare their childhood photos it would be hard to tell which is which, if not for the hideous fashion of the 80's being a a clear tell for mother.
After the age of 7 my daughter quickly grew into her own look, but when she makes certain faces the resemblance is still striking.
What a surprising discovery.
I gave my ~25 years old G-Shock to my son, he somehow lost it the garden in the fall. I found it the next spring when the snow had melted. I dried it up and changed the battery, it works like nothing had happened.
Amazing design.
This is the way.
I solely used Netscape Navigator since it came out and after it fell I chose Firefox. My interface has always been modded to look permanently like Firefox 3.6.
Everything is where I want it to be and everything works perfectly.
Many moons ago my employer tried to force us to use only Internet Explorer / Edge for reasons they were unable to explain - since there were none, technically or otherwise. I rebelled and remotely installed Firefox with Adblock / uBlock Origin to every personal computer (I was the unofficial IT guy) and told my co-workers to try it out.
At the next meeting we were told that the use of Firefox is not only approved but recommended. The magic of an "ad free browser" had taken hold, people found it vastly superior and had been vocal about their newfound dislike of MS browsers.
To my surprise I wasn't even reprimanded in any way.
Physical. I read a lot and a real book won't run out of battery.
I strongly dislike reading from a tablet but I've been meaning to buy a Kindle for some time. Unfortunately they are still ridiculously high priced in my country, so I haven't bit the bullet yet.
I've used a Nexus 7 mini-tablet for ten years. It runs on Android 6.0 and has been able to do everything I need from a tablet. It only started to slow down drastically this summer, I guess I'll have to flash LineageOS to give it a few more years of life.
Finland will not take any action that would draw us into a war. The lost Karelia is defiled and would require decades and tens of billions to restore. We've made our peace with the loss, but we will not forget what was stolen from us.
But if Russia wants to try something with us, they can try. We've had 79 years to prepare for this and we have plenty of wonderful surprises lined up for such an occasion. NATO aid or not, we are not to be toyed with. And they know it.
The fastest way, certainly.
Your description fits my brother perfectly.
He has very little curiosity, hasn't read more than 3 books in his entire life, strongly dislikes all forms of art (except shitty movies and TV-shows), isn't capable of analytical or critical thinking and hasn't got a clue how the political system works.
He apes the attitudes of his spouse and friends, so much that I'm not sure he even has any opinions of his own.
Yet this doesn't bother him at all. He's very happy being oblivious and he makes more than twice as much money per month than I do with my master's degree. He is very good at what he does and I'm happy for him.
It would still be nice to be able to have a real conversation with him, instead of just stating the factual matters or laughing at some dumb jokes. If we both didn't share such a strong resemblance of our dad I'd assume that my mom had an affair, beyond our appearance we have almost nothing else in common.
I live in the Nordics and my house is prrimarily heated by a geothermal heat pump. The temperature here has been between -20C and -30C for the last week, the pump can easily keep the room temperatures at +19C until the outside temperatures drop under -25C, after that the electric resistor kicks in to provide assistance.
The secondary heat source is the giant baking oven, which i heat every other day if gets this cold. The fully heated oven alone raises the room temperatures by 5-6C, which helps a lot to take the load of the heating pump and keeps the electric bill smaller.
I have been planning to install air/air-water heat pumps to both floors, they would be a good backup during these cold spells and would also provide cooling during the summer. And if I install a smart control system, I can have the air units do extra heating/cooling automatically when the electricity is cheap.
I just haven't had the time to do the research where it would be best to install them and the prices rose steeply after Russia attacked Ukraine. So I'll wait for a while before I'll get those.
"You fucking Alaskan!"
I laughed uncontrollably for several minutes after receiving this compliment. Wrong continent, buddy.