Do you live in Swabia? You sound like you live in Swabia.

Apparently there are some Cherry MX sets from 30 years ago that are still working today. So I guess part of it is longevity, part nostalgia.

JUST ONE MORE TURN…!!!

Anyone else feels like Rheinmetall double dipped in the war? We don’t know how many of their weapons made it to the other side. It’s hard not to be cynical here

Here’s another “insider’s insight”: The car industry is a tough business. The profit margin is not like selling bottled water, especially when you consider overheads in R&D and the regulation compliant measures they have to adhere to, to sell in the German/EU market. Cars sold in the US are cheaper to produce because they go through much, much less vigorous testing, but then they are loaded with stupid add-ons (screens behind each seat, more luxurious user interface, better speaker+subwoofer combos, etc)

You used Tiktok as an example for something that is more interesting than learning. (Of course it’s more interesting than learning, it’s digital crack cocaine.)

Send them a head of white cabbage every week (can use an online grocery service.

If you have access to their dwelling, put all their bedroom furnitures in the living room

I don’t know about you, but my school did the best it could. Some adults might even say what you said about society in general - infinite resources to harm and burden, etc. People usually try their best, your teachers too. Maybe you’ll grow up to be a teacher and you’ll be better at it than the ones you had. Good luck!

Please don’t learn about how Hitler died through Tiktok. Befriend your librarian and read it in a book.

I also want to know. Same with Tony Blair. Alas, I’m not a legal scholar.

In Germany: Big car manufacturers do have round-table sessions where they share research informations with each other. However, they do not co-ordinate pricing.

When you feel like car manufacturers release models with similar specs within a short time frame, this could be why.

For a family trip? Toilet break, coffee, cakes for the kids, that’s 15-20 minutes on a rest area. We do this on a weekend, so need a quick grocery run (our supermarkets are famously closed on Sunday), that’s easily 30-40 minutes total.

Some gas stations are also highway rest areas with restaurants and whatnot. The ones that aren’t close to rest areas are in mixed used neighbourhoods, so possibly close to the customers’ homes. If you take your car to the cinema in Germany, you’re doing it wrong.

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Poetry is hard

Bacon.

I still wish it wouldn’t go that far. I remember around 6-7 years ago my friends speculated about space tourism over a dinner party. That the contemporary space research wasn’t about the environment, it was about rich people’s tourism. I was genuinely disappointed that my friends’ “silly” predictions turned out to be true.

It takes an enormous amount of buy in. Democracy is a fragile system even at the best of times. It takes a lot to take people who disagree with each other to talk and haggle with each other long enough to make sensible things happen. And it can feel world-ending when your choice loses.

In times of crisis or uncertainty (like these past 10-15 years) some people might think they need a strongman to lead them. The problem with strongmen of course is that they surround themselves by yes-men and they never seem to know when to stop. I can sympathise with the people who want this, but I can’t say I agree with the impulse.

boots

The Sam Vimes’ Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness! Can we be friends? XD

Meta is evolving in interesting ways. The Oculus Rift line was huge for modelling artists and designers who worked with engineers (the ones I knew anyway). Now they revived Threads but interestingly it’s marketed as “Threads by Instagram”, because Facebook as a brands is somewhat tarnished, and Meta is a punchline, but Instagram is still popular and well-liked.

My prediction for the Metaverse is, and I’m just another idiot on the internet, that they’re trying to make it into a play AND work platform, where people might do online meetings in VR, spend online money with Metacoin to buy real world stuff, then also spend leisure time playing in the Metaverse. The way Amazon have consumers who are also products (and sometimes also Amazon workers), the vision for Meta might be that one day people could live their whole lives on the Metaverse and be this worker/consumer/product in one fell swoop. I wouldn’t want that, but I can see how this might be their line of thinking.

Now they’re researching a time machine to try to create a conundrum where Musk simultaneously buys Twitter, runs it to the ground, but then in the past re-buys it from himself after he runs it to the ground.

The fun thing with governments in a democracy is that it’s still a free market of ideas and you vote with your vote, instead of voting with your wallet which increasingly has little meaning when dealing with these billionaires.