There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

• Isaac Asimov, 1980

There were people warning against the glorification of ignorance in the US nearly half a century ago. It’s nothing new; it just reached critical mass (also thanks to social media where ignorant people can self-organise).

Schumer has lost all his credibility, and his statements should be disregarded just as Trump’s. Actually, even more so, given that Schumer has no power to enforce what he says.

I’m personally not sure how it works. But when we were upgrading our bathroom, the tile shop added the VAT to the quoted sale price. I then asked a friend of mine who is VAT-registeted to buy it for us, and he got it from the same warehouse for the non-VAT price.

I agree overall, but VAT is not all that difficult to evade, at least in the service industry. Paying handymen in cash is common in many countries, and that’s a means to evade VAT. Hell, even using them to buy the building or landscaping materials for you (being a registered business they purchase for prices without VAT) saves you on most of the tax. Then there’s service barter. I did it only once, a long time ago, but it can serve as an example: I did family portraits (photography) for my physio, in exchange for a number of physio sessions. If we charged each other, it would have cost each of us, say, 250 Euros, but we’d only see 200 each, and the state would get 100. So, savings of 50 for each of us.

For running, get thin gloves that keep out the wind chill. Your body will heat itself up, including your hands, so all you look for is decent wind protection. I did some trail running in down to -10C, and thin running gloves were sufficient.

If you want bells and whistles, get gloves with reflective elements. In winter, chances are you’ll spend some time running in the dark.

You are absolutely correct that I’m seeing the news, and the social media posts. I don’t feel either offer an accurate representation of the candidates. The legacy media seems to be focusing on the campaigns, not the actual proposed policies of the candidates (apart of some “sky is falling” clickbaits). Social media is pure hyperbole: Trump wears makeup and his running mate an eyeliner; Harris has a weird laugh, etc.

Within context of my voting, I make the effort to explore the parties’ previous performance, and read their election manifestos. I didn’t actually bother to find the election manifestos of the two main candidates, so I don’t feel that I’m well informed to make a good voting decision. I can go by the candidates’ previous record. When Trump was President, the sky didn’t fall, his presidency didn’t affect things in my country, just some people were better off and some worse off. When Harris was the VP, same thing applied. Much of criticism towards Trump, especially his mental capacity, can be applied to the current Biden presidency, and I somehow fail to see anything catastrophic happening.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some fundamental differences between the proposed policies of Trump and Harris. However, I can’t see them when casually perusing both legacy news and social media. Or, better to say, I don’t feel I can trust either. To get an accurate picture, I’d need to do proper research, and I can’t be arsed with that. I don’t think either candidate’s win will affect me significantly enough to force me to do my research and campaign on-line for one or the other.

Believe it or not, but the US is not the centre of the universe. I genuinely have no idea what policies either candidate is proposing, and the occasional descriptions such as “literal Nazi” or “real Antichrist” aren’t really informative. I’m much more interested in which of my local parties would most likely decrease housimg prices, build better public transport infrastructure or finance more equitable social welfare support. Neither US candidate will have any effect on those, apart from perhaps a few more American immigrants on our shores. So, I really don’t feel competent to speak about American politics, and I doubt Greta is any more competent. It would be an insult to Americans to presume that they need foreigners to tell them how to vote.

Breaking: I also refuse to endorse either candidate. That’s because I’m not American, and I know shite about American politics. I do trust, however, that Americans can make up their minds without any foreigners telling them what to do.

Just to be pedantic: we’ve had a hell of a time implementing dynamic resizing of svg’s in Firefox. Works fine with Chromium. We spent far too much development time to keep our 4% of users happy, but eventually we did it. Perhaps newer versions of Firefox changed this, but there are customer-facing oddities the bank’s customers may experience.

Ireland uses a variant of ranked choice voting. In essence, voters get a list of candidates for their voting district, and rank as many of them as they want in order of preference. When votes are counted, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, and votes of those who ranked the candidate first are distributed to their second choice. Rinse and repeat until only as many candidates remain as there are open seats in the constituency.

There is still some inertia, especially in rural areas (“my dad always voted for this candidate, so I’ll vote for his son”), but the system still lends itself to more informed voting. From what I’ve seen in other countries, on average Ireland does a better job at electing more reasonable candidates than the US or EU countries.

On my subscription page, it shows shorts from my subscribed channels. On my main page, it’s girls in bikinis playing on a guitar, violin or drums. I wantch a lot of independent musicians doing instrumental covers, but I don’t recall seeing any of them wearing skimpy clothing.

I guess it’s sort of like facebook, to increase engagement. I stopped visiting there about a year ago, but I didn’t close my account. I now get one friend recommendation daily, and it’s always sexy looking girls I’ve never heard of. These sites register me as male, so they always combine my interests with sexy females, to entice me to spend more time there.

You’re speaking my mind. My home projector and sound system are the budget versions, and still offer better quality experience than the theater. They already paid for themselves in savings for tickets and the popcorn.

I still go to movies sometimes, but it’s got to be an experience: either a theater packed with like minded fans, or with a group of friends with whom I then go for a few pints over a game of pool.

If it was taken by a cell phone, chances are that the exif data would have the GPS location.

Personal anecdote. My drinking days are long over, and now I limit my alcohol consumption to 1-2 drinks on Friday, right after work. The alcohol varies - a beer, a cider, 2 glasses of wine, or a glass of hot whiskey on particularly cold evenings. I also do a lot of fitness, so I’m monitoring my health pretty closely, in particular HRV at night, which is an amazing indicator of my sleep quality and overall health. I have a nearly perfect correlation between an evening drink and a drop of HRV into red zones, and the corresponding drop in sleep quality. The effect of the drink is so strong that I skip it altogether if I plan on having a long hard run the next day.

I’m close to 50, been running for decades, and still pull over 2k miles annually. Almost all that on asphalt. Haven’t experienced any joint problems yet. I credit three things for that. First, modern running shoes are designed to soften the impact, and recently they have gotten ridiculously soft. The extreme cases give you 50mm (about 2 inches) of soft foam under your feet, but even more normal running shoes have advanced foam and bouncy elements in the outsole to soften the impact. Second, proper running form is not rocket science, and most people fall into a decent running form naturally. This form is the most gentle on the joints. And finally, if you are serious enough about running to go the distance where hard surfaces could be a problem, you are already likely to supplement your running with strength training, which further helps to protect your joints.

A former classmate of mine has her three kids there. She complained that the tent of one of them was burgled and most of her daughter’s things were stolen. So, add poor security to all the other issues.