We get that it is the design philosophy for Mastodon to not have an algorithm serving content, but it appears to be a non-starter for a lot of users of Twitter like services.

In theory, a third party could write that algorithm and implement it in some form. Truth Social functions like that, but without federating to the rest of Mastodon.

deleted by creator

More like Miami with less booze and weed.

In the long run, yes.

In the short term, no.

There is significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans.

Theme parks is really only an Orlando thing. A large chunk of tourist Florida is hotels by the beach.

Any reason why in particular?

What kind of tourist traps?

Egypt is the kind of country where I want to see things in it, but I kind of want to get the sanitized experience if I go there.

I feel like you need to be in a certain mindset to enjoy a theme park like Disney World. If you aren’t in that mindset, the place is a saccharine place of over-stimulation.

It is a good comparison. There is a lot to see in both cities and they have good transit systems, but it can be really disorienting if you aren’t used to city life and the grime of cities is harder to hide.

I wasn’t a big fan of Bermuda, but I feel like it was more to do with what I like to do when traveling.

Food was expensive and kind of bland. There wasn’t that much to see or do other than relax by a body of water and drink.

I took a trip to Cleveland and Cedar Point for an extended weekend and found it to be alright.

Paris has been romanticized a lot in media, to the point where the Japanese embassy has to have staff on hand to handle the dispair of Japanese tourists visiting and getting disappointed.

I remember Paris being a pleasant large Western city, but it is still a large Western city with all that it entails.

No, they also have one in Vegas that is a replica.

The funnier thing was that they had the Statue of Liberty wear a Golden Knights Jersey when Vegas won the Stanley Cup.

Yeah, but that is typical of a lot of shops in the Middle East.

Yeah. The best idea of eating in Italy is to eat in areas without good views. A hole in the wall place that looks a run down diner served amazing squid ink pasta. Also, a lot of bars will sell snacks that are real food; three of those is enough for dinner.

One of the strange things I saw with Dubai is that the civil-site design is just horrible at the edges of developments. You can tell that the emirate could spend money to make buildings, but the buildings don’t form a city.

The National Guard functions like your Home Guard for the most part. Some states do full time deployment, but it is rare and mainly applies security tasks. States are allowed to have standing armies, but it doesn’t happen because it is usually considered a waste of tax payer money.

What I expect is that, as the Union military grows, individual European nations will stop operating militaries outside of their home guard. After all, why have a standing army for the country when you are contributing to a standing army for the Union?

Without having a way to deal with corruption, it is just inviting the troops to become corrupt as well.