That whole issue sounds incredibly stupid from the outside. Would there be the same outrage if someone named their kid Ghengis? He killed even more people. Or Vlad, as in Vlad the Impaler? Or Joseph as in Joseph Stalin? Looking at this with an outside perspective, it truly sounds as the whole thing is fabricated because people just hate the marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim.

I once knew a woman who used cut up punch cards as spacers when rolling joints.

~5 inches thick means the circumference, I assume? Because a ~12cm diameter sounds rather uncomfortable.

You can critique something that is needlessly bad. Like, take ten steps and take a clear picture without that damn car and building.

That photo is so bad. What is it supposed to highlight? There are three objects shown and none seems to be the focus of the picture. It’s also not a composition that makes much sense. I’m not even a photographer, never learned much about that either. Man, this really annoys me way more than it should. But it’s just so bad.

Is he? He always gave me kind of icky/dickish vibes, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

OK, yes. The issue is only that I’ve never seen it used in an OK situation. Probably because I drive in the most suitable right lane, unless overtaking. I only ever see it being used while overtaking, which should be visible for the person speeding. And that is not a situation where it’s fine to signal your intent for overtaking. When there’s an Elefantenrennen that forces others into the left lane, you can signal all you want. There are simply too many cars to drive fast. I don’t know how often I’ve been bullied out of the left lane, fearing for my safety, only to merge right back right behind the asshole who’s now stuck behind the car that was right in front of me. I’ll never understand that mindset.

Contrary to OP I hate driving on German highways because of the amount of aggressive assholes. I always found driving in the Netherlands much more relaxing.

More often than not, people move to the right once they are done overtaking someone else. It’s just that these maneuvers take longer than the assholes who flash their high beams or who tailgate can handle. And those are the situations where the traffic situation simple doesn’t allow for their speeding.

The fuck kinda driving school did you go to? Both flashing your high beams and using the horn is simply not allowed and counts as “Nötigung”. If someone is in the left lane while not actively overtaking, should move to the right, no discussion there. But when I encounter aggressive assholes, the kind who uses high beams, it’s always when there’s too much traffic to race across Germany.

There are no “polite flashes”. If you have to bully other cars out of the left lane, you’re driving faster than traffic allows.

Well, everybody in the manosphere is a toxic idiot/asshole, no matter what particular brand of stupidity they follow. It does feel very similar to religion, though. Some sects might be more violent, but they all follow some made-up shit.

Same here. I keep hearing that Powershell is so good, but I have to look up every little thing. It’s all too specific and you can’t remember it all.

I am past that. I realized, that a lot of the stuff I remember fondly only worked at the time and age when I first saw it. My kids will have their own stuff.

I also learned to not rewatch stuff I thought was good. Especially not comedies. And very especially not comedies from the 80s or 90s.

Woah, you’re an optimist.

For example the CDC and similar organizations in Europe. There is no clear definition of what a pandemic is or when a disease becomes endemic. Even the WHO alleges that. As we have no vaccine that would allow us to eradicate Sars-Cov-2 and because the infection numbers are somewhat seasonal I am heavily inclined to follow those experts that call it endemic. It’s also important to note that endemic does not equal harmless. Of course we need to research the long-lasting effects and still find ways to deal with them. But I, and apparently most health experts, don’t see a need to keep up the awful restrictions from five years ago.

Looking at the CDC numbers[1] for the week of May 10, 2025, I see 201 deaths attributed to Covid and 2465 attributed to a group consisting of Covid, pneumonia and influenza (in other words 2264 deaths attributed to pneumonia or influenza). Yes, people die of Covid every week. People will continue to die from Covid forever. Because Covid is now endemic. It will always be a part of our lives now, just like influenza has been for probably a few thousand years. Just because Covid came up during your lifetime doesn’t mean it’s in any way special. It’s just another virus we will have to deal with now. And unlike some other viruses we actually have vaccines against Covid. Take tuberculosis for example. That fucking thing has probably killed more humans than anything else. We’re talking >1 million deaths every year and that’s a historic low. Just get a fucking grip on reality.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm>

It stopped being a pandemic once it became endemic. Or do you argue that we’re in a flu pandemic because it comes back every year? And sure, the vaccines did help a lot. But the virus that causes Covid also mutated into less severe strains. Just like with the flu, there can always be a more deadly mutation again. But right now the current strains and the fact that almost everybody had it and/or got vaccinated make Covid about as bad as the seasonal flu. And just like the flu it keeps being monitored, vaccines get updated and should it come back in force, we are much better equipped than in 2020.

Then you never had proper influenza. That shit took me out harder than Covid. It’s a matter of luck and in the beginning Covid was more serious than most influenza strains. But they became more harmless. Which doesn’t mean that you can’t run out of luck and have a severe case of Covid. But over the entire population Covid is on a similar level as influenza.

For me, all these experiments are about figuring out how far we can take statistical models and for which tasks they are suitable. If people act like AI will put everyone out of a job, I assume they are an idiot or have a nefarious agenda or both. But I’ve also seen them hallucinate less and leas and become much better at refactoring code, so who knows where they’ll be in a year or two. My main issues with AI are the people who own it and the obscene amount of resources the big models consume.

Oh, I agree with that too! That should just be a normal thing, enabling kids to still learn together with their peers. I was so damn glad when the restrictions were lifted, because I saw the awful effect social segregation was having on my kids. For offices, remote work should be a right for any job where it’s possible and not something out feudal lords have to grant.