Where? In EU and Australia at least tobacco is taxed to high heaven and costs like 10+ western money units (take whichever, dollar or euro, still roughly applies) a pack/pouch
I pay 14.30€ for a 30g pouch of rolling tobacco. And it’s probably more expensive the next time I buy because the pack before that was 13.50€. There’s a few price-hikes every year.
And not just for the humans using the road either.
##Glittering antlers to improve road safety
Employees at Finland’s Reindeer Herders’ Association are testing two different reflective sprays on reindeer’s antlers as a means to make the animals more visible to motorists on Lapland’s dark roads.
Finland here, third gen professional driver, dad had “Gentleman of the Road” taped to the back of his taxi-van. You couldn’t find a more patient driver (unless he was driving us to a bus and we’re running late or if the liquor store was closing.)
No matter how carefully you drive, human brains just can not pick out a dark thing that’s practically stationary against another dark thing when you’re in a vehicle moving >50kmh.
And our kids walk to the school by themselves if it’s less than 3km iirc, and lots of those roads don’t have sidewalks. Lots do, most probably, but in rural areas not every road has a sidewalk. And it’s dark most of the year.
So you really get taught to wear at least a small reflector. It’s not because of inconsiderate car-brained drivers. It’s because humans don’t have HD thermal vision that keeps perfectly up at high speeds.
This video might illustrate it better. (Pun intended.)
Someone with a reflector can be spotted roughly 150m away, whereas some one without one from about 40 meters. Going 60km/h you travel 40m in 2.5 seconds. The average reaction time for general road users is put around 1.5s. Leaving you a whopping one second (1s) to slam your breaks, and even then you won’t make a meaningful difference. Whereas the driver seeing someone with a reflector has almost 10 seconds, leaving them with 8.5 to reduce speed and dodge the pedestrian a bit.
So while I don’t own a car, but an ebike, and take public transport and am against car-brained culture, in this instance it’s you demanding everyone in countries with long winters spend all of their driving time driving about as fast as one can run, in order to have enough reaction time to avoid pedestrians without reflectors. And I think you understand that while we all dream of better public transport and less car-brain, in this instance wearing a tiny reflector you literally get for free from most places (my bus pass holder is one, for instance, because hauling hailing down buses is a lot more effective with a reflector than a dark mitten) can’t be such a bother. Also you can just take it off when you get to where your going and pocket it if it so bothers you.
Also, what about pets?
Most pets nowadays here have either reflective “clothing” or leashes/bands with small leds. And a lot of the time you just spot a dog in a reflective harness and perhaps a leash hanging in midair until you see the person.
Russia is free again
I really wish that will happen as well, but when has Russia actually been free?
“No. They aren’t. You can only keep them for eggs in some places.”
I call bullshit.
There is no U.S. state where it is illegal to kill your own chickens or where you are restricted solely to keeping them for eggs. While California has strict humane slaughter laws ( California Humane Slaughter Act) and various localities have zoning restrictions, home slaughter for personal consumption is generally legal throughout the United States, provided it is done humanely
A lot of them look rather too sleek and modern to me.
Mines more rugged imo. I don’t even know what country the company is from tbh. I know a store that still sells it in a nearby mall though, just peeked in out of curiosity once. Not that I need a new bag, since this one is still fine.
Well aside from the straps I had changed a couple of years ago, and annoyingly the new material is more plasticky and has reflectors on it. (And I don’t like reflectors installed in my things without being asked. What if I wanted to run away from someone in dark woods and they’re chasing me with a torch in their hand?)
I have a Hedgren backpack and it’s lasted through the toughest of outdoor drinking trips and daily use for more than 30 years.
I’d suggest them, but I have no idea whether the company has the same values anymore and if the new backpacks are even comparable.
I was like, wait, what’s “touch typing”? Oh writing without looking?
Yeah, been doing that a couple of decades prolly. I even do it on my phone most of the time. That’s why I typo quite a lot unless I proofread. I do usually use the suggestions and glimpse at the kb from time to time and you can half see it anyway but yeah.
With a computer I don’t really ever look at the keyboard. My speed has been measured a couple of times I think but can’t recall anything except getting the highest grade. And I think those tests limit my speed as I don’t copy things as fast as when I’m heatedly constructing and argument myself. Feels like I’ve got much better flow then than when reading a word and then having to output it at the same time.
I need to see whether I can measure my own speed sometime when I get into a nice argument and have good flow again.
Idk about others, or if this counts, but I know for a fact that social security in Finland or use AI to transcribe discussions.
I’ve tried how well they transcribe and would never ever ever let them transcribe something as important as social security meetings etc.
Literally everything in Africa has evolved to run away from humans, because when animals hear human speech and don’t run away they get eaten or domesticated.
When you look at a map of domesticated animals origins, not a single one comes from Africa. All the animals there know what humans are like no matter how we try fooling them.
Oh yah here’s the video sourcing that shit I just listened to today https://youtu.be/EqGxxWvDXsM
Well despite it, I think his bombings still kinda pale in comparison to the ones US pulls.
Or maybe this is the streaker winning his bet, hmm?
You’re not wrong, cash does have more mistakes, but it evens out at the end, since you usually make mistakes both ways. Cash is riskier, yeah. But it’s also a lot cheaper depending on what the services and machines cost.
I remember a time when people were hesitant to use cards for small payments, and some places wouldn’t take them for small purchases.
Then cards became more popular and in recent years cash has been going away at least here, when it used to be that you had to be able to take cash.
But yeah mistakes happen with cards as well. They’re just way harder to fix from the client end. (Client as in the company/person using a card machine to charge someone something.)
But yeah it’s marginally easier to just take card payments but you have to keep the receipts from those as well just like you need to keep cash so there’s not that much of a difference in very small scales. (Like driving a taxi.) The bigger the scale the more it matters.
Defense Attorneys more interested in looking out for themselves
Oh man. If I’d had had any attorney for most if it, could’ve helped. I eventually got some help from some law-firm intern. He rang the police up after the jail thing, after they had sent me the accusation of vandalism as well. Based on that we asked “surely you have video of the crime” and I had put in GDPR information request as technically the video on me was under it as well and I had a right to it. The intern said “he’s never heard the cops being so weird and awkward”.
We hear about how racist our country is and how Europe doesn’t have these problems but it seems like we’re the only ones even trying to see the bigotry and classism inherent in the system, much less do something about it.
Basically yeah. It’s sort of weirdly paradoxical a bit, but I definitely agree. As in I would say our police are better trained and do generally behave well. (And only used their guns like once in 10 years, although there’s a massive population difference, it’s still a magnitude or two lower than in the US.)
Like because you’ve had these problems and you’ve actually had civil rights movements and also basically the “real” American spirit, as in freedom liberty equality (which is what the French have on their money btw) is at least chased in the US.
In Finland it’s just sort of apathetic and no-one “wants to make a fuss” so I get literally no attention to these horrid miscarriages of justice. My mom lowkey victim-blamed me for them essentially torturing me. It’s just impossible to convey the simplistic Finnish take on these things. But if we don’t pay attention to bad justice at all even if it doesn’t happen that much, then authoritarianism will be on the rise.
And don’t even get me started on the racist thing. I’ve gotten into social trouble for pointing out to adult people that perhaps using the n-word isn’t the most politically correct thing anymore. But once I did that and this elderly lady got so fking mad at me. I was driving a taxi, and she kept using it so liberally. I didn’t comment, just refrained from using it. Which made her (80-something) go crazy, then I explained i just don’t personally want to use the word and she started demanding I say it “call them what they are”. Almost hitting me from the backseat.
Anyway that’s genuinely one example out of hundreds. The shitty racist bullshit “jokes” I had to listen as a kid. Pfff. Our racism is different but it’s very much there even if the laws don’t have as much systemic racism in them as the US with its history.
I’m sorry your own experience was so bad but I’m not surprised.
Eh, I’ve had wilder weekends. It’s not the experience itself which hurts me so, it’s the fact people think I’m exaggerating or making fuss out of nothing and just “trying to blame others the junkie fuck” and I say junkie because in Finland even if you just smoke weed, you’re considered a lowlife junkie no-one wants to associate with, despite their weekend rituals consisting of getting black-out drunk and vomiting and fighting. For decades now.
So I’d say while you may have more problems you also definitely acknowledge at least most of them, unlike here where we might have less but acknowledge none.
Yeah, sure. But you can see how that could lead to very open-ended logic of “we’re just gonna have to check now.”
I live in Finland. I had a videomeeting with a nurse a few weeks ago. I got rather upset and have a loud voice. Anyway, about 20-30 min after the videomeeting, cops arrive at my door. I don’t understand why. Apparently a neighbour had called and “heard yelling”. To specify, by the time the police arrived, there had been no yelling for almost half an hour. Still. They demanded entry. I politely refused, asking what for. They said “we can’t know that you haven’t murdered someone in there.”
If that’s all the authorities need to enter your private apartment, then you see how no-one has privacy, actually, right?
I mean, if the burden of proof is put on me and they demand I prove a negative, then that’s quite the impossible standard to reach.
So having a loud voice and living in an apartment building is enough in my country for your privacy to go bye bye.
Wouldn’t have mattered as much, but I grew me own weed. One autoflower nothing large, just my own smokes. Mild strain, CBD heavy. But still illegal in Finland.
Last time this happened, it took like 2 months for me to get the warrant they supposedly used and it was dated 2 months after the search.
So you know, while I agree with the public safety angle, there has to be a very clear limit set on when and how the cops are allowed to do what. Granted the US does that a lot more than we do. As in, things may not be objectively going as great in the US, but at least there’s two sides in the fight. In Finland no-one wants to recognise our university-educated police can have anything wrong with them, especially on a systemic level.
I mean, I also agree our cops are pretty decent, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some severe criticism of them. Fuck the police and ACAB, but you’ll notice I did smudge the visible face of the officer here. And it’s because I promised them at the time. I know promises cops make to you don’t matter, but the ones I do, do. And this was the first “house-call” for this young lady. And while the police who originally entered (older constable) did make it very clear I’m allowed to video, he just asked if I could avoid faces. And I don’t see a point as to why not, since none of them did anything to personally offend me, and the older constable even called his superior after I explained him what happened last time they took me to jail. So he managed to convince his superior there was no need to jail me for it. Last time the guards didn’t give me my meds ended up being awake for 72 hours in isolation where they watched me go nuts and eat myself and draw on my own blood on the walls. 3 days lights on constantly I didn’t eat or sleep but they thought my “take as necessary” antipsychotics and relaxants weren’t necessary. I also didn’t even have a mattress. And there’s not a single Finn who believes me despite me having photos of the cell. The cops conveniently lost the videos when I asked for them after they tried accusing me of vandalising the cell with my blood. Here’s the cell. (But the mattress and blanket weren’t there when I was. Not for 90% of the time anyway.)
So yeah when that happened some years ago, I also tried filming the cops coming in. The cop took my phone away ans said “you can’t film the police when they work”. Which is complete BS ofc . So luckily I had the few s clip of him saying that while taking my phone away. Me complaining about that went to the supreme Court of Finland who did incidentally agree with me (ofc.) The cops even tried the argument of "no but it was a private apartment so I’m not allowed to film them due to their privacy… when they’re coming into my private apartment to invade my privacy.
You prolly won’t read the article in Finnish so here’s the screencap translated.
So yeah, I agree it would be wild if an active wrestling match with two guys fighting for a gun with bad intentions in mind wouldn’t be enough of a reason for the cops to go in, I URGE you to consider the other side of the coin as well.
I love the implication that the Rapture happens via balloons and harnesses.
I don’t know, but I need to see that.
I’ll be the first to say “well done, you”. I only got 32 could’ve easily spulrged at least for 64.
Oh yeah that might be the one I’m remembering. Idk there were so fucking many it’s gross
Honestly it’s weird how adamant people are there have always been people who solely preferred one sex over the other. While it’s generally true for modern society, people wouldn’t have even understood what you mean in ancient times by “sexual orientation”, really. I mean you could obviously explain it and people could answer to a degree, but…
Well, think of this, we have left and right in our languages. We all know those are relative terms. My left and your left are different, most of the time. Anyway, there exists a tribe who don’t have relative words for directions, and they only use cardinal directions, all the time. As in if they’re hanging a painting, they’d say “no, no, a bit to the north” instead of “left”. On a tangent, it makes them very much immune to getting lost as they have incredible sense of direction for that reason. My point being that to us it’s simple that you just use left and right, why wouldn’t you, when people know what it means and it’s simple. So why doesn’t that tribe use them? Idk, it’s just not in their culture. Just like such strict classifications of sexual orientation weren’t much of a thing in ancient and prehistoric times.
Bill And The Romans Talk About Sexuality | The Eaters Of Light | Doctor Who
Cornelius: Yeah, don’t worry, Bill, Lucius will look after you.
Lucius: Shut up, Cornelius!
Bill: Ahh, Lucius, erm, right, listen there’s, erm, something I should explain.
Lucius: What?
Bill: This is probably just a really difficult idea. I don’t like men that way.
Lucius: What? Not ever?
Bill: Nah, not ever. Only women.
Nah…not ever.
Lucius: Oh. Alright, yeah, I’ve got it. You’re like Vitus then.
Bill: What?
Lucius: He only likes men.
Vitus: Some men. Better looking men than you, Lucius.
Lucius: I don’t think it’s narrow-minded, I think it’s fine. You know what you like.
Bill: And you like both?
Lucius: I’m just ordinary, I like men and women.