It was really nice. We went prior to the Olympics, but Paris and other parts of France are beautiful and lovely each in their own way. It feels very much like home, yet foreign at the same time.

I will never forget how immaculately well kept the American graves were at the beaches of Normandy. They treat them with such respect, and it brought tears to my eyes. The people of France will always have a spot in my heart for what they’ve done for us in our time of need and for the utmost respect they have shown our ancestors in both world wars.

Don’t forget the meta where a new paid DLC weapon is super unbalanced and great for two weeks until the devs nerf it into the ground and everyone goes back to the default weapons that are just ok.

There was a book I read called “Domesticated” that permanently changed my view on pets. The book had chapters broken out by animal and also had before/after pictures of certain animals from a century ago vs what we have now, after the influencer puppymills and such got their hands on them/inbred them to shit.

We have hideously deformed some animals that used to look much, much different a century ago, and those animals now pay a steep price in pain and life expectancy.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/617uIoOR97L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg

Most of the time, yes. Though certain cough medicines have been apparently using benzene in them, which is insane. (Cheaper to produce)

You can look for carbomers in the inactive ingredients list, but they don’t have to put that info in if they don’t want, which is insane to me. We need regulations that ban carcinogens like benzene being used for the manufacturing of drugs.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5077764/millions-of-americans-may-be-getting-cancer-causing-chemical-in-generic-cold-medicine

Burying highways would make such a difference. Things would be so quiet.

That boat sailed with Murdoch buying out all the news companies and beaming his rags and “news” channels around the western world after he conquered Australia. He used his power to weaken laws that used to hedge against this kind of nonsense.

Lmfao, the russian military is using telegram? That is insane. We use it for furry groups. Can’t believe they’d trust it for life or death situations. Develop your own secure communication, morons, haha.

Just build a subway. This is already a subway with extra steps and less capacity.

Everyone around Trump seems to either end up in prison, a convicted felon, or in rare cases, dead. Funny how assholes and weirdos seem to gravitate to him.

I think it could work here! My US city does concrete bike lane berms. Cars have to park in designated areas because they can’t cross the concrete blocks or planters. My city has been putting in some speedhumps, too. The only complaint is that the infrastructure needs to be going in even faster to make it safe and approachable to whole families!

415k troops vs 1,000,000 troops. Holy shit.

I hope changes like this make them taxable. I want a fat cut of all that cash they are hoarding.

Yeah, it really fucking sucks when there’s only one form of transportation and virtually no alternatives. I’ve lived in places like that, and it’s always infuriating when your car won’t start and you are already running late for work. And the nearest bus is really slow and on a half-hour basis. My old city didn’t even have bus stops for awhile, you just had to flag the bus down and hope they saw you.

Yeah, hopefully that is shifting a bit more. When a bike system works, it is really nice. But many cities are just now realizing that they can be more than toys. It took our city to a breaking point before they realized that there was no physical room to keep adding lanes to the highways and roads around the city now that things have been built up. We still have traffic so bad that it can take upwards of an hour to move two blocks, though. That’s starting to change now, finally.

I agree!

Heh, the first step in a long series of steps towards orbital shipyards and coriolis-class space stations.

The future is looking bright.

Collector limpet failed :(

Programming limpet drone

Collector limpet failed

Programming limpet drone

Good, we need more BSL4 labs. The more we cut down forests and push into remote areas where bacteria, viruses, and fungi have always been endemic, the more we risk a catastrophic spillover event that will be magnified by rapid, worldwide flights and climate change making animals and diseases more present around humans. Fungi, for example, are thriving in warmer and wetter winters. We must be hypervigilant about new and evolving diseases, especially ones that might not yet have vaccines developed for them.

These labs will keep churning out research even in the event of catastrophic calamity in areas were most of our BSL4 labs reside (Europe, and North America).

How far is he from work? If your city has the right transit chops, an ebike might actually put both a car and transit to shame. Drives that take an hour by bus or 35 minutes by car take 26 minutes or less in my city, due to godawful traffic. But the bike lanes have no traffic lights and cut straight through massive areas, instead of block by block streetlights.

they’re not really interested in making affordable electric vehicles

Huh, that’s strange. I’m not really interested in a $25,000+ EV. Turns out that a $1,200 ebike is faster than my car (due to traffic) and costs orders of magnitude less to maintain and charge. I’ve basically just stopped driving.

Perhaps my interest will be piqued when they can develop a sub $25k EV, without half the “smart” features like subscriptions for Bluetooth audio and heated seats. Until then, I’ll use my old car like…a dozen times a year.