Skua

You’ll have to claim to be speaking medieval French to get the pronunciation right. The cat is just old-fashioned, it’s fine

The video in question https://youtu.be/tNty_vIpS5A

There are two main accoints of the story and, ironically, he didn’t actually manage anything useful in either of them

In the oldest one, he was sent from Athens to Sparta to ask for help against the invadng Persians. He ran 240 km in two days in this version of the story, only for the Spartans to say that actually they were busy with a religious festival and would not be coming to help. He then ran back. In this one he runs more than ten marathons in a matter of days and doesn’t die, and while the Spartans didn’t help someone did have to go ask to find that out

In the later one, he ran the 40 km from the battle of Marathon back to Athens to say “we won” and then die. Of course, there’s not really any strategic decisions required from the information of “we won”, so in this version he ran himself to death for basically no reason at all

• Norway are playing England in the football
• Ireland historically dislikes England
• The room being painted like that is very heavy-handedly implying that the Dublin fire brigade is supporting Norway because they want England to lose

Norway are playing England in the football world cup tonight

Thank you for sharing this, it’s cool!

Having worked as a supermarket cashier prior to self checkouts becoming a thing and in the early days of them getting established - early enough that some people genuinely demanded to see my manager because they wanted to be paid the 20 pence that they would have earned working as a cashier for the duration that it took them to scan their things - my experience is that they were staffing that low anyway. There were just longer queues.

For a given number of cashiers on staff, having at least some self-checkouts makes everything move faster. If a self checkout takes twice as long while you’re actually at it but a single cashier can run six of them, that’s still three times as many customers handled by that cashier. Those numbers are made up, of course, but the point is that unless you’re hiring so many cashiers that there are never any queues, it’s not necessarily slower to have self-checkouts, it just shifts time from waiting in the queue to scanning items

Even the little corner shop in my town of a couple thousand people has one now. There’s no way that a second full checkout would fit in the space, nor is hiring another staff member to work it likely to be realistic, so it’s a straight upgrade in capacity

Supermarkets in my area have had separate basket and trolley self-checkout areas for a good while. Basket ones are what you describe, trolley ones have enough space for a trolley on one side and about three or four times as much packing area on the other

Mate you had Cummand and Cuckquer right there

Genderswap Felix Leiter as well and have her annoy Bond because she can get men even faster than Bond can get women

There’s a reasonable disticntion to be drawn between tourist areas and areas that are just a bit wilder / grander / less-accessible, surely? The two categories can overlap, sure, but they’re not the same thing

Somewhat besides the point of the conversation, that’s a really nice photo. I normally feel like my cheap phone’s camera is good enough with a bit of creative usage, but stuff like that lovely narrow band in focus really shows what it can’t do

Nice work! I do agree that there’s a great deal of interesting stuff in less visually-appealling places, but I wouldn’t want to tell someone that there’s no value in bearing witness to natural beauty on a grander scale than what can be found behind a warehouse

Some of this seems quite strange to me. I hope you don’t mind me asking a bit about it / challenging some of it

Regarding the balance of physical exertion vs awareness of the natural world around you: with the exception of seriously gruelling climbs, surely nothing stops you from climbing a mountain or otherwise going on a tougher hike at the same slower pace that you describe enjoying? I certainly don’t hurry up mountains when I climb them. I take detours if I see something interesting, stop to watch wildlife if I see it, break for lunch when I find a nice viewpoint (and take all litter with me, of course). It does indeed take me a lot longer, but there’s nothing wrong with that, I just have to account for it when I’m planning. What you’re describing seems to me more like going for a run through a local forest than going for a pleasant walk through it. Sure, there’s no way to do Everest casually, but Everest is not what most people who consider hiking to be a hobby they partake in are usually doing

“…but why did I need to come here myself when so many others already have? With video cameras, cameras, notebooks… leaving trash and human impact everywhere on one of the most unique spots on earth with all the gear one could imagine. Am I exploring or trampling?”

I don’t think that videos and photos can meaningfully replace the experience of being somewhere yourself. I’m sure you would not consider photos of your local forest to be a replacement for your walk in that forest. It is absolutely worthwhile and important to consider the impacts of going somewhere, and if someone cannot go to a place without vandalising it then they probably should not go, but that doesn’t invalidate the power of a personal experience

Within me is not a hierarchy of landscapes

With all due respect, there is. You’re not advocating for walks around industrial estates or by the side of a busy road or just doing laps of your own home. You’re right that there’s a great deal of good to see in places that are less obviously notable, and also that many people miss out on that good by failing to consider it, but I don’t think we do anyone any favours by pretending that there’s no such thing as a more interesting landscape

Top left: Tomio Okamura, leader of a Czech political party

Top centre: Kaja Godek, leader of a Polish activist organisation

Top right: József Szájer, former Hungarian MEP for Viktor Orban’s party

Bottom left: couldn’t find this one

Bottom centre: former Hungarian MEP

Bottom right: Grzegorz Braun, Polish MEP

They are all, of course, bigoted shites

You probably know this stuff better than me since you’re coeliac, but just in case you don’t: try the Loopy Whisk’s bread recipes. I have a couple of coeliac family members and these are by far the best results I’ve gotten for making gluten free bread for them

I went to read the reblogs, and most of the German replies seem to be talking about phrases more like “don’t you have any hobbies?”. The exception to this is one person who I think is writing in Bavarian - it’s definitely not what I as an outsider think of as “standard” German, anyway - and they are going with “Hobbiloses Vahoidn”. Maybe if it’s not just OP translating it loosely, it’s specifically a Bavarian expression?

Considering its influence on visible public conversation, particularly how often news outlets report on A Thing Someone Tweeted, I would suggest it’s at least partly to blame. Certainly not the only culprit, but I don’t think Elon Musk bought it to not shape public discourse