Ugh, can relate. I love to read; I used to go through two books per week as a kid during middle school and high school. Not even just fiction, but non-fiction about topics that interested me like space and aviation. I even read books on my Palm Pilot PDA, well before e-readers were a thing.

So as you can imagine, I had an exceptional vocabulary compared to classmates. This had some annoying effects as well. Whenever I did written assignments for a new class with a different teacher, they’d always accuse me of either cheating or plagiarism. Because I was using way more ‘difficult words’ than classmates. A two minute conversation usually cleared it up; they quickly found out that I did in fact do the work and understood the assignment.

I don’t envy teachers today. Reading comprehension has declined sharply, and kids just don’t like to read as much as they did when I was young. Despite the fact that books are now way more accessible to them. I fear it’s going to result in an illiterate generation…

Most people are incredibly lazy when it comes to writing.

Over on Reddit, there’s a subreddit where you needed to write a 500 character text post to accompany your picture. That’s to prevent it from becoming just another photo dumping ground. After all, it is a DISCUSSION forum. DISCUSSION, for emphasis.

Well, that rule - which had existed since the sub was formed - got more and more criticism the past few years. It was deemed ‘too difficult’, ‘elitist’ and other such nonsense. And of course, with people’s terrible reading comprehension, that’s a barrier as well.

For reference, 500 characters is less than two tweets. So most people should be able to write that.

God, I miss the early internet when people put actual effort into writing posts.

Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s what it boils down to. I always see it like this: even if I don’t get the result I want, I’ll at least have the satisfaction that my vote cancelled out someone else’s who’s voting against my interests.

So make sure you show up, or someone else who DOES gets to decide for you.

I’m amazed they even go to that much trouble, or that condemned have a choice in the matter. Just a single bullet to the back of the head should suffice. No need to get creative or prolong any suffering.

If the state feels like it must kill someone, do it with a quick and effective method. This just feels needlessly cruel.

I get it; the entire system sucks. Even here in the Netherlands with a dozen political parties, you rarely get the government you want. But there's still things you can do even if you really don't want to vote in this particular election.

You can support groups that promote voting reform, like ranked choice voting. You can and should vote in all local elections. You can even RUN in many local elections, since candidates frequently run unopposed. You can help inform others about the voting process and get poorly represented groups to vote. If all else fails, there's always the option of shooting your least favorite politician or doing an Oklahoma City. But try those other things first, OK?

Decisions are made by those who show up, it’s as simple as that.

You may hate it, but the Republicans are definitely better at getting people in line, both literally and figuratively. They turn up and vote even if they don’t like the candidate because… that’s their party. And it’s the only one that they feel represents them.

Meanwhile a lot of Democrats stay home because the candidate isn’t the one they wanted, doesn’t support everything they want, is too old/young, etc. There’s this attitude of ‘if I can’t have my perfect candidate, I’m staying home out of protest.’

I get it. Every voter wants a perfect candidate. But perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes.

I always look at it like this: if I vote, I might not always get the outcome that I want, but at the very least I’m nullifying the vote of a person on the other side.

If the other guy shows up and you don’t? That’s how you lose rights.

Be someone who shows the fuck up.

Absolutely disgusting chocolate in my opinion. Chalky and bland. It’s nice that they claim to be about equality, but the product itself just isn’t to my taste. And yes, the dumb way they make these bars also really puts me off.

I just want a normal, boring bar that tastes nice. And this is not the brand for me.

Nope, not a thing in the Netherlands. I know some countries here do have it, like Belgium for particularly serious or specific offenses.

In the Netherlands, you usually face a single judge for smaller crimes and a panel of three judges for more serious offenses. Basically, the judges determine guilt based on the evidence and pass sentences based on general guidelines for similar offenses. Jury trial is something we only know from US TV shows, but it's not something most people here would miss or be comfortable with. The idea is that judges are considered to be impartial enough to be trusted to do their work fairly and honestly. Of course, there are procedures to replace judges in cases where they might not be impartial.

Fair enough if that’s the case. Over here, we get at least a month of paid vacation time and a bunch of days on top of that. So basically, it would just be slightly inconvenient to colleagues if someone had to take a day off. But that’s the same as any sick days, so not much of an issue.

Still though, if you can, I think you should. If nothing else, it’ll give you a front row seat to seeing your judicial system in action. And if you’re a bit more engaged, reading up on things like ‘jury nullification’ is smart if you’re ever called for jury duty.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Well, as long as most of us are still squishy bags of mostly water, Ma Deuce will still be effective. Even if you’re wearing body armor a 50 cal is going to ruin your day. It’s old, but it still punches holes effectively.

I’m always amazed Americans seem to hate it. I’d love it if we had that here in the Netherlands.

When someone commits a crime, they’re not only hurting a specific victim, they’re also hurting the community as a whole. It makes people feel less safe. The victim and offender are represented in the courtroom, so the broader community should be too. A jury feels like a nice way to give them representation.

I’d absolutely sit on a jury if they had it here.

I recently purchased a new computer monitor; an LG Ultragear OLED. It’s as dumb as a bag of rocks - which is why I bought it.

And let me tell you: it’s quite the search to find a monitor that DOESN’T have smart bullshit features built in. Most of them are now set up as if they were a TV first instead of a monitor - as in, you need to go deep into menus to find actual monitor settings.

I’m glad I was able to find a dumb monitor, but I fear it might not be possible anymore when this needs replacement…

I’ve just seen it. It’s better than the reviews would suggest, but it’s not without flaws or quirks.

If you went into it expecting ‘more of Joker 1’ in terms of a straight, by the numbers sequel, you might very well come out disappointed. And there’s no denying that there’s a lot of singing in it, which inherently puts some people off. But if you’re willing to have an open mind, there’s a lot to love here.

I’ve seen terribly reviewed movies that I loved and well reviewed movies that I’ve hated. At the end of the day, it’s all someone else’s opinion anyway.

I was honestly surprised it was out already. I’ve seen a few memes about it the past few months, but my theater hasn’t even run the trailer. It’s also not even in their coming soon listing, which it should be considering it’s supposedly releasing in december here in the Netherlands.

I doubt they’re bothering to run it at all with the reception this got so far. Not unless it manages to capture a ‘so bad you gotta see this train wreck’ cult status between now and december…

These days I just assume nothing’s playable offline. It’s not like my PS5 is ever offline anyway, so it’s not really a point of concern for me.

The actual reason I like physical games is because they’re generally cheaper when they just release and get discounted far sooner than digital games.

For example: Armored Core VI costs 69,99 euros on PS Store.

An online game store here sells it for 19,99 brand new. That means I can buy a copy for myself, I can gift you copy, buy a third one to light on fire as a sacrifice to the gaming gods… and still have money left over for two frozen pizza’s.

That’s why I like physical.

Well sure, the warp core is inherently dangerous. But they seem to have a good grasp on the radiation aspect as well as general safety. It’s also a fairly acceptable trade off to sail among the stars at faster than light speed.

But the transporter? I consider it an inherently evil and untrustworthy device. It basically kills the user, sends an energy beam and reassembles an entity at the other end that thinks it’s the person who just stepped on the pad.

We know this is how it works, because we’ve seen incidents that clearly show us. In TOS ‘The Enemy Within’, Kirk is split into two people. And similarly, in TNG’s ‘Second Chances’, the transporter again splits Riker into two people.

Logically, if the transporter sent and reassembles the actual matter, clearly it wouldn’t be able to make perfect copies. You’d end up with two half scale copies at best. So, the matter used to reassemble is not the same matter that was disassembled. Therefore, the transporter inherently murders anyone who uses it.

So nooooo thank you, I’m taking the shuttle.

Yep. Same here. I’ve got a visual disability, which means I just can’t do things like ball sports. Which was all the PE teacher was really interested in doing. That and the cooper test. I also just don’t like sports in general. The teacher clearly wasn’t interested in trying to find something that worked with my disability.

Year one in high school, I stopped going three months in. Because it obviously wasn’t going to improve.

I basically took that hour to do homework, which was a much more productive use of my time.

Three years later we got a halfway decent PE teacher who was actually willing to at least TRY and accommodate my disability. Hand painted ping pong balls with a bright yellow marker to get me to try that, bought some new colored balls, etc. While it still wasn’t my thing, I was at least willing to try it since he put in the effort. We got along fine because of it.

As an adult though: I don’t do sports and it doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

It’s not the price point. Most of the people who’d be in the market for one wouldn’t buy it because it doesn’t take discs. When I bought my PS5, I specifically bought the disc version. So I’m not going to ‘upgrade’ to a machine that doesn’t have one and only really offers ‘improved performance’ as its main selling point. It just doesn’t make sense.

If you’re new to the platform and are used to buying only digital, it might be more palatable. But as someone who’s been with Sony since the very first PlayStation: I’m gonna pass.

I’m always a bit disappointed with how safe and PG Star Trek is. Because transporters would be an awesome way to put some gruesome body horror into the series.

It really is the scariest thing by far on any ship. The ‘science’ behind transporters basically makes it a murder machine if it works correctly. I want to see what horrors beyond imagination can occur when that thing messes up or is deliberately sabotaged.

These people are utter cunts.

All this does is annoy people and potentially damage the actual art. If they threw soup at oil execs or something, at least it’d be somewhat related to their message. But attacking paintings does nothing.

If I saw that in a museum, I’d punch them in the mouth.