As usual, entirely specific to the USA market.

So cute how spherical robins are. Presumably because of their small size and need to keep the cold at bay. Tiny wrens look even more ball-like.

Difficult to see how these bromides about the Rules-Based Order will do anything but encourage a vain bully like Trump. Because this is personal, it makes no sense in any other terms.

My intuition is that the better response would be measured bellicosity. Say: “Sure you could ‘conquer’ Greenland, but it would be your Afghanistan. The Greenlanders would fight a guerilla war against you, and since Greenland is part of Denmark, we Europeans - your former allies - would have to supply them. After all, it’s part of our territory, we would have no choice. So. Up to you.”

Thus proving the almost total arbitrariness of defining Europe as a “continent” but here we are.

Yeah, all surely true and it’s always the solution given and it’s even the greenest one. But I just don’t think this is a real solution for normies, who tend to buy computers new (to the extent that they even buy them any more). And in this respect I’m like them, personally.

Hmm. Having trouble parsing your negatives but I think you’re saying “expensive”.

What bothers me is that a decade ago there were loads of Linux-compatible budget netbooks on sale at every big-box retailer, whereas there seems to be nothing today under 500 bucks/euro except Chromebooks, and nothing at all with a smallish screen except mega-expensive ultrabooks. It’s becoming a problem.

Great job. As I see it the real problem is that low-end Wintel laptops seem to be going away, replaced first by Chromebooks and soon probably by Android laptop edition, which presumably will have the non-Intel architecture and weird blobs and locked bootloader of any smartphone. Or is this too pessimistic?

Indeed, I haven’t heard of bike theft on trains either. Problem is, if the thief can pull it off, it makes the perfect crime. As the victim you’re basically screwed the moment the doors close and the train starts to move. This is why I never let my eyes off luggage or bikes when on a train. Even more so on a bus.

That explains it. Those things are like virtual voyeurs.

Is it like a shopping trolley where you get the coin back at the end?

Yes.

Is it like a shopping trolley where you get the coin back at the end?

You turn the key and out comes the key! Like coin-operated lockers in train stations. Better not lose the key!

Agreed about the hangers. It’s always a mess, they only really suit skinny racing bikes. And everyone else needs to babysit their bike if only to stop it rolling away.

This time with the lock I actually went and sat in a normal seat elsewhere for once! I’m sold.

Beautiful. How did you get that close?

Why do all cars since about 1920 have “fat” tires? It’s the same reason.

Never understood why the arian particle can’t just be dropped. Same deal for the horribly unwieldy (but genuinely useful) authoritarianism, whose French equivalent is the more elegant autoritarisme.

English is an ugly messy language. There, I said it.

I’ve been using it for a few years

undergoing a significant rewrite for the 0.4 release

I plan to try it when it’s ready. Some time next century at this rate.

Telling random strangers to get help is not “conducive to that end” either, IMHO.

Fascinant, merci.

Le monde semble être en train de se diviser en deux camps technologiques : le camp du futur, soit le tout-électrique chinois, et une arrière-garde nihiliste menée par les USA et déterminée à poursuivre la fête fossile jusqu’à la fin. Qui sera moche.

The election is in a few months. That will be the moment of danger for Orbán.

California’s (i.e. the USA’s) inability to complete the most basic high-speed rail project is making it the laughing stock of the developed world.

Japan managed this in 1964. France in 1981. And China has indeed built literally tens of thousands of kilometers of line in an astonishing fast period, and yes, mostly in the last 15 years.

So, on the contrary, this cartoon is directionally right in every way.

Alternatively, it was a missed golden opportunity for Norway to prove that it considers capital punishment wrong on principle, not contingently wrong. Israel missed the same opportunity.