Oman is an impressive country. Although it is most definitely not an island, it almost feels like one. Historically Oman was surrounded by an inhospitable desert and therefore looked outward at the sea. Omani influence can still be seen all over the coast of eastern Africa.

I didn’t believe that specific rule to be relevant to the argument. The Democratic Party includes a wide range of opinions that, in most European countries, would be represented by several different parties. While there are some fringes on the right (Clinton’s racists for example) and some fringes on the left (some Democrats even refer to themselves as democratic socialists despite being closer to social democrats in my opinion). The mainstream that has dominated all three presidencies you mentioned would likely find themselves among small c conservative or (economically) liberal parties in most European political systems that I know.

From what I understand the Democratic Party in the United States is a wide tent that includes people who consider themselves to be democratic socialists all the way to middle of the road, don’t rock the boat kind of folks. While the former might feel at home in a European social democratic party or perhaps even a socialist party, the latter would likely find more common ground among the liberal (in the economic meaning of that term) or conservative/christian democratic parties.

The main difference I feel is that most European countries have representative democracies with proportional representation in their parliament. This usually avoids the lost vote effect if you vote for smaller parties. Therefore, what are usually the wings of larger parties in the United States, would be separate parties altogether in most European countries.

Having said that the core of the Democratic Party and the majority of people in power and office from that party over the last decade or two have been centrists at heart. Even when given the opportunity they didn’t introduce any true universal healthcare. They didn’t address the fact that the minimum wage doesn’t reflect the rising costs most people face. They didn’t address the rapidly growing inequality. They didn’t move the needle on any public transport infrastructure projects. They successfully kept the country running and the economy growing while not seriously changing anything about the underlying structure of the nation. This is evidence enough for me to assert that the Democratic Party would probably be somewhere around Merkel’s CDU, Rutte’s VVD or perhaps Macron’s party (whatever name it’s currently going by) in terms of ideology.

I’m old enough to remember buying physical media. I still do that from time to time. For daily use I have a large library of digital copies of music I bought at various stages of my life. Listening to them costs me nothing and I can listen to them as often as I like for the rest of my life. Technology permitting, even my children may continue listening to what I bought last century. Ownership is a great thing.

Back when I lived on Bickers Eiland it was really awesome to see all of these boats and ships pass by my back window. I really miss living in my home city every once in a while.

Speak for yourself, person who doesn’t require glasses.

Bold of you to presume that the regime doesn’t already have any data it possibly can.

What the fox? Great picture by the way!

There’s a term for what you are describing: enshittification

From my experience it’s just part of the cultural differences. While many Americans, at least in the Midwest where I spent a lot of time for work, are very friendly and outgoing, I hardly ever got the impression that it’s deep or meaningful. From my experience it was very easy to have great conversations with people whom I hardly knew or had met just an hour ago but hardly ever did it go anywhere meaningful.

Now to the question of how does one become this outgoing kind of person: just try and talk to people, remain friendly and open. It will likely take some practice and maybe not be reciprocated by your average European.

The weirdest combination I’ve ever met was a set of female twins. One was named after their mother. The other had a different first name. Must have been really odd when growing up.

Exactly. Above all real world combat experience cannot be trained. Nobody can predict how you react when under fire, at least that was my impression in Charikar province, Afghanistan in ca. 2004. Knowing the basics will definitely be helpful though.

He’s right, you know. If you own an AR you shouldn’t slack on practice. Go to the gun range regularly. Train how to clean and maintain it. You may one day be facing people who are well trained.

You can (and some do) insist, that all phones and other digital devices be left outside or out in a well isolated place like a fridge. Furthermore you can use methods of encryption for both physical notes and digital notes. Neither is completely safe from being compromised, but then again hardly anything truly is.

If you want to be fairly certain to not be monitored, always leave digital devices behind and have meetings in varying locations with few or ideally no other people around. Only discuss confidential information with people you know and trust. Even then, experience from places like East Germany proves, nothing is truly safe from being compromised if enough time and energy is spent on the issue.

The problem with using AI assisted coding in my experience is that you might save time in the short term, you will spend months sorting through the inefficient and error probe spaghetti to unburden your product from all the AI induced technical debt. Use AI as a research tool or as inspiration for potential solutions, never as a copy/paste type of deal

I dread the elections in France in 2027. France is one of the last bastions of Freedom that is capable of standing up to the authoritarian states if push comes to shove. The last few presidential elections have moved France closer and closer to having a Kremlin sock puppet in charge. While they have managed to pull back from the brink a few times, it only needs to go wrong once.

Thanks for sharing! Concerning logistics when travelling I can also share my experience.

I travel on a Dutch passport and my children, while also having Dutch citizenship, travel on German passports because that is where we live and where my wife is from. They also use my wife’s German last name. Therefore, when travelling, my kids and I have different names and nationalities. For some reason nobody ever questioned any of that. I keep a copy of the birth certificate just in case though.

The answer will likely depend on the place in the world and even on the cultural background of individuals getting married. I’ll just share my experience.

We got married out of convenience. While it’s technically possible to arrange the bulk of the legal stuff with various contracts, it is just easier to use the “default contract” that already covers the most common use case. Some legal arrangements, for example cuts to inheritance tax or the right to remain silent when asked about your spouse in legal proceedings, are only available for “real” marriages.

Once we decided to have children we looked into the various arrangements needed to make that work and quickly found out that marriage is the easiest way to sort everything out. In our day to day life nothing really changed. In legal terms quite a lot is now different.

By the way, as others have mentioned, getting married isn’t expensive. All we paid was the administrative fee which was something like 50 Euros.

A really nice picture. Although I have never been to Cape Henlopen, I’ve spent many hours studying maps of Lewes for my hobby as an amateur mapmaker. Sorry for the link to Reddit, but I do feel like I’ve connected to that place somehow by virtue of these creative projects.

Ich bin alt genug, um der Stolze Besitzer eines ADAC-Straßenatlasses zu sein; mittlerweile leider hoffnungslos veraltet :-)