People banging on about having “generational wealth” is a pet peeve of mine. If you have it you wouldn’t talk about it, and it’s fine to want to set you kids up but you mostly want to spaff it all on awful shit people told you was bougie.

I miss the days when people who got rich suddenly bought jetskis, a good toilet, and blew it all having an amazing time. There’s an honesty to that I can respect (as a poor).

The only one I enjoyed was Branagh’s Cinderella. Good visuals, no weird messing with the story, just a straight up retelling, just with good acting and direction.

My Dad took me to an empty car park at his work of a weekend. Many a happy afternoon slamming the brakes on in a pre-power steering MK2 ford fiesta

They look pretty decent to be fair; I should clarify that I’m not an audiphile in any way either, somif anyone comments that their audio quality is sub par I have to say that I’ve come to the realisation that being a perfectionist only serves to ruin the enjoyment of the okay.

I also remember hearing that surgeons who play videogames tend to perform better at their jobs too.

Hand eye co-ordination (especially when looking at a screen without direct feedback in your hands), stressful situations, long stints of focus…

There’s lots of benefits to gaming!

You’re thinking of Aung San Suu Kyi.

She follows the trend of Nobel Peace Prize winners being unbelievably hypocritical; to pull a quote from foreign diplomat to Myanmar:

Her government has been as enthusiastic about jailing journalists and government critics as the military government that preceded hers

The people whose needs it serves are presumably the people who take profit from Rappi.

I get that the news source here is aiming for positivity but it reeks of advertorial.

Money talks.

Autopsy reports are vague and contradictory. They describe women with evidence of trauma, including burns and electric shocks, all labeled natural deaths.

The thinking is, presumably, that it’s natural for slaves to die.

Anyone I’ve ever met who has worked in Saudi Arabia and the UAE has acknowledged that there’s an unbelievable amount of racism. Everybody knows about it, but you can’t criticise them, because otherwise the oil money and tax breaks stop. It’s sickening.

Ironically the people that will post the former online will all live in the latter.

Fair enough! I know some people who have plenty of space but prefer small furniture because of the increase in floor space it gives them - but beds are something I mever factored into my practice of minimalism!

Why did you downsize the bed - is it just a matter of space for you at that point?

I used to be pretty big on minimalism as a younger man, around the time the Minimalists were blogging (and before they became a business in their own right). I was single, rented, and it made my life much easier. But I found after a while that the “purging” was sort of a way to avoid living with myself (or to obsess over the wrong stuff).

I still like it but the collection of stuff and things around me are a way to connect with who I was, and the life I’ve lived, and am living. And it’s a nice way to share a space with my partner. Even if her coffee table is too big.

Some great points about ebikes in there, as well as some awful takes on the gig economy.

I think good ebikes are great and I used to make a living selling them. The best use cases are where delivery companies own and operate them and handle last-mile stuff using cargo ebikes. The purchase scheme type stuff is pretty good too if they’re serious about the bikes they offer and can assist with maintenance because that adds up quite quickly.

Good ebikes are utterly brilliant and if I lived in a city I’d be all over a long tail cargo bike as my daily driver. They’re amazing machines really.

The cynic in me always comes out though; the issue I have (which hampers their uptake more generally I think) is that for most gig economy riders the good ebikes are prohibitively expensive so most of them are on some shonky cobbled together DIY pedelecs (as opposed to EPAC’s) which are made of very cheap bikes fitted with dodgy motors and batteries which are dangerous and illegal mostly as they’re generally not speed restricted and on a throttle. It paints a bad picture of ebikes for the general public (being ridden dangerously, too fast, fire hazards, and means that lots of their obvious advantages get eclipsed by the public outrage invited by the use of these dubious BSOs.

Side note:

“The gig economy is really important for immigrants, it helps them integrate,” Rosales says. “It is a quick option to make money.”

Made me sick in my mouth. Proper jobs and support help immigrants integrate. The gig economy traps people in a low wage work-til-you-burn-out cycle. The only people it benefits are the companies engaged in a race to the bottom, ripping off their drivers and the people who use the service (businesses and customers).

/Rant.

I go from “God is a kid with a magnifying glass” to “everything is as it is, and when I die that’s it, nothing happens afterwards”, with varying shades of agnosticism in between.

I still find churches (well, big ones made by people hundreds of years ago, not meeting halls) super chill. I visited a catholic shrine on my holidays last year and I found it really peaceful. I enjoy the “practice” of that aspect of religion in that respect. But I can’t square my experience of the world with anything other than an awful god who wouldn’t warrant any attention anyway.

It does indeed - the overseas thing is nuts! I guess they assume you’ve become an oil baron or something and must therefore be a secret moneybags?

You’re doing better than me on the frugality front, I suppose I have the benefit of a UK based, mid level salary! I’m looking forward to my loan being written off in the not too distant future!

I know it makes no difference really, but is that legal? Could doctors not intervene? Could ICE be liable for death or injury incurred from deporting a citizen?

I’m not being funny but if it’s impacting you this much you must be earning a significantly above average wage, no?

I’ve been paying off my (plan 1) loan for 17 years near enough and it hardly makes a dent in my payslip.

They don’t support Putin. They just hate the US and NATO. Enemies of enemies and all that.

If you want to buy stocks to support European development there’s much better options!

I’ll start with the easiest one! They’re members of an independent church which is a member of the Evangelical Alliance in the UK. My dad’s background is Anglican, and my mum’s is Baptist. They’re both pretty okay with individual differences (as long as it’s a protestant one!), so they’re open to minor differences in belief - you can basically write these down to different interpretations of the scriptures. They are okay with discussing these differences.They were okay when I was a member of a Quaker congregation, but they don’t really get Catholicism - they see some stuff as idolatrous but they’re not anti catholic.

Their reconciliation of the ‘holes’; this one is trickier. The fact that it’s difficult to pin down a historical Jesus (when we know about other people factually from the same era) is just sort of glossed over. Regarding the possibility of metaphysical stuff they’re actually pretty chill with admitting that there’s things we don’t know, in part because of things like dark matter, or the development of a knowledge of atomic particles etc - for them I think it’s more a case of “we can’t prove it yet” rather than “it can’t be proved”. They love science because for them it’s a proof of the elegance of creation; they believe that evolution, for example, is perfectly in line with a creator God - for them God is the spark at the beginnig of everything. A good summary of their attitude to the holes is:

Science is full of stuff that seems counterintuitive to “rational thought” (ie. Virtual particles etc) so why is that any weirder than an irrational belief in a God whose existence you can’t prove?

Lastly, I’ve never outright told them I don’t believe. Partially because where I stand fluctuates daily, but mostly because my life is enough of a tell - I have lived out of wedlock with my partner for the best part of 10 years, I drink to excess, don’t attend church, etc., and I have spoken to my sister (who I know will talk to my parents) about not being a Christian in any practical sense. They know I’m a good person and for them I guess it’s not problematic (and they’re not “fire and brimstone” types so I don’t know if they’re worried for my eternal soul or not but they’re content seeing me happy and being true to my conscience I guess!