As a Norwegian: seconded. It’s tough to get real close and personal with Nordic people. We have smaller friend groups and don’t swap out friends often, but that is largely because we are quite loyal. So when you’re in, you’re in to stay.

Doesn’t work for network shares as far as I can tell. At least not without some funky magic

That, my friend, is the problem for whichever schmuck is in charge after me, a C Suite executive. By then I will be long gone on my private island, having pulled the rip cord on my golden parachute.

Contrapoints’ latest video is a very good one you might find interesting. It’s sort of a PhD in video form, very deeply researched. The topic is heterosexuality, framed through the Twilight stories. It’s long and pretty meaty

Yeah AvE was a punch in the nuts

The reference in this specific pamphlet is against education that teaches evolution (and also by extension anything else the specific Christian sect disagrees with such as equality and other liberal values). Education is good as long as you’re learning “The Truth(™)”: maths, history and religion

I grew up in this kind of environment. Every religion and denomination except your specific subset of Christianity is bad, you’re taught.

Sounds like your attitude isn’t “I don’t know” but rather “I believe”. They’re not the same. In my view the default position should be agnostic atheism until such a time as you can be gnostic in either direction.

Kitchen stuff: a carbon steel wok, a Dutch oven and a bread form. Also an electric toothbrush.

But most of all: a fully automatic bean to cup coffee machine

Uh, yes. The UN has condemned Hamas’ acts of terror. Does that clarify things for you?

Just shooting from the hip here, but I think maybe you can see cults as a subset of cultures.

A cult is a small group defined by an authority figure, how it treats its members and its relationship with the rest of the world. They are often small groups, but can be large like Jehova’s Witnesses.

Cults are usually a subset of a religious faction, like baptists or Lutherans, which in turn is a subset of for example Protestantism. (There are non-religious cults as well of course).

And confusingly religions exist within cultures and can be a core part of their identity, but one religion can also exist in a totally different culture.

So I think you’re trying to compare all apples with a specific type of oranges here.

There are some events that are costlier to plan for than to clean up after. I’m not sure if this is one of those, but…

I’m sure that didn’t help but that’s a drop in the proverbial ocean. There have been many severe rainstorms since that happened and nothing like this occurred

The water management infrastructure is excellent. But it was designed to cope with century floods, not the kind that happen every other century.

Edit: the drainage systems were in fact designed to cope with a once-in-200-years flood. But this was a 500 year flood. A quarter of Hong Kong’s annual rainfall poured down in a day—and this is a place with notorious rain storms through the summer

Minority advocate?

When I was doing the same research a few years back Fastmail was recommended to me and I’ve been very happy with it. It was fairly easy to set up with an email address from my own domain too.

Could be this? https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/17/us/florida-math-textbooks-critical-race-theory

“ DeSantis said state officials “got rid” of Common Core, a standardized teaching method rolled out in 2010. The method requires children to group numbers to solve arithmetic problems, rather than the vertical “carry the one” method familiar to most adults. The approach goes beyond simple computation to emphasize deeper mathematical concepts. The department said some of the rejected textbooks incorporated Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and references to critical race theory – two frameworks or philosophies that some conservative groups claim are being used to indoctrinate students. Some schools around the country have recently used SEL strategies to help students cope with stress and the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning defines SEL as a teaching framework aimed at helping “young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” More than a dozen states have set standards for teaching SEL in grade schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But as more states consider SEL strategies, conservative groups have claimed critical race theory is embedded into the framework.”

Windows 11 also does that. You have to jump to the command line and do some stuff mid-install to get it to install without an internet connection. Boggles the mind