Lorindól

The minister in charge of these issues is a religious homophobe and the “party” he represents is more like a loose protest coalition of confused conservatives and racists.

Our prime minister “would have liked Finland to join the initiative, but the ministers have the authority in their own cabinets”. The racists have our prime minister’s balls in a grip, since the government would dissolve if they got offended and decided to leave. And since the current right wing government is the only chance to crush the labour unions’ power, prime minister Orpo seems to be more than willing to suffer one humiliation after another to win this prize for the corporate sector.

Yes. I’ll happily pay extra if it goes to Ukraine.

This is the core doctrine of Russian warfare.

1. Armies fight armies. Unit casualty rates over 50-60% are completely acceptable.

2. If decisive victory cannot be achieved by fighting, begin systematic destruction of the opponent’s infrastructure and society to crush to their morale.

3. If 1 and 2 should fail, use of nuclear weapons to achieve the preset goals is the next step.

This is what has been taught to their generals for a long time.

Parkside’s value-for-money quality has been astonishing these past few years. I took the risk with them maybe 4-5 years ago and not one power tool from their lineup has had any problems yet. Today I just set up their quiet compressor at my garage, and the damn thing really is so silent that you can even have a discussion using your normal voice when it’s running.

This is the way.

I solely used Netscape Navigator since it came out and after it fell I chose Firefox. My interface has always been modded to look permanently like Firefox 3.6.

Everything is where I want it to be and everything works perfectly.

Many moons ago my employer tried to force us to use only Internet Explorer / Edge for reasons they were unable to explain - since there were none, technically or otherwise. I rebelled and remotely installed Firefox with Adblock / uBlock Origin to every personal computer (I was the unofficial IT guy) and told my co-workers to try it out.

At the next meeting we were told that the use of Firefox is not only approved but recommended. The magic of an “ad free browser” had taken hold, people found it vastly superior and had been vocal about their newfound dislike of MS browsers.

To my surprise I wasn’t even reprimanded in any way.

One kid sniffed lighter gas and jacked off during 9th grade chemistry class. He passed out and fell off his chair and hit his head to the floor with his dick still clutched in his hand.

The teacher was so terrified that she couldn’t do anything but stutter and shake violently. Me and a couple of my friends dragged the idiot outside to get fresh air while waiting for the ambulance.

The sniffer came back to school the next day like nothing had ever happened. This incident was never again discussed in any way by the teachers or other faculty members.

There were lots of totally crazy shit happening on a weekly basis. The early 90’s were pretty wild where I grew up.

I remain baffled by this. But since I can barely differentiate red and green in optimal lighting conditions, it does not come as a surprise.

I set X-Wing Alliance up for my 13 year old son some time ago. He absolutely loved it.

“You had games likes this back in the dark ages?!”

Wow. That was far better than most of the official sequels.

True.

I think I’ve reached the age where finding out I’ve been wrong about something isn’t all that bad. Accept and examine the presented facts and you just learn something new. And there’s no shame in that.

This is worse than terrible. Now Trump gets to play martyr and it rallies up his base, even the ones who were in doubt after his conviction.

And as the chaos ensues, Putin is laughing at his throne.

Yep, after comparing both images more closely I am now certain that I was wrong. The structural dissimilarities are simply too great, even for a heavily modified model.

This is a good reminder for me to keep my facts straight before I start claiming truths online, based on just memories from quarter a century ago ;)

Thank you for kindly showing me my mistake!

I did my service in the late 90’s and a gun just like on the picture above was on display at the gun exhibit at the RUK main hall. It was of course heavily modified according to the wishes of the buyer, but built upon the basic RK-95 frame.

Here’s a link that somewhat matches my memories:

https://metsastysjakalastus.fi/sakon-aseaarteet-sako-rk-95-762x39-kultainen-ase/

EDIT:

It is completely possible I am wrong. There are bound to be a large number of gilded AK-variants in the arab courts, everyone probably wanted their own after the first one got them. The picture does match my memory, but it was a long time ago…

That is a gilded SAKO RK-95.

I saw one on display in the late 90’s, they were a special batch ordered by the Royal Guard of the Arab Emirates or Quatar, if memory serves correctly. The image does not give away how mindblowingly cool it was in real world.

EDIT:

I was mistaken. It is not RK-95 but some other AK variant, as OP clearly points out in the comments.

We X’s were born into the analog world and grew up as the digital age started to emerge. We have the luxury of knowing both.

According to Wikipedia, one S-500 system has a ~ $2.5 billion price tag and it still is unable to protect itself ;)

Destroying one with nearly any ordnance available will give you the best bang for a buck one can possibly get. The murderous thieves may find it very hard to replace these with the sanctions up, which is nice.

I wish they had left the 32nd century as a “Discovery - only”. After the jump to the future it felt like the show had no stakes. Everything felt disconnected.

It feels like an easy excuse for the writers to pull just about anything out of their asses, “because it has been so long” and “tech has evolved exponentially”.

SNW proved that there was a lot more to explore even in the 23rd century. So much could have been done with the fallout of the Dominion War in the 24th.

But it’s all up to the writers. If they’re good the show can be good.

Indeed it is. And still our right wing populists are constantly screeching how the “general media is clearly and unfairly left-biased,” and “how the other side of the story remains untold”.

No shit, Sherlock. Nearly all journalists have college or university degrees, that’s what happens when you open your mind to the larger world.

This, definitely.

We got to live our teens and twenties without smartphones and social media - and it was so awesome.

You did something incredibly embarassing last weekend when you were drunk? No need to worry about photos or videos online and nobody would remember or care a few weeks later.

You date someone a few times and things don’t match up? You move on, no need to worry about them stalking or badmouthing you online.

The world seemed to be on a course for the better and the dumbass populist movements were marginal in most countries. Future looked bright and it was easy to be carefree. We got to enjoy our youths.

There were no short or vertical videos. You had to read vast majority of the information available, which made you actually process the info. And someone had put in the effort to write the stuff coherently, because no-one would read the kind of crap that video bloggers are spewing out of their mouths.

By the time we started working, the economic situation was mostly stable and getting a loan for a house or an apartment was pretty much guaranteed.

And so much more. I count myself extremely lucky to have been born in the late 70’s.

I had the same exact approach back in the late 90’s. My friends had several band projects and when they were mixing their demos, I insisted that if the mixes sound good in a standard car stereo, they’ll sound good anywhere.