In a very traditional Afghan restaurant I used to frequent, if you ordered something really spicy, they’d bring you these small mint drops afterwards to chew on, no extra charge. Worked very well for me.

Yeah, I’ve had a realization a few days ago when I checked out about a dozen songs that had north of 10 million views on YT, but I’ve never heard of them, at all, or of the artists behind them. And all of those were from some 10 years ago. So I guess my taste in music is kind of frozen in time and I’ve been trying for a while to complete collections of “old” artists rather than getting to know new ones.
I do get occasional inspiration from the folks at I Love Music, though.

deleted by creator

They are all over Europe. I have three or four within walking distance. And they can hold some amazingly large items, too.

• Language is by far the most important door opener, so put in one hour of learning every day for at least a year.
• Mingle to get out of your comfort zone: Go to after-work parties and flea markets, take public transit. Use hobbyist/ meet-up apps. Read/ watch the local news.
• Don’t expect to be invited, especially not to people’s homes. People might also be uncomfortable being invited to your home. Meeting in a public place is almost always the better option, unless you’ve gotten to know someone really well.
• Irony/ sarcasm don’t translate very well between cultures.
• Europe has some lousy weather, so get watertight coats and waterproof your shoes and backpacks.
• Take it slow.
• Also: Enjoy it! Europe is a fantastic little place at the crossroads between Asia and Africa and I would never want to leave.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do learn from history are doomed to look on helplessly as everybody else repeats it.

This fantastic opening quote must have also been Marx’s weirdest flex.

There are many forums like that, especially if you’re not limited to one language. Most of the ones I frequent have been around for 10 or 20 years or more, but kind of fly under the radar. ilxor being a very good example. AFAIK, the latter also adds only one new user per day. I’d say that’s a good thing, even though I had to apply several times.

Solé’s fantastic and extremely recommendable book “Phase Transitions” covers this as well. Quoting Janssen et al.: “even when the group is faced with negative results, members may not suggest abandoning an earlier course of action, since this might break the existing unanimity.”
“More generally, the underlying problem here is why complex societies might fail to adapt […]. Even if there is some social perception of risk, short-term thinking often prevails when facing long-term vulnerabilities. Such undesirable behavior is often favored by a combination of incomplete understanding of the problem, together with the misleading view that all changes are reversible.”

The timeless art of seduction

Surely that took a lot more practice than doing a cucumber. So I was told.

Yeah, the 90s were a good time for movies that could not have been mainstream in any other decade. I’d place Judge Dredd, Demolition Man and Total Recall in the same “corny, but excellent” league as the 5th Element.
Then you had unofficial double features of sorts: Smoke/ Blue In The Face, Casino/ Goodfellas.
12 Monkeys needs to be mentioned as well, it’s probably the most palatable movie on my list.
In the “disconcerting, but unforgettable” league, I’d place As Good As It Gets, The Crossing Guard and, of course, the grisly “8 mm.”

Oh, yeah. It unofficially spawned “Friends,” too. Also, if you watch the music videos of the OST songs, you’ll find many (all?) of them have a “Singles” movie poster hanging somewhere. What an amazing level of coordination.

The next iteration of gaslighting is already here: That it’s no big deal anyway since you can just use an ad blocker. Riiight, let’s all just turn our eyes away to make the monster go away. Surely, it’ll get bored and stop listening and recording, and surely, it will not sell its collected data off to banks, insurance providers, the government, law enforcement… right?

Normative nihilism is going to get us all.

Needs more “amazing.” Seriously, screw these corporate ass monkeys.

Take that, Kirkpatrick Sale.

What in the world is going on with Elsie’s hand in the “second of the five photographs?”