Plenty. I have had people tell me I am inhumane for criticising tipping culture, and if I point out it is related to the extreme class system and slavery history of America they downvote me to hell and try to justify that it is “land of tha free” or whatever.

They don’t even have freedom from hunger or illness in their messed up country.

Yes, if it had been in Australia. Report it when you see it.

Similar to Memrise, which was really fun when you could make your own mems using imagesearch and customise everything… And now is a rubbish duolingo clone.

Cruise causes microplastics in whales and is the creation of people consulting a buddhist monk? Hmmm.

Bloody stupid bot.

I have, incidentally. Not on purpose: My father rearranged a room whilst I was away, putting the entire disc collection on the north-west-facing wall of the house. Bookcase heated and cooked the lot in the afternoon summer sun that January. He was upset when I explained why nothing worked any more.

…I did. Like I said.

Oh, phone case. You had me very confused.

I dunno, I just use otterbox cases. Because they never give up.

I make dough several times a week. But I use my hands, because I have tried using machines (including the expensive ones) and they make it wrong every time.

I would argue blenders/mixers aren’t on that list. Used my mothers fancy one, used fancy ones at school, used friends fancy devices. And used my rubbish $12 blender from BigW, so I do not see why anyone pays more than $12 for a mixer ever.

Boots, though, shoes, headphones, and laptop. Those are good to be quality.

When the Japanese Earthquake information twitter account was throttled a few days ago, after the earthquake, there seemed to be this general realisation that they were not going to be able to use it for disaster communication any more…

99% invisible.

The Memory Palace.

The History Listen on ABC Radio National (Aussie)

In covid quarantine. Not going out.

It is boxing day here, and we did get a grocery delivery from my family. So someone delivered that. Poor sod.

Apple IIe even has a dot matrix printer still in operation (paper running low though)

But probably my oldest piece is my Beale upright piano, made in the 1920s, still beautiful, still hammering out music.

People keep asking this…

Sounds like a yank. Poor sod.

Dumbphones do all that too.

As others have said, Federation.

I expect it was a random first arrival bias.

DD is common in Australia too. Sometimes they even give you free fizz to DDs.

Come visit Australia sometime. I am certain no children will knock on your windows begging for food and water when you stop at traffic lights (which happened both in cities and the occasional local township) even if you have a rental car (we were borrowing cars from locals, rentals are often too pricey for me). No one will try to steal your bag of groceries either.

If we passed through Gary I didn’t notice. The map puts it in the suburbs of Chicago anyway, perhaps we drove through at the end of our stay? Spent a bit of time in Illinois, then went through Cincinnatti on the way out toward the coast.

These stories are not any one trip, or any one city or state. This is an overview of everywhere in the US as a foreigner. People were begging me for food and stealing food on street corners from (the illinois bit of) Chicago to New Orleans, from Texas to New York. They tapped windows of the car, they stopped me in the street. It was like travelling through what the yanks choose to call a third world country… It isn’t like that in Australia.