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.

I remember this type of discussions and the exact same arguments on Reddit, or was it Digg, way back when. Classic rock then was Phish or Grateful Dead.
Well, as a result, I’ve never gotten into these two particular bands, but I did start listening to music that’s like 10 or 20 years older than the stuff I grew up with. In fact, only recently, I’ve gotten a record player and some vinyl records. Works great for lo-fi rock which is imperfect by design.

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.

• 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.

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.”

One of my family members paid something like 60 € to see Michael Jackson in the 90s. I still remember how back then, I thought “what an outrageous price tag.”

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

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

Two for me.

After my dad had locked me out of the computer room, I learned how to pick locks. And I’m not even kidding.

That 1935 piece surely seems prophetic. For example this part:

Development of the anti-scientific and anti-cultural campaign, cutting down of education

For the last five or so years, I’ve been noticing a surge of anti-intellectualism. People are not any longer ashamed to publicly dismiss “smart alecks” and “know-it-alls”.

I just watched that video of the white cabbage larva with the smaller larvae exiting its body. Jeez, it’s still alive after THAT? Life’s rich pageant, I guess.

Geez, that reminds me of a former colleague that, when asked for “the numbers,” would just send screenshots of tables in the ERP system instead of exporting them to a spreadsheet. What’s even worse, usually a lot of values were plain wrong, on one occasion more than half of them.

I feel you…

🎶 I can’t seem to face up to the facts
I’m tense and nervous and I can’t relax
I can’t sleep 'cause my bed’s on fire
Don’t touch me, I’m a real live wire 🎶

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A sixpack a day keeps the anal away.