I only have experience with European countries, and from those I pick Austria. Very self-centered people; even service staff is very unfriendly (in the rare occasions where the staff is actually Austrian). Pet peeve of mine: I’ve never seen people skipping the queue as often as in Austria.

We often gave high winds and rain. Last month, a wind storm damaged loads of roofs in my neighbouhood, and some people only noticed after the leaks started.

In addition, construction in Ireland is notoriously bad, and one of the first things we did was to fly over a family member who has decades of roofing experience, and he fixed potential leaks. Just as well, as we have neighbours who already had to change some of their timber supports that started rotting. We are still pretty paranoid about the roof quality, though.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

• Isaac Asimov, 1980

There were people warning against the glorification of ignorance in the US nearly half a century ago. It’s nothing new; it just reached critical mass (also thanks to social media where ignorant people can self-organise).

I live in Ireland. I’ll probably have my heating on during the colder nights, and I’ll check the roof for leaks once per week or so.

About once every 3-4 weeks. It is costly, but I get them off Anazon at a reasonable price. The box of bags also comes with two sets of filters that need to be replaced regularly.

For people with pets, the Cat & Dog version. Just be aware that the brushes in the hoover head tend to wear out in 4-5 years, depending on the frequency of hoovering and amount of hardfloors. A genuine replacement head can get a bit pricy; for the Cat & Dog head even more so.

There are large companies, many of them in Germany, who are owned by foundations. Perhaps the best known is Bosch, which is almost entirely owned by a charitable foundation. Another very large one is ZF Friedrichshaven, owned by the Zeppelin Foundation. They don’t do any consumer products, but are one of the world’s largest players in the automotive industry.

I did so last week, when the amount of posts where Sync wouldn’t show me the comments became annoying. I switched to Boost, and after some tinkering got it to a state where the UI was adequate for me.

I drank Earl Grey even before I was aware of TNG. For me, the smell of loose dry Earl Grey is by far the most appealing smell ever. The brewed tea loses some of that aroma, but not that much.

The Lock picking lawyer. Too bad the videos are so short; he has a very soothing voice.

And, of course, the OG Bob Ross. I do oil pastel drawing, and often take inspiration from his works.

Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw many moons ago: “War is not the answer. It’s the question.”

I used mineral oil for the same effect.

I’m personally not sure how it works. But when we were upgrading our bathroom, the tile shop added the VAT to the quoted sale price. I then asked a friend of mine who is VAT-registeted to buy it for us, and he got it from the same warehouse for the non-VAT price.

I agree overall, but VAT is not all that difficult to evade, at least in the service industry. Paying handymen in cash is common in many countries, and that’s a means to evade VAT. Hell, even using them to buy the building or landscaping materials for you (being a registered business they purchase for prices without VAT) saves you on most of the tax. Then there’s service barter. I did it only once, a long time ago, but it can serve as an example: I did family portraits (photography) for my physio, in exchange for a number of physio sessions. If we charged each other, it would have cost each of us, say, 250 Euros, but we’d only see 200 each, and the state would get 100. So, savings of 50 for each of us.

Got me good. Thanks for the laugh.

Not everyone has smartphones. And speaking of Covid, not having a smartphone bit me in the arse because many businesses only accepted digital vaccination certs. I survived that, though, and I’ll survive not giving business to places that require you to have a smartphone.

I have been downvoting every post I came across that has a link to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. If those links are banned, I’ll have fewer downvotes to hand out. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work.

You mean the rapist Brock Allen Turner?

I call shenanigans. The only fax messages these days are either in German or in Japanese.

Dude looks more like Nic Cage than Gene Wilder. So, this movie is still doable, and I’d pay good money to see it.