Burn, France, burn. Never liked them baguette shit people anyway. Meanwhile I'm enjoying my 24 C in Engadina. Aaaaahhhh, life is good. It's like farting in the face of a shit cripple in a wheelchair on the metro, you know? You see his face contorting and grimacing and going all "wawawahahwahah" while his nurse twitches her noses and goes "OH CRAP YOU SHAT YOURSELF AGAIN YOU SHIT CRIPPLE I'M GOING TO KILL YOU SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!"

Heroes? Lol. This is life, not a superhero movie. If you hesitate in a life-or-death situation you're dead, or some other people die. The notion that fancy rules could make planned mass murder (war) "civilized" is ridiculous. Go ahead, abide by your rules and when the enemy doesn't care and you lose, you can enjoy living under their heel and console yourself that you were "civilized". You need the whole world to understand that you're not easy pickings.

Your friend would probably have loved to live under the nazis. Is he a nazi, or does he like nazis, or would he be interested in joining the nazi party? News for you, shitboy: civilized nations who are not ready to destroy their enemy and use every mean at their disposal to do so end up being conquered dead civilizations. I'd have gladly nuked Berlin, Rome and anything needed to be nuked in order to win. Your enemy does not care about you and would like to see you dead. If you're not ready to torch them and their families with a flamethrower, just slit your own throat. War is evil. You can't afford to be good when you fight.

Right on! There are WINNERS and LOSERS in every human endeavour, and that's why jocks rule and nerds get their faces shat upon. That said it's good that we finally learned to take proper care of veterans, you had people who had been through hell in WW2 and they were expected to go back and resume their civilian lives like nothing had happened. It took Vietnam and some to learn better. It's good that our nation wins, but our beloved soldiers must be made to feel winners, and they have to know they're supported and liked.

You were duped into thinking he was a lawyer, so all the sexual services you gave him were for nothing, sorry. I would have volunteered to fly that mission, knowing full well what it entailed. You do not fight a war with a hand tied behind your back. You hit the enemy as hard as you can and you make it bleed, suffer and die. War is violence, and moderation in war leads to defeat on the side that is so stupid as to restrain itself. You got a problem with that? I don't care. In fact, I shit on your face.

They simplified some things and added drama (brief conflict among the crew when there was none). If you compare the mid-course correction while earth-bound in the movie with all the excitement and yelling and frantic stuff with the radio comms you'll be surprised at how calm and concentrated they were. That said it's still the best astronaut movie. Check out the book "Lost Moon" if you want more details on 8 and 13.

I did see Lovell in person years ago at an Apollo history-related event. Very nice guy, big friendly smile, was very fond of everyone he had worked and flew with.

Adults have this nasty habit of voting and it's best not to antagonize them at this moment. It's also why the band is until the 16th year. Had it been until the 18th, those new voters would have made their displeasure felt. Kids usually do not care what they could or could not do 2 years ago. It's absolutely safe for the government.

Swiss economy is dying. They had the chance - big chance - to transition to a technological economy 30 years ago. They have two of the best technical schools in the world, ETHZ and EPFL, and they decided to sit on them because banks were going to be there forever. 30 years down the lane banks are going out and there is no plan B. I feel sorry for them, been living among Swiss for about 20 years and they're good people on average, but they inherited too much of old-time risk aversion and you couldn't change their mind if you held a handful of gold ingots in their face. They've been taught to avoid risks, do not make waves, toe the line. Much as the rest of the Europe they shun, really. They're in for two or three generations of hard times, if they can make it through. Doubtful.

30 years ago them ee-tah-lean judges killed the whole BBS scene in the country with the Italian Crackdown: one of them woke up one morning and decided that all that computer telephone traffic must have been illegal because, well because and the police acted harshly and with typical arrogance and ignorance. In the end not one prosecution was made but the italian BBS scene was utterly devastated and its main actors too shaken and intimidated to carry on. We're talking equipment taken away for months (including mouse mats because ZOMG they must be compyootah thingie things) and sometimes given back in pieces with no refund.

While I missed the company, the food and after-hours, I was glad I left Italy behind. It's an insane place to work. Too bad because it's got potential and lots of diversity, but its political and judicial system should be thrown into the Etna.

Rome invented laws. Italy is another thing and is not a successor state, much as Italians would like you to believe otherwise. Rome had been dead for centuries before Italy could become a nation and the average Roman citizen would not even understand Italy as a nation-state because they did not have the concept back then. The language is different, the historical context is different, the religion is different, the culture is different. It would be like calling the Icelanders "Vikings".

As for italian laws, I have lived and worked there: there are too many of them, way too complex and the judicial system is a mess, with judges pretty much in charge of everything and bureaucracy being a farce. The average Italian is quite smart, genial and some of them are really brilliant but you have to understand that they have to be, in order to function in that mess. Italy could be a powerhouse in many fields but it's so mired down in rules and petty things that all their best minds have to emigrate while the really dumb ones go into politics.

This is not a site for aviation experts or airplane crash investigators. This is the miserable dwelling of ugly, sweaty neckbeards who like to play scientist or technicians but couldn't even explain how planes fly because they were too busy writing star dreck fanfiction during physics class. You're a sorry mass of losers who wouldn't find the control stick on a real cockpit. You're ignorant and misinformed. Why should you comment on stuff you do not know and understand? Go back to your dreck pedofiction.

Unfortunately that has been my experience as well: euros do not care. They do not put in any extra effort, never go the extra mile, never pursue an idea that could spell success. It seems being successful is anathema to them. They just want to get their paycheck and go home. Never an attempt to make their workflow more streamlines, their workplace a better space, their efforts more productive: they punch the clock and that's it.

They love to brag about how they're better and smarter than Americans, and then they have never capitalized on the internet the way we have done. Their entertainment industry is completely state-subsidized because they can't make anything that people actually want to see (with rare exceptions). Even their internal commerce is regulated to the point of absurdity when it should be totally free but no, because that would disrupt things.

That's the essential thing: we Americans LOVE disruption. If something better comes along we adopt it. Yooropeons like things the way they are and they do not want them to change, and if you don't grow you shrink. Well, let them shrink.

AI is taking out a lof of jobs, it's only normal. By the way, a degree in CS hasn't been a golden ticket for a long time. The average CS graduate slaves away until he or she (usually she because women are smarter and do not wait until they're middle-aged to move to other and more lucrative departments) is burned out and useless. A colleague of mine once said "computers are for chumps": unless you're a genius (and geniuses can find lucrative employment without clicking their lives away), it's a shit job and usually it attracts shit people. It was only to be expected that AI would take CS out of the picture as well. There will always be some jobs, but they will be for the top tier. The 99% is out. Move on.

If your country cannot develop a digital economy on its own it's just its fault as a government for failing to provide the right ecosystem. If you like nanny states, centralized government and bureaucracy, you will be a customer forever. One should applaud the canadiot government for understanding at last they cannot pick a fight with the US and prevail. Not now, not ever. All the fictional talk about joining forces with the EU evaporated in a moment. In time, the EU will see the light too, despite all the posturing. If you pick a fight with the US you end up with your bones broken into pieces. Now and forever. Forget about Trump, he'll probably be a lame duck by midterm and we'll find someone saner to run the country - of course both parties must come to their senses and produce sensible candidates. You won't be dealing with Trump in a few years but you'll have to deal with the US forever, and you know deep in your heart that being part of the American World is the right choice. You don't want to burn with the BRICS and you don't want to be a landfill nation. There are no other options. You may not love America but your kids will. They will wear jeans, love all-American music, eat burgers, drink cola, salute the flag and be happy.

Should we take advice on work-related matters from someone who obviously does not have any clue what it's talking about and lives in his parents' basement jerking off his miserable life to terabytes of kiddie scat bestiality furry porn from Germany?