My sleep-routine is that I read (usually my kindle) in bed at night.

It’s kind of great both because I like reading, but also because it makes me fall asleep.

Some parts of the US, not all

(Most) stocks represent partial ownership (read: control) of a company and most of their value is derived from that.

For an extreme example: if the stock price were to drop below the amount of money that could be made by just selling off all of the assets, then someone would (in principle) just buy all the shares, sell the assets and make a profit.

Each share represents a small bit of control over the company and their assets.

Personally I always always buy phones with two sim slots. It’s super practical if you travel semi-often.

Idk about apple, but basically all of the mid-range androids have this feature. I guess this is about the US though, so it’s probably Apple.

Trams are the best! I’ll go out of my way to take a tram over a bus any day

They are just so much smoother

It’s really fun! I picked it up yesterday and I’ve been playing on ky deck.

I will say that I usually prefer tower defense games with more ‘linear’ pathing (think bloons) but it’s been a good time regardless.

Imagine your town/city starts completely catering to people from richer countries coming there to get completely wasted and intentionally act crazy… that’s what happened to a huge portion of Spain.

That mentality is largely the result of overtourism though.

Spain is a country of under 50 million people which has over 70 million foreign tourists visit every year.

The US is 330 million people but only has 50ish million foreign tourists.

So imagine that the US has roughly 8x as many tourists per year (to match per capita) and imagine that a huge portion of these tourists were mostly coming from much richer countries and had the mentality of ‘let’s let loose in a cheap party spot’.

Just about everyone is in favor of some tourism, it’s just currently completely out of control in much of southern Europe. The numbers just completely dwarf just about anywhere else.

I’m sorry, but this is completely backwards with regards to the situation in Spain or many other poorer european countries. I’m much more familiar with the situation in Croatia, but this applies to most of southern Europe (including Spain).

Yes, the countries take in a sizable portion of their gdp from tourism, however this is generally at the expense of the average citizen. Tourism is notoriously bad at distributing any wealth it provides, while the average person living in these places gets all of the negative side effects. Tourists are generally coming from richer countries (USA, Germany, UK etc) and able to/used to paying much higher prices. So the local economy shifts to focusing exclusively on tourists (it’s where the money is) and locals get all of the negative externalities (inflated rents, inflated prices, crowding, poorly behaved tourists) with very little benefit.

Local and national governments focus exclusively on further investments in tourism (since it’s such an ‘important’ part of the economy!) at the expense of other investments (education, non-tourist infrastructure) which would be more beneficial to the overall population.

Not to mention, compared to just about anywhere else in the world, the number of tourists in Europe is absolutely overwhelming compared to locals. Croatia is a country of under 4 million people, but gets over 20 million visitors a year! The average salary is somewhere around $1000 A MONTH, so it’s no surprise that so much of the country is instead focused on the needs of tourists who can easily spend $1000 a week…

This isn’t the same situation as a tourism hotspot in the US, for instance (where I’m originally from). Yes, wages vary geographically in the US, but not nearly to the same extent. The areas often grew around tourism rather than being a normal functional city where families have been living for centuries before very recently turning into what is essentially a theme park which is largely unaccessible to natives.

Why does it need to be equal to population?

I’m not saying that all immigration is bad, but rather that above a certain level it gets difficult to integrate people. For european countries this is a much lower number than the US, since populations are much lower. At the same time, there are many more refugees than in the US.

It’s a genuine challenge here in Vienna, for instance, at the moment because recent immigrants make up a large percentage of school kids, who often have few language skills, tend to be very religious, and have extremely conservative views on things like feminism and gay rights. Unfortunately, their views tend to self-reinforce rather than become milder over time due to being the majority view among their peers/in their school/community.

You can’t really blame the kids, obviously they are just a product of the culture they grew up in, however you also can’t just ignore the issue. There isn’t any mechanism for preventing immigrants groups from clustering in specific areas (and I don’t think most people would be in favor of anything that draconian)

In an ideal world, maybe there is a perfect solution, but the reality is that the current system is facing a huge challenge. Like it or not, this is directly tied to immigration rates.

The issue is though that “segregation between state and religion” is a cultural trait. It’s not something that every culture values, nor is it something that inevitably happens.

In fact, it’s almost certainly a minority opinion on a global level. Particularly in (although not exclusive to) poorer non-western countries which tend to be much more conservative and religious.

A small number of conservative immigrants won’t hugely impact views in the host country, but a sizable number (particularly if they are concentrated in certain areas) absolutely can.

You know there are other countries tries right?

A lot of european countries are only a few million people…

Just have everyone use UTC!

I think all food packaging should be standardized and reusable, with a deposit system similar to reusable glass drink bottles (at least in Germany).

For instance: All the cereals should use the same returnable ‘cereal box’

I mean, all the phones I’ve ever had (including my current Samsung A52 from a couple years back) have a headphone jack, but I haven’t used anything wired in around 6 years.

I just find Bluetooth to be much more convenient and a nicer experience. I even bought a Bluetooth adapter for my desktop so I could use the same headphones there.

Not to mention, I just looked and there are plenty of phones with 3.5 mm jacks on the market, so it looks like the option is still out there for those that prioritize such a feature.

The democrats tend to be less organized but way more friendly and accommodating, the republicans are very their way or the highway, but tend to have all their ducks in a row.

This is the most believable thing I’ve ever heard.

I want to see a new Home Alone where 44-year old McCauley Culkin plays an 8 year old and no one acknowledges that he isn’t actually 8 years old.

It’s even more popular than the ‘main’ version!

Yeah controller would be really rough.

You just need to get invited by someone you are friends with.

It used to be you had to be friends for at least a week, but I think that isn’t the case anymore.