Gorth

We're getting stupider apparently... human brain sizes having reached their apex about 3000 years ago. So why is human brains going to be a thing of the past? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains-were-bigger-3000-years-ago Before reading the article, I had some funny thoughts, like dumbification caused by social media or Rupert Murdoch to be the culprits... but in hindsight, even Murdoch isn't 3000 years old (close, but not quite). Then I thought, maybe it's evolution in action, according to the principle 'use it or lose it', which is living beings losing body parts and functions that doesn't see enough use to justify their existence. Turned out my second guess was a bit closer than the first one... the article speculating that humans are like the cranium-rats from Planescape: Torment. We do more group think and think less individually when living in large collectives and then the 'use it or lose it' principle kicks in

Ah.... I hope that was less than 15 years ago

I used to be happy with Tefal cookware over the years, although that isn't entirely what I'm using now. It was hard to find locally at a time when I needed to finally replace it (after 20 years). What I have now (a mix of Tefal and Scanpan, a Danish product line) seems to work fine on gas and ceramic stoves and has lasted me 15 years so far.

Off topic, but I couldn't help but laugh. 25 years ago, my mum slipped down the front door stairs, as they were covered in ice. She was blue, yellow and black all over, really bruised. Being a good husband, my dad of course drove her to the hospital to have her checked out. You know, nothing broken etc. Well... when they got back home my poor bruised mum was laughing and my dad was fuming... "Next time you need to go to the hospital, you do it yourself!". Apparently everyone and their dog at the hospital had been convinced my dad was a wife beater and he was the one who had beaten her up with a crowbar or something and treated him accordingly. O...M...G... did he hear for that a long time after (as for the truthfulness of it, i was there at the stairs when my mum fell, it really did look bad, so I can understand why he took her to the hospital)

The Pat Benatar I remember... now *I* feel old Edit: Speaking of remembering old stuff...

Space... the final frontier. To boldly go where no criminal has gone before! (cue 60's TV music) https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/05/05/outlaws-in-orbit-canada-to-introduce-a-new-law-to-punish-astronauts-committing-crime-in-sp Nowhere is safe from the Canadian Mounties anymore Canadian astronauts who commit crimes on the Moon could face punishment under a new law that extends the country's criminal jurisdiction into outer space. The "Civil Lunar Gateway Agreement Implementation Act" is a piece of legislation added on to the country's 2022 federal budget, which passed its first reading in Canada's House of Commons - the lower house of parliament - at the end of April.

Reducing crime is not really an option as long as you're unwilling to address the underlying causes. Anything else will just be band aids and election promises (sounds nicer than "lies"). As long as poverty is rampant, a society that feels safe is a pipe dream. Just handing out a few peanuts here and there wont solve it either. Structural changes that addresses the wealth inequality and its consequences in noticeable ways is needed. This is also what the less progressive parts of society fears the most, because it smells like socialism if you give all your citizens a fair go at life and it can't be a real society with winners without a significant amount of losers.

Just a heads up, I moved the EU conversation to the politics thread, as it had turned less relevant for the current war in Ukraine....

Moved a few posts from the Ukraine thread over here as it's not really related to the war and more about European politics in general... It wouldn't surprise me if the high approval rating in Poland is directly related to the low approval rating in the UK. Brexit was all about putting a stop to the Polish migration to England (Polish being the second most spoken language in England now)

Actually, the biggest threat to EU has historically been the far left... To take some of the guess work out of it... (pre-brexit) Most of those bar charts only show 9-10 countries (which means, they only show 1/3 of the countries). Assumption of mine is they picked the outliers and some in between.

I can relate... written half a dozen cv's over a 30 year career period. The hard thing these days is what to trim and leave out. Usually stuff from the 1990's and 2000's which just get a headline (to keep my cv on less than 4 A4 pages)

I think you may be conflating a few things... EU is not something people identify themselves with. It doesn't enjoy popular support (unless you belong to the political or industrial elite). I don't know if you remember Black Isle's old parent company, Interplay? Their motto was 'By gamers for gamers'. Unlike that, EU was never a 'By the people for the people' thing. Hence why nobody really likes it (gross generalization). Europeans are happy to get together to support Ukrainians and help out where they can, but this more despite the EU than because of it.

Yikes... that sounds like a template CV

I'm not sure how you got that impression? That Putin doesn't "fear" the EU as an institution is not the same as supporting it. I think the number of Western Europeans (the people, not the political elite) who fears or resent the EU is much bigger than the number of Russians resenting it. Give it enough time and it will either implode or become something that will get dissolved from within due to popular unrest (and referendums like the Danish Maastricht referendum(s) or the English Brexit referendum). It's a process which doesn't need much help from the outside and the tighter Germany and France tries to tie the ropes around other countries, the more people dislikes and distrusts it. As for democracy, the West had it's change to influence Russia and support a change towards democracy in 1991, but instead they looked at it an easy market to exploit as much as possible for as long as possible until a rather predictable counter reaction happened in the form of Putin (predictable as in it was either reverting to totalitarianism or a mobster led civil war with cataclysmic consequences)

Democracy and capitalism is unrelated. You can have one without the other. Russia is not communist today. Mind you, it sure isn't democratic either. Putin doesn't need to destabilize the EU. The Conservative Party in England did a much better job of that than Putin could ever have done. Orban and whatshisname in Poland are also causing a lot of friction from the inside. Yes, those former WP states who so looove the EU....

I'm normally not much into corporate history of food manufacturers (apart from hating Nestle with a passion), but Coca Cola as a product and a company has an interesting origin history.

I had to find a wiki page through google to find out what a "Sundown Town" is. Scary reading.

What would be the point? Other countries don't give up their troops for prosecution. I doubt Russia will. Sure, you can put on some kind of show to make yourself feel all warm and fuzzy, but in the world of realpoltik, it's a waste of resources. Only losers gets prosecuted and the sentences also carried out

Brutality and atrocities are nothing new in warfare. England tried deliberately to maximize civilian casualties in Germany from 1943 and onwards, I think most of us know how civilians fare in the wars in the Balkans after the break up of Yugoslavia, Spain during the civil war in the 30's, Moroccan troops have been particular savage against the population in West Sahara... sometimes (like the first case), it's deliberate government politics, sometimes it's the men on the ground venting their frustration, anger, fear etc. by turning into monsters and take it all out on the weakest groups they can find. Usually POW's and local civilians. It's not unique, it's not the first time and sadly probably also not the last time armed forces acts this way. Edit: It was my impression during the first 2 days of the war, that Russia actually tried to minise casualties, which made sense if their goal was to incorporate Ukraine into the federation. Only when the military campaign turned out to be a cluster**** and the conscripts took a severe beating did the brutality against the population get turned up to 11 Edit2: It seems to always be a consequence in war. Even having a professional army doesn't prevent casual and callous killing of civilians, eventually. It happened in Afghanistan and it happened in Iraq. It's a side effect of what war does to people fighting it. Better trained armies seems to resist the temptation better, but none are immune

Oldies but goodies... (I can't remember if I didn't already post this one the last 12 months, yes, getting old)

How did they do that?

I've yet to see a source not attributing it to Plato, but regardless of who said it first, it's sort of on point for the subject. Better than the alternative I had in mind anyway (Ron Perlman Voice: Special Military Operations, Special Military Operations Never Changes! )

I know at least one Danish scientist who is not going to get a job at Pfizer...

Political debate (edit: or whatever ) continued from here...

Politics, the gift that keeps giving. More politics this way