FinishingDutch

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Don’t feel TOO bad; it’s not like they’re on every street corner.

Usually you’d go to one on say, a school field trip. But not every school does it. I’ve only been to a planetarium once in my life, and it wasn’t until I was in my 20’s.

Definitely go visit one though; they tend to have really interesting shows about what you can see. And there’s nothing quite like actually looking through a giant telescope with your own eyes. My local planetarium even has special sun-telescopes which allow you to view the sun and solar activity safely during daytime.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

God yes, all the time. Navigation was more of an art than a science back then. And you have to imagine you’re flying quite high to avoid flak, while looking out for targets that might be obscured by cloud cover and where the lights were turned off so as not to present a clear target for said bombers.

Basically, the crew dropping the bombs might be ‘reasonably certain’ they’re hitting the right target, but a few miles here or there can make a lot of difference. You think you’re looking at A, while you’re really flying over B.

I live in the Netherlands, right on the German border. A local village here was bombed by accident on february 15th 1945, because the bomber crew mistook it for a German industrial complex just over the border. They dropped 35 bombs. They luckily ‘only’ killed 2 and injured 7. There’s a yearly memorial.

It’s terrible that it happened, but honestly… you really can’t blame the crew for it.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Sounds like we’re about to lose any sort of order and control in Haiti. Definitely good to get the non-essential folks out.

But you’d think even Haitian gangs aren’t quite so dumb as to actually attack Americans and the embassy. I bet there’s enough weapons and ammunition on site to take over the entire country if need be. And the US is not exactly known to be chill about people attacking their personnel. I’d steer well clear of that embassy if I was them.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

People shouldn’t mess with historic art, no matter how good they think their cause is.

It takes a lot of effort by many dedicated people throughout history to preserve art like this. These works are not individual possessions, but rather owned by us all. They’re part of our shared heritage; we’re merely guardians of it so future generations can enjoy them.

It’s very disrespectful to those efforts when someone attacks a painting.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Not a woman, but still: hello, welcome, 👋

It’s a shame a lot of women still feel the need to hide in order to avoid bad interactions online. You’d think we’d have gotten past that phase by now. After all, half the folks on this planet are women. And since it isn’t 1992 anymore, girls are in fact allowed on the internet.

Hiding perpetuates that stereotype, but I understand why they do it.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

It’s accurate yes :D and that certainly is an… annoyingly catchy song for sure!

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Fuck me, they weren’t joking on that one… I listened to those episodes when they first came out, but they were gone soon after it seems.

There are working download links on the subreddit though, if anyone else wants to find them.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

I listened to them on Google Podcasts… gone. You can see there’s a gap between the episode on February 1st (Part 2 of Tech bros built a cult) and February 13th, the first part of Robert E. Lee.

Also gone from the main site and other apps that I use. Unless you heard it when it was up, you’d never know it existed.

You can see the missing eps listed on Podscripts, feb. 6 & 8.

https://podscripts.co/podcasts/behind-the-bastards/

Scary, right? If a shitty tech dude can be this effective at scrubbing things, imagine what the REALLY scary people and governments hide from us…

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Well as mentioned, there’s links on the BTB subreddit, so you should be able to download them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if someone uploaded it to say, YouTube…

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

You can just say ‘voters are unaware’. It’s downright appalling how ill-informed people are about the political process in general. And most only really absorb headlines and the odd snippet on the news when it comes to their candidate.

People who vote for Trump don’t care, the people who won’t vote for Trump already know or don’t care. Undecideds… well, I’m not holding my breath

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Sounds like a good feature. Anything that stops people from doing that is great.

But I do have to wonder… were people really expecting to find that content on PornHub? That site certainly seems legit enough that I doubt they’d have that stuff on there. I’d imagine most actual content would be on the dark web and specialty groups, not on PH.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

I love that book. Hey, Olympics this year, and close to Hereford…

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

As a Dutch guy, that’s actually something we always need to be aware of when visiting other countries :D

The average height for a Dutch male is 183,8 centimeters or 6 feet and a bit for you Americans. Even when visiting neighbouring countries like Belgium, they’re already 5 centimeters shorter on average. Spain? 7 centimeters shorter. Italians: 9 centimeters shorter.

If I was to visit say, Guatamala on vacation, I’d be 20 centimeters taller than the average male. Heck, a Dutch teen girl would tower over them by about 13 centimeters.

Basically, we always stand out. So you at least try not to be loud and overly intimidating to the locals. Thankfully, most people just think it’s really cool to meet a friendly giant though :D

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

Yeah, we stick out like a sore thumb just about everywhere. And we’re easy to spot from a mile away by the typical Dutch stuff we tend to bring along.

The Dutch certainly like to travel just about anywhere. No matter where you go, no matter how obscure or remote, chances are there’s a Dutch tourist to be found - and likely another Dutch person who’s set up a little restaurant to sell typical Dutch food to said tourist.

I do hope my countrymen behaved themselves :D I’m always mortified to see the phrase ‘Dutch tourists…’ in the news.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

That’s a really poor suggestion.

The guillotine was invented as a fast, efficient, humane method of execution. It was meant to take the human factor out of it for a clean, repeatable result.

The device you want is called a wood chipper.

FinishingDutch , 3 months ago

They do in fact make electric wood chippers!

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Taking ANY vaccine has risks, and these vaccines even more so, considering their untested nature when they were introduced. We had to trust the science, but it was still a gamble.

I took the vaccine knowing that side effects were possible. That was a risk I felt comfortable with, knowing that everyone else who took it faced that same level of risk and uncertainty.

It sucks that some had these side effects, but the effectiveness of the vaccine has saved countless more lives.

Let’s not forget that before the vaccine, Covid was quite deadly. We had literal mass graves, trucks full of bodies, mass cremations that couldn’t keep up with the death toll. Between that and the vaccine risk… the choice was easy. We came way closer to catastrophe than we like to think about.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Regarding mass graves:

New York:

https://time.com/5913151/hart-island-covid/

Peru:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/12/04/1060167105/a-mass-covid-grave-in-peru-has-left-families-bereft-and-fighting-for-reburial

Brazil:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN22C0D2/

Trucks full of bodies:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/05/07/us/new-york-coronavirus-victims-refrigerated-trucks/index.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/texas-arizona-coronavirus-deaths-refrigerated-trucks-morgues/

Mass cremations and associated issues:

https://www.vox.com/first-person/22434028/india-covid-cremations

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/mass-cremations-begin-indias-capital-faces-deluge-covid-19-deaths-2021-04-23/

Now granted, some of those spilled over to when vaccines were available in the west. China had issues with lots of cremations as late as early 2023.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Lemmy could definitely use a bit more comment activity on a lot of posts.

I think it’s because nobody really wants to be the first to comment and offer an opinion that might end up going against the grain when a thread develops. There’s no ‘reading the room’ as it were.

I’m doing my part by commenting on threads. Like this one.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

To me it feels on brand though. Japan is known for having awesome toilets after all.

If I visited the restroom at a world expo in Japan, I’d certainly expect to be greeted by the nicest porcelain throne man has ever laid eyes upon. Anything mundane would be a disappointment to say the least.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

They’re also simply more united; they have a certain ‘team spirit’ that I find lacking in the left. (I’m generally quite left myself). Not just in the US, but also here in the Netherlands.

Voters on the right will say: “I don’t support policy X and Y, but since my candidate is the only one talking about Z, that’s who I’m voting for”

Meanwhile on the left, voters tend to want their candidate to exactly match them on not only X, Y and Z, but other issues as well.

Basically, plenty of left voters hold out for a perfect candidate, when voters on the right will generally support their main guy regardless. This leads to people being effectively self-disenfranchised from the political process.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

May they be of service and find proper targets in the Russian invaders!

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Definitely needs more content, more active communities but on the whole it’s OK. It’s unrealistic to expect it to be as large as other platforms at this time. I’m doing my part by participating in threads that I usually wouldn’t jump into.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

As an 41 year old, I’ve actually used rotary phones and classic handsets when I was younger. And damn do I miss them. There was a distinct enjoyment in being able to properly slam down a phone when you wanted to make a point. Same thing with flip phones: you KNEW when someone hung up in a huff. Can’t quite get that point across on a smartphone.

I also miss being able to properly shoulder a handset to keep your hands free.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

This is a pretty common response to national trauma like this. The US had a million ‘we’re gonna kick their ass’-songs post-9/11. Most weren’t exactly subtle about it either.

Calling out other artists like Dua Lipa though… I’d probably avoid that as a musician. You never know who you’ll end up sharing a podium with down the line.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

I honestly can’t remember the last time anyone’s asked me for directions. It really is awesome that every phone now comes with decent navigation as standard.

Heck, it’s much, much better than most standalone systems ever were. You now get free traffic advisory on your phone, which used to be an expensive paid feature on devices like TomTom.

I do shudder to think what’ll happen if GPS ever goes down or gets downgraded to unusable. Most people have lost their non-technology navigation skills, assuming they ever had them.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

I work for a local radio station that has a few remote transmitter sites. They widen the broadcast area or put out specific frequencies for that area. Annoyingly, this happens more often than you’d think.

Over the years we’ve had about a handful of transmitters stolen. We’ll get complaints about poor reception or a frequency being off air and we send a tech guy out. And sure enough, the transmitter’s completely gone.

Of course it’s all ensured, but it tales a few days to get the new gear and install it. That costs us listenership and potential ad revenue.

Usually the thefts are done by people who run pirate radio stations. Because if you’re doing crimes already, one more doesn’t make a difference. They use the stolen transmitter to set up their own remote site so they don’t get caught. We’ve had gear recovered by the police when they discovered pirate station locations.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Here in the Netherlands, pirate radio is definitely still a thing. As long as radio has been around, people have tried to regulate it. And if something's regulated, people are bound to ignore and break those rules.

Our own local station actually has its roots in pirate radio. Back in 1994, a group of local pirates got together and formed a legit, licensed FM radio station. The reason being that those pirates got caught frequently. They figured going legit would be cheaper than constantly paying fines and having equipment seized.

Even in 2024, pirate radio still exists. In 2023, the police and Dutch telecoms agency caught 114 illegal stations. When someone finds an illegal transmitter, police get involved. In some cases, that's also due to safety issues. There have been cases where the pirates put the equipment in trees, surrounded by asbestos as a deterrent to dismantling it. That's actual, legitimate crime that endangers people. When caught, they can get fined up to 45.000 euros.

Now, you might be thinking: why even risk that? Why be a pirate when you can just set up a completely legal online station? Online radio gets you an even wider audience without all the risk. But to the pirates, that risk, the illegal nature, is part of what draws them to it. Most pirates aren't assholes, thankfully, and they frequently run nicer, more modern equipment than the stuff we use. As long as they keep off legit FM frequencies, we don't really have beef with them doing their thing.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

We haven't had OUR towers stolen per se, but we have had people strip wires and lightning strike protection stuff from them when the scrap metal prices soared years ago. Most of our towers are close-ish to populated areas, so I doubt it's worth the risk to hang out for a few hours to dismantle one. I could see someone stealing one of it's remote enough and given enough time.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Even so, it's a pain in the ass involving police reports, there's a deductable, the equipment needs to be special order, etc. etc. Not to mention the week or two of complaints you get. But yeah, insurance is good to have when an FM transmitter can cost anywhere between 3000 and 16000 euros depending on wattage and features. The remote ones are at the cheap end of the scale, but you're still looking at about 4 grand when all other costs are factored in if you didn't have the insurance.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Geez, and I thought our 11 euro meal was expensive here in the Netherlands…

The company really has lost track of why people went there in the first place. They used to be cheap and fast; that’s what mattered. Nobody gave a shit that the food was just OK or that you ate it off a plastic tray while sitting in a plastic bench seat.

But in the 90’s, things went downhill. They made the restaurants ‘fancy’ and added a lot to the menu. Which meant you were now paying more for food and waiting longer to get it. Before the self order kiosks were installed, the staff also couldn’t keep up with menu changes, which meant more order errors as well.

They also invested more in things like healthy options and added specific McCafe coffee corners to sell better coffee. As if that was something we went to McD’s for…

They really need to get back to basics. A ten item menu, sold cheap, in a who-gives-a-shit what it looks like restaurant.

FinishingDutch , 4 months ago

Well see, if everyone could just stop being wrong, they wouldn’t need me to correct them.

FinishingDutch , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

They certainly picked a very… particular school to profile. It’s a private boarding school with a 62k per year tuition. They also gave all students replacement phones…

So I doubt this would have quite the same positive effect in a more urban school where they ban with no replacement.

I personally grew up in the era before cellphones, but even I can see that it’s a difficult sell to ban teens from using them.

FinishingDutch , 5 months ago

I’d certainly watch that.

FinishingDutch , 5 months ago

“Next up on the javelin throw is Ivan Ivanovich. Weighing in at 450 pounds of pure muscle and built like two refrigerators side by side. Let’s see if he can beat his previous personal best of 2,5 miles…”

FinishingDutch , 5 months ago

They’re going to need some heavy El Salvador-style crackdowns to unfuck this situation. When you let gangs destroy the very fabric of your country, it’s going to get worse by the day if you don’t.

https://youtu.be/S2IwJDm2-kk?feature=shared

FinishingDutch , 6 months ago

I absolutely love BTB. Such a good podcast, especially the longer series like this one. It’s a bit of a time commitment but well worth it.