Lorindól

IMHO, I vastly prefer the TOS Romulans. The TNG --> era Romulans with the bumpy foreheads and 80’s super-shoulderpaddings look just ridiculous. I remember reading that the network specifically wanted the TNG Romulans to have a distinct look from Vulcans, so that “the viewers won’t get confused who are the baddies”.

PIC had both Romulan incarnations and did a great job retconning this by just mentioning the “bumpy forehead northeners” out loud.

Movie/TNG Klingons were an unquestionable upgrade, though.

This is the way.

Yep.

Something quite similar happened to me in my twenties. We had a pretty close-knit group of friends in university and in the second year one of the girls started to show signs of romantic interest in me. I was oblivious, of course, so my friends had to point it out for me. I was single and quite unexperienced with dating, so I thought “what the hell, why not?” So we ended up dating and I was starting to slowly fall for her.

Then we went to this student party together and we hung out with people as always. I went for a swim in the pool and when I came back, she came to me, looking extremely happy and said that she had just met this amazing guy and wanted to try things out with him. I stood silent for a few seconds and said “OK, it’s cool with me” . She smiled and ran off to her new man.

I got dressed, finished my beer and walked home. It was a long walk, but instead of disappointment and sadness I remember feeling immense relief, as I had just learned what “dodging a bullet” truly meant.

She and the new guy dated for maybe a year, before she lost interest in him - he really was a great guy, right at the start of their relationship he wanted to talk with me and he was genuinely sorry for “stealing my girl”. I assured him that I held no grudge and we became friends after she dumped him.

During their dating she quickly drifted out of our circle of friends by her own choice, so I got to keep things pretty much like they were before. I was always friendly towards her when we met and she did likewise. My friends were surprised that I wasn’t angry at her, but I told them that this was for the best and that I was happy how things had turned out.

Next year I found a wonderful girlfriend and I was happy. Few years later I happened to meet this “ex” of mine in a work-related seminar. When the seminar ended, I walked to the bus stop and saw her standing there. Turned out that we lived along the same bus route. Then she suddenly said “wouldn’t it be nice if you came home with me?” Like, WTF? She knew very well that I had been in a steady relationship for years and she had even met my girlfriend a few times.

She looked at me seductively and said “so, how about it?”. I’d known that she wasn’t stable, but at that moment I realized how truly fucked up she really was. “No, that’s not going to happen now or ever”, I said and walked away.

That was the last time I saw her. Few years ago I heard that she had been married twice or thrice before she was 40, and was single again.

We haven’t and we won’t, unless the “poor lost plane” would be heading directly towards some critical infrastructure. Then it would be blown out of the sky.

Russia has been playing this stupid game of theirs for years, their plane violates our airspace and we send our F/18’s to signal them to GTFO.

They play the same game with on-off GPS-interference, which is annoying but has very little real effect.

By responding to these petty provocations with lethal force would only result in a diplomatic crisis and more importantly, it would reveal the true effectiveness of our defensive capabilities. And Russia would love to learn that, for a low-low price of one Sukhoi fighter/pilot. Yeah, we’re not falling for that.

Itse asiassa tämä optio on ollut tiedossa jo jonkin aikaa, pitää laittaa kokeiluun jahka aika luopua Windowsista koittaa.

Asensin myös keväällä pariin muinaiseen läppäriin 32-bittisen Cinnamon Mintin, jotta lapseni pääsivät harjoittelemaan oikean tietokoneen käyttöä koulun Chromebookien sijaan. Eivät ole valittanert mistään.

Tuo Mintin “jämähtäneisyys” on juuri se syy, miksi asensin sen vanhempieni vanhaan Win 10 - koneeseen. Kiittelivät kaiken toimivan nopeammin ja mitään oppimiskynnystä ei ole ilmennyt, vaikka molemmat ovat lähes 80-vuotiaita.

Ja olen vakavasti harkinnut siirtyväni itsekin käyttämään Mintiä, kun Win 10:n tuki loppuu syksyllä. Mitä enemmän työpöytä muistuttaa Windows seiskaa, sen parempi.

I have a battery operated tube radio from mid to late 1940’s. It even works, but the battery it uses is getting rare and quite expensive. And my country doesn’t really use AM radio broadcasts anymore, so it’s more of a curiosity nowadays.

I also have a lot of working stuff from the 1950’s, mostly radios and amplifiers. Great gear, and much easier to service than their modern counterparts.

The “Lord of the Rings” is not a character driven book and the same goes wirh the film adaptations. It is plot driven with heavy focus on world building, which can either make it an amazing or a boring experience. Depending on your preferences.

Based on the list of your favourite films (excellent, BTW, some of my own favourites are there) you seem to prefer character driven ones. So I can easily understand why you find the LOTR films boring.

I think there’s also one on a ski lift gondola in Lapland…

There’s one made of stone and a natural brook runs through the floor.

In the winter there are several saunas built from snow / ice. The snow sauna is said to be an especially pleasing experience.

There are sauna rafts that have engines, so you can cruise around the waters.

There are car trailer saunas that you can rent and drive to any open beach you wish. Or your own backyard.

And probably a whole lot crazier ones that I can’t remember right now.

My old Xperia Z5 Compact was the only phone I’ve ever owned that had decent speakers. You could actually listen music with them without getting pissed off. It was small and had amazing audio capabilities and great camera, easily the best phone I’ve ever owned.

But listening music / watching videos in public with your phone speakers on is an abomination. It should be made illegal everywhere.

Where did you find this?

Though apocryphal, it would give the Númenoreans a solid reason to see the Valar as deceitful. “The Gift of Men cannot be taken away - except for Tuor, due to reasons we will not explain.”

After a revelatation such as this, it would be far easier to accept how quickly Sauron managed to incite them to attack the Undying Lands. The kings would have known that immortality was somehow possible for men and the temptation would have already been there for generations.

The canonical version works without problems, but I think this would have been a nice addition.

I taught myself to play the guitar and electric bass by learning the chords and reading tabulatures, I got good enough to play decent bass in a rock band. I also learned the basics of playing the piano. For the first ten years I had only a very basic understanding of the underlying theory and I never felt the need to learn more. I didn’t know the names of the scales and modes I could play and I just knew in which order chords worked or didn’t, I just couldn’t explain why. Nor I needed to do so.

Then I chose music pedagogy as one of my university minors and suddenly I had to learn the theory and reading/writing notation in just a few months - it was not easy but in the end it paid off big time. I finally understood why things worked the way they did and it opened up a world of new ideas for me.

I’m happy that I learned the theory after I had already learned to play an instrument. Knowing the theory backs me up, it does not constrain me. Few of my friends went through the formal music education and some - not all - are really bound by “the rules”, breaking them in any way is a big NO when we play together. One can play almost anything with the piano if you hand him the notes, but he’s totally unable to improvise or pick tunes by ear. Which is quite baffling to me.

And I’m not saying that the route I took to learn music is better, it just worked for me.

EDIT: Typos.

The headline of the article is misleading. No one is laying “pre-emptive” minefields at their borders for civilians to waltz in, withdrawal from the Ottawa agreement means that anti-personnel landmines are an option if Russia starts massing troops on their side of the border.

I’ve trained with landmines during my military service and they are truly horrible things. I hope we never have to use them again.

Opetusviraston hommissa vuosia olleena tämä ei valitettavasti yllättänyt tippaakaan, ennemminkin ihmetytti se että tätä saatiin odottaa näin kauan. IT-puoli on tuntunut olevan täysin kaoottista ehkä viimeiset 20 vuotta, aina laitehankinnoista yleisiin käytäntöihin asti.

Koronan aikoihin käyttöön otettiin uusi portaali, joka aukesi oppilaille oletuksena kun selain avattiin. Positiivisena yllätyksenä oletushakukoneeksi selaimeen oli jopa asetettu Duckduck.go, mutta mitään adblockereita ei tietenkään oltu otettu käyttöön. Tämä johti jostain syystä siihen, että portaalin tulon jälkeen oppilaiden selainten mainosvirrassa alkoi vilkkua HC-osaston aikuisviihdemateriaalia, mistä ei koskaan aiemmin ollut havaintoja. Ja voi, kuinka oppilaiden vanhemmat tästä riemastuivatkaan! Kun tiedustelin syytä tähän IT-osastolta, vastaus oli ainoastaan oppilaiden syyttelyä.

Koulujen IT-vastaavilla oli ennen käytössään pääkäyttäjän salasana, jotta pystyimme hoitamaan päivitykset ja muut asennukset itsenäisesti ja tehokkaasti. Homma toimi loistavasti, jos jokin oppilaskone jumiutui niin sen sai kuntoon hetkessä. No, näitä ei enää anneta koska kaikki pitää hoitaa tekemällä tiketti IT-osastolle ja odottelemalla milloin tukihenkilö voisi ehtiä paikalle. Lopputulemana mikään ei enää toimi jouhevasti ja luokkien takapöydillä on yleensä kasa toimimattomia läppäreitä. Ja vain siksi, että “amatööreihin ei voi luottaa näin tärkeissä asioissa”.

Jokin aika sitten 2 IT-velhoa yritti saada opettajan läppäriä tulostamaan uuden pilvipalvelun kautta. Tekivät hommia pari tuntia ja saivat sen lopulta pelaamaan. Kun sama ongelma sitten ilmaantui toisen opettajan koneesen, ehdin väliin ja syötin läppäriin koulun printterin IP-osoitteen. Toimi välittömästi. Miksi tätä uutta pilvipalvelua tarvitaan tulostamiseen? Se on edelleen suuri mysteeri.

Ja nämä ovat vain jäävuoren huippu.

I assume it was a generalization, just few weeks ago I installed 32-bit Linux Mint to two laptops from 2007 or 2008, now my kids have their very own and fully functional computers. They do lag a bit sometimes, but learning patience is just good for the kids.

Tuota en tiennytkään, mutta viimeksi eilisiltana oli yksi pyörätie tukittu jättämällä parvi vihreitä lautoja ympäriinsä. Eli ainakin joku operaattori sallii tuon edelleen tai sitten käyttäjillä on todella paksut lompakot.

Vuokralautojen pysäköintiongelman saisi vaivattomasti ratkaistua määrämällä yritykset ruuvaamaan softansa sellaiseksi, että matkan aloittaneen käyttäjän veloitus ei pääty, ennen kuin lauta on pysäköity luvalliselle alueelle. Jos kaupunkipyörien telineille löytyy hyvin tilaa, niin kyllä löytyisi näillekin.

Vuokrafirmat voisivat myös motivoida käyttjiä laskuttamalla vaikka 50€ maksun vääärin pysäköidyn laudan noudosta viimeiseltä käyttäjältä, kun voisivat helposti tarkistaa oliko lauta luvallisessa parkkiruudussa vai ei vikan ajon päättyessä.

Poikkeuksena toki jos virta loppuu kesken ajon.

My understanding has always been that none of the Valar took part in the War of Wrath.

When the Valar challenged Melkor directly in the Battle of the Powers, Middle-earth suffered massive collateral damage. And at that time there was only a small population ol Elves at the remote Cuiviénen, guarded by detachment of Maiar.

During the War of Wrath most parts of Middle-earth were already populated by the Children of Ilúvatar, so the Valar had to limit their attack force to “just” Maiar and the Eldar of Aman.

Morgoth’s personal power had diminished when he slowly shared parts of his might with his “creations”, like the dragons. The Valar had to be aware of this; Thorondor was able to maim Morgoth’s face while retrieving Fingolfin’s body and would have relayed the news of this and the duel to Manwë.

So it’s pretty safe to say that the Valar considered their army to be more than adequate to overthrow Morgoth: Maiar to take on the Balrogs and other fallen Maiar, elite Elves for the orc hordes and other “normal level” enemies.

But I also think that an important component is also that the Children of Ilúvatar had to “save themselves” from evil, the Maiar were sent just to level the stakes and capture Morgoth at.the end. The Eldar of Aman needed to be a part of this effort, not just as elite reinforcements but to show unity with their Middle-earth brethren and other Children of Ilúvatar. They all had to renounce Morgoth’s evil and rally together to finally prevail after immeasurable suffering.

If the “gods” themselves had just showed up and taken care of the baddies, there would have been none of this hard earned absolution. Which also fits pretty nicely with Tolkien’s Catholic worldview.

As how Beleriand was destroyed and “fell beneath the wawes”, it could be argued that the Maiar were allowed to use their full power while facing the fallen Maiar, resulting in the utter ruin of the lands. And if the ruined Beleriand was considered to be tainted by Morgoth’s lingering evil, sinking the entire region to the sea would be a logical thing for the Valar to do.

Yep. My brother has at least 4 streaming subscriptions that add up to closer to 100$ per month. I once asked him how much he actually uses them and his response was: “I don’t know, many times a week! But it’s nice to have them if I want to watch something!”

To me the idea of basically throwing away more than 1000$ per year is simply horrifying.