Given that most people get Pokémon cards in packs of, at least, 15, and their first is usually a whole deck, I dunno if you could really get a lot of people who remember their first card, I definitely don’t! My favourite is definitely Growlithe, but I have no recollection of what my first cards were really, it’s too long ago!

Imagine if cars were really unsafe. Would you say, “we shouldn’t legislate car safety, we should all just wake up and start buying safer cars!”

There really should be a law requiring companies which provide online services to be required to release self-hosted server software once they discontinue the provision of the service.

Hijacking your thread to advocate for my lazy ideology. Disclaimer I have pretty severe ADHD so this might be extreme for most people but for me this makes life liveable.

Forget trying to make things look super tidy and neat like in an IKEA commercial. Make your living space functional, comfortable and easy to maintain. Reduce the amount of physical, mental and emotional effort required to maintain your environment. For example, for laundry:

1. Don’t iron anything unless you really need/want to. (Job interview, going on a date, appearing in court, etc.)
2. Anywhere you’re liable to undress, have a basket for dirty clothes. It should be open-topped (no lid!) and mobile, like a laundry basket, so when you need to do a load of laundry, you can pick up and use the whole basket - functioning both as the hamper and the basket. Bedroom and bathroom are the usual places for this! You want the act of tossing dirty clothes in the laundry to be just as easy as tossing it on the floor.
3. There’s no such thing as odd socks. They’re called mix ‘n’ match socks now. Like Mashems!
4. No neatly folded clothes or hangers or anything like that, except for very special things such as in point 1 - everything just gets dumped into big drawers based on category. I have little fabric boxes that fit into a kallax to keep this relatively neat looking but super easy.
5. If something can’t survive going in the washing machine mixed load cycle and the tumble dryer daily load, it is not welcome in my life. (There’s a similar rule about the dishwasher!)

You get the idea. Embrace your laziness, don’t bother yourself with half a second what people might think of how you live. This is surprisingly neat and orderly and takes almost no effort to maintain. If you keep finding your basket is misplaced, buy another basket and keep it in two places. Stop fighting the current and go with your flow. Accept who you are, even if you’re a lazy bitch like me!

Stupid article, most of Gen Z aren’t even 21 yet, of course they’re gonna fall for scams, they’re teenagers or younger lol. I got scammed loads of times on RuneScape as a kid, and that taught me better than anything else how to avoid scams.

I have awful impulse control (severe ADHD) but usually I just eat an entire packet of Oreos instead of exploiting people for selfish reasons.

Once, I was pouring a can of petrol (gas, if you’re American) onto a fire, which spread up the stream of petrol into the petrol tank. I panicked, and my genius solution of how to extinguish it was to shake it around, kinda like how you might do to put out a match.

I poured burning petrol all over the ground and on my clothes, there was fire everywhere all around me. Luckily I was right next to the hosepipe, which I quickly turned on and doused everything in water before it got too out of hand.

Everything was fine, but it could have been a lot worse.

Edit: Don’t play with petrol/gasoline. Fire spreads through it way faster than you could ever imagine, it’s not like in the movies where it moves slow enough that you can stop it, it’s pretty much instant!

I’ve read this comment five times and I still don’t understand what you were trying to say.

Do you have a source for the claim that wind and solar are more dangerous than nuclear?

I looked myself and from what I saw Solar and wind were safer than nuclear, not to mention cheaper and cleaner.

When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.

If you’ve been told “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, you have been a victim of disinformation from the fossil fuel industry. The majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable.

This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream or potential future tech such as nuclear fusion, thorium reactors or breeder reactors.

Compared to nuclear, renewables are:

• Cheaper
• Lower emissions
• Faster to provision
• Less environmentally damaging
• Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
• Decentralised
• Much, much safer
• Much easier to maintain
• More reliable
• Much more capable of being scaled down on demand to meet changes in energy demands

Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. But at present, while I’m all in favour of keeping the ones we have until the end of their useful life, building new nuclear power stations is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.

Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on building nuclear power plants should be spent on renewables instead.

Frequently asked questions:

• But it’s not always sunny or windy, how can we deal with that?

While a given spot in your country is going to have periods where it’s not sunny or rainy, with a mixture of energy distribution (modern interconnectors can transmit 800kV or more over 800km or more with less than 3% loss) non-electrical storage such as pumped storage, and diversified renewable sources, this problem is completely mitigated - we can generate wind, solar or hydro power over 2,000km away from where it is consumed for cheaper than we could generate nuclear electricity 20km away.

• Don’t renewables take up too much space?

The United States has enough land paved over for parking spaces to have 8 spaces per car - 5% of the land. If just 10% of that space was used to generate solar electricity - a mere 0.5% - that would generate enough solar power to provide electricity to the entire country. By comparison, around 50% of the land is agricultural. The amount of land used by renewable sources is not a real problem, it’s an argument used by the very wealthy pro-nuclear lobby to justify the huge amounts of funding that they currently receive.

• Isn’t Nuclear power cleaner than renewables?

No, it’s dirtier. You can look up total lifetime emissions for nuclear vs. renewables - this is the aggregated and equalised environmental harm caused per kWh for each energy source. It takes into account the energy used to extract raw materials, build the power plant, operate the plant, maintenance, the fuels needed to sustain it, the transport needed to service it, and so on. These numbers always show nuclear as more environmentally harmful than renewables.

• We need a baseline load, though, and that can only be nuclear or fossil fuels.

Not according to industry experts - the majority of studies show that a 100% renewable source of energy across all industries for all needs - electricity, heating, transport, and industry - is completely possible with current technology and is economically viable. If you disagree, don’t argue with me, take it up with the IEC. Here’s a Wikipedia article that you can use as a baseline for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy

Is nuclear safer than solar and wind?

I’m atheist and my parents raised me without any religion. The first time I learned anything about religion was at primary school where Christianity was taught as fact. I was really confused as to why I hadn’t heard of this “god” fellow before now, and I asked my parents about it, and they explained the general concept of religious belief to me, and said that I was free to believe whatever I choose, and I remember being frustrated that my mum wouldn’t directly answer me as to whether or not this stuff was real or not real, and kind of just settled on the idea that it was like they read the Chronicles of Narnia and believed Aslan was real, which was like, fine with me, but seemed a little silly. It was kind of funny to learn a bunch of religious stuff in retrospect - it was kind of like, “dang, this Jesus dude really does force himself into everything doesn’t he?” Easter is the funniest one, it’s such a stretch, they clearly had no idea how to make that one about Christianity and just kinda phoned it in.

So, the one “religious” thing I keep, is saying stuff like “oh my god”, “for god’s sake” and stuff like that, but for me, it doesn’t really mean anything to do with god. It’s just like an otherwise meaningless idiom that people say.

Today! I’m in hospital having received surgery on both of my legs to try and restore some mobility, I’m not able to walk unaided right now, but I’m improving every day!

That’s unrelated to why I cried, though, I just wanted to defy expectations a little! I cried because I read something that always makes me cry - Valerie’s letter from V for Vendetta - I’ve included the movie version below, but it’s pretty faithful to the original:

I know there’s no way I can convince you this is not one of their tricks. But I don’t care. I am me.

My name is Valerie. I don’t think i’ll live much longer, and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography that i’ll ever write, and – God – i’m writing it on toilet paper.

I was born in Nottingham in 1985. I don’t remember much of those early years. But I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tottlebrook, and she used to tell me that God was in the rain.

I passed my eleven plus, and went to a girl’s grammar. It was at school that I met my first girlfriend. Her name was Sarah. It was her wrists – they were beautiful. I thought we would love each other forever. I remember our teacher telling us that it was an adolescent phase that people outgrew.

Sarah did.

I didn’t.

In 2002 I fell in love with a girl named Christina. That year I came out to my parents. I couldn’t have done it without Chris holding my hand.

My father wouldn’t look at me. He told me to go and never come back. My mother said nothing.

I’d only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have.

It is the very last inch of us.

And within that inch, we are free.

I’d always known what i’d wanted to do with my life, and in 2015 I started my first film: The Salt Flats.

It was the most important role of my life. Not because of my career, but because that was how I met Ruth. The first time we kissed, I knew I never wanted to kiss any other lips but hers again.

We moved to a small flat in London together. She grew scarlet carsons for me in our window box. And our place always smelt of roses.

Those were the best years of my life.

But America’s war grew worse and worse, and eventually came to London.

After that there were no roses anymore. Not for anyone.

I remember how the meaning of words began to change. How unfamiliar words like “collateral” and “rendition” became frightening. When things like norsefire and the articles of allegiance became powerful. I remember how different became dangerous.

I still don’t understand it: why they hate us so much.

They took Ruth while she was out buying food. I’ve never cried so hard in my life. It wasn’t long until they came for me.

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place.

But for three years I had roses – and apologised to no-one.

I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch.

But one.

An inch.

It is small and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope that - whoever you are - you escape this place. I hope that the world turns, and that things get better.

But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may not meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you: I love you.

With all my heart.

I love you.

-Valerie.

single-handedly destroying globalism

Oh no! Anyways…

good low light camera

Pretty much any smart phone should be able to do this with software, really - it’s all just a factor of ISO (light sensitivity) and exposure time, and pretty much every phone sensor can have an absurdly high ISO.

If Firefox isn’t available, the next best choice would probably be de-googled Chromium (note that Chromium is not necessarily fully de-googled by default) or Safari. Edge is just Chrome plus Microsoft.

As long as you say the same for Google and Microsoft, I agree.

This is just more reasons to prioritise the already cheaper renewables, isn’t it?

I’m on my phone, dude, I’m not gonna juggle a dozen sources on this tiny screen and crappy keyboard just to prove you wrong, you’re more than capable of using Google to find the facts yourself. I challenge you to prove me wrong. You can even cite some hilariously biased source like World Forum of Nuclear Investor Funds or something, those ones are always fun because they’re like “oh with our super cool advanced new nuclear reactor that doesn’t exist, it’s as good as solar or wind for almost 150% of the cost!! :)”

Don’t import Reddit’s extremely ignorant takes on nuclear power here, please. Nuclear power is a huge waste of money.

If you’re about to angrily downvote me (or you already did), or write an angry reply, please read the rest of my comment before you do. This is not my individual opinion, this is the scientific consensus on the issue.

When it comes to generating electricity, nuclear is hugely more expensive than renewables. Every 1000Wh of nuclear power could be 2000-3000 Wh solar or wind.

If you’re about to lecture about “it’s not possible to have all power from renewable sources”, save your keystrokes - the majority of studies show that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across all sectors – power, heat, transport and industry – is feasible and economically viable. Again, this isn’t my opinion, you can look it up and find a dozen sources to back up what I am writing here.

This is all with current, modern day technology, not with some far-off dream of thorium fusion breeding or whatever other potential future tech someone will probably comment about without reading this paragraph.

Again, compared to nuclear, renewables are:

• Cheaper
• Lower emissions
• Faster to provision
• Less environmentally damaging
• Not reliant on continuous consumption of fuel
• Decentralised
• Much, much safer
• Much easier to maintain
• More reliable
• Much more responsive to changes in energy demands

Nuclear power has promise as a future technology. It is 100% worth researching for future breakthroughs. But at present it is a massive waste of money, resources, effort and political capital.

Nuclear energy should be funded only to conduct new research into potential future improvements and to construct experimental power stations. Any money that would be spent on nuclear power should be spent on renewables instead.