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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

The refrigerator comparison also doesn't help much because American fridges are much larger then European ones.

On the photos I've seen, it looked a lot more like a plane's emergency door than a window.

The BBC article notes that this section of fuselage can optionally include an extra emergency exit, but that Alaska does not select that option. Still, it may be constructed with a false opening the same size as the exit door which could have been there.

It seems odd to me that an emergency exit can be optional. Like I get that airlines reconfigure seating, number of bathrooms, storage, etc, but emergency exits seem like there should be a fixed number based on maximum distances between all exits or something.

Another comment elsewhere says it's not really optional, it's just down to the number of seats the plane has. For certain seat configurations it's required.

Maybe the reporter should have asked "do you mean a European sized fridge or American?". Obviously if it was a European fridge size hole I wouldn't have even bothered putting on my seat belt on. Heck, why didn't they just fly on to California if it was only European sized?!

The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?

Not relative to the average American :)

Europeans aren't that far behind in fatness and obesity.

Not only that, but the continent-level statistics aren't useful for much other than scoring Internet points.

State-by-state in the US, obesity varies between 35-50% IIRC.

There are also significant differences by race (black or hispanic highest, white non-hispanic slightly less, and Asian a LOT less).

If we're being honest, Europe has exactly nothing to brag about -- 1 in 5, or 1 in 4 obesity rates are still amazingly high. Just saying "not as high as the US" is a pyrrhic victory.

Britons aren't Europeans anymore!

I've been to a few countries outside of Europe and the US. Obesity and lesser but unhealthy fatness may not be as widespread yet there, but they're not that far behind. Also, what some cultures consider "not fat" isn't actually "not fat." Plenty consider "chubby" to be perfectly normal (and even attractive).

Of course they are, it's part of the European continent. This is like saying citizens of Lichtenstein or Switzerland or Norway aren't Europeans.

Russia is also technically in Europe but a lot of Westerners don't consider Russians Europeans. So I see no reason why continental Europeans could't consider the British as non-Europeans. In fact, there are plenty of Western Europeans that don't even consider Eastern Europe as 'real' Europe.

Ukraine is in Europe. I don’t know about Russia. I thought Russia spans Europe and Asia.

Russia indeed spans both Europe and Asia but almost all Russians live in the European part and majority of all Russian history and culture happened or is linked to Europe, not Asia. Similarly Turkey technically is also in Europe (small part of Turkish territory) but nobody seriously claims that Turkey is a European country based on this technicality. Another example would be Israel which technically is not in Europe but is considered to be more European than Middle Eastern. So the Brits not being European is not really such an outlandish claim. Especially that there is a growing tendency for 'European' to actually mean 'related to European Union' instead of its original, geographic meaning.

Ranking (% obesity by country) - https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/

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