mousethatroared

Because "mindslight" didn't have an argument? He just threw a little non-sequitar tantrum assuming that OP was a Trumpist.

Presumably the OP believes the BBB is stupid too?

If your first home is a condo then it's not so hard.

When my wife got pregnant we were looking to move to a nicer condo. Rent was so high that an equivalent condo's mortgage payments were lower.

We had the down payment saved up so it was a no-brainer.

Thats true, but the housing stock is abysmally poor quality so that sucks

It's not all sunshine. Renters suck and expenses come as big ticket items. Also, the first few years suck until inflation eats away at the mortgage payments suck (cash flow)

EUist - thank you. As a born European, that loves Europe, I think it's important to distinguish these.

EU police -> EU member state police force.

A bit wordy. I know there isn't a EU police force. Just like there will never be EU bonds (see what I did there?)

"There is in fact a difference between making fun of your local politicians and making fun of a foreign dictator."

Trump is a foreign dictator? He is not mocked ruthlessly in EU media?

Anyway, I'm not impressed by local media mocking foreign leaders for the same reason I prefer that the CCP spy on my (personal) devices than the FBI: jurisdiction.

No, not OK.

Even if we admit the criminalization of insults among private individuals, what makes it pernicious to criminalize insulting politicians is that they are powerful.

Politicians, as a class, effectively control mass media, state violence, and the purse. One of the only effective curbs on their power is ridicule.

In America this is called punching up.

Pray tell me, would you be OK if a EU police arrested a comedian for mocking [1] Putin or Trump? If not, your position is strictly partisan therefore not universal, and therefore self serving.

Anyway, we found the EUist.

[1] I said mocking, not encouraging violence

Big if. Insect eggs are very often meant to withstand long periods of dormancy.

Anyway, I wouldn't suggest irradiating them either. Just the volume of required handling would ruin them.

That's the first order analysis. It's correct within its assumptions, but it neglects leverage.

But if you bought a place before the pandemic you could lock in a ridiculously low interest rate for 30 years.

Now you have the value of the mortgage (leverage) locked at an interest rate lower than inflation. Let's say rent covers expenses and mortgage. The return on an initial $50k down on a 250k property might be around $10k/year, or 20%.

Tell me, where does one get an investment returning 20% annum?

Real estate is the easiest and safest way to leverage your investment.

Most EU (all?) constitutions are a joke written with plenty of cop outs.

But, go ahead, call one of your ministers an idiot or a pimmel under your real name.

And don't give me the BS "the charges were dropped": being criminally charged is scary, stressful and expensive.

The US, while the best option for freedom, is no peach. Just look what happens if you, very politely, criticize certain allies.

Google it.

Most European countries criminalize insults, and there might be some merit to this among private individuals.

But the EU, and Germany in particular, has upped the ante criminalizing obvious satire against politicians in a manner obviously meant to shield a very unpopular political class.

Or, it's criminal everywhere in the West except the USA. And not just dick opinions, pointing out the German politicians are not too bright has been criminalized now.

Still creepy.

You're right but, usually, life is more fragile than chemistry for no other reason that life is built on chemistry. There are animals with exceptional capacity to survive radiation, but they accomplish this by redundancy and quick repair.

So it comes down to picking the dose that doesn't kill your but does kills what would other wise kill you... radiation cancer therapy.

"slow" is still measured in milliseconds. That said, the energy is probably in the low hundred Joules. which is a lot when theres no time to dissipate it.

Others have said it's for the global site, but would 64 million really be that off for the US?

I just looked it up 13 of the 40k francises are in the US. Assuming linearity, thats about 21 million US applicants since they started keeping centralized, digital records.

20% of Americans younger than 40 is not a bad guess.

Look your question is not unreasonable and the s answer is interesting, but your tone implies loathing and belittling.

Which maybe we (I also work in "defense") deserve to burn in hell, but who are you to be self righteous? For example, if you ever put up a Ukraine flag sticker you'd be a hypocrite too.

I don't know about beavers, but their tails tastes like any other fried dough drizzled in syrup.

hundreds of thousands.

I learned how to read in six months.

My kid took two and half years.

The Chinese take 10 years.

So what? Are the Chinese terribly educated?

Im a materials scientist and I use etymology every day.

Knowing etymology is a an easy way to memorize things.

And it's great.

My HS Italian teacher's university thesis was on the different dialects within Naples and their various (ancient) Greek origins.

You're not wrong, except the technological reason. As I understand it, English lost a lot of characters when the movable type printing press was created.

But English orthography isn't meant to serve foreigners.

Im ESL, I struggled with English spelling as much as the next latin speaker who's already learned to read and write in foreigner.

But now that I get the reason behind it, I love it. I consider English orthography worthy of UNESCO protection, even. In fact, I am annoyed at the regular spelling of my two latin languages that have left so much history behind.

I don't think the OP stated porn was the only thing.

Its not copper that's faster, it's the dielectric in between the twisted pair that has a lower index of refraction.

And, if we neglect how long the signal can travel like the authors do, copper is always going to win this fight vs. fiber because copper can use air as its dielectric but fiber cannot.

But when there's only four houses every hundred km, a dozen dumb tourists become a very big nuisance.

You're not wrong, but this is proof that Id rather be stranded in the wilderness with an archeologist than a CS major (I'm assuming).

An archeologist would walk down a gradient until they find a stream and therefore a fluvial network to a human settlement.

Your answer gets me killed.