RecursiveParadox

I seriously considered being Mistake Not… but decided it wouldn’t work well.

This is not the root cause, but exacerbates the problem: the majority of them are juicing. Steroids. Makes a person aggressive if the situation is correct for it.

Not who you are replying to but probably here, the Netherlands.

My son asked me to watch this with him and it was indeed amazing. I teared up a bit at the end (and had a feeling of existential dread for days after),

Agree.

Like your Culture ship name, btw.

This is the correct answer. Only one place - in Florida - where UK nukes can be serviced.

They don’t have kill switches and do not use GPS (rather celestial guidance), but if you cannot maintain them you cannot use them.

But AIS and MMSI do broadcast to the birds.

Aaaaand now I’m leaving to go to our local dosa place. Dosa masala rava, baby!

There used to be a good one near Rudy’s on 9th ave. Not sure if still around, but it was identical to what we get here in NL.

The Netherlands has by far the largest % of local people who speak fluent or near fluent English. In fact I hear more English in Amsterdam nowadays than Dutch (the locals are not amused).

It’s always good to learn the language of a place you immigrate to of course!

How is this news? GNSS (most prominently GPS and AIS) have been around forever via satellite. I have four different enterprise platforms for this. And satellite imagery on demand is also a thing, albeit a very expensive one.

If you DO have a critical skill you can come to the Netherlands. Google the “30% ruling.”

I’m sure nothing could go wrong….

The only thing that worried me was the ether.

RIP

The Polder Model strikes again!

I have kind of the reverse situation. If I were anymore white I’d be transparent. I’m from the States originally, but I speak Dutch with some degree of fluency and …am very white.

In everyday interactions my roots don’t often come up. But if I talk to someone long enough after 15-20 minutes something about my grammar or accent will tip people off to the fact I ain’t from around here.

Mostly people just complement me for my Dutch and add that most Americans don’t bother to learn it (this however is changing rapidly since we have had so many people from N America move here and immerse as quickly as they can the last few years.)

But once in a while they will ask some rather pointed questions about things like religion - assuming I’m a crazy xian - or racism - assuming because I’m white and from the States I must be a racist - etc.

My wife (100% Dutch, couldn’t possibly be more Dutch) works with refugees, and I’ve helped on many occasions over the years. One of them has become a good friend of ours. And to the refugees it definitely matters where someone is from and it’s the first thing they will ask one another. It is sometimes critical to segregate people from different places or cultures, for safety. I think because of this they don’t mind when whitty asks them where they are from also. Most will want to talk about their home country.

But, these are refugees, not someone whose parents immigrated here three generations ago and just happen to have brown skin. Asking a non-white person where they are really from is Not Done. But once you get to know someone they will probably bring it up in conversation.

All that said, some Dutch people can be hella racist despite our reputation for tolerance.

_At least _ one.

Sorry haven’t played in 15 years, and it sucks. Be the bluegrass/reggae you want to see in the world!

Not him but thanks fore the link.

In my last band, the only one I ever led, we’d start by locking in a groove, something one of the players would (usually spontaneously) come up with, usually 4, 8, or 12 bars. Nothing too complex most time, although my bass player had a thing for weird time signatures.

We’d try to get super tight on just this loop until someone came up with a complementary set of changes/rhythm, then we’d play until we locked that in too. We had a few times we would record this live, and it would become the backbone of a future song.

We’d usually of repeat this until we were board, which usually happened around 20-30 minute mark, or someone shouted our safe word for too long solos, Freebird.

(Warming: this would sometimes devolve into us playing weird covers of Freebird. Trust me you, do not need a reggae or bluegrass Freebird cover.)

This is not exactly like everyone warming up to scales/crazy licks/pyrotechnic playing like you envisioned, but I think it helped us lock in tighter in our “real” songs.