For the record, the OP picture is real, i’ve seen it since i was a kid here in Romania.

I think i remember being told about it in sciences class in primary school decades ago… but yeah, it’s not like it’s used in any way anywhere.

Yeah, it’s always been the lynx, officially. But indeed it’s not a well known fact, nor is it used anywhere really.

You can google “romanian national animal”, all you’ll find is the lynx, everywhere. However, i’m unable to find the origin of it.

I never used it, but damn are people here judgy. I don’t understand how it’s a personal insult if someone used it in the way you’re describing. As long as your actual thoughts and emotions are what you send, who cares you used a tool to express them.

Anxiety is rough. I wish people were more understanding.

I love you for that joke.

After a 10 second google search, i’ve found it’s idaho’s Enhanced Concealed Carry Weapons class. Which you have to take to carry a gun around.

There’s dozens of them i tell you! Dozens!

This is my one obsession. Fear of how we can’t possibly all be employed, because of automation, and how the resources and power will keep concentrating in the hands of those who own the automation. I’ve had this argument with friends that aren’t as left leaning as me, and what i’m told over and over again is that i just lack the vision. That this has been a scare since forever, and yet look at how new jobs keep popping up. “There’ll be jobs you can’t even imagine right now”, they say. “Fearmongers like you have been around since forever”. “Employment is actually going up”.

In my mind though, we’re like the horses when the engine was invented.

Ah yes just rolls off the tongue. Totally the same as, an increment of one is equal in both.

A man of culture, i see.

Good luck to you!

I’d rather not dox myself, but i can tell you i’m in eastern europe working for a western european bank. COBOL is still heavily used in the banking and insurance sectors, by companies that started using it 50 years ago.

If you do manage to learn the ropes, the salary does tend to be above average for a mid-level programmer.

Been working in COBOL for a decade and this is all true.

I’m lucky. I personally enjoy it. But i can totally see how it’s an absolute nightmare for most people.

Been in the industry for 10 years and i deeply disagree with you. I work in COBOL.

Not that migrations don’t happen, but in my experience, many, many companies kick that can down the road each year, because migrating huge and critical services is extremely costly, time-consuming and risky. In the short term, just paying people to maintain the dinosaurs is waaaay cheaper.

Also, it’s extremely easy to get a job in it ( my company now hires people with no IT background and tries to teach them cobol from scratch ), because even though it’s a niche, the demand for it still outweighs the supply of people willing to learn it.

Will it die out eventually? Maybe. I’ve been hearing about its death for a decade, so i’ve become skeptical about it in the short-term.

Edit : would also like to point out that it is indeed a fantasy that it pays truckloads of money. Does it happen? Sometimes, but you need to be really good and experienced at it.

It’s good to ask the question.

The problem is when they refuse to accept the answer.

Here in Romania, we’re exactly like the Poles. There’s deep, deep national trauma related to Russia ( even before the USSR ).

However, it’s not the same everywhere in the former soviet block, places like Bulgaria, Hungary or Slovakia are far more torn on the issue.

People who grow up almost anywhere else on earth can also tell how big something is based on their experience with metric. That’s not something inherently based on the imperial system. The same way you go “oh that’s about 3 feet”, we go “oh that’s about 2 meters”.

And of course, switching systems overnight is insane, people are used to imperial, you’re right. But at the very least do what Britain did, and have both systems in parallel at the same time, everywhere. And in time, people would get used to metric too.

I made absolutely no mention of Ukraine and i would have written this comment with no changes ( and i probably have ) years before the invasion. It’s a strawman on your part to assume i uncritically support Ukraine ( or the US or EU for that matter ), just because i’m criticizing Russia. And if anything, i feel like we echo the same sentiment in both our comments, that just by criticizing one side doesn’t mean that the other doesn’t have flaws.

It just doesn’t mean they’re equally bad either.

At the very start, i point out that this worldview of all politics and politicians are dirty and corrupt is being pushed by Russia in many countries. I didn’t think i need to mention that i’m including Italy.

This attitude of “all politics and politicians are equally dirty” is straight out of the russian propaganda playbook. This is the narrative they’ve pushed in my country for decades, and it’s chillingly effective. It closely resembles whataboutism, whenever you criticize a politician, people yell “AS IF THE OTHER SIDE IS BETTER.”

Why push this narrative, you ask? So that people become so disillusioned and apathetic that they don’t vote, so it takes less votes for Russia to get the parties it wants into power. It also breeds internal dissent, malcontent, instability, leads to low voter turnout.

Russia also pushes a version of this at home, and in allies like Belarus. The gist being, all politics is dirty and corrupt, don’t get involved, don’t vote, nothing matters, it doesn’t concern you.

So yeah, sorry about the rant, but when i see variations of that quote “if your vote mattered, they’d make it illegal”, i get really annoyed. If your vote mattered, they’d make you think it doesn’t so you don’t vote.

You’re right, but it depends on the infrastructure already set up. In areas with high rail density ( like here in Europe ), if you can use the existing rail infrastructure, electric trains would be amazing.