Fuck off, I’m not paying £1.8B for a digital ID that I don’t even want!

What’s wrong with my Blockbuster membership card?

I grew up in a small town in rural Scotland and now live in a city in England. So I miss the fields, the sea, the hills, the forests, the food, the people, the closeness, the pace of life, the community.

I bought half a dozen of these years and years ago. I still have half a dozen of them.

The claim was that carrots were good for eyesight in general but also for night sight in particular, suggesting the British pilots were scarfing down carrots by the bucketful and that was how their night patrols were able to intercept the German bombers so often.

Somewhere, I also read that German high command wanted their own pilots to up their carrot consumption but didn’t think the German pilots would go for it just because of the night sight thing, so they made up a lie that the British pilots ate the carrots to improve their sexual prowess.

Look into the switch statement instead of the else ifs.

Take off and nuke the site from orbit.

Now you tell me! Where were you back then?

I had a Corolla. A mid ‘80s model. Lasted me for years until the radiator went.

Took it to my local mechanic who said: “That fucker’s fucking fucked!”

In the face of such deep technical knowledge (and the fact that the work would have cost more than the car was worth at that point), I reluctantly let it go to scrap.

The Bubba photos.

Some of us, in the UK, play Whamageddon which is a concerted effort to get all the way through December up to Christmas Day without hearing ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham.

“I got Whammed in Poundland today!” is a typical cry of dismay for someone who has failed.

Sumo. I reckon the other wrestlers would just gently push me out of the ring and I’d be ok with that.

I grew up in a small rural town in the 70s. Both my parents worked a six day week so after school and on Saturdays I was free. Me and friends would roam all over, farms, woods, beaches. Sometimes we’d hitchhike to other towns.

These days my kids are growing up in a city. I know there’s no comparison to the freedom I experienced versus what my kids do, but I also doubt I’d have been allowed as much freedom if I’d grown up in a city.

Might equally be a Rush fan.

🎵 I set a course just east of Lyra
And northwest of Pegasus
Flew into the light of Deneb
Sailed across the Milky Way
On my ship, the ‘Rocinante’
Wheeling through the galaxies
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery 🎵

• Cygnus X-1, Rush

And you have fun inventing your strawmen! Such fun.

It’s a strawman and you know it. I’ve said several times that right of way is not a replacement for due care and attention. e.g. “And - duh! - of course we’re careful crossing the street.”, or “Again, we just look both ways and make sure any driver heading in your direction has made eye contact so you know they’ve seen you.”

You’re the one who invented this “the law will protect me so I can jump into traffic blindfold” strawman, not me.

So your state doesn’t recognise jay-walking as a crime? Cool.

I’ve never understood you people who care more for legal culpability than your own safety.

You’re arguing with a straw man.

Am I the only one reading this thread or something?

I reckon it’s just the two of us at this point.

What you seem to be saying in this comment is that, despite crushingly authoritarian laws prohibiting jaywalking, people in your state are just arseholes who deliberately try to get hit by a car? Or, maybe you’re saying that people in countries with jay-walking laws are more likely to be suicidal, because this is behavior you’ve seen in person?

I don’t quite understand what your point is any more. I’ve never been hit by a car. No-one I know has ever been hit by a car (except one friend who bounced off the hood of a Ferrari but - by his own admission - that was entirely his own fault).

The fact that pedestrians have right of way here seems to mean drivers (I’m a driver too) are more inclined to anticipate hazards - including pedestrians - than in a country where pedestrians have no freedom. We do hazard awareness testing as part of our driver licensing programme. And - duh! - of course we’re careful crossing the street.

But you still seem to be utterly fixated on the ‘determined at fault’ thing. Who is at fault is irrelevant when people aren’t being mowed down by Bubba Joe in his Mustang racing between the lights.

Nope.

For me it’s Marcus Wareing. Watch the intro to his TV show. “Until recently I worked, but now I’m just chilling out and living the good life you fucking peasants couldn’t even imagine. Look at how good my life is!”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00151dq/marcus-wareings-tales-from-a-kitchen-garden-series-1-episode-1

Well if you think people who live in countries with no jay-walking laws ‘lollygag in the street or cross irresponsibly’ or ‘[jump] in front of 2,000+ lbs hunk of mostly plastic’, I don’t know what to tell you. I guess we just live in countries with more personal freedom and a greater expectation of personal responsibility.

Again, we just look both ways and make sure any driver heading in your direction has made eye contact so you know they’ve seen you. My 10-year old walks to school on his own and crosses a road twice. I have 0% expectation that he’ll be hit by a car.

It’s bizarre to me that you fixate on what happens when you’re dead.

I’m more interested in the impact of the cultural component of drivers knowing that pedestrians can cross anywhere. I feel like that makes a huge difference. In countries where jaywalking laws exist, I imagine it’s dangerous to cross the road anywhere other than a pedestrian crossing. In countries where car companies never managed to get the government go along with victim-blaming pedestrians and so never enacted jay-walking laws I assume it’s much safer.

I’m in my late 50s, and have never worried about crossing urban roads, never come close to being mowed down by a car (a bicycle a couple of times, but never a car). I’ve lived everywhere from tiny villages to one of the biggest, angriest cities in the world, and it’s simply never been an issue.

You just look both ways and make sure any driver heading in your direction has made eye contact so you know they’ve seen you. Oftentimes they’ll wave you across.