Cries in UK.

Looks excellent and has inspired me to recontemplate getting a table saw, as I had written it off as being too messy for my tiny workshop.

Please could you be specific, so we don’t have to check out Reddit, to find out? Not a dig, I’m just trying really hard to avoid the platform after moving. Cheers.

“I think I said “wunderkind”, but okay.”

Urethra.

Sorry, this is longer than I thought it would be. Bear with me…

At some point iTunes “upgraded” to include artist avatars that you couldn’t switch off or choose your own images for. Anyone it couldn’t find had a placeholder grey microphone icon, which was bad enough. If you had some obscure artist that happened to share a band name with a more popular act, it would default to their image. Unforgivable.

It pissed me off enough to seek another option and I eventually settled on Foobar2000, which was everything I had loved about Winamp and OG iTunes in one. Also, fully customisable, albeit with a learning curve. Moving everything into Foobar, I realised I needed to redownload all album cover art, for my 40,000+ song collection, in as high a resolution as possible (discovering albumartexchange, and Advanced Google Image Search, in the process).

Halfway through this task, I realised I should probably also redownload anything I had that was less than 192k bitrate, and maybe in some cases I should go flac, just to “make sure”. Fast forward a year and I have about 70,000 songs, mostly meeting those requirements, and mostly totally replacing the collection i had been building since 2001. God bless Soulseek and RuTracker.

Now, in answer to your actual question, on this journey I found (or, rather, didn’t) a whole bunch of stuff that I have from the early 2000s which doesn’t seem to exist online, anymore, or only does in poorer quality than I already had it, most of it old UK HipHop from that time. It was a real validation of one of the most important reasons for piracy, though I can’t claim it as the reason for my original (or ongoing) obsession!

But they made a movie episode, in 2019, to try to finally round off the series (all the actors returned). Check it out, if you didn’t catch it. It wasn’t perfect, obviously, but it was an admirable attempt.

The Intouchables (SIC). The original French film with Omar Sy. Not the pointless Hollywood remake. Its my favourite comedy of all time.

Also Firefox.

Found the Brit/American/Australian? (Delete as appropriate)

It already is, over here in the UK.

What’s funny about this (apart from your excellent joke) is that there are actually a lot of places, where they are a common crop, where bananas are advertised as “boneless”. This is because, I believe the bit that connects the banana bunch to the plant (not a tree!) Is sometimes called the “bone” (I believe it’s “C” in this image:

Having the grocer machete this bit off for you presumably cuts down on the unnecessary weight on your moped back home, and maybe even the costs, if buying by weight.

Caveat: This is just what I have come to understand, from travel experience and curiosity. If there are any actual “Bananologists” about, please feel free to correct!

Great info, here. Thanks so much for helping to demystify.

Please could you explain a bit more about the process you describe, above? Maybe with some simple examples? I’m woeful at maths but really good with mechanical and physical problems. If there’s a way I can improve upon the former, I’d love to try.

Thanks in advance!

It was never proven that the baby was Greg’s.

Didn’t Mythbusters debunk this one?

Stop holding your nose and blowing, to clear your ears. You can burst your eardrum this way. I have a perforated eardrum, myself (though not from this), and getting a subsequent inner ear infection in that ear is the most painful thing I have ever experienced. Worse than the burst appendix or broken ribs.

Instead, try holding your nose and closing your mouth and swallowing a few times. With a big gulp of water might help. Should eventually give you enough pressure to clear the blockage, without risking your health.

Alexander Berkman - Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912)

Berkman was in prison for the attempted assassination of union buster Henry Clay Frick, in 1892. He was sentenced to 21 years and served 14. The book is an amazing insight into the American prison system of the time.

Eugene Victor Debs - Walls and Bars (1927)

Debs was a very interesting figure and Socialist leader. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, in 1918 (under the Sedition Act), for publically denouncing the USA’s involvement in WW1, and telling people to stand against the military draft. This is part of his final speech to the Judge. Gives me goosebumps:

“Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

Technically, I think he wrote this post-release, but it’s about the prison system he experienced first hand.

Marco Polo - The Travels of Marco Polo (c.1300)

Pretty self-explanatory.

Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram (2003)

Started in prison, finished and published on the outside.

Obviously an impossible ask, you fiend! Possibly either:

The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

or

Aesop Rock - Skelethon

Once per day, late in the evening, eh?