We’ll also welcome our Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica brethren, obviously :D

Only a fool or a 12 year old would think otherwise. Back in the late ‘90’s, the web had a great sense of community. On forums, IRC, places like Cybertown, etc. You had smaller communities where you could reasonably know most users. They had a human scale; like a friendly neighbourhood.

Modern social media is definitely terrible. It happened because we were too welcoming. Back in those days, the web was a nerd domain. We all shared the same sort of interests and optimism for the future of the web. You had to BE a nerd to get online. To WANT to be online.

But now that it’s too easy for everyone to get on, the idiots have taken over. We really should kick everyone off the web who can’t name at least three characters from either Star Wars or Star Trek.

I’m right where I’m supposed to be ❤️

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

It really comes down to this: if you want your own space for particular interests, you should create one and find likeminded people to populate it. Just waiting for it to magically appear isn’t going to work. Be assertive.

Frankly, it’s stressing me out. The non-stop barrage of Trump, Musk and other bullshit is just a bit too much on here. I get how the platform generally is very left leaning, but it really does feel like the sky is falling every five minutes, you know?

Absolutely. There can be zero disagreement on this.

I will definitely second that recommendation. They turn basically every shoe into a slipper.

I was skeptical when I read about them, but gave them a go. Reason being: my feet swell during the day, which means I was constantly loosening my laces throughout the day. Which isn’t ideal.

The Lock Laces help in that they’re always perfect: they flex with my feet and always have just the right tension.

They are popular with a wide range of people. Triathletes like them for fast transitions since you don’t need to retie your shoes. Marathon runners also love them since it means no more laces getting undone. And yes, they’re obviously great for old folks and people with disabilities.

I like them so much, I now put them on every new pair of shoes that I buy.

Victorinox has never disappointed me. I own a few kitchen knives, their cutlery and an extensive collection of pocket knives. Everything is solid, dependable, arrives sharp and stays sharp. Plus they have good company ethics, as far as those things go. I like their products so much, I frequently give them as gifts.

Bats. Some species really look like adorable little sky kittens. But they are also significant disease carriers, ranging from rabies to ebola. Bats themselves have evolved to be immune to things that can kill us and other animals.

It’s why you should never, EVER touch a bat. Just don’t.

I really miss webrings. You’d discover the most absurd niche shit people were into. Especially since everyone seemed to have their own Geocities page or something similar. Nobody has one these days, as we all just use social media and big sites.

It really sucks. You just don’t get that these days now everyone is inside their own little bubble on the net.

Well we are proud of Dutch manufacturing in general. We like to make good products, even if they might be bad for you: for decades, we had the best weed in terms of THC content. And the Netherlands is also a highly regarded global producer of XTC pills and amphetamines. There’s only so many tulips you can export…

So yes, loose tobacco is one of our fine export products. We Dutch also loved it; it was really popular to use in joints (see: Dutch weed) and rolling your own cigarettes tended to be cheaper than buying packs (we Dutch are notoriously cheap). These days people prefer a vape, or pure joint. And with smoking in general on the decline, loose tobacco is a rare sight here these days.

Well, Europe is a big place. The percentage of smokers differs from country to country, as well as the anti-smoking legislation and when that was introduced.

In the Netherlands, you cannot smoke in the workplace, restaurants, cinema, on public transport, near a hospital, etc. Sale of tobacco products is illegal to anyone under 18 and we’ve banned things like flavoured vapes.

Because of all these measures, ‘only’ 19 percent of the Dutch population 15 and older smokes, with people lower on the socio-economic ladder smoking more frequently. That’s below the European average of 19.7 percent.

Now, compare that to other countries like France (22 percent), Spain (23 percent) and Bulgaria (28 percent).

Now, those countries have anti-smoking legislation as well. But because they had statistically higher numbers of smokers, it takes longer to see the overall effect.

So depending on where you are in Europe, your perception of smoking habits could vary wildly.

Childhood asthma, unfortunately. I was born in 1982 and basically everyone smoked everywhere here in the Netherlands. If you had a birthday, you couldn’t see across the room due to the smoke.

Because of it I had childhood asthma, which cleared up immediately when my parents stopped smoking. In the early 90’s, things got a lot better with smoke-free environments. We eventually got full on smoking bans, thank god. As far as I can tell, it didn’t do any permanent damage.

I still absolutely HATE smokers and smoking. It is and was an antisocial thing and children should never have been exposed to it like we were.

I’ve never had a Droid, but loved every other Motorola that I’ve owned. Including the original StarTac and Razr. They made some really nice phones over the years.

The early days of web shopping sure were interesting. I was a very early adopter compared to most people.

The very first thing I ever bought online was a flashlight back in 1999. Which was such a novelty at the time that I actually visited the two guys who ran that shop from a literal broom closet in order to collect it. I was like their third customer ever. These days they have 75 employees and around 7 million euros of revenue.

Collecting a web order seems silly now, but at that time it basically avoided a two week wait. Back in 1998-2005, if you bought something online in the Netherlands, you usually had to transfer the money by bank. Which took a few days. After that, they would send the product, which again took a few days.

In 2005 we got a new online payment method that let you transfer the money immediately, much like paying at a register. That made it way more convenient for everyone and you saw massive increases in spending year over year.

Well that’s pretty much every platform’s lifecycle. Starts small, reaches a sweet spot and either implodes or sucks ass.

I was on Digg, I had a MySpace page, I was an early Twitter user, I had a Reddit account… who knows how long I’ll be on here. But for now, I’m happy to be one of the users on the upswing.

Well, while those flexible screen flip phones certainly look like neat tech, it’s not the same as the flip phones we used to have.

And it’ll need a few more versions before I’m comfortable buying one. Those screens tend to be just a bit too fragile.

Jesus, that’s a blast from the past for sure!

It really was the thing everyone latched on to with the N-Gage. I actually still own a first gen model that I bought on release. It was actually pretty decent, both as a phone and the games it played. Of course, it never really took off, but I enjoyed using it.

As for the sidetalking… I bought a headset for it to avoid that :D

For me, it’s just the fact that phones… are phones. They all look the same, function the same, there’s just nothing new happening with them.

Sure, chips get better and faster, they’ll add another camera to it and fiddle with the dimensions a bit, but that’s not innovation. All phones look like boring rectangular slabs.

Back in the late 90’s, phones had way more variety and personality. Candybar, flip, even the sidetalkin’ taco that was the Nokia N-Gage. A Motorola Razr looked nothing like say, a Nokia or Sony Ericsson. And those were distinctly different from your Samsung or Mitsubishi phones (Yes, Mitsubishi made phones!).

I’d love it if we went back to more phone variety, but I fear the smartphone has effectively killed every other style. Most people wouldn’t ditch their big screen smartphone to go back to a small flip phone.

In fact, at our newspaper only about a quarter of the writers are ‘real’ journalists with journalism degrees, including myself.

From my personal experience (20 years in radio, 8 in newspapers), even most actual journalists don’t really call themselves journalists. I tend to refer to myself as a writer in general, since I also do commercial copy, I write reviews and handle all sorts of general writing and public contact.

Journalist is not a protected job title. Anyone can call themselves a journalist. Even that other poster. Because of that, I tend not to use it as a job title, since it’s been devalued a bit by everyone with a blog or vlogging channel calling themselves journalist.

I’m seriously wondering what the other poster’s point was…