Don’t come to Ireland. I’ve lived in the US for nearly two decades, made lots of friends and even helped some to immigrate here. The harsh reality is, however, that we’re going through a really bad housing crisis, with our own homeless numbers growing every month, and house prices and rents exploding (a recent statistic showed that our growth in rents is four times the EU average). So, please, for our sake and yours, try a different country.

I love the album, but it stands to mention that this was a solo project by Roger Waters. Still, the lineup was stacked, and I loved the energy.

TV/movie: Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell, especially from the SAC.)

Video games: Nicole Collard (Broken Sword series)

Electric Light Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Rubettes. Essentially the same as when I go running.

I have a 486, but with MS-DOS 6.2 and Norton Commander as a UI. Haven’t booted it up for about a decade, though, but don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t work. My Win98SE computer (Pentium 100), on the other hand, is still my gaming rig. Don’t need anything better for HoMM2, Master of Orion 2, and TES: Daggerfall.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Back when I was single and living alone, I did my share of nature photography, mainly landscapes and wildlife. Sitting for hours, waiting for the perfect moment, was my meditation. And yes, there were times where I just lived for the moment, rather than taking the pucture.

I saw the movie a few years after I settled down, and it triggered my only occasion where I questioned my life choices and wondered what might have been if I remained alone and unattached.

I’m being self-censored. Working for a very large corp that has a long list of topics I’m not supposed to discuss, and I’m pretty good at not talking about them under my real name. I’m quite certain that my anonymous comments may also be traced back to me, but the HR doesn’t care about those.

I always imagine All Along the Watchtower as a 1980’s fantasy movie along the lines of Red Sonya or The Beastmaster.

It’s for domestic consumption. Iran is the Big Bad in Israel, due to its support of Hamas, so the Israeli PM is chasing after brownie points from the electorate by hitting Iran over and over again.

I’m helping people resettle to Europe. We currently host a recent college grad until they finalize their job and housing arrangements, and I don’t think they’ll be the last one.

Idealism is the privilege of elites. Maslow’s pyramid puts the majority of people into survival mode or comfort, and the US has been boiling the frog towards expanding the bottom of the pyramid for a long time. By the time people noticed that an open revolt (even so much as a work strike) would destroy their lives, it was too late. There are so few charismatic, moral and idealistic elites that the government could take care of them as soon as they threatened to become leaders of a real opposition. I don’t believe there would be a civil war, and I don’t believe there is a way back. The US will become a neofedual country, with a lucky few who have the means to move elsewhere. The best case scenario is for the rest of the world to isolate from the US, both economically and militarily.

Trump’s executive order forced Microsoft to disable access for ICC’s Chief Prosecutor. So, in a sense, Trump is indeed a threat to digital sovereignty.

Fico faces an EU probe after journalists and opposition politicians found dozens of mansions built or purchased by Fico and his cohort through misappropriated EU funds. He’s desperately trying to change the subject.

I don’t follow other people’s private activities, but this one hurt a lot. He remains one of my favourite authors, and having him disappear from publishing leaves holes in my library (Trees and Injection, in particular).

The trifecta of 2005 TV shows:

• Threshold
• Surface
• Invasion

The 2005-2006 season was an absolute disaster for new, promising sci-fi shows.

How are you dealing with tax returns? I have a coworker who’s a dual citizen, and she tells me that she has to file through an accounting service that costs her an arm and a leg. If she weren’t close to retirement, she’d renounce her US citizenship.

Your saliva contains microscopic amounts of toxins. As you swallow, these toxins collect in your body, and eventually they’ll reach critical mass and kill you. The amount of toxins in your saliva, and the total amount required to kill you is very individual, so nobody knows which will be their last drop. Still, one day I’ll swallow my last bit of saliva and die.

I also use em dashes. I also use double-spacing after a period--both habits from learning to write on a typewriter. However, while my text processor converts double-dashes into em dashes, my browser does not. So, when I see em dashes in a forum post, I naturally become suspicious. It is very rare for me to write a post in a text editor and then copy/paste it into a text area, and I assume this to be true with others as well.

Not OP, but I did the same, when I first realized the US was on a slippery slope towards idiocracy (and, in fairness, I realized it three decades after many intellectuals already warned about it). In my case, I was fortunate to work for a multinational, which agreed to transfer me to a country within the EU, and to take care of the paperwork. Over a decade later, I have citizenship here, my own house, and I feel fully integrated into the local society. And I don’t need to worry about college tuition for my kids. They’ll have a choice of free education anywhere within the EU, and by the time they’re old enough, they may have access to a wide variety of educators who left he US.

I remember when it didn’t have a dash. Until people started making fun of the old URL…