Are you going to tell this to the British expat pensioners in France and Spain? Because they probably never knew that meaning.

Fast food is called “fast food” because it’s fast, not because it’s food.

Apart from that, there is probably no production chain that has profited better from making things the cheaper way than anything related to food.

So this does not just concern fast food, but the HFCS loaded soda you drink, your bread swimming in dough raising and stabilizing chemicals, or your tinned soup made from water, starch, food coloring, flavors, and preservatives.

Just because of the masses produced and sold, any cent saved on a single Burger quickly adds up to a million dollar in extra profits. Don’t expect them to waste that money on better ingredients or flavor, as long as you keep buying that stuff, they keep on making it worse to save yet another cent.

There is no need to be perfect. But it at least shows effort. I have met people who lived here for 40 years and never bothered to learn even simple words or phrases. And that lack of effort, this absolute disinterest in ones host society is, in my opinion, highly impolite and antisocial.

It may be hard, but if you want to live in a foreign country, it is the minimum requirement I would expect. Forcing your host to permanently bend over backwards just to cater for your lack of effort is most impolite.

No, they are not. Seamless integrating yourself means to be able to communicate with your environment and to accept local laws and customs. I expect someone to immigrate from e.g. a Muslim country to accept that sharia is not our law, and that he has to accept that women are allowed to speak and gay people are not to beheaded.

On the other hand, I would not ask them to lose their cultural identity. There is no reason they cannot remain Muslim and observe their own religious customs or celebrate their holidays.

It might not be a job problem to just function, but not learning the local language makes you a bit anti-social in any other aspect.

About language barriers: have you ever considered actually learning your host countries language?

Don’t take your real phone with you. Just get a cheap burner phone that you can reset after customs went through it.

Many people attack if a post does not reflect their world view. I have learned that in most cases, this is primarily an issue of their limited world view, and not one of my post.

Simply ignore the idiots, and, if they escalate, just block them. Don’t let them control you.

What ads? (User without premium, but proper browser and adblocker)

I read for work and fun.

I like a number of different genres, historical novels, fantasy, SciFi, thriller, and many more. No crimes or romances, and biographies are a waste of paper 99% of the time.

I’m married with adult kids, and having a family and work curbs my reading time.

I started reading digital books a few decades ago, and have roughly the same amount of real and digital books, both in the five digits range.

I’m a fast reader. As a kid, I read a few novels a day. All libraries within bike range knew me, and I rarely needed a library pass. I still read faster than others, and I switched to reading English books (English is not my native language) to intentionally cut down my reading speed to 100 to 200 pages per hour. I currently proof read and edit English books for fun.

Depends how they behave. If they behave like “Expats”, who don’t care about integrating into our society, don’t care about learning the local language even after years, they are not welcome.

If they integrate seamless (and this does not imply giving up their identity, just to make sure), and become a good member of this society, be welcome.

November 30th. End of the year party of our LEGO user group.

Absolutely my creed. In my industrial niche, touch screen never took hold - when your action is actually (or at least perceived) important, nobody wants to rely on touch screens.

First I thought “WTF is period data a thing that should concern the government”, but then I noticed we are talking about the future Handmaids Tale country here.

Smart move for a country with a birth rate going off the cliffs and a terminal case of xenophobism.

They probably kill off any agency who would protect your consumer rights, anyway. And redefine “broadband” as “you’ve got modem access, so stop whining”. And let the companies keep the subsidies they got for making the former broadband definition happen.

What ads? (Firefox and adblocker)

And they have yet not arrived in the 20th(!) century. They are sending this form only to young men, not women.

Of course, now that Putins biggest asset is back in place. Remember when Russia took out American agents in Russia, shortly after Trump requested a list of those people from the agencies, which was shortly after a talk with Putin that went without any witnesses?