grozzle

is that to avoid using liquid vinegar?

adding to abnorc's excellent answer - circuit diagrams are all drawn as if charge carriers are positive (this is called "conventional current"), but because electrons are negative, this can get very confusing when you're dealing with components where the flow of charge is one-way only (diodes, transistors, batteries, photometers...)

"never" was specifically about the need for a passport, not the existence of stops. Stops were rare after the mid-90s, intermittently put up when there was a local bomb scare.

i'm "skipping" points that aren't relevant to the original claim, that today NI would be "free" if only England wasn't in charge. My point was that the GFA's principle of consent is respected by both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and so the ruling class of England is not today holding NI against their collective will. Derry Girls had the GFA referendum in the final episode - please remember that was 26 years ago already, society has changed massively since then.

The main issue for most nationalist-leaning people (btw, in Ireland, nationalist always means Irish nationalist. nobody says "british nationalist", you say unionist or loyalist instead) these days is waiting for the Republic's health-care system to match the NHS in terms of affordability and quality. Everyday issues like that - most people in the north have a distrust of "the flag" being the most important issue.

Getting into alternate-history "could have ..." ideas doesn't change the real today. Nobody here suggested that, (for example) Orange marches were dealt with well, or Ireland has been treated well in history.

I did ask you what you meant by "set em loose", and didn't get an answer. Also "Welsh and Scots would def let it go" - again, what means exactly do you believe England is using to not let it go, in 2024? The NI Secretary will hold a referendum as soon as public polling indicates the time is right. Your "de-colonization" plan sounds like ethnic cleansing of the Ulster-Scots population who have been there since before the Mayflower reached America.

I do agree wholeheartedly that action should be taken ASAP to undo what Russia and Israel have been doing to expand their territories, while we're still dealing with the actual settlers, not their great-great-great-etc grandchildren.

sure, anything's good to get mad about if you just make things up.

what specifically do you have in mind by "set em loose", if not the referendum i talked about?

would you rather the six counties be "handed over" without the consent of the people who live there? how is that less imperialist than the Good Friday Agreement which you seem to be angry about?

a passport is not required to cross the border. never was. you just drive straight through, no stops since the mid-90s. I can tell you've never been to Ireland.

please don't talk to me as if I'm british.

Derry Girls is a great show, I'm glad it's popular, but it isn't a substitute for reality.

While I normally don't give the Brits much credit, gotta say NI is not being held in the UK against its collective will. Your imagined cruel English oppressor holding on to land by force, opposing the will of the local population, is out of date in the 21st century.

Almost all Brit politicians would love to be the PM at the time of Irish unification.

Since 1998, the NI Secretary is obliged by treaty to carry out a referendum for unification as soon as polling indicates there's a reasonable chance it would get a yes majority.

It just hasn't happened yet. It probably will, within a few decades.

strawman argument.

tobacco companies and governments are widely hated.

or maybe people just hate it because it fucking stinks.

Can confirm, at least for Acast distribution, I generally get no ads when I'm not in an English speaking country at the time of download.

However, iHeart podcasts are always absolutely crammed full of ads everywhere.

Fabric Bellard's body of work is fairly strong evidence for time travel having happened already.

Or just genius.

Coach Z voice

that happened to me once!

IBM standard cards are one 48th of a barleycorn thick. I believe IBM measured from the 1932 Iowa Reference Barleycorn, now kept in the vault inside Mt Rushmore.

Hope so! Shadowrun, which is basically Gibson's sprawl plus magic, set in the 2050s in original editions from around 1990 -

Later editions added wireless computer connections to keep up with present technology, but wifi just doesn't feel cyberpunk, so they later added some weird lore reason to go back to needing to plug in, for recent editions. Good change.