Isn't this extremely genre dependent? And regardless, this has been going on for a long time.

The Supremes? Good looking gals (and great music IMHO).

Grateful Dead? Sure, rough around the edges.

The Doors? Um...ever seen a picture of Jim Morrison? Dude would make Derek Zoolander blush.

Out of curiosity, I asked Spotify for modern metal music, and I got The Black Dahlia Murder

frontman looks like a regular dude who I'd grab a beer with.

Yeah, modern pop places a ton of emphasis on looks, sure. But I think this has been pretty prominent in music for a very long time, be it the airbrushed R&B of the sixties, the androgynous glam of the eighties, or the metro sexual (guy)/model-esque looks of modern pop.

It can be daunting to get into the hobby, there are a ton of niches.

To start: where are you? I'm in the USA, so that's where my experience is.

License: required to transmit on the ham bands; you can listen without a license.

Range: are you looking to talk to people in your city/region? If so, a cheap "walkie-talkie" style (called "HT" in the biz

best avoid "walkie-talkie") is a good place to start. These VHF/UHF (very/ultra high frequency) radios are affordable

something from Baofeng(~$30) or similar will work just fine, though they are often looked down on (I have one

for the price, it's great). You will have the most luck if there is an active ham scene in your area, in large part because they may have a repeater, which can greatly extend your range. Many regions will have scheduled "nets" where you just go around and chat.

If you're looking for the ability to chat with folks on the other side of the world, you'll want to look into HF (high frequency). This is much lower frequency, thus longer wavelength, than the handheld VHF/UHF HTs. So...the antennas take up a lot of space. Mine is 52 feet long, in the attic. And the radios are much more expensive (more like $1k new). ICOM 7300, Yaesu FT710 are popular entry level units (but you also need power supply, cables, and antenna).

That said: if you just want to listen to HF, the antenna doesn't matter as much at all, and you can use an SDR (RTL-SDR probably works?) for listening. You can probably also find a used shortwave radio that covers some of the HF ham bands.

As a long-time Debian user, I'd have to throw my vote behind Slackware for the title of most UNIX-y, which is I guess a bit different from most Linux-y.

Debian got me through grad school, but Slack got me through undergrad on a hopelessly underpowered old ThinkPad

Volkerding is a legend, and Slack will always be dear to my heart.

Nah, no hard feelings towards the retail folks, they're doing what they're supposed to. It's just that I wish the corporate incentives were different so it felt more like the staff were trying to help.

My only complaint with microcenter is that the commission in incentives come off as extreme. Like I will be walking around with something in my hand and a rando will come up to me, say "hey there boss, lemme just slap this on that for you," and proceed to put a sticker on it with their ID. Not a big deal, but palpable, and makes it harder to just browse.

AI generated, so influenced from all of the above (with a sprinkling of Chrysler LeBaron perhaps?).

Many new cars have "run-flats," which can be used even if they get a puncture/go flat.

However, they are more expensive, they don't function under certain kinds of flats (e.g., sidewall damage), they have limited range, and limited speed.

The tiny "donut" spares on some cars are also not intended for high speeds, but I'd much prefer that to a punctured run-flat. (You should probably place the donut on the rear of your car is front wheel drive, though.)

When I took some astronomy classes in the early 2000s, Jocelyn Bell was absolutely credited. In her own words:

It has been suggested that I should have had a part in the Nobel Prize awarded to Tony Hewish for the discovery of pulsars. There are several comments that I would like to make on this: First, demarcation disputes between supervisor and student are always difficult, probably impossible to resolve. Secondly, it is the supervisor who has the final responsibility for the success or failure of the project. We hear of cases where a supervisor blames his student for a failure, but we know that it is largely the fault of the supervisor. It seems only fair to me that he should benefit from the successes, too. Thirdly, I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them. Finally, I am not myself upset about it - after all, I am in good company, am I not!

That said, yeah, I think she absolutely should have been awarded the Nobel prize. But while she did not, she has the admiration

rightly so

of many a budding astronomer.

And I'd bet "real bills" are only bills that the parent deems worthy

mortgage, car payment, etc. I'm guessing teacher pays rent, utilities, pays for groceries...

"no real bills" I'd believe...if the parent said she lived at home (no rent, and food provided), was on parents' insurance (health, auto, etc.), had no student debt, and was walking distance to work.

But given that her parent didn't, I'd guess that isn't the case. Turns out rent, food, transportation, and like you said, student debt, are all...what's the word...real bills?

I think the UK does more video surveillance than the US (e.g., https://www.yahoo.com/news/britain-more-surveillance-cameras-per-151641361.html ).

Still no match for the babushkas, of course.

My favorite was when the behavior of a USB drive in /etc/fstab went from "hmm it's not plugged in at boot, I'll let the user know" to "not plugged in? Abort! Abort! We can't boot!"

This change over previous init behavior was especially fun on headless machines...