I’m not an avid reader, but I’m a huge fan of a book called Over the Edge of the World by Lawrence Bergreen. That detailed Magellan’s voyage around the world. A few takeaways:

• Spices really were the thing everyone in Europe wanted. If a sailor managed to smuggle a backpack full of cloves, it would be enough to buy a modest house. Only one of 5 ships made it back, but it was filled with top quality cloves and that was enough that the trip was STILL a financial gain.

• Nobody really knew where the spices came from. India was a nebulous semi-mythical place, and some believed there were a few "India"s

• Magellan, while Portuguese by birth, basically moved to Spain when Portugal wouldn’t pay for him to try to find the spice Islands

• The treaty of Tordesillas roughly divided the new world between Spain and Portugal. The land east of whatever meridian was Portugal’s, and west was Spain’s. But there were still issues, like longitude not really being measurable at the time and no clear idea who had claim 180° past that meridian. But it would have been to Spain’s benefit to find the spice islands past that meridian

Bonus fact: the first human to sail around the world was Magellan’s slave, Enrique (last name escapes me). He was brought from Indonesia(?) to Europe, then set sail on this round-the world journey, eventually going near his native homeland. Magellan had it in his will that Enrique be freed upon his death, but when he was killed on that voyage (basically by his own who) nobody was aware of that.

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) won the general in a write-in campaign after an unexpected primary loss. But I guess I’m not sure if they have an open primary in Alaska, nor if that would really be the critical qualifier.

When I wrote that I was thinking of what I had in Czechia! Kind of in between bread and a dumpling, not stuffed, and great to mop up some gravy.

Don’t get me wrong, I live a good pierogi, but I was trying to stick to the simple staples

If I won’t convince you otherwise there’s not much point in discussing anything. I’ll throw out one point I mentioned in another comment nonetheless…

From what I remember of this school district’s case, the laptops were assigned the laptops for free to use at school. If they wanted to take the laptops home, they needed to pay an additional fee for extra insurance costs. This student did not. There is a reasonable argument that the school was tracking down its missing property. Maybe you won’t be convinced otherwise, but a jury (really, a single jury member) very well could.

It seems like it to you and me. At a trial, we’d hear their side of the story. Maybe there’s some explanation that could make it somewhat reasonable, and you would have a hard time convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

If I remember correctly, students had to pay extra to take their laptops home, I believe an insurance fee of some kind. The student whose family filed a lawsuit did not pay that. The laptop was supposed to be at school, but was not. In that case, there may have been reasonable doubt that the school was trying to track down its missing property that should not be outside of school grounds.

It’s not intent to break the law, it’s intent to do what you did. If I walk out of a store with a can of tuna I didn’t pay for, that’s shoplifting, right? Well, not necessarily.

If I walk into a store, pick it up off the shelf, hide it in my jacket, and dart for the exit, probably.

If my toddler slipped it into my jacket pocket, and I didn’t notice, probably not.

If I put it in my jacket pocket because my toddler started to run away, I forgot about it, and paid for a cart of groceries… Maybe? But unlikely to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn’t an accident.

The average person has approximately one boob and one testicle

Some places eat rice. Others prefer bread. Or dumplings (but not necessarily stuffed - like Eastern Europe). Or noodles, which themselves can be made from all kinds of things and are somehow different between Asian noodles and Italian pasta. Or cous cous. Or potato. Or… Or…

We have a ton of different carbs in this world. Some take more preparation than others when they get on the plate. That doesn’t mean we’re comparing apples and oranges (which, ironically, would actually be a great map as well)

I also got Z-wave shades from Bali when Home Depot had a 50% off custom window treatments sale. They’ve been wonderful, and integrate with Home Assistant very nicely overall. Battery lasts a long time (about 6 months of use, with a daily “round trip” and they’re still at about 60%) and status gets reported back. One piece on one shade got machined weirdly so I couldn’t use the Z-wave, and they were happy to send a replacement.

Bali is manufactured by a company called Springs Window Fashions. Might be worth looking into them and their other brands too!

Oh, and Home Depot has sample material books you can take home for a night to see what would work best for you.

I have a ton of east-facing windows on the back of my house. It’s a blessing or a curse depending on weather and time of day. I always dreamed about them running automatically, and eventually ordered a bunch of Z-wave controlled motorized shades. Then a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant to control it all.

While I was waiting for those shades to arrive, I got a bunch of Kasa light switches so I didn’t have to sweep across the entire house to turn off all the lights every night. Turning the hallway light off after 9:45PM triggers the automation.

The rabbit hole only got bigger from there.

99.999% (or whatever) of the time cars are used to go from A to B and there’s no real thought about it. How many people do you really think make backups for purely personal storage redundancies? This feels more like grape juice and yeast kits (or whatever) from the prohibition era.

Credit cards, but not credit. Home, auto, business, and other loans have existed long before that.

I love the “to be determined” if there is anything on board that can cause a health hazard (they did quarantine astronauts when they first came back from the moon)

I use Kasa switches all over my house and am waiting for them to release their fan controller (it was announced at CES last year, and a thread on the old place says it’ll be out at the end of the month)

I’m excited for my fan to shut off if it’s too cold in the bedroom. Already have a temperature/humidity sensor in there.

As a side note, I really wish folders were implemented for devices and automations and such. Especially since I have a scene controller (and another on the way) with several buttons, each of which can have 6 different triggers (pressing 1-5 times or holding the button down). Oh, and more for the LEDs.

It’s very US that one of the pages…

That’s not how denonyms work

Yeah, OP should’ve said Unitedstatesofamerican because that’s what people do

And just like… Disintegrated instead of fossilizing

Now that you mention it, I did update fairly recently…

I’ve heard the SD cards can be pretty flakey, so I immediately replaced the one that came with the rpi with something a little more “hardy” (Samsung Pro Endurance 256GB). It’s supposed to be able to handle a few years of streaming video turnover, so I wouldn’t think that a ~month of text logs would already hose it but I’ve been wrong before.

Running hassos