Yep, pretty much this. I grew up with computers. The first one I used was a C64 in school. We got our first family PC in 1996. I was 14 back then.

If you wanted to do basically anything, you had to figure it out or read an actual manual. We had to fight with drivers and such in order to get any game or device working. It was part of the fun; you had to be nerdy to want to do that.

Nowadays, even my completely tech illiterate dad can use an iPad to browse, e-mail, stream stuff and connect on social media.

To be clear: my dad phoned me this morning asking how he could set the time on his digital Casio watch. And he’s using an iPad!! That’s how easy we were able to make tech, so even a toddler can use it.

I feel very lucky that I grew up with tech and can solve most problems on my own.

Unfortunately I don’t have it anymore or I’d post it for sure :D I took it years ago on an ancient iPod Touch that now has a spicy pillow for a battery and is completely dead.

My brother and I have a younger sister. When she was a teen, we were blown away by the fact that girls’/women’s clothes don’t have pockets. Or worse, that there’s even FAKE pockets. Meanwhile, I was wearing cargo pants throughout high school.

Women carry more stuff than us men. Clearly they do NEED pockets. And yet they don’t get them. I’ve never even seen a fake pocket on men’s jeans.

Right now, I’m wearing pants with pockets so wide, I can fit a Nintendo Switch or a smaller tablet in them. I could fit TWO large phones AND my wallet in one of them.

Women are definitely missing out on having proper pockets.

There’s a few reasons why that can be relevant.

In the US, a lot of dentists use nitrous oxide for pain management and/or sedation. Taking a blood pressure is one of the safety precautions for pretty much any sort of sedation. In Europe we usually use local anaesthetic; it’s less invasive.

There are also certain complications that can arise from a high BP. It can result in more bleeding, which is not ideal especially if the patient is taking medication like blood thinners.

And on a general note: a lot of people don’t know they have a high blood pressure. It’s a good thing to check occasionally if you don’t. High BP can have a wide range of health concerns.

Abso-friggin-lutely. Shoot them twice to be sure.

It’s such an annoying, disrespectful thing to do in public. If you do it, you’re either a giant asshat or too dumb to keep around.

Exactly. I can’t control where other people find news, and if they choose poor sources, well, that’s on them. All I can do is be the best, most reliable source for them if they choose to read our news.

Our newspaper community is smaller than you might think. People frequently move around from company to company. I’ve worked in radio, TV news as well as newspapers for the past 20 years. I have a lot of former colleagues who work at other companies within our regional media. And us journalists are a gossipy bunch, as you can imagine. If someone actively tries to undermine my trust, they wouldn’t just be blackballed from the dozen or so regional newspapers that we publish, but also the larger national conglomerate that runs about 40. We take pride in good sources. Undermine that, and you’re not working for us.

The point I’m making isn’t really about the ability to fake specific angles or the tech side of it. It’s about levels of trust and independent sources.

It’s certainly possible for people to put up some fake accounts and tweet some fake images of seperate angles. But I’m not trusting random accounts on Twitter for that. We look at sources like AP, Reuters, AFP… if they all have the same news images from different angles, it’s trustworthy enough for me. On a smaller scale, we look at people and sources we trust and have vetted personally. People with longstanding relationships. It really does boil down to a ‘circle of trust’: if I don’t know a particular photographer, I’ll talk to someone who can vouch for them based on past experiences.

And if all else fails and it’s just too juicy not to run? We’d slap a big 'ole ‘this image has not been verified’ on it. Which we’ve never had to do so far, because we’re careful with our sources.

I can’t control where people find their information, that’s a fact. If people choose to find their news on unreliable, fake, agenda-driven, bot-infested social media, there’s very little I can do to stop that.

All I can do is be the best possible source who people who choose to find their news with us.

The ‘death of newspapers’ has been a theme throughout the decades. Radio is faster, it’s going to kill papers. TV is faster, it’s going to kill papers. The internet is faster, it’s going to kill newspapers… and yet, there’s still newspapers. And we’re evolving too. We’re not just a printed product, we also ARE an internet news source. The printed medium isn’t as fast, sure, but that’s also something that our actual readers like. The ability to sit down and read a properly sourced, well written story at a time and place of their choosing. A lot of them still prefer to read their paper saturday morning over a nice breakfast. Like any business, we adapt to the changing needs of consumers. Printed papers might not be as big as they once were, but they won’t be dying out any time soon.

Well again, multiple, independent sources that each have a level of trust go pretty far.

From my personal experience with AI though… I found it difficult to get it to generate consistent images. So if I’d ask it for different angles of the same thing, details on it would change. Can it be done? Sure. With good systems and a bit of photoshopping you could likely fake multiple angles of it.

But for the images we run? It wouldn’t really be worth the effort I imagine. We’re not talking iconic shots like the ones mentioned in the article.

I work at a newspaper as both a writer and photographer. I deal with images all day.

Photo manipulation has been around as long as the medium itself. And throughout the decades, people have worried about the veracity of images. When PhotoShop became popular, some decried it as the end of truthful photography. And now here’s AI, making things up entirely.

So, as a professional, am I worried? Not really. Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to ‘trust and verify when possible’. We generally receive our images from people who are wholly reliable. They have no reason to deceive us and know that burning that bridge will hurt their organisation and career. It’s not worth it.

If someone was to send us an image that’s ‘too interesting’, we’d obviously try to verify it through other sources. If a bunch of people photographed that same incident from different angles, clearly it’s real. If we can’t verify it, well, we either trust the source and run it, or we don’t.

Victorinox has never disappointed me. I own a few kitchen knives, their cutlery and an extensive collection of pocket knives. Everything is solid, dependable, arrives sharp and stays sharp. Plus they have good company ethics, as far as those things go. I like their products so much, I frequently give them as gifts.

I always carry a 5.11 backpack. So thankfully I don’t need to carry everything on my belt. The only stuff on my person are my wallet, keys and phone. Keys have a Victorinox Super Tinker on them.

The rest of it is in the backpack. I always carry that thing anyway for shopping, to carry a camera, holds my rain jacket that sort of thing. And it’s a TARDIS / magic box in terms of whatever else might be in there.

Some think it’s weird to carry an actual backpack, but I love it. Literally feel naked without it.

With regards to locking knives: most people would say that a locking blade is ‘safer’ to use and more capable of stabbing someone than say, a Swiss army knife, which would fold on your hand if you tried stabbing with it. But in regards to the actual laws that countries write and enforce, there’s usually not even a reason listed for such a prohibition in places that have such bans.

For Germany, section 42A of the Weapons Act applies. That basically states (official english translation):

It shall be prohibited to carry (…) knives with a blade which can be fixed with one hand (one-hand knives) or fixed knives with a blade length of over 12 cm.

The original German for ‘blade which can be fixed’ (feststellbarer Klinge) is what we would refer to as a locking blade. It doesn’t even attempt to give a reason as to why.

In the UK, where a knife with a locking mechanism is illegal as well, the Lancashire Police says only this:

A lock knife is not a folding pocket knife and therefore it is an offence to carry around such a knife regardless of the length of the blade, if you do not have good reason. A lock knife has blades that can be locked and refolded only by pressing a button. A lock knife has a mechanism which locks the blade in position when fully extended, the blade cannot be closed without that mechanism being released. A lock knife is not an offensive weapon per se, as these knives were made with a specific purpose in mind were not intended as a weapon. However, possession of a lock knife in a public place without good reason is an offence.

So this has a lot of contradictions in it. That first sentence makes no sense: ‘a lock knife is not a folding pocket knife’, when clearly there are knives, with locks, that fold. ‘A lock knife has blades that can be locked and refolded only by pressing a button’. OK, so a button lock is illegal. Which means a liner lock is OK, right? But no. ‘A lock knife has a mechanism which locks the blade in position when fully extended’. So now we’ve abandoned that button, and have moved on to mechanism… And then we get some form of argument as to why this all is banned: ‘A lock knife is not an offensive weapon per se, as these knives were made with a specific purpose in mind were not intended as a weapon. However, possession of a lock knife in a public place without good reason is an offence.’

So there’s a ‘not offensive weapon per se’, but also ‘posession with no good reason is an offence’

Basically, the only thing you can reasonably have on you is a non-locking small Swiss army knife. Anything that even hints at a lock? That’s a crime. Why? Fuck you, because we say so.

Don’t get me started on how stupid knife laws are in general.

Here in the Netherlands, thankfully there aren’t many restrictions. You can basically carry 95 percent of common knives on you. Locking folders, fixed blades, generally legal unless expressly probhibited.

We can’t own or carry certain types like gravity knives and butterfly knives. Why? “Because… well, fuck you, because we say so.”

If I hop across the border to Germany, knife laws are more restrictive. Can’t have any form of locking knife, so that takes out most folders you’d want to carry. And if I went to other countries, they too have different laws. In France, you can own an OTF for example. And in the US, laws vary from state to state.

Now, what does all that tell us? That knife laws are inherently made up bullshit by politicians and lawmakers who have NO FUCKING CLUE what they’re doing. Because if knife laws made sense, we’d have a fairly consistent set of them. And they tend to ignore that most actual knife crime happens with cheapo kitchen or utility knives. Nobody’s getting stabbed with a 500 euro safe queen.

The knife is one of mankind’s oldest tools. It should be legal to carry everywhere and every form. Knives don’t stab people, people stab people.

I was a Scout as a teen. Taught me the value of being prepared and the use of good tools. Basically, I still carry things like a Swiss Army Knife, flashlight, that sort of thing. I also just like to have things in case I need them, like a charge cable or bicycle pump.

You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve had interactions that go like this:

“Does anyone have a knife? I need to cut this”

“Here, use mine”

“Why do you have a knife??? Who are you going to stab???”

Same thing with other tools. People need one, you’re someone who carries it, now you’re somehow weird for being the only person prepared…

I’ve had to guide people out of buildings during blackouts while using my flashlight (this was before phones had them). Number one comment while doing that? “Why do you have a flashlight???”

MOTHERFUCKER, WHY DON’T YOU? On this planet, it gets predictably dark for, you know, almost half the day. So it might just be handy to carry some light with you. Tool use is what sets us humans apart from most animals, so can you at least try and not embarrass your species?

Honestly, she won the only real thing that matters: actual attention and fame. I couldn’t tell you who won the medals. But I’ll definitely remember her performance for years. She’s now famous, whether she wants to or not. I’d lean into that if I was her.

When I worked in radio production, basically everything was formatted like YYYY-MM-DD. Which means stuff is really to find and properly in chronological order.

I still use the MM-DD format for my own file formatting, even though DD-MM is the Dutch standard.

YYYY-MM-DD is god’s perfect date notation as far as I’m concerned.

To be clear: I’m not in the community as such, but I fully support them and have a fair few gay friends. And guess what? I feel represented by the original flag too. Because it represents good values. From an interview with Gilbert Baker:

Each color of the rainbow flag stands for something. “Pink is for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun,” Baker told ABC7 News. “Green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for serenity and purple for the spirit. I like to think of those elements as in every person, everyone shares that.”

Nowhere does it mention things like race. Or even a particular sexuality! As a white, heterosexual dude, that flag represents me just fine. It also represents someone black, brown and by golly, those blue people from Avatar if we ever discover them.

I definitely agree that most pride flags aren’t very good. I understand peoples enthousiasm to have their own flag, but some are just terrible.

You might be familiar with that old XKCD comic about competing standards. I imagine any attempt to make a new, better flag just results in one more getting added to the mix :D

If I was organising something, I’d just stick with the 1979 six color and call it a day. It’s iconic and it represents everyone, whether they like it or not.

We had our Amsterdam Pride event earlier this month. Flags were a big issue of contention within the community. Not just whether or not flags like Israel or Palestinian would be welcome, but also regarding the rainbow flag itself.

There’s two schools of thought: the people who see the original rainbow flag as inclusive enough, and the people who want a flag that they feel represents their niche specifically. That one being the ‘Progress’ flag that you’re referring to.

The argument is: by adding more and more of that ‘social awareness’ stuff to it, the overarching message of it gets lost. Basically, people want pride to be about pride and not have it hijacked by other social issues. Which of course leads to animosity with people who do want to protest for social issues.

Personally, I’m a big fan of vexillology and I feel the original flag is still the best, most representative and least devise symbol.

I hear the Mariana Trench is lovely this time of year.