Of course there are. I’m far from perfect and fall dramatically short when compared to competent professionals.

However, you’re missing the point. I’m talking about people I actually deal with in my life. People, through virtue of the position they hold, that I fully expected to be a cut above the rest of us.

These people have jobs that I personally (and I many others) thought would demand a level of expertise and dedication that puts them beyond the reach of most ordinary people.

Turns out I was wrong. These positions are teaming with unremarkable folk who seem to have decided that that’s what they’re going to do and have got there.

Perhaps the real issue is a lack of self-belief on my part, but I don’t think so. I’m aware of my limitations, so therefore I’d seek to become, say, a doctor.

Having dealt with countless inept professionals I can only conclude that they were not deterred by their own shortcomings the way many of us are.

I’m a happy enough guy, and I’ve been lucky with family in my life, so this comment, while it may sound negative , hopefully won’t bring you down - it’s just a general observation from 48 years on the planet.

Basically, I’ve noticed that most ‘professional’ folk - ie Doctors, lawyers etc these days are surprisingly mediocre people.

I always assumed, as a kid, that these people in lofty positions would be intelligent, eloquent, wise and charismatic. .

Perhaps it’s because I was raised on TV and have unrealistic expectations, but the lawyers and doctors I’ve dealt with myself through work and in my personal are entirely unremarkable. I could forgive that if they were steadfast and competent, but instead I’ve found them to be mostly dull and poor at their jobs.

My superiors at work seems to be barely able to string a sentence together without ChatGPT, and our kids teachers are little better.

Anyway, rant over. Just generally fed up with how many, franky, inept people are in jobs that I once assumed were for exceptional individuals.

Same.

As an observation, I spent a while in France and I noticed something different about them. They don’t put up with shit from their government. If a law is passed that many disagree with, they just don’t comply. They refused to accept, for example, vehicle clamping. The government passed it anyway, so they started handling out kits to help people unlock them. People distributed them freely and would actively free any car they saw clamped. They tried to stop them smoking outside cafes. Zero compliance. Maybe it’s a hangover from The Revolution, but I found this attitude heartening.

This is what I don’t get when folk online treat girls under 18 of any age as the same thing. A full grown person who’s a 30 something adult being with a 17 year old is exploitative, controlling and weird.

Being with an 8 year old is monstrous and, frankly, worthy of the death penalty.

I’m not excusing the first, but do people really see no difference? If you need a legal line in the sand to determine if it’s either totally fine or straight to the guillotine then maybe there’s something wrong with you.

Wasn’t meant to be insulting. It never occurred to me until the smoking ban in my country. As this is a global platform, I didn’t know if smoking was legal or not in yours. Smoking inside was normal for me growing up, but I’m nearly in my 50s.

I think the trope of ‘OK boomer’ etc is largely bullshit. I know plenty of old folks who are largely supportive of young people and are getting a rough deal from 20 somethings who assume they’re dicks because they don’t get really interact with them. The folks who first marched against racism and homophobia are well into their twilight years.

Been Samsung for about 5 years. It just works, although that wasn’t always the case. I was Apple once upon a time, as their OS was rock solid, albeit insanely locked down. Everything else just seemed jankey and unreliable. S25 ultra is my current phone. It’s decent, but I haven’t been excited about a new phone in over a decade.

Fair play, man. Like I say, I used to smoke indoors and it’s weird that, once society in my country changed, it started to feel really strange to smoke inside.

I wouldn’t be feeling insulted. Your life, your choice bud.

Lol! Super-fast and boots in a few seconds. No need to faf around with a workbench disk!

Not to jump on the smoking hate train - I get it, smoking is very pleasurable and insanely addictive - but have you thought about just smoking outside?

I would never smoke in a room I spend any time in. It’s a funny mindset, as I used to smoke inside in my 20s, but when the ban in bars came along it just sort of became second nature.

These days I rarely smoke, but vape more than I should. The vaping is starting to give me a dry tongue that feels like a fading pizza burn. I plan to stop… Soon…

Going to have to go with TOS v1.64

I only use the platform to manage my dodgy IPTV subscription. Presumably they’ll be ditching Discord as well once they realise that they need to provide ID.

The issue I have with new Reddit accounts is that most of the big subs won’t let you post unless you have sufficient karma, which I find galling.

I’m told they also use Mac addresses and other telemetry to enforce blocks, which wouldn’t surprise me as I’ve had fresh accounts opened in Brave in private mode that have been banned within a week or two.

They banned me over some insanely trivial nonsense. I used a throwaway to get back in and then they perma-banned me. Actually insane much effort they put into enforcing these arbitrary bans.

Tonic

Beer works pretty well. It takes back in interest, sadly. Ain’t no existential crisis like a hungover one.

You people are way too bright with your apt and often witty alternatives for when you forget something’s actual name. Me? I just employ an entirely random sound or made up word. It drives my wife insane. “Babe, would you pass me the…fucking… spraaaal?”

Only one I’ve ever tried is Boost, which I used for Reddit before the platform turned to total dogshit. I really like it, but that might just be the familiarity.

EDIT- sorry, looks like I may have misread the question. I don’t really know what you mean by web interface on a phone, beyond an app tbh.

Better check the capsule for kids first… “this is the one thing we didn’t want to happen”