We think that of all morons in positions of power, because it’s difficult to fathom how they got there otherwise. Despite all the proof to the contrary, we continue to think meritocracy is a thing. The prosperity gospel is one of the more overt expressions of that belief: if you’re rich, it’s obviously because you’re just the best, smartest little cookie and you deserve it all. What other reasons could there possibly be?

The inability to use words to say stupid shit does confer a certain air of wisdom, however.

I mostly agree with you, but “eh, who cares?” isn’t the moral high ground you’re trying to portray it as. I guess good for you for not raising your blood pressure over this stuff, but there are genuine reasons for criticizing the capitalist consumerism these minor celebrities push on their followers. Even if mkbhd’s product in this case is virtual, it’s part of a culture of unsustainable overconsumption and wealth hoarding. It’s fine for you not to care, but that’s not a more enlightened position, it’s just apathy.

Someone who goes to casinos would come to the same conclusion, thinking that the surgeon is ‘running hot’.

Arabic, Arabian would refer to the geographic region of the Arabian peninsula. The dialects are on a spectrum, neighboring countries might understand each other reasonably well, but not countries further apart. Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian share a lot of features, same goes for gulf countries, Egyptian is pretty distinct but well known outside the country due to its output of movies, music and tv series, Algerian and Tunisian are pretty similar, Moroccan’s kind of its own thing, Maghrebi dialects also include a lot of vocabulary from Berber languages, which won’t be understood in other regions. Finally, in most countries, local dialects are not taught in school but rather Fusha, or modern standard Arabic, which is the language you’ll hear on the news or read in the papers, and is common to the entire Arabic-speaking world. People don’t speak it day to day but usually understand it well and can communicate in a mix of that and their dialects if they’re speaking to someone from another Arabic-speaking country.

I wouldn’t say it’s surprisingly easy. It’s possible, but it comes with substantial costs. Paris is throwing a ton of money at some of the solutions you’ve mentioned and the results are meager at best. Hopefully they’ll improve as time goes on.

Give it a few years and a few more heat waves, all the people living in old buildings which are too expensive to insulate will be getting ac. There’s no getting around the basic need for fresh air, no matter old habits and environmental costs. I’m sticking to ice packs and cold showers for now, don’t know for how much longer though.

As far as Paris is concerned, we’re actually extremely ill-prepared for high heats. Parisians have the highest risk of heat-related death in Europe. Hardware stores are packed with AC units every summer now because people are forced to start using them. Luckily we’ve had terrible weather so far this summer, fingers crossed it stays that way.

No, you must always throw the other half away.

You’ve got the right idea though, PCR is usually necessary before electrophoresis in order to amplify the sample being tested so that it will give a legible result.

I think probably all people dismiss what is obvious to them as not needing to be said, and for good reason: why overburden a conversation with obvious truths. Though given that we’re all just apes with a superiority complex, we’re probably entirely wrong about what’s obvious or true 🙈

In France there are plenty of people who ask for Dafalgan or neurofen but have no idea what paracetamol or ibuprofen are.

I’m franco-american, living in france, and I regularly get people telling me they’re sorry for insulting me for being american. It’s so ingrained in the culture here to shit on americans it’s something of a knee-jerk reaction. I get it, america’s the hegemon, we’re the big baddy, I just wish that didn’t spill over into a kind of xenophobia that people are so comfortable with they regularly catch themselves being openly insulting to people they call their friends.