russian allies (or at least enemies of their enemies) are falling one by one... moscow must be very happy as their area of projection shrinks day by day

As Putin's 3 day SMO approaches its 5th year

The USA is notoriously unreliable these days. I wouldn’t count on them for much.

3 is good too, different environment but similar principle. And graphics look fine even by modern standards

Dude, caffeine ain't no heroin. I drink 2-3 coffees a day and skipping this (ie traveling on vacation, easily for a week or two) does 0 to my body, mind or sleep. I just don't feel the effect at all, I drink it purely for the taste.

There is no human in this world who could say something similar about heroin.

Sure, but your case is 1. There are many people addicted to caffeine, and it did affect their sleep and mind. (Writing this sipping my mandatory coffee :)

Is it too long, too little or what? Red light districts, official or not are the place to get drugs in european towns. Langstrasse is basically an official place for that, at least the most official Zurich has.

Road is the destination, thus you arrive a changed man, ready for the Indian sub-universe to experience and mold you further.

And specifically on this, clashing with a very exotic cultures and mindsets along the way, forming unexpected intense interactions and experiences that you will remember for the rest of your life.

I've done a similar thing to this since this specifically wasn't possible anymore without crossing battlefields and risking kidnapping and death - backpacking around India for 6 months together. No real destination or plan, just 1 thick Lonely planet book covering whole country in the backpack (this was 2008 and 2010), return ticket and fixed budget in cash.

Came back a bit different, dare I say in some ways enlightened person. Experience cannot be explained to others by mere words, but other folks who experienced similar understand without a word.

Mankind will either spread further or die, this is binary. How much spread we can achieve or how much is even possible (ie due to limit of speed of light) is another topic, but if we want even with c being the absolute limit we can colonize milky way in maybe 100 million years if we want... in theory.

But for what? The beings that will have populated the milky way in 100 millionen years will not be humans anymore due to evolution. Some planets will be thousands of light years apart, meaningful communication will be impossible. Species will diverge. Why should I care about such a future?

Some people, both men and women, like to see their specific genes propagating and thriving. Built in by evolution definitely. Most parents do understand this.

I get it, it's an irrational desire, but with the timespans we're talking the evolutionary distance is greater than that between us and whatever fuzzy things was scurrying under the feet of the T-Rex.

Yeah 'instincts' are in real world just enough external pressure and death to keep the equilibrium going, whatever grisly happens behind the curtains.

Hunters hunt as much as they can. Wolves regularly kill 10 or 20 sheep while eating one if they get the chance. Foxes do similar stuff with chickens. Nature is brutal and without empathy.

Housecats let outdoors often don’t even eat what they hunt, because they have a steady supply of their favorite food in the house. They just hunt and kill because they are furry little murder machines. They really shouldn’t be let outside unsupervised.

> They really shouldn’t be let outside unsupervised.

Alternatively, get them a collar with a little bell, and let them try (and always fail) to hunt.

I guess the odd deaf squirrel wasn’t likely to last long anyway. A bell could work to keep them from stalking. They can still run, leap, and ambush. It seems a bell should at least greatly mitigate the issue. I might say usually rather than always. To be fair, though, supervision won’t stop them every time either.

> They can still run, leap, and ambush.

Whenever they do, there is a little tingle tingle, whatever tiny little movement they're trying to do. They end up unable to catch anything basically, I literally never witnessed one of our cats catching anything growing up, nor them bringing any "gifts".

Now its about elections, which are about power. And subsequently money

Nah, its quite opposite for me. It becomes real chore with small kids on non-short flights, but the thing is - I travel normally only for vacations. Time spent in airports is literally vacation wasted on bureaucracy without even moving, since in ideal situation I would spend 1 minute giving them big luggage, if at all, and stepping in the plane just about to take off. Flying is actually moving me towards the goal, feels more acceptable.

Overall when I started traveling I loved all of it, exciting, new. Now I hate this part as a whole, necessary evil of wasted life to get what I actually want where I actually want.

I expected that others would have opposing experiences and tried to reflect that in my comment. People are different sizes, flying different class, frequenting different airports, traveling with families or solo, for longer or shorter periods of time, more or less luggage, etc. So of course it won't be universal.

My main point is that all time is not created equal, that it matters WHERE you shave the minutes/hours off, not just what percent of overall travel time is removed. And while we disagree on how to apply this, we seem to agree on that main point.

I try to find absurd humor in counting the different steps that I had to go through from leaving my house to getting on the plane. Or analyzing the legibility & usability of the systems. Or just being proud of myself for being able to be so patient and let it all go. Sometimes you can even strike up a good conversation with a stranger. But with kids, oof, yeah... :-)