Zonetrooper

Combination of:

• People whose only exposure is clips from Portal and think he's just a goof who rants about combustible lemons, not a deeply disturbed person who subjected people to horrific experimentation.
• People who can't distinguish between other fans saying "I like this person as an interesting, well-portrayed, flawed character" and "I like this person directly as an individual".

And matte paintings. Never forget the legendary artists who turned paintings into scenery, or the camera workers who managed to blend in the actors to them.

• That first legendary pan-down to Tattooine, which the Tantive IV and Star Destroyer then fly past? Matte painting.
• The sterile hangars and seemingly-bottomless pits of the Death Star? Matte painting.
• The busy Rebel hangar on Yavin IV? Also a matte painting. I seem to remember reading that some of the hangar floor markings - besides making it look like an actual hangar - served to help align the matte with the set shots and coordinate extras so they wouldn't accidentally walk out of the filmed segment and behind a matte portion.

Generative AI was vaguely funny when it created trippy, acid hallucination images and incoherent druggy ramblings of text. I know an author who fed their own content into an early LLM (small language model?) and the bizarre, yet undeniably "his" stuff it produced was worth a laugh. I wouldn't say I "liked" it, but it was kind of amusingly quirky.

What was depressing is how quickly people began to claim AI content was "theirs". As someone who ran a fiction-creating community, people were so eager to latch on to what AI would spit out that they began to create convoluted things for the early models to "depict".

Oh, I'm aware of them. Sorry, I should have been more clear!

What I was more speaking about is running historic equipment over long distances on main-line tracks. It's startlingly rare in the US; most of the railroads (even shorter ones) don't like historic equipment on them, so with a very few exceptions historic trains are limited to short excursions along tracks owned by the museums.

In fairness, we are now seeing a huge surge in steam locomotive restorations in the US. But I think there is only a single museum in which can even run main-line electric equipment at all.

Very neat, thank you! I wish we had more like that in the US.

What is the heritage railroad environment like in Sweden? Are these being run by the actual railroad owners, or by private groups over the railroads' tracks?

Depends on the kind of home and how "handy" you feel yourself to be. There are a lot of minor things around the home which can save you boatloads of money (and be faster to deal with) if you do them yourself.

Tools:

• A multi-bit ratcheting screwdriver. It's my #1 go-to for assorted small fixes. Wirecutter recently recommended the Megapro 211R2C36RD, for what that's worth.
• Multi-tool. Another good "it's not the best at anything, but I use it for everything".
• Adjustable wrench and/or pliers. Good for tightening nuts, holding things tight, bending, and other small tasks.
• Sponge mop. One of the ones with a little handle to help squeeze it out. Great for cleaning floors without killing your back.
• Speaking of which, a good-quality hard plastic bucket. Look for something in the 10-15 liter range. Dirty water, clean water, road salt, supplies, anything which is easy to carry.
• If you are comfortable with power tools, a good quality cordless drill can be a huge help as well.
• If you're comfortable doing your own minor electrical repairs, one of those little outlet checker tools. Saves a ton of time.
• Good quality measuring tools, like a measuring tape and/or bubble level. These needn't kill the budget, but are handy to have.

Comfort:

• I am a firm believer in ceiling fans as a great room cooler. Put one up and be amazed as the room feels comfortable at a range of temperatures.
• Similarly, a small room air circulator or pedestal fan can really help, especially if you're doing some heavy work.
• If you don't have good chairs for the table, I'm a personal fan of Ikea's Bergmund.

Convenience:

• "Lazy susan" cabinet organizers. Game-changer for kitchen cabinets.
• Mr Clean abrasive cleaning pads. You can scrape off a lot of grime with these.

Lastly, for furniture and other things, unless you're in a really small area, check various community marketplace kinds of sites. You can find a lot of critical stuff for less than MSRP, and non-critical stuff at a point that won't break your budget.

A lot. Some of them were genuinely great. Some were way less so.

• To Kill a Mockingbird: Earns every bit of reputation it has. Should be shown twice.

• Teacher's Pet: They showed this as a reward. I despised it. Seriously, it sticks in my head

• The outsiders: "Okay, I guess." I remember feeling it was a decent bit of storytelling, but I was too detached from the themes and era to care. Honestly, it was probably too old for kids to identify with.

• When the Levees Broke: In retrospect, one of Lee's weaker works. Nonetheless, it made a hell of an impact on us. We'd mostly seen helicopter's-eye views of New Orleans. Getting down in with the people was a whole different view.

• Tuesdays with Morrie: Apparently it's popular, but we all hated it. Felt it was sentimental slop.

• Brighton Beach Memoirs: Honestly don't remember much. We mostly cared that, at the end, they actually showed the nude photo the lead character received. As kids, that was mind-blowing.

This is a little surprising to me because I read it on a daily basis and haven't seen sign of the paywall yet. I don't know if Ublock Origin is simply squashing that as well, or I'm somehow lucky.

If anything, Tahini - a separate spread common to the Middle East, made from sesame seeds - is vaguely closer to peanut butter.

You're already asking good questions, which means you're doing a lot better than many of the people who adopt without thinking. You're also looking for an adult cat, which means you aren't going to have to deal with a kitten's destructive exploratory phase (although, fair warning, adult cats can still be destructive if you don't prepare properly).

One thing I would say is that you should consider two versus one cats. Some cats don't handle being alone for a long time well and can become unhappy, while others prefer not having feline company and would be just fine alone for ~48 hours. A good shelter or adoption agency may be able to tell you whether a cat prefers company or solitary.

Like some other commenters, I would strongly suggest going to local shelters and discussing with them. They should entirely understand if you aren't able to adopt immediately and be able to discuss particulars with you.

I mean, you can argue some semantics about "peaceful".

What it is undeniable is that it prevented global powers from going directly to total war, resulting in a much diminished number of casualties (both soldiers and civilians) compared to the World Wars. Nothing since then, even if we summed up all the wars going on around the world at any given moment, rival the unthinkable numbers of dead who piled up those conflicts, nor - if I can speculate a bit - would they have rivaled another worldwide industrialized conflict.

But.

Does that actually mean the world is "more peaceful"?

One can argue that the undeniable reality that you are much less likely to be killed in a war between nations today means "Yes." One can also argue that peace should not be measured by cold mathematics: That the continued existence of smaller-scale conflicts around the world, internal conflicts within countries, or deaths from non-national conflicts such as the ongoing gun violence epidemic in the US or deaths caused by polluting megacorporations mean it has not gotten "more peaceful"; the risks have just changed.

I suppose it depends on how you are analyzing all of this, in the end.