Supernaut

> generally we hope vacuum tubes last for years

If I may offer an anecdote, the output stage in my guitar amplifier is powered by a GEC tube that is now 55 years old. It sounds great. When I found the tube, it had been rolling around for a couple of decades at the bottom of a wooden box.

This could simply be survivorship bias, but it does appear that back in the day, they knew how to build these things to last.

> What you’re seeing there, isn’t a giant sticker being applied.

I thought it worth mentioning that stickers were in the mix too. In the town I grew up in, there was a printing company that made them for Atari. I recall being brought to a "local industry expo" event as a kid, and I have a vivid memory of seeing heavy-duty vinyl (?) stickers for "Pole Position" at this company's stand. They would have been designed to be applied to the marquees and control panels of the upright cabinet.

As objets d'art. The thinking is that owning (and crucially, displaying) vinyl records marks you out as being more discerning than the rest of the herd.

Further down the page, there's a link to an article from a couple of years ago, titled "Migration isn’t increasing".

So which is it?

I've heard a lot of vox pops in recent years on the subject of why young couples where I live are not starting families, and by far the most common reason given is that the cost of living has risen to such an extent that they feel that rearing children has become unaffordable. It's not a yearning for hedonism that's dissuading them, it's the fact that they can't even afford to buy somewhere to live.

I won't comment on your assertion that the freedom to watch "adult-appropriate movies on a big TV in the living room" is a more fulfilling state of being than parenthood, except to say that I'm very grateful that I'm not that shallow.

It's a shame we can't ask Genghis Khan for his thoughts on the matter.

I just want to add that I wholeheartedly agree with this, and I would hate for anyone who's losing their hair to conclude that it's the end of the road for their love life.

Good grooming, a good sense of humor, and most importantly, generally being a good person, are what really matter.

Good for you. I always did notice if there was a spark between me and someone I encountered. I wasn't going to act on it if I was already in a relationship, but I found it nice to feel that I had some physical appeal.

> baldness, and the downside of the condition for sexual attractiveness of its bearers

Just a guess, and I highly doubt there are any reliable statistics on this, but perhaps balding men are less likely to be tempted to abandon their family unit, thereby making it more likely that their children will thrive and carry on their genes?

I base this theory on my own experience, which is that I went completely bald in my early thirties and haven't had a second look from a woman ever since. Even if I were the sort to want to cheat on my wife, there wouldn't be any takers![0]

[0] I'm not claiming that bald men are necessarily sexually unattractive. I just know that it didn't work for me, looks-wise.

The real question is why the Portuguese government is allowing this to happen?

When I read the headline, I pictured something like the flying cars from "Blade Runner". What I see in the video is a helicopter with six rotors.

I get that the leap forward here is that it's battery-powered. Still, I can't help feeling underwhelmed.

It's amusing to see comments implying that the TB-303 is some kind of neglected classic. In reality, it can only be considered to have been forgotten for perhaps the two years after Roland ended production in 1984.

"Acid Tracks" came out in 1987 and I genuinely feel like I've been reading endlessly about the 303 ever since.

Yes, there are many problems with the planning process, but as you conceded in another comment, the actual reason that we don't have an LNG terminal is that Eamonn Ryan nixed the possibility.

As usual with the Greens, perfection was the enemy of the good.

Sure, I get that. I was just aiming for comic effect in pointing out that the player's initial reward for having made it through all the levels of a very difficult game is "lol, do it again".

I did work my way through it a second time to see the "proper ending", and what's interesting is that I remember nothing about it. There's a moral in there, somewhere.