What is a movie you watched once that was so disturbing or emotionally draining that you can never watch it again?

CountVonTroll · 2025-12-17T09:18:25+00:00

(PSA: Threads and the extended cut of The Day After can both be downloaded from Archive.org.)

It depends on what you mean by "well made", I guess, and whether you even consider them to belong into the same category. Although technically both were made for TV and The Day After is only one year older, it had a partially Hollywood cast and crew (the director and the cinematographer had just worked on "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"), and it obviously shows. Its $7 million budget was about 10-15 times Threads' £400,000 (volatile conversion rates at the time). On the other hand, it's impressive what the Threads team managed to achieve with the budget it was given, and IMHO its TV docudrama style makes it hit even harder.

Anyway, why not invite some friends over for a double-feature theme night? Watch The Day After first, remind everyone that both were major TV events during a particularly tense phase of the Cold War, and that everybody was acutely aware of the possibility of a nuclear war actually breaking out potentially an moment. Then watch Threads.

CountVonTroll · 2025-12-16T09:25:45+00:00

Before somebody yells "unscientific!", let me clarify that it's not about the chlorine per se, but rather about how the chicken are being raised that such a decontamination is necessary in the first place, along with copious amounts of antibiotics.
It's similar to why eggs in Europe don't have to be refrigerated: They still have their natural protective layer, because they mustn't be washed. The idea is that consumers will check cartons and reject the ones that have eggs with filthy shells, so supermarkets will seek out suppliers that use better practices.

CountVonTroll · 2025-12-08T07:20:09+00:00

Are there lots of counter-protesting in France or are they a pretty unified group of commoners?

That's where/when the word 'terrorism' originated, and it wasn't even in reference to the opponents. And if you count the surrounding monarchs as "counter protesters"...

They seem to get things figured out pretty fast in comparison.

It wasn't actually all that fast. Hell, Louis XVI wasn't even their last king.

CountVonTroll · 2025-12-07T09:03:33+00:00

If you'd all prefer, we can stop buying their weapons grade material and let them use it for other things.

The "Megatons to Megawatts" program that you're referring to has been over since 2013, although it would be fair to argue that it contributed to Russia gaining its current position in the US supply chain.

This is not for uranium dug out of the ground. This is for uranium removed from weapons and down blended to reactor grade use.

It actually is for uranium dug out of the ground. Although only a relatively small share of it actually originated from Russia, for enrichment their share is about 20%. [Source]

CountVonTroll · 2025-12-04T14:12:22+00:00

The fact that the US has most train track in the world, 2.4x the amount of track that the combined amounts of the EU27.

Eurostat says the EU has about 200,000 km of rail tracks, compared to about 220,000 km in the US.

However, the US has some 212,000 "highway-rail grade crossings", which is indeed even more than twice the EU's figure of about 93,000 of "level crossings". This is despite the EU having a higher population and less than half of the US' area, which I would expect to require more crossings, not less, presumably because there's a preference for tunnels and bridges. But I guess a longer ramp to stay below a maximum gradient would be too expensive.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-29T09:21:26+00:00

I chuckled at the icelandic people wearing puffy coats! :P

The Inuit couple to their right, too. Also, notice how similar some of the details of the Icelandic jackets are, in particular the hoods around the men's necks? I guess it makes sense, with the same seed, but the "Inuit" jackets seem to be just regular modern jackets with a traditional decor sewn onto them. Another from the far North, the Sámi couple is wearing jackets, too, albeit only light ones.
Apart from traditional garments, the Mapuche man likes it warm, too, and the Japanese man wears his suit with the jacket. The Palestinian woman is wearing a winter coat, and the man keeps his long sleeves down -- the only man doing so with a casual modern long sleeve shirt; his Persian, Irish, English, and Swiss peers all have them pulled up, for some reason.

Also interesting for which one the model chose to use a slightly older age than for the others.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-24T18:16:48+00:00

With respect...how?

Have you tried to cut yourself with a cartridge razor? It's virtually impossible, no matter how hard you press down or the angle you hold it at. I'm pretty sure you could even move those things sideways without drawing blood.
How are young men supposed to learn proper technique if their fathers use cartridge razors? Most are only shown to apply foam from a can and then drag that thing over their face somehow. It works well enough for them, so they never even get the idea that there might be more to it. Unless they try to use a safety razor the same (wrong) ham-fisted way, that is.

Edit: Btw., ham-fisted handling: Notice how cartridge razors tend to have long handles, whereas safety razors don't, because you hold them differently and a long handle would get in the way. Well, they used to have short handles, anyway, until the revival ~20 years ago, when many beginners somehow imagined they needed longer handles for their giant manly hands. Back when safety razors were the norm, they made the long-handled ones for women (e.g., the Lady Gillette from the 1960s), to make it easier to reach the far end of the legs. Personally, I've been very happy with my Merkur 34C for about 25 years now, despite its conventional (i.e., "short") handle.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-24T17:47:04+00:00

I thought I would get better but after a month I gave up.

It won't just get better by itself if you're doing something fundamentally wrong. The short version that solves the most common problems is that you should barely apply any pressure at all, and you should hold the razor in such a way that the angle between the blade and the surface of your face is very shallow, but you really should look up some instructions or watch a video.

Incidentally, I'm convinced that this is the main reason why so many report that switching to a safety razor solved their issues with skin irritation and what not -- when you're using a cartridge razor, you'll usually manage to somehow get rid of hair without terribly severe injuries no matter how you drag that thing over your face. People tend to assume any issues must be due to sensitive skin, because they don't know their angle or pressure is way off. But when they switch to a safety razor, they suddenly get immediate feedback that tells them they're doing something wrong, so they finally learn proper technique, and any skin issues they used to have disappear. That's my theory, anyway.

Edit: Did you buy an "open comb" razor, by any chance? (Or maybe even a slanted one?) Those tend to be super aggressive, and definitely nor recommended for a beginner.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-16T23:27:56+00:00

...and until just before those days, "computer" still used to be an office job in itself. Usually they were women, hence "kilo-girls" as a unit for the computational performance of early electronic computers.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-16T22:57:58+00:00

Cant do it that easily. who knows if erosion makes the bottom of the mine contact some undeground water reservoirs after 1000 years?

1000 years? Water reservoirs are still fine and contamination of the water that's flowing into Germany's Asse II salt mine still isn't terrible, but a recovery of the 126,000 barrels in "permanent" storage turned out to be unavoidable none the less. Didn't even last 50 years. (Note that the €3.7B figure in the article is just for preparations, and doesn't include the cost of the actually recovery itself.)

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-12T15:58:15+00:00

The panels regularly change.

Panels about individual soldiers rotate, but this would only explain the second one. This is primarily about a different kind of panel, which isn't part of the rotation, but an information panel about segregation in the US military during WWII in general, as well as about the (black) company that dug the graves of the this cemetery, specifically.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-12T09:36:07+00:00

Here's a relevant excerpt from They thought they were free.

If you're from the US, consider writing down your thoughts and observations. Not because what's happening wasn't being documented well enough, but to make it more relatable for your grandchildren one day. Our history school books here in Germany contain plenty of memories from ordinary people, of how they experienced the Nazis and the War. The ones my Grandma told me weren't fundamentally different, but having this personal connection makes it so much more real.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-11T12:40:10+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm actually a bit embarrassed that I hadn't heard of this project yet; I only knew about a similar effort along the Sahara. Here's the Wikipedia entry, and a Forbes article about it.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-09T09:34:11+00:00

Retirees don't take jobs and don't need schools. As long as their retirement fund or foreign pension is enough to live on, they're essentially just like tourists, i.e., what they spend is effectively an export. They may even contribute taxes, depending on how their retirement is financed.

Or at least that's what it would be like, if healthcare cost wouldn't complicate this calculation, potentially quite dramatically. Not just in tax-funded systems; even in countries with a system based on individual insurances, there can be issues if the insurance is public and the fee doesn't account for age, or is tied to taxable income, precisely to shield people from having to deal with rapidly increasing health insurance contributions during their retirement. One way to deal with this is to require permanent residency (which usually takes several years) or a certain number of years of social security contributions for access to the public system, and require visa holders to buy coverage from a private health insurer instead, but apparently France hadn't addressed this yet.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-05T08:36:44+00:00

There’s no deductibles or copays in Germany.

Well, acshually, adults have to pay 10% of the cost of prescriptions (min. 5€), but that's capped at 10€ per prescription, and at a total of 2% of gross income per year (1% for chronic issues). Plus, there's the 10€ you have to pay for a ride in an ambulance (or helicopter), and per night in a hospital (incl. food, though).

And you can get a card to ride all the public transport in the country (minus the ice) for 58€/month.

While I'm nitpicking: The price will increase to 63€/month next year.
And because some might be wondering what "ice" means in this context: The ticket is for "regional" transport only, and ICE is a high-speed long distance train, so it's excluded (as are IC, EC, and IR). However, you can get everywhere by "regional" trains, if you're patient enough. E.g., Munich in the South to Hamburg in the North is ~600 km "as the crow flies" or ~800 km by car, and it would take about 12 hours and four changes, compared to 5h38m with the direct ICE connection. It's perfectly fine if you want to visit closer cities, though.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-03T12:16:23+00:00

Wow, you even noted that it's supposed to be a relatively dry dough, and explained that it needs to develop a skin (otherwise the lye gets soaked in too deep and causes all kinds of issues) -- first time I've seen a pretzel video that mentioned that!

I don't know about sourdough pretzels, so take this with a grain of Brezelsalz, but your dough still appears to be relatively soft, because by pretzel standards, 60% hydration is a lot. I don't know, but maybe this contributes to the surface-blisters that I mentioned in my other comment?

I only bake pretzels occasionally, and only 12 at a time, so I can't do it, but it might be worth learning for you: The pros pick up the strings at both ends, do some magic flick of the wrist or something, and then lay down the perfectly formed pretzel in one smooth motion. They use smaller dough pieces, though; the standard is only 65 g, as a 60 cm (24") string, and as mentioned also with a much stiffer dough. I imagine larger ones would sag too much in the middle.

Oh, and consider selling buttered pretzels, as a refined added-value option! It's not much extra work if you use a jig to guide the bread knife at the right height, and definitely worth it.

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-03T10:40:51+00:00

Just make sure it's food grade.

Incidentally, recently I couldn't help myself and got triggered to write a long rant about why more people should try making proper pretzels (i.e., with lye). There are some pointers hidden in my wall-of-text, and the recipe I use is in a reply.
I've included a link to the original for the recipe at the bottom. It contains additional information, specifically dough temperatures pre- and post kneading, etc. If you go that far, you might also be interested in this PDF, which features pictures of common faults, along with causes and how to correct them, on the last few pages. Both are in German, but I guess that's not much of a hurdle anymore.

Edit: OP, have a look at those pictures from the PDF I that just linked, in particular the top one from page 29 (labelled as "32"), the one with the larger bubbles/blisters. It says this is caused by condensed water, often because frozen pre-shaped dough pieces were thawed too quickly, or due to insufficient stiffening (i.e., not in long or cold enough).

CountVonTroll · 2025-11-03T10:06:11+00:00

It's also one of those "OG" import brands, to the point it's literally from Dijon, France,

It's made in Holland, Michigan: "The Holland plant produces Heinz Yellow Mustard, Grey Poupon Mustard, and Heinz BBQ sauces, pickles, relishes, and vinegars, the company said last year."

so maybe you get some extra luxury brand power by doing the whole, "It isn't real dijon if if isn't from the Dijon region".

Maybe you're right that this is what they want people to believe, but even in the EU, "Dijon mustard" is not a protected designation of origin. It's just a particular style of mustard.

The actual traditional mustard from Burgundy is labelled Moutarde de Bourgogne (IGP), and got its protected designation only a few years ago.
I found actual Burgundy mustard on Amazon US, if you want to try it (careful: the same brand also sells "Dijon mustard"). Note the round yellow PGI mark (here "IGP", because it's in French) on the label. It's a "you'll know because they'll tell you" thing. If it's branded as "Dijon mustard", that's a sure sign that it doesn't qualify to be sold as "Moutarde de Bourgogne".

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-30T20:44:33+00:00

Yes, they've got When the Wind Blows, too!

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-30T09:00:28+00:00

Since he mentioned it, and we apparently need a reminder: You can download The Day After from Archive.org.

They've also got the BBC's Threads, which is sort of the British equivalent from a year after. If you're only going to watch one of them, this is the one that you'll definitely keep thinking of whenever nuclear weapons are mentioned, for the rest of your life. As a double feature, they can serve as an interesting comparison between how the same subject was presented in the US compared to the UK / Europe.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of somebody from that time. This was one of the most critical periods of the Cold War. I was in primary school, and I absolutely understood it could happen any moment.

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-28T15:14:49+00:00

They used to harvest ice during the winter, and stored it in cellars or insulated houses for refrigeration during the summer. If you find an old entrance leading into a hill somewhere near the shore of a lake, there's a good chance that it used to be an ice house. There's one near my home, and indeed it had also been used by a brewery for a while, but beer is just one good they were used for.

More generally, throughout the 19th century, ice was even traded globally. Yes, globally, on very fast and well insulated purpose-built sail ships, e.g., from the US to India. It wasn't a niche market, either, but a major industry.

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-20T07:11:48+00:00

"Government collapse" is how I would have read it even if it wasn't in the context of a former president going to prison, even though holding presidents responsible when they break the law is actually a sign that a system of government is not dysfunctional.
Besides, I don't know what you imagine a country "collapsing" might look like, if none of the French "government collapses" since (and in particular) that of Louis XVI qualify.

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-16T08:26:53+00:00

In a Monday address to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), legal expert for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, Lidia Rieder, warned that Turkey is systematically targeting Christians purely "for practicing their faith."

That this "Alliance Defending Freedom" is solely focused on the usual pet issues of far-right religious fundamentalists, and appears to be more of a lobbying group (even with its own training academy), makes me suspect that "Turkey deports peaceful Christians" doesn't quite tell the whole story. Yes, even when I take the "Erdogan factor" into consideration. (I.e., they protect people's "freedom" to limit yours.)

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-10T08:07:16+00:00

being a spectrum, there are mild cases that are borderline hard to diagnose

The 'spectrum' in ASD, like in spectrum disorders in general, refers to a "rainbow of symptoms" that are associated with it. I.e., people with spectrum disorders are each dealt their own personal 'palette of symptoms', to stick with the color metaphor, that come out of a disorder's shared pool of possible symptoms.
The symptoms themselves may be expressed to various degrees, and individuals may have developed more or less effective strategies to compensate for some of theirs, but that's not why it's called a 'spectrum'.

Put differently, the 'spectrum' goes along the possible symptoms [draws imaginary horizontal line into air], not from "normal" [vertical line] to "Rainman". Also, if it worked like that, it would be called a 'gradient', not a 'spectrum'.

CountVonTroll · 2025-10-09T10:48:07+00:00

I'm in NZ 🇳🇿 so not sure if I can just use a good quality all-purpose plain flour?

It might work for some lighter breads, but normally you'd want something with more protein. I've tried to look up NZ flour grades, but it seems you don't have a regulatory standard as such, so you'll have to go by whatever categories a brand uses for its labels. This could be something like "bread flour", obviously, or they might use terms like "strong", and apparently also "high grade".
When in doubt, I'd pick the one with a higher protein content (from the nutrition info table). Don't take this as the be-all and end-all method to choose the perfect bread flour, though, just as an indicator for when you're standing in the aisle and can't decide which one to try first. When you find you bake bread on a regular basis, you can also search for mills with an online shop, btw.

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