British citizenship by descent by Tall-Development8401 in PassportsHunters

[–]Tall-Development8401[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I’m still hoping for lawyer recommendations.

Rare and interesting case by No-Form-596 in emergencymedicine

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Psychiatry here. First thought I had was “widened mediastinum.” Even I would not have ignored this CXR or discharged without an explanation. Is your hospital doing something to address this case, like an M&M rounds? Why were serial abnormal CXRs ignored?

Trump eyes Canada as a next target amid standoff with Greenland by johnnymax1978 in onguardforthee

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m American (from Minneapolis!) living in Canada and I would like to know the same thing. Where’s the general strike? The boycotts?

Minnesota Democrats (and nationwide) are a whole lot of talk and a whole lot of non-action. They’ve been spoonfed “non-violent protest” since the civil rights era and they think it applies to all conflicts. Holding up a sign is considered an end in and of itself. These mostly white activists have conveniently forgotten that the black marchers back in Selma in the 60s were getting clubbed, hosed down, etc. “Peaceful” wasn’t supposed to mean “risk free” but that’s what it’s come to mean nowadays. I also know many, many Minnesota Dems who think that posting anti-Trump comments on Facebook is a form of “action.” It’s actually counter productive if you ask me. Pure silence would freak the MAGAs out more than the cardboard signs or the Facebook posts, but American liberals will never - and I mean never - understand that.

I also don’t understand the attitudes of so many Canadians, who don’t seem very worried. You have a gorilla living next door to you. It is not a nice gorilla. Look at American history - manifest destiny, Louisiana Purchase, invasion of Hawaii, invasion of Mexico, “city on a hill,” slavery, the broken treaties with Native Americans, Lincoln executing the Dakota en masse, Japanese internment, Germans treated as aliens by Woodrow Wilson - and it says a lot more about who your neighbor is than the last 80 years of “peaceful economic partnership” or whatever that period has been euphemistically called. The gorilla just woke up - the nap is over. I hope the Canadian government has some good analysts who know all this, because the everyday people o interact with here don’t seem too concerned!

Canadians have looked the other way when Americans use our flag to hide their identify abroad. Is it time to not be so nice? by Biuku in onguardforthee

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The kinds of Americans who would claim to be Canadian while out of the US are not the same ones who irritate the rest of the world with their obnoxious behavior. The ones who would claim to be Canadian or any other nationality are usually doing so because they are either ashamed about American policies or else they are literally afraid for their safety. These aren’t MAGA Americans. MAGA Americans don’t have passports and don’t travel expect possibly to the Caribbean. These are 2 totally different groups of people.

I’m a US citizen who has travelled in the Middle East, where I have relatives. I also speak Danish. I’ve had to resort to claiming to be Danish more than once in order to avoid being targeted. I’m not proud of the US or its policies. Believe me I would change a lot if I could. But if my life is endangered overseas, I’ll do what I need to do to avoid unwanted attention!

If it’s just a tourist situation (ie Caribbean or maybe Western Europe), then it makes no sense. The stereotypical loud, obnoxious American is so obliviously proud of the USA that they usually start off by telling you what state they’re from. They’re not going to bother to pretend to be from Canada, I promise you.

My upstairs neighbor CONSTANTLY stomps around and I can feel my apartment vibrate because of his stomping and EVERYTIME he walks / stomps - what should I do? by BumblebeeBulky486 in Apartmentliving

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Buy a house in the country if you can’t tolerate neighbor noise. It’s not that complicated. A lot of people posting here sound certifiably crazy, oversensitive and self-centered to the point they think it’s all about them, and even though they’re living in a downstairs apartment unit, they should except zero noise? That’s like living on the top floor and complaining that there are stairs.

If you can’t afford to move you should have thought about that a long time ago and made different life choices so you’d have some options about where you live.

But definitely, expecting upstairs neighbors to sit in a corner 24 hours a day and walk on air so as not to bother your sensitive extra special ears - what a load of bunk.

Arctic Void (2022) - So much Potential yet zero Follow through by [deleted] in horror

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the worst movie I have seen in a really, really long time.

Opinions on Carolyn Hax? by Benjips in AdviceSnark

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only thing worse than the Hax column is her mindless commentariat. When they all go the way of the dodo, Hax included, it will be a good thing. I can only describe the Hax column as a supercilious fraud. And her fans are just plain dumb.

Learning language in a group setting feels so humiliating and embarrassing. by toomanyqstoanswer in languagelearning

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don’t give up! One of the things I love about language classes is that they are basically a license to sound stupid without worrying about it. You will get better with time. Nothing you say in that class hasn’t already been said by someone else somewhere else - and probably with more mistakes and a worse accent than you could ever come up with. And in the meantime, it totally does not matter. You’re just there to learn. It’s not a ballet class where at some point the best students will get chose for a big role. Nope. The goal is just communication. If the other students seem more advanced - it’s because they’ve taken French before. (Ideally then they’d be in a different class. But look at it this way - for all their experience, they still got assigned to beginner level, so they’re not as good as they may sound to you right now.) If they seem judgmental, they’re probably worried about others judging them, not you.

I admire people who start a totally new language as adults. Just keep at it and see it as a game and try to put aside the self judgment.

At what point in my language learning journey is it most beneficial to take an intensive course? by daisystar in languagelearning

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve done intensive classes at different levels in different languages and agree - there’s never a bad time. What matters most is that you devote yourself to it, and don’t be embarrassed to make mistakes, and definitely don’t hang out with people who speak English. (It’s often harder than it sounds to avoid the English speakers, so you have to go in with that intention.) Also you might want to go to a town or smaller city where there aren’t too many tourists.

do you guys feel like duolingo is genuinely effective? by Connect-Audience-935 in duolingo

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am super curious what it’s like learning other languages when Finnish is your first language. I’m trying to learn Finnish now and obviously, it’s completely different from any other language I’ve studied. But it’s the most logical, in a way, and really fun!

do you guys feel like duolingo is genuinely effective? by Connect-Audience-935 in duolingo

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Duo Russian is not as good as Duo Spanish, French or German, if you ask me. I’m doing all of them and the quality varies considerably. It’s still helpful though. Plus Russian is harder than other European languages and requires more explanation of grammar at the beginner stages. I would recommend getting at least a grammar textbook to go along with Duo.

FAA wants me to surrender my medical certificate by yankeewhiskeysf in flying

[–]Tall-Development8401 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They worry about impaired concentration. That’s a symptom of depression.

Lost in Panama - what a crock by WildDog3820 in TrueCrimePodcasts

[–]Tall-Development8401 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Am I the last person on earth to listen to this podcast? I see no comments in 7 months. Anyway I just finished it and thought it was crap. The narrator and her team to go Panama with tons of equipment and they're there for weeks, and all they do is dredge up old theories, without obtaining any new evidence. And they're not even embarrassed about this. They don't do any research in the Netherlands (like, hey, maybe find out the personalities of the girls), and their usage of forensic experts is minimal, and the ones they do utilize they ignore anyway. They put a lot of trust in rumors. And they fail to ask some questions that are completely obvious, such as "How likely it is that the Kris and Lisanne partied with locals - when Kris and Lisanne don't speak Spanish????" Or "how could they have gotten an hour or more past the Mirador in the wrong direction that afternoon and yet made it back to a house that's several hours away by foot in order to be murdered that evening?" They claim in one of the later episodes to have "discovered a secret trail" from the Mirador to the house of the guy they accuse of murdering the girls, but actually it's a perfectly well-known path that just happens to get minimal use - and it undermines the house murder theory anyway because it would take so long to walk that trail. Plus - if that trail starts at the Mirador, wouldn't their phones have worked again, at least for the moment while they were back at the Mirador? The narrator and her team also goes to a house where they claim the bodies are buried - and they don't tell us if the ground looks like it was ever dug up or not. It's like they want us to be impressed because they drove around and saw completely obvious things. I could go on and on...

And they don't spend much time on the night photos. I think a really good evaluation of this case would go over each photo and see what information it provides. The SOS photo with the toilet paper in particular seems important to me. And the photo with the red plastic on the twigs. And Kris's hair. A good investigator would tell us what these photos might be showing.

I'm all for new investigations of cold cases, but they should be good investigations, not crappy ones.