horse

That’s not been my experience at all (also in Germany). Signal is super popular, especially with younger people (under 40). I don’t have a Whatsapp account and it’s super rare for it to be an issue.

tbf, if you’re not hostile to the US at this point, I’d seriously question your sanity. You don’t need to be a tankie for that.

Trust me. Being healthy feels great. In my early twenties I used to do all the drugs, smoked and drank every day. I didn’t have any obvious health issues, but I can tell you now, that being fit and healthy feels so much better. I used to feel pretty miserable, but now I feel like I can do anything. Self care is important for self love. You can still be happy, even with all the shit going on, but you need to look after yourself.

You do realise there are other types of holiday than flying around the globe to lie by the pool in a country with cheap labour, right? I think I’ve taken like one return flight in the last 10 years (excluding work trips). My last holidays I’ve travelled to by train to other countries in Europe. My next holiday I’m travelling one way by train and one way by bike.

Yes. It used to show as a USB mass storage device, but a recent update changed it to use MTP (at least the Edge x40 devices). I don’t have my Edge here to check, but I’m like 90% sure you can also access the .fit files and load courses that way. It exposes a bunch of folders, including (I think) courses and activities. It should be possible to simply copy them to/from a computer that way.

This link is specifically about using Ride with GPS with Garmin over USB, but it should still be relevant (there is also a screenshot showing some of the folder structure): https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/12212969301147-Manually-Sync-your-Garmin

If you don’t want to use Strava, perhaps this could be for you? I haven’t tried it myself, but it sounds interesting: https://github.com/joaovitoriasilva/endurain

As for cycling computers, I’ve only used Garmin (Edge 840) and Wahoo (ELMNT Bolt 2), neither of which I’d really consider “hackable”, but with Garmin at least it is possible to create custom apps and data fields and if you connect it to a computer via USB I think you should be able to access the .fit files, courses and other files via MTP (this may also be possible with Wahoo, not sure). I think it actually exposes the entire file system. You can definitely create custom map themes by editing XML files for example which is not a feature Garmin advertises.

Otherwise I would say the difference between Wahoo and Garmin is that Wahoo is simpler and less customisable, but it still does everything important and is cheaper. It’s much easier to set up and get going. Garmin is very customisable (and more expensive), but there are way more settings and menus to navigate and you can spend ages setting it up just right. You also get more fitness tracking features for free out of the box through Garmin Connect (though it’s worth noting they recently pissed everyone off by adding optional subscription features recently). For me Garmin Connect made Strava completely redundant, since I don’t care about the social features. The data is still hosted on Garmin servers though.

And of course there are other brands too that I haven’t tried. Perhaps check out DC Rainmaker on Youtube. He has reviewed lots of devices by all the main brands.

If that’s how you feel, fair enough, but I honestly don’t see much value in letting AI generate suicide emojis.

It has constraints.

It’s an AI text to emoji feature. You describe what you want and it generates a custom emoji from the prompt. Not super necessary of course, but it’s actually one of the more fun “Apple Intelligence” features.

DB uses this novel trick to avoid delays: they simply don’t count trains that don’t run at all as delayed. And then they also sometimes cancel trains for being delayed. They simply turn the train around before reaching it’s final stop so at least it’s somewhat on time running the other way.

I didn’t say cycling 300km was the most convenient way to travel such a distance, just that travelling long distances by bike is doable.

You’d be surprised how far you can travel on a bike. As long as you cycle within your ability/fitness level and eat enough you can basically cycle forever. I cycled 300km in one day last year and it wasn’t even that hard. I just made sure to eat enough carbs and stick to a sustainable pace. It took some determination, but it was not difficult physically. Humans are built for endurance.

Drugs are honestly pretty meh. I’m not saying they can’t be fun and or that they are evil or anything, but I feel like you are seriously overhyping them.

I used to a lot of drugs and lots of different kinds too. Sure I had fun and I don’t massively regret it. But since I quit all drugs (including alcohol) several years ago I really have to say there are plenty of other things in life that are just as fun as drugs, if not much more so. There’s only so much you can experience with drugs and it gets old fast.