Are they automating their jobs away to let the rest of humanity live lives of joyous leisure, or will those non-owners who no longer provide utility to the owners just be starved to death?

This is my surprised face

Judging by their mugshots, they were perpetuating a longstanding family tradition

It could be a threat, or it could mean something like “hang in there” or “stay the course” (“dead” as in dead straight, dead reckoning or similar), possibly from some specialised vocabulary. Is there more context?

I suspect Nicole is a similar sort of operation to Aidana the pretty lady dentist from Kazakhstan, only aimed at people who’d be more sceptical. So instead of stealing images from a fitness influencer, they got some from a more average-looking young woman and made up a story. If it’s like Aidana, there’s a guy somewhere (probably in the hinterland of Russia or elsewhere in the former USSR) whose day job is to string the people who reply along, lead them into believing they have a relationship with this lady, make sure they’re absolutely sure this isn’t a scam, and then pig-butchering them for all they’re worth.

I’m 13 and this is edgy

From what I recall, it does, especially for new words (items like “backpack” and “T-shirt” seem to have almost a different word in each country). Maybe Duolingo’s Spanish is from former south (Argentina or Chile perhaps?)

And yet, shafts of light sometimes grace the corners of our rooms

Do they? Duolingo, meanwhile, teaches a Latin American dialect (possibly Mexican), with “ustedes” as the second-person plural. (IIRC, their Portuguese is also Brazilian, which is a greater leap.)

Or Israel. (Turkey apparently replaced the original avionics of their US jets so that they could hypothetically target Israeli fighters.)

Kiki before bouba

Every country in Southeast Asia that gets waves of rowdy Western tourists has markets selling cheaply made T-shirts with these kinds of designs. They’re cheap (at least in western currency) and people end up buying them as souvenirs and as gag gifts for mates/coworkers.

I’ve seen one with the same colours/typeface/drawing style only it was about smoking weed or possibly banging two chicks at once. IIRC, it was purchased in Thailand a decade or two ago.

When I was a teen, I thought that ska was short for “skatepunk”

Also, villains are often coded as minorities, whereas the heroes are basically the mainstream.

That’s basically Inspirational Skeletor.

That’s probably why it’s still legal

Removed by mod

It predates Illuminatus!, which came out in the early 70s. The foundational text of Discordianism, the Principia Discordia, was published (i.e. photocopied and sent out to fellow fringe dwellers) around the mid-60s. Illuminatus!, however, popularised it.

Ah yes, Chesterton’s Balcony

I remember making mix CDs. I still have some blank CDs somewhere, including probably a few of those Verbatim ones with the vinyl-like ridge pattern on the printed side.

What do young people do in place of mix CDs these days? Send each other a sequence of Spotify/Youtube links in real time?