ProtonBadger

Yes, Bonjour is a magic word. La politesse/etiquette and respect for all people is very important in France. Here in NA when we enter a store the staff greets the customer and bows and scrapes for us, in France when entering a store the customer politely acknowledges and greets the staff with Bonjour - and not just in stores. And then there's the other small phrases that goes a long way, like merci, pardon, s’il vous plait, au revoir, use monsieur/madame/mademoiselle, as in Excusez-moi, madame, etc.

Dress a little bit nicely when exploring helps, don't walk while eating, etc.

When foreigners complain that the French are rude or snobbish it is often a misinterpretation; not adhering to simple etiquette, can be offensive or insulting and they will react to that demonstratively or "in kind", more or less subtly..

I rather like La Politesse and being respectful to everyone.

Yes I enjoy that extra stability and organization, especially as I use a rolling distro as a gamer. Hearing talk about Flatpak I disliked it but I decided to try it out after Steam Native bugged due to a system library update. I enjoy it now also because it feels good that installing apps don't get a root password and scatter files everywhere they please in the system.

Bloat is often held up as the ultimate evil without further ado, scaring everybody. I think a little extra disk space would be more concerning on an embedded system. Snap is also aimed at embedded systems btw.

I have a version of The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that's genuine leather bonded with gold leaf page edges and builtin bookmark. It's on display on a special shelf. Everyone who visits thinks it's a bible, and in a way it is as it does have a lot of good advice about life, the universe and everything.

GuildWars 2, small scale stuff on the borderlands with my WvW guild.

When Covid came to town I started learning French to do something constructive. I started with 1 hour+ Duolingo a day, then after a year I added comic books (Tintin/Asterix/Spirou/Natacha/etc.). Now I am reading the Maigret novels.

I finished the Duolingo course after ~3 years but they added more content so now I do ~15min a day just for fun, while most of my learning is through reading interesting novels, like Maigret.

I also took the ANUx's Astrophysics XSeries Program on EdX, it's spectacular and I learned so much from it. So I keep better up with new discoveries and understand what's going on.

For sure, I use a computer all day, the only time I touch my phone is to answer the door. I don't have access to iMessage on the PC but I only use Signal and WhatsApp for messaging anyway and they work nicely on my Linux desktop. Never need to fiddle with my phone.

Yeah, homemade is best. It takes a bit of practice though because there's so many things one can use. A good burger doesn't have too much stuff and not too little and it needs balanced flavours and textures.

and there is a very useful Dyson refurbished factory store on EBay, at least here in Canada. I bought a stick vac there 12 years ago, only had to replace battery and air filter since.

Yeah, I had a friend throwing away his Dyson stick vac because it was "pulsating" on and off, well, a quick look in the manual (there's also an online troubleshooter) told me that pulsating like that is a signal to the user meaning there is a blockage, it took 30 sec to fix that.

Yes, everyone knows it already, they're just another company, profit is the main and first objective. Their stuff is generally good but priced high tier. But they do some virtue signalling when/where it doesn't hurt them too much, so that's why sometimes we can hope they put down their foot sometimes.

No one stopped buying apple when the forced labour of foxconn was revealed decades ago. (well, not enough to offset the savings to apple by using foxconn)

I think people know that almost everything in their homes (everything from kitchen utensils to speakers, even my mop) is made in the same type of factories or use components that are, except my furniture maybe, that's from Vietnam and clothing often from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh (still sweatshops, just different countries).

At least Apple had to improve conditions somewhat for their production lines which all the other companies supplying the west with cheap products didn't. They also audit it, which works somewhat though there's also evidence manufacturers tries to "hide" problems so nothing is perfect. One brand that tries harder is Fairphone and they are saying it's currently impossible to be 100% "Fair". But I guess if one wants to make a statement with their purchase they'll have to buy Fairphone.

Another company that had to do something was Nike, but I wouldn't be surprised they've reverted to closing their eyes to pure sweatshop suppliers now everyone have forgotten the scandal. Nobody's forgetting Apple's scandal because they're the most in the spotlight.