golli

Most online stores for running shoes have pretty good return policies, so i'd just buy from those that allow returns. But i've only had to use returns once or twice between my many orders. Tbh i've only ever bought my first pair locally, felt ripped off paying 140€ for a pair of asics gt-2000 and ever since ordered online without issues.

You want them to be comfortable and with roughly 1 thumb width of space in the front. Also lacing matters a lot. I've had shoes hurt after a few km running, because i laced them too tightly. Which was fine at the start, but during your run your feet will swell up a bit (that is also what the extra space in front helps with).

As said for me the thing that works is to google a size chart for the model and not go by EU sizes, but cm (or JPN sizing, which equals cm). Those are very consistent between brands. For example my "main" brand is probably saucony where i have a EU46, which correlates to 29,5cm. I had my Brooks Hyperion tempo in EU45,5, which for brooks is 29,5cm. And i had 3 pairs of puma so far (2 velocity, 1 liberate nitro) all in 46 that in reality are actually a bit long, which tracks with the fact that for puma EU46 is 30cm. So i know i ideally want 29,5cm with 30cm being fine (but anything shorter doesnt work).

Beyond that it is just minor fit differences, e.g. altra shoes have wide toe boxes, nike are said to run a bit narrow and so on. Usually you can learn these from a decent review, if they mention it.

That said for this to work you need to either know your shoe size at least once. Either from your old shoes, trying some in store, or you estimate with the guides on online sites (and return if they end up the wrong size).

As for which type of shoes to buy, unless you have a rotation of multiple shoes you'll probably just want a decent and versatile daily trainer, which basically every brand offers.

I usually get around 1200km out of my pairs, but I also tend use them longer than ideal. Some will last longer than others, e.g. I had a pair of saucony triumph were the foam held up very well.

Generally it is not the upper or outsole that makes retiring the shoes necessary (they'll still look visually fine), but the midsole going flat. Which is kind of the point for which one buys specialised running shoes: the shock absorption and energy return the midsole foam provides.

For me the sign that a shoe is nearing the end of its useful life is usually that I start feeling the impact more in my knees after longer runs. But imo getting a second pair and still using the older one occasionally let's you get a bit more mileage out of your shoes. Also helps with comparing new vs old.

Generally I agree that running shoes are expensive, and I was surprised how much it ends up costing if you run serious mileage. But there are ways to save money and I usually spend between 50-80€ on my daily trainers, which is roughly a bit below half of the sticker price.

Buy online, look for sales at the end of the season and before new releases, buy last years models, and be flexible. For buying online to get the size right look at the cm sizing (or jpn sizes that equal cm), which for me so far has always been spot on, where EU sizes very. Also some models are usually good value, like for example the puma velocity nitro (version 1,2 or 3 doesn't matter too much so, all are solid).

I am also from Germany and get payed for donating thrombocytes at my university hospital. The compensation is actually quite substantial imo at (up to) 75€ per session, which can be done every two weeks. The money is however mean to offset the time required, not the thrombocytes donated. So it is correlated to how long it takes.

You get 15€ (?) for up to 15min (if they have to abort very early for some reason or at your first visit where they just draw blood to test), 50€ for up to 1h (which equals to 1 instead of 2 pack of thrombocytes, usually done at your first real donation or if you maybe dont have enough for 2 on this particular day), and 75€ for anything over 1h (which is the norm).

Timewise the hospital is on the outskirts of the city, so most will have to travel a bit, then you have to fill out forms, have a quick talk with the doctor, and finally depending on your parameters it takes anywhere from ~55-70min to extract, during which you are tethered to a machine (which takes out some blood, then seperates out the thrombocytes with a centrifuge, pumps back the rest, and repeat).

One could get philosophical about the topic, but from a practical perspective the money makes a lot of sense imo:

• It costs them a lot of money to investigate new prospects, so you want reliable repeat donors

• Each donation already has other costs associated with it. Like for example the kit used during extraction, the staff handling everything and so on. So even those 75€ are just one more expense among many, and from donation to usage probably vanish in the overall costs.

• For the donor it is quite a substantial time commitment, especially when done regularly every two weeks. Unlike for example full blood donations you'd maybe do twice a year. And you should be reliable and not randomly cancel at the last second, so ideally it also has priority over some other things in your life.

• the small amount of blood that remains inside the machine is sometimes used for other research (if you agree to it, which i do)

From my own experience i can say that i might still do it without, but certainly not at the same frequency. And considering the time and effort required i don't think anyone could be blamed for doing it less frequently without the incentive. So at least in this case it imo is a fair trade and net positive. Although it does also help that this is a university hospital that directly uses it themselves, rather than a for profit company.

Agreed. The difference is that the prequels were a failure in execution, whereas the sequels failed on a conceptual level.

Kind of late, since i just came around to seeing it. Some thoughts:

• I really liked the visuals and i'm glad i got to see it in the cinema on a really good screen, so more or less the best possible experience. But i agree that the Rook animatronic looked a bit off (i'd have to rewatch it again).

• As someone else already mentioned i also liked the dystopian setting of the first act.

• I liked that they were leaning more into the horror, rather than action genre. But imo unlike the first Alien movie it had a few too many jump scares and overused the xenomorphs. Where the original was able to build tension with what you can't see, here you had a whole pack of them. And somehow they get mowed down way too easily.

• Agreed that there were too many callbacks and easter eggs, rather than letting the movie stand on its own. Especially the Ripley line was just too obvious and imo breaks the immersion into the movie.

• Not a huge fan of the third act

(also no telephone booths)

Speaking of telephone booths: With their disappearance the 2001 movie "Phone Booth" also lost its location.

To be fair the article mentions that they did have it figured out, but later canceled the connection, which was part of a separate project.

Seems like the exact problem that could happen with anything, but ofc shouldn't. Because it really is such a simple mistake that anyone with a brain, who is in charge of making those decisions, should look at the plans and see it. There for sure are systemic issues, if something this basic can fall through the cracks.

Besides the obvious fuck up, just judging from the picture in the article I also see a complete lack of solar panels or charging stations.

Feels like when you are already spending such a huge sum just for a fancy place to store some cars, then you could at least add that functionality.

Fun thought experiment, but yeah there is no way it ever happens. The simplest reason is that as soon as Ukraine manages to restore full control over its own territory, they will race to join Nato and the EU. Both of which would not accept Ukraine while holding russian land.

The issue is that would at best "reset" their reputation to zero. But the state that they'd like to go back to would be similar to "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", which ofc only works with the existing name. And this line of thinking is what got damaged by the degrading processors (and maybe how they handle it).

But Intel has never been in worse shape. So I think it's less about Intel considering it and more about if it gets forced on them either by activist investors (I remember seeing an article that Intel prepares to defend against that) or necessity.

I don't think so. The degrading processors are certainly bad, but in the grand scheme of things won't move the needle. The reputation loss is probably worse than whatever fine they end up paying (and they will drag it out).

The split would be between design and manufacturing. And it would mean a massive shift, not business as usual.

The design side is probably in better shape and would increase their use of TSMC instead of using the now spun off Intel fabs.

The manufacturing side would have it rough. But we are talking about only one of 3 manufacturers of leading edge chips here (together with tsmc and samsung), not something you "conveniently let go bankrupt". They'd try to raise more money to finish their new fabs and secure customers (while trying to make up for the lost volume from the design side). But realistically I'd say that similar to Global foundries they would drop out of the expensive leading edge race.