My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We’re bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We’re coming in from the north, below their radar.

When will you be back?

I can’t tell you that. It’s classified.

What stuck out to you?

So, the difference between air and train is immense. There’s like 3-4x more leg room, free 2x carryons, 2x checked, and 2x personal items (you could probably get away with more if you wanted). The seats are newer pleather that look nicer, though don’t feel too great, especially for long durations. Getting up and walking down the aisles and spending time in the café car is a great way to spend time, and you don’t really have to worry about leaving items at your seat.

What was different between your expectations and experiences?

Not much, if I had to say, I’d guess speed. It can get going pretty fast, and it’s nice to see you speeding past cars on the highway in the VA area. But also, speed… getting deprioritized against freight traffic is more than a little annoying. Was once stuck for a couple of hours because a tree had fallen across the track in a storm earlier in the day.

What do you think most people don’t understand about AmTrak travel?

Not having to deal with TSA makes the experience 100x better in speed and convenience. Taxes and several dozen bags included in the ticket price make it cheaper than air travel in a lot of situations. Seeing the countryside go by at grade-level is so beautiful. Interaction with other passengers and train attendants is very… touching, I guess? People in general are much, much more friendly and happy to be there than in an airplane.

Here’s hoping that you get a chance to experience AmTrak! Even if it’s just for a couple of hours, it’s a very unique experience. I really want to do a roomette cross-country at some point, but it does get pretty expensive, and I feel that some of the charm may be lost by having a totally private space versus coach seating.

Not east-west, but I’ve done north-south, ORL to NYP (24 hrs), as well as CHS-NYP, on the Silver Star and Silver Meteor. Since it’s not really in the vein of this question, I won’t go into detail, but it’s been between good and okay for me; doing coach and coach-premium-or-whatever-it’s-called. AMA I suppose?

Wow, you old

Oh wow, I totally read the parent comment as ‘manatees’, and was like, “Odd, never heard of that, but okay.”

…

Then a dash of, “Holy shit, how’s this guy keeping manatees in a terrarium?”

They’ve set up a pretty detailed whitepaper here.

Ah, the guy who also renamed ketchup!

Alternate reality where Hannibal accidentally took a left in the Alps

I think

The 787 airframe is unrelated to the 737 MAX series, which had the MCAS crashes/door falling off.

That said, I’d never want to fly Boeing, but it’s probably not a realistic worry at this point.

ISO 8601 is the objectively right way to write dates so they’re always sorted in chronological order.

deleted by creator

Metonitazene btw, not carfentanil like I would have guessed.

Regarding your postscript: if you know anything about the history of the period, pretend that you don’t or you’ll pull all of your hair out by episode two. It’s not intended to be historically accurate at all, but it is pretty fun.

This is why so many ‘industrialists’ are championing Mars bases and asteroid mining. Not because it would solve scarcity, but because it would provide another spatial fix, which like you said, is the ideal capitalist solution.

For anyone from the Americas who thought they’ve seen these little guys before, Gasteracanta cancriformus is probably the cousin of OP’s orb weaver spider that you’re familiar with.

deleted by creator

Hey, that’s not fair! It’s actually just rugby with commercial breaks every 5 minutes!

Irony is dead.

—Soviet dissident Daniel Craig is released from a Siberian gulag, c. 1950