Both. Maybe I’m not describing it right, but the air nozzles in most larger aircraft have been slightly adjustable for a long time. They are typically like a ball in joint socket you can point anywhere in its cone of motion, and that you can twist to open or close. This has been standard on flights for a really long time.

Newer flights have nicer versions of it, but some form of directional air nozzle has been around for a long time.

In the US airlines at least, most lately let you angle them like a ball-in-socket joint. They aren’t too “customizable” but you can generally point them and adjust how open they are. Older planes are less adjustable however.

This is good advice, though honestly I would advise waiting till you arrive and doing your washup at your destination.

If your airport is only 30min from the hotel, I say forgo his and just endure. If you land and the. Have 2+ hours more to your final destination, the I’d do it in the much larger and more accomodating airport bathrooms.

Unless on a very tight schedule or travelling in a big group, just ask your partners to wait and give you 10 to 15 to manage business. Be quick, but it shouldn’t take too long to strip down and hit your body with some body wipes. When you come out refreshed and in different clothes they will understand.

Which type of Manta did you go with. They apparently have quite a few variants, and I might invest in one for my next flight.

Sleeping is hit or miss for me. I find the smaller/shorter you are the more likely you can sleep well, bit if you break out all the tricks it may be possible for tall folks too.

I listed my tips elsewhere, but slip off shoes, using the headrest wings, noise cancelling headphones with background non-verbal music, and maybe an eyemask give you good odds I suppose.

Build a flight routine:

1. Screenshot your QR code to board. Crop it to just the code so your boarding zone is missing, and board in the middle of the second main group (Zone 2, Group 2, Etc. Not any of the special categories). No one will stop you.
2. Pick a seat in the back of the plane. You will deplane slower, but no one fucking cares unless you have a connection
3. Because of 1), you will board and head straight to the back, giving you time to sort your carry on and backpack/purse.
4. Stow the carry on immediately, drop your bag into your aisle seat. Remove your seating essentials once you size up your seat.
5. Bring a magnetic phone mount you can clip to the closed tray table (check amazon for one you like), plug in your charger brick, but not the cable, other passengers will kick it.
6. Open the overhead air vent nozzles to full, point them at your seat. If you sit, and it’s too much, point 1 or 2 of the others away. If you like all 3… Hope the other passengers never notice.
7. On a long haul you will probably be given a little pillow and blanket. Temporarily toss these in the overhead ontop of your bag. If need a neck pillow, get that out of your backpack. For lumbar support, if you think the provded pillow is enough, grab it after takeoff. You don’t want the blanket or pillow now.
8. Stow your water bottle (bring a refillable 24oz or 36oz tall steel bottle). This will hold the flap of your seat back pocket open a bit. Stow any snacks you want, and gadgets. Overload this pocket, items you consume will decrease over time, so anything goes here, stuff it.
9. Once you have everything out and stowed, your gadgets, headphones (I recommend over-ear noise canceling if you fly frequently) your phone mount your everything, then stow your backpack in the overhead. Again, no one will stop you. The flight attendants are helping load the plane and prep, and people do this anyways. On a long-haul it’s first come first serve, hence the seat selection toward the back.
10. Raise all the arms of the seats on your asile. This will let the other passengers get in faster. Raise the aisle armrest by pushing the button in the back of the arm by the hinge.
11. Wait, and fully extend your seat belt while you wait, so it’s super easy to grab and buckle later. Wipe down anything you like with a wet wipe, especially your headrest and armrest handles. Keep the armrests up though.
12. Once your seat mates have shown up, lower the two arm rests closest to you, and plug in your charger cable to the charger brick. Buckle up loosely.
13. After takeoff, use the rest room immediately, grab your blanket if you want to rest, and settle in. Late notice, but if you wear slip ons: slip them off now and relax in your seat. You can change socks after landing. Your feet will thank you. At this point, raise the headrest if you need to, and bend the sides, most headredts are now adjustable on the sides as well and can form a C shape to support your head. This is not as good as a neck pillow bit helps tons when combined with one.
14. During flight, press the hinge button on your asile armrest again whenever you need to get up, to make getting out easy. If anyone needs out, grab your phone, and unplug your cable from the charger brick, and sidestep into the aisle, take two steps forward or back, away from the nearest restroom, and then reseat but don’t lower the armrest until they return. DO buckle again. (Freak turbulence on long hauls is no joke sometimes).

Bonus 1) Lookup and purchase a plastic shim for AC adapter prongs online. Maybe 5 bucks, infinitely reusable. US airplane plugs tend to be very very loose due to extreme overuse. This will keep you from chasing your charging brick around the floorboards.

Bonus 2) For headphones, Bose Quiet Comfort or Sony WH1000XM3 or XM4s. The XM3 and XM4s IMO are superior noise cancelling to the Bose (subjective), and both fold up and are more compact than the later Sony XM5 series. You can find either of these “renewed” on Amazon sometimes for a huge discount. Buy them and never look back.

This works on 99% of flights. You get to stretch out as much as your seating allows, should have all your stuff accessible, and be comfortable to rest if you can. Personally I am too tall to sleep comfortably on most flights so instead I listen to podcasts or read something with very low volume background orchestral music as background to avoid silence/white noise. You’ll have to adjust for what works for you, but that early start gives you tons of time to get situated and I think this makes the real difference.

The fact you described it as “the show” is absolutely the problem in a nutshell. This isn’t a film, or a film series, it’s a fucking commitment. At least with Avatar, they’re years apart and the most visually stunning graphics on the planet. Or with LOTR these are epic stories and sagas.

What is the saga of the American rancher Mr. Costner? I need to understand.

I just learned that it’s a four part film series.

3 hours each

It ls based on the westward expansion of America, a period that is covered to death in media already.

It presents no unique or compelling twist or angle on this in the trailers.

It presents not amazing visual that can only be enjoyed in a theater instead of watching this at home like the History Channel.

I like Kevin Costner, I like westerns, I like history. I pretty much am the target audience. But when I was it was going to be at least 12 hours of content spread over the next 2-3 years, and I still had no hook as to why I should watch this over The Last of the Mohicans or Tombstone or any number of narratives in similar settings. It all feels incredibly low energy.

How anti-semetic of them. Don’t they know you can’t do that?

I am glad there are other players in the market but the user experience was just miserable for me. Between the lack of buttons for all the climate control and the error messages, as well as subpar android auto support in favor of their own janky android OS (not great for rentals).

Maybe Polestar 3 will fix all this. Maybe.

No buttons for climate control / fans, and Android auto on it is also kinda jank.

Fucking good. Long overdue.

I love some EVs, but I drove a Polestar 2 and a Model 3 on road trips for work in California. Never again. The nighttime driving experience is miserable imo, and the issues with the lack of stalks and buttons is real.

The Polestar is the only car to ever make me so angry I had to pull over. It had some kind of sensor issue, and decided the right way to notify my at 80mph on the highway was to A) cover my gate cluster with the error notification B) disengage my cruise control suddenly, at 80mph, and C) begin beeping.

I almost drove my rental into the Pacific Ocean out of spite.

I mean, they are literally mounting campaigns targeting gays now. Maybe it sucks for both but it sucks especially hard for gay people in Russia at the moment.

E.g. Maybe it sucks to live in Mordor. But as a Goblin instead of as an Orc, maybe it sucks especially hard when Sauron starts the “let’s purge the Goblins” campaign led by the Orcs.

To everyone cracking jokes about a gay uprising, it’s a lot simpler than any of that.

They just want to exterminate the gays. Like literally. They want to find that portion of the population and destroy it, because they think it’s disgusting and evil.

That’s it. Putin and the Russian conservatives are going after gays because it’s an easy win with their conservative base, and they can claim moral superiority. Also distracts from Ukraine.

If you are gay in Russia… Its a very bad time to be gay in Russia.