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But, they also don't want this to happen ever again.

What I suspect is that it nothing much will happen for months. There might be a sternly worded letter that they send to the franchisee that they really intend for the public: something about how McDonalds is not supporting either party, and franchisees are not permitted to use their locations for political events. Then, months later (especially if Harris wins), they'll remove that franchise and ban the franchisee from owning a McDonalds again.

Either way, very American attitude.

I'm sure they'd love to do that, but the problem is that mixed in with all the nonsense there actually may be things that would become policy. Like, if you're in Mexico's government, you really do need to know what his plans are going to be for the border. And, every once in a while he'll slip something into his rambling nonsense which might actually relate to border policy.

It's not just one generation receiving an education vs. another one that didn't. It's that the platforms the generations used are fundamentally different.

Gen X / Millennials grew up with Macs and PCs, computers that were fundamentally not locked down. You could install any software you wanted. You could modify the OS in many ways. DRM wasn't really a thing in general, and there were almost always easy ways around it.

Gen Z / Gen Alpha grew up mostly with cell phones. The phones they had are much more powerful than the PCs from 20-30 years ago, but they're incredibly locked down. The only applications you're allowed to use are the ones that Apple / Google allow on their app stores, unless you root your phone which is a major risk. It's very hard to even load up your own audio files, movies or images let alone "dodgy" ones. DRM is everywhere, and the DMCA means you risk serious prison time if you bypass access controls.

Gen X / Millennials grew up at a time when there were still more than 5 tech companies in the world, and the companies out there competed with each-other. There were plenty of real standards, and lots of other de-facto standards that allowed programs to interoperate. Now you're lucky if you can even use an app via its website vs. using a required app.

It's not just a difference in education. It's that companies have gained a lot more power, and the lack of antitrust enforcement has made for plenty of walled gardens and "look but don't touch" experiences.

An appropriate weapon you practice with regularly.

You know someone's American when...

The issue is that you can't prepare for everything. Having extra food and water, sure. Maybe buying a generator so you can use electrical equipment, that's generally useful. But, aside from that, your preparations for a flood will be very different from your preparations for a military invasion, which would be different from preparing for a pandemic.

Also, the more extreme your preparations are, the more it matters when you pull the trigger and activate your emergency plans. If your preparation is simply having a cupboard with extra toilet paper and some extra canned food, it's no big deal to pull that stuff out if the store runs out. But, if you have some kind of bunker in the mountains, it's a bigger decision when to "bug out" of the city and go live in the mountains. You're basically quitting your job, so if the emergency is something like the COVID pandemic, when do you decide things are so bad that you can take that extreme step?

Oof. I just realized something. There must be people whose job it is to translate the transcription of Trump's speeches into other languages. Journalists might have to do it for media in their country. People working in the diplomatic / spy apparatus of their countries might need to track what an American president / presidential candidate says in case it is important to their national interests.

Can you imagine having to do that, to structure what he says so that it vaguely makes some kind of sense in another language?

I also wonder if there's a way that a screenwriter could organize, punctuate and annotate this mess so that an actor could deliver these lines the same way. Like, it's obviously a word salad, but there's a variety in the kinds of emphasis he uses for certain words or phrases. Since there's no "natural" way to say all those words, I wonder if there's a way to transcribe it so that an actor could say the words in the same way without having to listen to the speech.

It's pretty interesting how we're all running basically the same hardware, but there are major software differences.

I mostly go barefoot too, and the shoes I have are "barefoot shoes" that have extremely thin soles. But, I still don't think the individual toes are that important to grip. Sure, the toe pads are important. If you're moving on the balls of your feet, I'd guess maybe 30% of your weight is in your toes. But, I don't think I'm getting much contribution to agility from my baby toe being splayed out. If I glued my toes together, I think it wouldn't hurt my agility much, and it would mean I'm much less likely to catch that individual, fragile baby toe on a corner.

I have songs stuck in my head all the time and I ‘know’ what they sound like, and my brain keeps the beat with the song, but I’m not hearing it.

That's just weird. You're aware there's a song stuck in your head, but you can't actually hear it? I wonder if that's more or less frustrating than a song stuck in your head that you can hear.

Can you taste or smell things that aren’t around?

Yes, but if normal experience of a taste or smell is a 10/10 in sensation, imagining a taste or smell is like a 1/10. Like, imagining smelling salts which are just overwhelming in reality barely rate a tickle in imagination. Same idea with taste. I can imagine biting into a lime, which in reality would be an almost painful experience in reality, but in the imagination it's barely noticeable. I imagine that when I'm imagining a situation, all the body sensations are there: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, even proprioception. But, I think everything is muted compared to reality, sight might be at a 3/10 compared to reality, sound maybe at a 2/10, and the others are lower, probably even below 1/10. I can only manage a 1/10 for something that would be an overwhelming sensation in reality.

I think the name comparison I mentioned is probably the best I can think of. When you see a person you know, how do you remember their name?

I remember their name as just a fact associated with the person. However, I can't imagine remembering someone's name without also trying to picture their face. So, I guess it's more like remembering the name of someone who's like a pen pal or something. Someone I've never met face to face.

I was just thinking about this, and thought of podcasters that I listen to, whose faces I've never seen. With them, I don't picture a face because I've never seen one. But, I can "hear" the sound of their voices. I'm guessing you don't do that either?

A stop sign is a hexagon, red, with STOP in the middle.

It's actually an octagon. But, I assume that if you see a stop sign you don't have to count the sides, you just recognize it immediately?

What's interesting to me is that if I read a book, part of the pleasure is that the author is describing things in a way that allows me to picture them. It seems to me like not having the ability to picture things would make the book much less interesting. Like watching a movie that didn't have any soundtrack, just sound effects and dialogue. I guess you don't have anything to compare it to. But, I wonder if people who have aphantasia are less likely to enjoy books and more likely to enjoy movies?