FinishingDutch

Victorinox has never disappointed me. I own a few kitchen knives, their cutlery and an extensive collection of pocket knives. Everything is solid, dependable, arrives sharp and stays sharp. Plus they have good company ethics, as far as those things go. I like their products so much, I frequently give them as gifts.

I always carry a 5.11 backpack. So thankfully I don’t need to carry everything on my belt. The only stuff on my person are my wallet, keys and phone. Keys have a Victorinox Super Tinker on them.

The rest of it is in the backpack. I always carry that thing anyway for shopping, to carry a camera, holds my rain jacket that sort of thing. And it’s a TARDIS / magic box in terms of whatever else might be in there.

Some think it’s weird to carry an actual backpack, but I love it. Literally feel naked without it.

With regards to locking knives: most people would say that a locking blade is 'safer' to use and more capable of stabbing someone than say, a Swiss army knife, which would fold on your hand if you tried stabbing with it. But in regards to the actual laws that countries write and enforce, there's usually not even a reason listed for such a prohibition in places that have such bans.

For Germany, section 42A of the Weapons Act applies. That basically states (official english translation):

It shall be prohibited to carry (...) knives with a blade which can be fixed with one hand (one-hand knives) or fixed knives with a blade length of over 12 cm.

The original German for 'blade which can be fixed' (feststellbarer Klinge) is what we would refer to as a locking blade. It doesn't even attempt to give a reason as to why.

In the UK, where a knife with a locking mechanism is illegal as well, the Lancashire Police says only this:

A lock knife is not a folding pocket knife and therefore it is an offence to carry around such a knife regardless of the length of the blade, if you do not have good reason. A lock knife has blades that can be locked and refolded only by pressing a button. A lock knife has a mechanism which locks the blade in position when fully extended, the blade cannot be closed without that mechanism being released. A lock knife is not an offensive weapon per se, as these knives were made with a specific purpose in mind were not intended as a weapon. However, possession of a lock knife in a public place without good reason is an offence.

So this has a lot of contradictions in it. That first sentence makes no sense: 'a lock knife is not a folding pocket knife', when clearly there are knives, with locks, that fold. 'A lock knife has blades that can be locked and refolded only by pressing a button'. OK, so a button lock is illegal. Which means a liner lock is OK, right? But no. 'A lock knife has a mechanism which locks the blade in position when fully extended'. So now we've abandoned that button, and have moved on to mechanism... And then we get some form of argument as to why this all is banned: 'A lock knife is not an offensive weapon per se, as these knives were made with a specific purpose in mind were not intended as a weapon. However, possession of a lock knife in a public place without good reason is an offence.'

So there's a 'not offensive weapon per se', but also 'posession with no good reason is an offence'

Basically, the only thing you can reasonably have on you is a non-locking small Swiss army knife. Anything that even hints at a lock? That's a crime. Why? Fuck you, because we say so.

Don’t get me started on how stupid knife laws are in general.

Here in the Netherlands, thankfully there aren’t many restrictions. You can basically carry 95 percent of common knives on you. Locking folders, fixed blades, generally legal unless expressly probhibited.

We can’t own or carry certain types like gravity knives and butterfly knives. Why? “Because… well, fuck you, because we say so.”

If I hop across the border to Germany, knife laws are more restrictive. Can’t have any form of locking knife, so that takes out most folders you’d want to carry. And if I went to other countries, they too have different laws. In France, you can own an OTF for example. And in the US, laws vary from state to state.

Now, what does all that tell us? That knife laws are inherently made up bullshit by politicians and lawmakers who have NO FUCKING CLUE what they’re doing. Because if knife laws made sense, we’d have a fairly consistent set of them. And they tend to ignore that most actual knife crime happens with cheapo kitchen or utility knives. Nobody’s getting stabbed with a 500 euro safe queen.

The knife is one of mankind’s oldest tools. It should be legal to carry everywhere and every form. Knives don’t stab people, people stab people.

I was a Scout as a teen. Taught me the value of being prepared and the use of good tools. Basically, I still carry things like a Swiss Army Knife, flashlight, that sort of thing. I also just like to have things in case I need them, like a charge cable or bicycle pump.

You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve had interactions that go like this:

“Does anyone have a knife? I need to cut this”

“Here, use mine”

“Why do you have a knife???? Who are you going to stab???”

Same thing with other tools. People need one, you’re someone who carries it, now you’re somehow weird for being the only person prepared…

I’ve had to guide people out of buildings during blackouts while using my flashlight (this was before phones had them). Number one comment while doing that? “Why do you have a flashlight???”

MOTHERFUCKER, WHY DON’T YOU? On this planet, it gets predictably dark for, you know, almost half the day. So it might just be handy to carry some light with you. Tool use is what sets us humans apart from most animals, so can you at least try and not embarrass your species?

Honestly, she won the only real thing that matters: actual attention and fame. I couldn’t tell you who won the medals. But I’ll definitely remember her performance for years. She’s now famous, whether she wants to or not. I’d lean into that if I was her.

When I worked in radio production, basically everything was formatted like YYYY-MM-DD. Which means stuff is really to find and properly in chronological order.

I still use the MM-DD format for my own file formatting, even though DD-MM is the Dutch standard.

YYYY-MM-DD is god’s perfect date notation as far as I’m concerned.

To be clear: I’m not in the community as such, but I fully support them and have a fair few gay friends. And guess what? I feel represented by the original flag too. Because it represents good values. From an interview with Gilbert Baker:

Each color of the rainbow flag stands for something. "Pink is for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sun," Baker told ABC7 News. "Green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for serenity and purple for the spirit. I like to think of those elements as in every person, everyone shares that."

Nowhere does it mention things like race. Or even a particular sexuality! As a white, heterosexual dude, that flag represents me just fine. It also represents someone black, brown and by golly, those blue people from Avatar if we ever discover them.

I definitely agree that most pride flags aren’t very good. I understand peoples enthousiasm to have their own flag, but some are just terrible.

You might be familiar with that old XKCD comic about competing standards. I imagine any attempt to make a new, better flag just results in one more getting added to the mix :D

If I was organising something, I’d just stick with the 1979 six color and call it a day. It’s iconic and it represents everyone, whether they like it or not.

We had our Amsterdam Pride event earlier this month. Flags were a big issue of contention within the community. Not just whether or not flags like Israel or Palestinian would be welcome, but also regarding the rainbow flag itself.

There’s two schools of thought: the people who see the original rainbow flag as inclusive enough, and the people who want a flag that they feel represents their niche specifically. That one being the ‘Progress’ flag that you’re referring to.

The argument is: by adding more and more of that ‘social awareness’ stuff to it, the overarching message of it gets lost. Basically, people want pride to be about pride and not have it hijacked by other social issues. Which of course leads to animosity with people who do want to protest for social issues.

Personally, I’m a big fan of vexillology and I feel the original flag is still the best, most representative and least devise symbol.

I hear the Mariana Trench is lovely this time of year.

Well, guess I’m officially old since I only knew about three of those…

It really is the proverbial double edged sword.

I was born in 1982. The very first PC I ever used was a Commodore 64 at school. When we got our first home PC in 1996, we kids had to learn everything: how to install things, how to fix driver or OS issues, how to get software and hardware working. You basically learned how things worked, because you needed to in order to fix them. And things broke frequently.

Back in those days, PC’s and the web were nerd domains. There was a knowledge barrier to entry.

When we had that first PC, my dad never used it. You couldn’t explain him how to use a right mouse button, much less anything else. To this day, he’s never touched an actual PC or laptop.

But you wouldn’t know it if saw you him on his iPad. He can stream things, email, send pictures to people, sell stuff online, talk with people… but he still has ZERO fucking idea how it works. They’ve dumbed everything down so much even a toddler and a chimp can use it. And my dad.

But people who grew up with toddler-proof iPads and phones never had to learn how they worked. They don’t know how to fix a thing if it doesn’t do what they want. I’ve had to help teens with phone and tablet issues, because they lacked the basic skills to diagnose and fix an issue.

I understand why people are now regressing to tech illiteracy - but it’s also frightening to see.