First of all, what an incredibly detailed and cool post. Thanks for that!

I don’t enjoy racing games much (though I actually raced cars and motorcycles for a decade, and then sim raced for a few years), but it’s a great reminder to re play wipeout and the old school burnout games.

I will say, on a similarish but different note, I loved Snow runner. It’s a “get stuck in the mud” sim with friends. Their recent sequel is… Weird? Closer to truck Factorio. It’s not the same game imo but I appreciate the fresh view

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1465360/SnowRunner/

Quadruple A+ management*

Our US one when we lived there: 1960s

Our Danish one now: 17… 50s? 60s? It’s hard to know

Still hard on the Monster Train 2 grind

I agree, if the US also used their tax dollars as intelligently as the Danish government does as well.

Seems like a pipe dream, but I hope at least parts of the US become more modern in those ways in my lifetime

I pay quite a bit in Denmark, but used to live in the US.

I pay more taxes now (not THAT much more but definitely more). However I see what I get for my taxes here: healthcare, bicycle lanes, cheap and very good trains/metro/ferries/buses everywhere, etc., and sooo much support for people. It makes me proud to pay taxes here, even though of course I always want more in my pocket and I want more for my money.

In the US I hated the taxes because I paid more than rich people (as they pay nearly none) and I didn’t feel like i got a lot from them.

No problem with taxes as a concept, but I hate how the US uses tax money

WOW THAT REALLY CRANKS MY HOG

Ah man that’s pretty disappointing. I probably won’t buy it until then

Yeah, certainly depends exactly where you go. A capital city and a rural town will feel extremely different on English speaking (and cultural/political views at that).

I think it’s quite possible to do though. Happy to chat or answer any specific questions you have, especially if they’re Scandinavia based.

It’s a tough choice to do something like you’re talking about but extremely fulfilling. I wouldn’t trade the decision for the world at this point. I wish you the best of luck!

US ex pat here:

I think you will find more success in this if you find a place or two you want to live in and run TO something instead of AWAY from something. It’ll always be a bit of both, but this post reads more like (very understandably) “get me out of here” than “I want to be somewhere new”.

Being an ex pat has plenty of hard aspects of course. I think some of them are made quite a bit easier when you passionately dive into the culture and life in a new place. At least to me it would be impossible if my head was still in the US.

Of course you’re doing nothing wrong! Just some advice if it gets a bit more serious.

Like many in the thread: Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, UK (not that they’re doing fantastic right now), Netherlands would be my top choices with your criteria. Most large companies will be more likely to have English speaking as the working language and you’ll learn the local language (s) while living there. Best of luck!

10 is optimistic imo

I couldn’t find any properly dumb tvs in a recent search and got a Google TV. You can set it up in “dumb mode” at startup and it never does a thing online. Can even do firmware vis USB if you felt like it for some reason.

Happy with it so far! 4k and OLED, a decent price imo as well. I’d rather it be fully dumb but this is close enough.

Whatever flavor Lego game suits you is good too!

Dave not coming back

I have a bit of an ocean/diving fear and some mild claustrophobia, so this is the perfect doc to scare the crap out of me

Totally agree, but you really never know where would be insulated from everything

I mean surely in the 1930s Hawaii felt like an excellent place to be insulated from war…

Totally. But “down pat” and conversational are a bit different.

US ex pat here:

I agree with a big decision, but I strongly disagree with needing the language down pat before you go. You should know some for sure, and mostly have a willingness to learn it. You’re going to learn so much faster while there than you will studying in the US.

Just need enough language to get by at first

Man i almost didn’t post this cuz I thought it might turn into a flame war.

Thanks for not being a stereotypical Redditor

batteries don’t like to sit on a charge continuously

I absolutely agree for traditional lithium ion batteries, but for lithium polymer batteries, a middle SoC is best for longevity. As far as I understand, it’s better to sit at ~100 SoC than to do full discharge cycles, again unlike older battery tech which absolutely wanted full discharge cycles.

If you wanna be gentle on batteries, it’s more about not rapidly charging them rather than doing charge cycles these days. So if the gameplay loop of optimizing your battery SoC is fun: do that, if not: I wouldn’t bother

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Does… Does this person reach through the legs from the front?