FYI as someone with completely flat feet, flat feet people need the arch support more. The arch affects foot positioning, and that affects leg alignment all the way to your hip. Flat footed people like myself have no tendon support at all, so we’re totally dependent on outside structures for proper leg alignment.

These actually work pretty well FYI, not in super thin flip flops

I was agreeing with you...

What an average adult weighs varies from country to country. Based upthread you’re dealing with a population that is significantly heavier. Two it doesn’t work on small planes where its weight and balance. Three, you’re not told what you weigh... seriously there’s no stigma. It’s not like there’s a giant scale, you…

I know you didn’t mean anything by it (which is why I said that I didn’t think you meant anything by it), but you didn’t specify in the African bush or anything to explicitly delineate super remote Africa from urban Africa (which way too many Americans don’t think exist). You also didn’t specify countrie(s). Likely…

You are like the only person to suggest it. Everyone’s recommendations either seems super pricey or for dilletantes. I’d also add Secret Flying, The Flight Deal (which you hint at but don’t make explicit), Airfarewatchdog, for specific route fares. I got a 250 dollar flight from the east coast to Seattle recently…

There is a local culture, but I don’t know how much you’d dig it if you’re not into nature. I guess it depends on what you mean by culture.

My aunt has a non-service dog but is a type 1 diabetic; adult onset which isn’t super common. That dog has saved her life multiple times. It’s like he can sense when her blood sugar is too low. He also saved her from a pitbull attack but that’s another story. What’s hilarious is she didn’t want the dog - her son did…

THANK YOU! I think it’s because everyone here is used to flying regular US commercial where this isn’t a thing, and don’t understand the basic laws of physics. I’m with you that heavier people shouldn’t pay more. The other thing that people don’t understand, is that depending on where you are the plane is…

Maybe because I’ve been on way too many flights where the plane would crash if people weren’t weighed, but if getting weighed so your plane doesn’t crash - even if you don’t see the number - triggers something in you, maybe you shouldn’t be flying?

Full body scanners are security theater though (I get the pat downs), and between the leaked images etc they represent a legit invasion of privacy. There’s also the fact the ones based on x-rays were arguably an actual health risk. There’s a reason we don’t see back scanner machines anymore in the airports, and I…

And you’re writing this like someone who has never been on a commercial flight where the thinnest person on the plane was asked to move to the tail to rebalance the load. I can understand the outrage if they were charging heavier people more but they’re not actually doing that. They’re trying to figure out how much…

You know what’s more humiliating? Dying.

I like how you throw out in Africa. This happens in the US, in places like bush alaska FYI. Whereas I traveled through some really tiny “towns” in some remote corners of the world where this wasn’t the case. I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but I want to point out that this isn’t just a developing world thing.…

You’d think that people so keen on their privacy wouldn’t want to use a service with live tracking, stores trip information, who has used God Mode on at least one occasion to publicly reveal where people were in real time, and whose sexist CEO has threatened a reporter for openly acknowledging issues with the…

I’m in my mid-thirties, spent my late teens and twenties going to clubs and concerts. Would come home with ringing in my ears, hell I used to work shows and stand next to the speakers. I STILL have the hearing of a freaking cat. Everytime I go to the doctor they’re like you have wax in your ears, I’m like I’m aware…

I agree with you, but I think that there’s a huge dividing line between the rich and the poor but that dividing line is fuzzier between the rich and the middle class (real middle class not British middle class), and so many people ripping apart the rich are middle class not poor. A middle class person may not have the…

I did not grow up affluent, and I’m still not. But material comfort is such a curve. I moved home for awhile for financial reasons and depression reasons and in hindsight I realize how lucky I was: that my parents home was big enough to house me, and that our relationship, while not perfect, was more helpful than…

What Bedales costs as a boarder is still cheaper than what Horace Mann (a NYC Prep School) costs as a day student. A friend of mine went to a well known boarding school in the states on scholarship and a lark and people were constantly surprised she wasn’t on like psychotropic meds.

Yes: