You do sometimes have to worry about that weird g without the leg, though. But it's normal to them, so they don't guestion it. :^)

Nothing to be ashamed about! There's lots of stuff around the world that some people love but the majority shy away from. All the rest of us can ask is that you enjoy it responsibly and don't bother other people with the smell. :)

There are some more ways, usually involving fermentation. Us arctic types know some methods. But I get the impression rakfisk, lutefisk, hákarl, surströmming and kiviak would have caught on as exports by now if they were actually something humans in general were interested in eating, rather than the descendants of very specific kinds of desperate people.

Batteries seem to work fine in rural Norway. If you live somewhere warmer and/or with a bigger population or population density than Norway, you should be fine.

Boobies !!

You don't really need the bird flu in that mix, even. Pasteurization was a huge public health win.

What next, fridges are woke nanny state inventions and real red-blooded Americans store all their food in room temperature, especially their raw milk and meat?

Nearly done with Trails in the Sky. Apparently it's getting a remake in 2025, which I guess might make it more attractive to Kids These Days, but really I suspect is money and effort that could have been better spent elsewhere—the remastered version is pretty good IMO

Ibelin. Saw it in the cinema when it first came out, seemed like everybody in the audience was crying.

(It's about a kid with a degenerative disease who connected with people through an MMO.)

Good thing "oligarch" is just used when describing Russian conditions. That would neeeever happen here in the west.

US? Here in scandi tax seems to work well automatically, as in, we just log into the government website and click OK most years. Corrections are easy enough too, if you need it, but it's usually not required.

Coastal Norway is also pretty warm in this sense, but there aren't any trees far north. I suspect there's more than just warmth they want

Idunno, that might be approaching "one day of patchy electricity can change how you view computers vs mechanical typewriters". Here people would likely use their mobile internet, especially if the company is paying their phone bill.