It’s what they should do really. Make the consequences of the law as visible as possible.

I use VLC for the handful of streams I need regularly. In the More tab you can create launcher (home screen) shortcuts for recently viewed streams and then rearrange them into a group. It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that.

I don’t see a ban happen for a number of reasons. Especially not if you want to ban the transport of goods (including intercontinental mail) as well.

Not to mention the fact that, short of replacing everything with sailboats, I doubt moving everything from plane to ship would necessarily be an improvement for the environment.

Better ground transportation could be a big game changer. At the moment I could either fly to London for a couple hundred quid at a convenient time of day within 4-5 hours door-to-door, or I could spend a substantially higher amount on a train ride that takes three times as long and requires me to change trains at least twice in the middle of the night.

That was my first thought as well!
Though OP might prefer Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

That’s probably true, but I imagine there’s considerable overlap between privacy-minded people and people aware of the existence of (or wanting to peruse) news outlets such as 404. It just looks like a largely unnecessary obstacle for new readers.

I agree with most points in the article, but why e-mail? What’s wrong with a website where people can click on whatever they deem interesting, or (as suggested elsewhere) RSS?
Besides the questionable benefits of e-mail over a website, this is also practically guaranteed to deter most privacy-minded people. When 999 out of 1’000 websites ask for your mail address to send you spam, few people are going to take the time and read a lengthy explanation why this one website promises to be different.

It might be a bit of a cliché, but my pick would be Teenage Kicks by the Undertones. It’s such a perfect representation of its times, there’s a longing in the lyrics that I still feel every time I hear the song, and while not technically a masterpiece in terms of depth or skills, there’s nothing you could add or change that would make the song any better.

Or if a partial song counts, there’s of course that guitar solo by Prince around the 03:25 mark.

Especially with the fake “eye” it creates for you on the front of the device.

I can totally see a fringe use case for meetings etc. where you can look super attentive while daydreaming or sleeping.

I don’t see that happening before revolt does.

Yes, but say you’re the one in power and you have spent the last few decades nanipulating as many people as possible into believing that you’re on their side and their enemy is actually the guy trying to raise minimum wages, tax the rich, introduce affordable health care and equal opportunities… what will that revolt look like?

I’m revisiting old favourites of mine - the first two books of the “achtsam morden” (mindful murder) series by Karsten Dusse. Unfortunately they’re German so probably not of much interest to you, but if you happen to speak it or come across a translation that I’m not aware of, do give the first book a try.

The protagonist is a lawyer mainly working for a mobster he doesn’t like. He’s increasingly unhappy with his work and life, and his marriage and the relationship with his little daughter are falling apart… until his wife forces him to go to a mindfulness seminar. When he starts applying the things he learns there, his life takes a dramatic turn as the results of his mindfulness are the death of his boss, him taking his place as the leader of a criminal enterprise and eventually using the enterprise’s resources to kill his opponents one by one and secure his daughter a place in kindergarten.
Especially the first book is a pleasant read both for the protagonist’s stoically mindful handling of increasingly violent and unlikely situations and for the actual exercises in mindfulness explained and demonstrated to the reader. You learn both why you should still love your parents-in-law even if you hate their guts (and how to do that) as well as how to correctly detonate a couple of hand grenades taped to a mobster’s nuts, all from the point of view of a very smart lawyer (which the author actually is in real life). In that the book is both educational and entertaining at the same time.

Almost makes populist Argentine president Javier Milei’s “pack 300 of your ideas into a mega-decree that effectively becomes law with immediate effect until/unless parliament gets around to repealing parts of it with a 2/3 majority” strategy look like the more sensible approach.

Man, I loved that game so much. And it was super easy to build and substitute your own levels, sprites, background music, sound effects, even the mechanics of the game itself, as much of it was script-based and the game came with editors for everything. You could practically write your own game on top of the existing engine and weaponry.

It also was the only game on my 486DX with its own minimalistic config.sys because it needed a mind-boggling 6800kB of free RAM.

I’m well aware of the difference (see my other posts). But it still means that even with the maximum fine, a revenue of 100 billion is still a revenue of 96 billion. Even with an unrealistically low profit margin of 10% it was still worth it to them.

You’re making good points and I think we’re on the same page. I agree that revenue does not equal profit, I just want the fines to be as high as possible.

I don’t know, a percentage of revenue hurts more than the same percentage of net profit. Maybe some companies need to be forced to operate at a net loss until they clean up their act.

The EU knows fines of ‘up to’ 4% of revenue for privacy violations, which means the company still gets to keep 96% of whatever it’s made by breaking the law. The fine should be a minimum of 50%, plus jail time for the managers responsible. Any punishment that does not make the shareholders cry with fury is too low and will do nothing to change the situation.

I also like RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly).

Couch potatoes are important too! And from the looks of it she was a pro.

Mine should enjoy agility in theory - she’s super smart, easily bored, very nimble and needs a lot of exercise. I don’t know if she’s being considerate by trying not to expose her clumsy human to such situations or if she just thinks such simple challenges would be degrading to such a majestic animal as herself.
At least our slightly overweight french bulldog (of all things) is ultra-motivated as long as there’s a treat waiting behind every other obstacle.

Sounds like both a practical and fun car! Here’s to many adventures with it.

As for the name, I have no idea. For some reason, Pierre comes to mind. Maybe because Nissan is french nowadays, or maybe I’ve just rewatched too many episodes of Danger 5 this week.

I’ve never dabbled in poly myself (just open relationships, which have some similar mechanics but a fundamentally different mindset), so the following is limited second-hand knowledge/opinion, but seeing as nobody else has replied…

First of all I don’t think there’s a definite answer to your question, as ‘poly’ is an umbrella term for a lot of different constellations: does everybody date everybody or are people just allowed to have several unrelated partners, is everything fair game or are there things you’re only supposed to do with your main partner (if there is one), how are new partners introduced, who can have sex with whom, do the same rules even apply to everybody involved, etc. There’s no right or wrong, only “everybody involved is comfortable with this” or not.

I myself haven’t seen many poly constructs work out mid- to long-term, mainly for the same reason that many open relationships eventually fail: not everybody involved was equally enthusiastic about the open/poly part, and/or as mindful of their partner(s) ad the situation demands.

Those I’ve seen succeed all have two things in common: very, very good communication and unconditional trust.

One part of this is what some call “brutal honesty” - you talk about everything that might affect your feelings for each other - even, and especially, the things that may hurt your partner(s)'s feelings. This obviously demands a lot from everybody involved. You also need to accept the fact that your partner(s) will have feelings that may be hurtful to you but are still valid and good for them. For example you need to be genuinely happy for the person you love the most in the world when they fall in love with somebody new and/or have had better sex with them than with you. That’s tough on many levels. It also means that there needs to be enough trust to accept and overcome jealousy and fear of loss.

You also see how easily such a degree of trust can be abused. That abuse accounts for, hmm, probably 90% of all the failed poly and open situations I personally know of. It never works out when one partner just goes along with it in order not to (entirely) lose the other partner, which sadly happens alot and is not always obvious from the start.

Funnily enough, a monogamous relationship would profit just as much from that kind of communication, only a monogamous break-up is generally more of an obstacle than a shift in a poly constellation (both for personal reasons and because of what society expects), and so monogamous constructs can be of a much lower quality before they’re deemed unsustainable.

I’ve also asked a close friend with poly experience what they think is important and will add their response here once they’ve replied.