More like it doesn’t want to get the money to maintain those infrastructure by going into further debt.

I’m not following German politics very closely but the article mentions that this restriction is in their constitution.

There was something in that genre in my province decades ago when a government dedicated itself to ‘zero deficit’ by cutting on infrastructure maintenance for many years. A bridge eventually fell. Classic story. It seems like a common thing.

A rich phoque

Meh. I have a cabin in the countryside 130 km away from my apartment and I can cycle the whole way, or take a coach with a foldable bike and pedal the 30 km left.

It’s actually in the region where I grew up so I have to get there frequently to see my family. It’s a hassle sometimes but it’s only because my government can’t adequately fund and maintain a decent transit network.

I also bike to national parks nearby, and sometimes haul my inflatable kayak with a bike trailer.

People overestimate distances and think the country side justifies a car but it’s usually just excuses. I did move in a big city eventually but I lived in small towns and cities for a decade before that. I still hated cars and didn’t have one.

For example, my mother lives on a rural road outside a village of less than 2000 people. And she works in the next town that is 7 km away. Meanwhile I live in a city and work in the same city but I have to bike 9 km to get to work.

So sometimes distances are shorter in smaller cities and towns but people still insist they need a car. People will give any excuse to use their car. It’s like cocain.

Also, here Uber is only available in major cities where it’s competing with public transit anyway. AFAIK you can’t take an Uber to a small town or a rural road.

EDIT: Also, most people DO live in a city anyway. And they still have excuses to use a car.

Today, some 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities.

I prefer to be compared to Diogenes of Sinope, thank you.

Jokes on them, I hate cars, don’t have one, and would never take an Uber.

We (Canadians) actually have two layouts to type French characters. The modern Canadian multilingual layout, and the traditional “French (Canada)” layout. As an older French speaking Canadian, I prefer the traditional layout but both work. You can even type English words with these.

I work in IT and I have coworkers that use caps lock to capitalize single letters, like the beginning of a sentence. It hurts a bit every time I see it.

For me it’s an old habit from IRC. Instead of sending 5/6/7 lines of text, I just cut it with … and continue typing on the same line. I could make complete sentences with capitals and periods but instant messaging is not a medium well suited for full sentences and paragraphs, so you get …

Windows is doing all this. The computer does not.

After having a TCL smart TV that constantly smells like burning plastic, even a year after using it, I’m not sure I would want another of their product in my home.

But with a dead battery you have to haul it plis your stuff, which was supposed to be there to make it easier in the first place.

And by fast charge, I mean like an electric car, that can fully cjarge in about 15 to 20 minutes instead of hours.

I pull my inflatable kayak with a bike trailer and thought about an ebike but then, I also do touring and the places I go to are beyond battery life. For example this weekend I’m cycling 90 km to my camp site and there’s no electricity. And I need to get back.

And the second issue with this is that AFAIK there’s no fast charging on most ebikes. So if I need to stop somewhere to charge it when the battery will be dead after 75 km, it will take an eternity to charge.

So in the end, for my case, as someone cycling a few thousand kilometres a year, for “longer distances”, it’s wouldn’t be very practical.

My bash scripts. They are saving me lots of time at work, performing screen scraping, filling reports and monitoring old servers.

At home they are making backups and automating repetitive tasks.

I just love shell scripting in general. I should probably own a shirt that says “go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script”.

Sauf que, les québécois ne disent pas vraiment “eh” et le Québec n’est pas encore un pays.

It’s like saying “Nanaimo bars tabarnak”.

Yeah, the others were unremarkable but the first one made an impression on me.

That’s excellent for their clients. I’m guessing it set a precedent and the industry stopped trying anything else.

I didn’t follow the most recent developments here in Canada but AFAIK, a decade ago the industry tried to sue individuals that were “pirating”, and lost because they couldn’t proof that an IP could be associated with a single person, or something like that. Then the industry pretty much stopped trying to sue individuals from that point. They still send the threatening letters, but they don’t do anything else because past experiences with our courts didn’t go well for them.

Of course, there is a very very slim chance that the industry will try to sue a few individuals to scare others and create a new precedent, but it’s going to be a civil suit because it’s not even criminal here.

Cube

Edit: Apparently there’s a remake so I should precise that it’s the movie from 1997.

Meh. I don’t know about OP but where I live ISPs are forced to relay the legal notice, but nothing more happens. There is no prosecution and nobody will knock on my door.

I have been torrenting on and off since the protocol exists and never once hid my IP. My ISP relays me the threats from the industry, I ignore them, and continue what I was doing before. Same for everyone in my country. Those that end up paying for a VPN and hiding their IP are just intimidated onto doing so, because of the threats. But again, aside from getting that threatening email, nobody will knock on your door for torrenting here.

If I need to choose, I’ll go with Android but to be quite frank, I would really prefer to have a “real” computer operating system on those devices. For 10+ years I’ve been waiting for a device that I can put in my pocket, use it on the go, with a data connection, and have the possibility to dock it and continue using it as a full fledged computer, with Linux if possible.

I know some high end Android devices can be “docked” and connected to a monitor, but they are far too expensive and/or too rare. Also, you still have to use apps instead of proper computer software. I don’t like the “everything is an app” model, where they all have to have ads and/or paid versions. Android and “mobile” operating systems are a pain to use. I want to have control over my device.

And I also know there are some devices that can to this, but with the level of technology that we have, a device like this should be easy to find. Yet, it’s all niche stuff that isn’t really polished nor working really well. It’s all damn phones and tablets with “mobile” operating systems that locks users. I wonder if phone/tablet manufacturers keep it that way because there’s no demand for this, or if they simply want to continue the milking of the mobile users.

I don’t like the idea of wasting energy on inefficient things so I don’t use “AI”.

A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. runs.

As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires