I like my free healthcare, ambulances, fire fighters, roads, drivers requiring licences, drivers requiring insurance, police, trains, buses, general security, employee regulation, safety regulation, building codes, industry regulation, help overseas from consulates, so would prefer to pay a bit in taxes to get a lot back. It might not all be “perfect” but the idea of aiming for a happy and equal society is good.

Very investing! I think I would pay specifically to have SSO open ID implemented on different software where the developers have said it’s not a focus so definitely interested! Will check it out

We have much tougher GDPR laws so I am more worried about American companies stealing my data than any based in the EU. I use different passmails for every account hoping to find a company breaching GDPR but (luckily?) unluckily, no hits so far.

Every company I have worked for, including a major bank, takes GDPR extremely seriously. So much so I often thought they went to far but understand their caution.

In the EU and UK, heavy regulation, especially of Visa and MasterCard, means the fees are actually lower than the costs of handling cash. Lots of businesses want only card transactions because it works out better for them and most people don’t carry any cash so that need to offer card payments, and so it makes even less sense to offer both methods. The only industries who like cash are likely trying some form of tax evasion.

Cleverly, they banned businesses from charging any payment fees and suddenly, businesses negotiated and found suppliers offering low payment fees. We don’t have anything like these convenience fees for paying with cards over cheque that I hear about.

Amex still charges higher fees so many places still don’t take those cards. The value of benefits (air miles, cashback) have gone down significantly but in reality, it was essentially transferring wealth from the poor (who could never get these cards) to the rich, through these fees, so works out better overall.

The banks here advertise that they help everyone get bank accounts and social benefits are paid into bank accounts so I assume everyone is able to get an account. However, I do wonder if some people, especially the homeless, slip through the cracks.

They seriously won’t issue one even though it’s faulty? Surely it’s their fault as suppliers of a defective product that is probably still owned by them in some legalise way!

My chip stopped working and after one quick phone call they sent a replacement one. Do all the banks you can access do this or worth changing over?

I like the Mii TV 4k sticks. They run android tv and have the usual apps, or you can install your own launcher, apps (look into stremio!) and everything through downloader or adb. Then you can disable the bloatware through adb, theres a few lists online if you search. With a launcher manager app, mine loads straight to productivity launcher (I also like flauncher).

Do not try a firestick, theyre heavily locked down now.

I then just deleted the network on my smart tv so it can’t send anything. Along with my pihole, hopefully theres no telemetry getting out, although not checked it. Its impossible to find good TVs that aren’t smart anymore unfortunately, the data selling either subsidises the costs pricing out dumb TV’s, or more likely they make so much from the data selling that they only sell those.

Just had to double check that Mick Lynch hadn’t passed away or started moonlighting as an actor…

I am born and raised in England to Indian parents so always had some internal tension. Sometimes, I don’t understand my patents culture and sometimes I don’t understand English culture. However, I’ve realised I am who I am, and can take the best bits from both. There are some bits I don’t like so I’m the better for being / having that mix. I married an Irish person who moved over several years ago. Irish used to be the “other” and were screwed over, but now are sometimes considered “white”, so just shows the target moves.

There has always been racism in British society and unfortunately I have felt it pick up since the Brexit vote and Trump’s election (I think it empowered them). However, it is from a small minority of people. In some areas it comes from ignorance, which I can kind of forgive. Others will always see us as outsiders with our foreign names (and my brown skin) no matter what we do. I just think, screw them. I mean, can they trace themselves back before the Normans, the Romans or the Vikings etc? Where do you draw the line exactly?!? England has always been a mix of people and culture so they’re the ones missing out. I’m happy driving my Korean car to a German store to buy ingredients for a Thai green curry. Oh, I’ll grab a French pastry for breakfast, Chilean wine for the weekend and well, you get the idea! Let’s make the most of this multicultural place and ideas, and who cares about bigots who you can guarantee, like a cheeky korma and Belgian beer…

Been using Duckduckgo for a few years now and found it very good, although it’s also on the downward SEO ruined path. Have tried Google occasionally and wow is it juat completely full of crap.

Surely, they are not mutually exclusive and some form of this scheme has been in place for some countries (albeit mainly white commonwealth countries) for many years, even when the UK was in the EU.

Holy shit though, I just looked up the UK’s scheme and you have to pay almost a grand in fees (mostly NHS surcharge) and have over £2,500 in savings. I don’t want rich a-holes coming over for an extended holiday instead of normal people from more different cultures. Let’s vote for better and fairer immigration polices

I just tried it out on a couple of random questions (one on docker, the other on proxmox networking) and it looks very promising. I didn’t even have to login, it showed the sources, it gave step by step instructions, and suggested follow up questions that were helpful. Thanks for sharing!

It will be funny when they eventually decide the AI bureaucracy is the problem like they are blaming the civil service now. Nothing to do with their disastrous unworkable policies (Rwanda), pandering to the extreme elements of their party (Truss) or their complete ineptitude (pretty much everything else)…

One good thing that happened in recent years is the digital push and gov.uk websites. I have to say, getting a driving licence, renewing a passport, finding information on lots of topics has massively improved. Carry on with this, not wasting money on untested technology. Of course, that’s silly for me to say. The money will all go to friends of the party with nothing gained.

Honestly, I am so glad my parents didn’t move to the USA and moved to the UK instead. Me and my sister had several health issues including asthma, food allergies, broken bones playing sports, and as a result several hospital and doctor visits. Considering my parents were self employed shop keepers, I don’t know if we’d be alive, let alone what sort of life we would have had. Then also having to pay for college would’ve been tricky. Having so few work holidays also completely sucks!

We are now both professionals with great jobs, paying lots of taxes and volunteer a lot to try to give back. Would that be possible in the USA - I honestly have no idea! Would we move to the USA - absolutely no way! We’d both actually earn lots more money in the USA in the same role but factoring in health and happiness, it’s not worth it.

When you hear “greatest country on earth” and “the American dream”, I think anybody in Western countries really roll their eyes. It’s not a utopia here in the UK but nobody claims it to be, and stories like this just prove we are better off here.

However, we know the people themselves are great and don’t deserve this position. We feel sorry for you and wish part of your population would travel and see things for themselves to push for changes back home.

In the UK, we are terrified that we will end up in the same position as our out of touch political elite and ultra wealthy would love to copy this.

It says in the article ‘Lightly trafficked roads or locations that just don’t make socio-economic sense can be excluded from the requirement’ for the comprehensive network.

It’ll be up to each country how they decide to implement it. In some countries the core roads are managed by a central government agency so they would need to arrange it. In others it is the the local municipalities or privatised. Some countries will offer to private companies. Others will provide it themselves. The governments would be ultimately responsible but Im sure they can manage this given they already have responsibilities about maintaining the roads and rest areas. In the worst case they might have to pay for some infrastructure themselves but can make it back with the charges.

This is just one area of the overall fit for 55 and general EU plans. Public transport is already being looked at under different working groups (e.g. https://rail-research.europa.eu/about-europes-rail/).

The aim of the overall plan look very promising. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/green-deal/fit-for-55-the-eu-plan-for-a-green-transition/