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l23k4

51 karma · joined April 29, 2026

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l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
> Why would I create myself a chore for an end of a month

Do they not have direct debit where you live?

>If it is auto-charge by the end of month, why not charge it right away?

Because there's no way I'm going to keep anywhere close to that much money on my debit card? Because the credit card won't get randomly locked while I'm trying to pay a 40k euro hotel room bill in Asia? Or if it does, I can switch to another credit card or deal with reasonable customer service.

If you're only making small payments, of course it doesn't matter. If you're regularly spending significant amounts of money, doing so with a debit card will be a huge pain in the ass and an unnecessary risk.

l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
> Some Europeans meaning people in Germany?

I guess, I haven't really kept track, but I've observed this many times from different people.

> credit cards are generally associated with companies like Revolut

That's surprising. Revolut only offers credit cards in a couple of countries, and has only done so for a rather short period of time.

l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
Some Europeans refer to girocards as "debit cards" and everything else incorrectly as "credit cards"
l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
In my experience what Paradigm2020 describes is very much the norm around the world.

> and briefly worked in a bank in,

I suspect this might be where the confusion stems from, if you're thinking of places where people go to banks you might be thinking a bit too fancy.

I'm thinking of stuff more like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCDQpm6f_pU

>According to that article it has nothing to do with condition, but with the lack of anti-counterfeiting protection on older notes.

I'd say the age of the money has everything to do with condition, and it matters a lot.

l23k4··on The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated
>Yeah, you do need daily protein but for most people nowhere near as much as they are taking in.

I don't know, USADA is about as conservative as it gets and they certainly recommend a shitload of protein for for individuals trying to maximize muscle protein synthesis https://www.usada.org/spirit-of-sport/when-consume-protein-m...

>You see these protein bars and some of them basically have a full days worth of the stuff and that is before your other meals come in.

For a 100kg man that would be like 220 grams of protein, must be one big protein bar.

OTOH, at least your username fits ;)

l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
They might be talking about a girocard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard
l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
It is a prevalent view among the lower socioeconomic classes.
l23k4··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
Most people in the EU use debit cards, they additionally use direct debit specifically for utilities, gym memberships, etc.
l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
If you're going to Paris? Sure, as long as the amounts are relatively small. Try paying with pre 2009 100USD bills in Africa lol.

Even banks struggle with this https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/05/30/old-money-new-proble...

Goes to show how viable cash is as a store of value for most of the world.

l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
>Is that a tongue in cheek reference to my inadvertently weird capitalization of wildcat as WildCat — no idea why I did that, maybe a throwback to my ThunderCats fandom of my youth.

No, but that's hilarious. Good catch!

I don't think "wildcat banking" would be known as that if the banks hadn't been poorly capitalized (as in, they didn't have the money). If the banks had actually worked out, we'd just be calling it "banking".

Today, stablecoins have a hilariously simple way to print money: just buy treasuries, money market funds, or whatever. We're not necessarily going to see them collapsing due to poor capitalization.

l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
I suggest you go outside sometimes, you'll see that the real world looks rather different than whatever crypto-obsessed bubble you live in.

I really don't think I need to explain the obvious difference between physical US dollar notes and USDT.

I'll point out that in most of the world a $100 note is only worth $100 if it's in basically mint condition, the value falls rapidly as condition degrades.

l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
I'd argue that the poor capitalization was a core part of wildcat banking, that's not really the case here.
l23k4··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
When you go outside of the nice countries, local money becomes worthless. Nobody wants it, they'd much rather have dollars instead.

Stablecoins for the first time offer a reasonable way for the global poor to store value in dollars, or in the form of any relatively stable currency.

Obviously this comes with all kinds of issues, but it's still better than the original situation where "savings" simply didn't exist except in the form of physical dollars or gold bought at a significant premium.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
>Anyway, unless you actually have stabbed someone before you don't know whether you got what it takes until you're actually in a situation where you find out.

A guy tried to rob me, I fractured his skull with my iphone before I even realized what was going on. You don't just freeze when someone suddenly attacks you, you'll try to swing at them with whatever you have at hand.

At home? I might just have been cooking, or carving a sunday roast. Who knows? But if someone suddenly smashed through my door, I'm pretty sure that whatever object happens to be in my hand would be heading towards the intruder long before I've had time to think about what's going on.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
> This is Denmark, not some Brasilian favela

Yet they're dressed exactly like a hit squad in a Brazilian favela!

>Especially when they want to preserve evidence which might be quickly destroyed if the suspect sees them coming.

Somehow cops elsewhere manage this just fine in appropriate attire.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
>The hate in Europe is driven primarily by an influx of people who were hating Jews anyway

You are mistaken, the sentiments are shifting across the board.

This is probably driven to a significant degree by the Israeli national policy of tying any criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and the broad acceptance of that policy by Jewish communities globally. Because of this implicit endorsement, it is not surprising that many would struggle to separate between the actions by taken by the state of Israel and those who call themselves Jews.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
> but Hamas sure doesn't seem to be in a good shape lately.

And who do you see on track to displace Hamas? After years and years of conflict and being "bombed to shit", they're as entrenched as ever while their enemy declines much faster.

Israel is getting to a point where it has no friends left in the world, where the average European youth thinks nuking Israel and turning into a glass parking lot would probably be a net positive. Jews are starting to be broadly despised again thanks to Israeli policy, something that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Hamas operatives lead shitty lives in the Gaza strip as they have for decades, but they certainly aren't losing control.

Over the course of a few years, Hamas managed to turn wearing a star of David in big EU cities into a dangerous political statement. And we're supposed to believe that they're not winning?

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
> They’d basically have to attack you first for lethal force to be legal.

They just violently entered his home in an effort to attack him, dressed in a way designed to intimidate. These cops were deliberately cosplaying as some sort of a hit squad, they obviously wanted him to believe that they were going to kill him.

It's not like the cops just accidentally went out dressed like that.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
In the EU the answer is always "it's unclear". Yes you can, but you also can't.

ECHR necessarily guarantees the right to shoot some intruders in some situations, but it's kind of impossible to know which situations those are except after the fact.

l23k4··on Danish privacy activist Lars Andersen raided by police
I'm fully European, would not wonder for a second before plunging a knife into an intruder if I happened to have one near me.
l23k4··on Unauthorized alert sent to cell phones across Brazil
Surely you're not quoting Eric Raymond with a straight face?
l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
> Where it's clear from your framing of an "opposition trying to silence you" that you think the industry lobby has at least some right to be heard before the council votes on policy

This is an inherent feature of democracy. "The industry" consists entirely of people, of course you can't exclude them.

>A good faith reading of the comment you replied to has so many non-malicious interpretations.

"Let's not allow rich people to participate in the political process" has just as many possible non-malicious interpretations as "Let's not allow black people to participate in the political process". i.e. none

And even above I'm steelmanning by assuming that Frieren didn't want to also exclude indie developers.

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
Is it really disingenuous to point out "haha, well obviously you guys simply aren't willing to put up enough cash to make this attractive for the rightsholders"?

I think it is simply the truth of the matter. The financial incentives don't line up, the rightsholders are not keeping you from playing games just because they're evil.

But I think you missed why I brought this up, I did so only because you specifically claimed that financial incentives are irrelevant in your earlier comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48582196

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
>How is this relevant? I still want to be able to play older games 10 years from now. The cost does not matter. I would even pay more money for the guarantee that the game will be always playable.

You can already do that! Contact the rightsholders and negotiate with them. It'll probably be relatively cheap to buy an EOL game.

>Nobody suggests to lower the prices... Do you even understand what SKG is about?

I'm not misunderstanding anything, you are failing to consider basic economics.

Making the product last longer is effectively indistinguishable from making it cheaper in the context of the EU.

But I do get why a bunch of people seem to dismiss SKG as "childish". I didn't start from that point of view, but the commenters here certainly have me convinced with their tunnel-vision.

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
> The ability to be able to play the game in the future is not entitlement, it's a normal thing

No it isn't. The cost per hour of games is already incredibly low compared to most other paid forms of entertainment.

How is it not entitled to insist that these super attractive prices should be even lower still?

> Why should games be different?

Why should games be different from a movie ticket or a streaming subscription?

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
>If you can give me an EoL in the store page and sell it to me as a license, I'm happy

The goal here is to disallow this, as it's obviously what everyone would do if allowed to.

They'd just sell every game with 1 year EoL and keep the servers running however long they feel like.

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
> But we are interested in benefits first and foremost since we are consumers

We're only consumers when we consume, but that is not the extent of our participation in society. To optimize for consumption is a shortcut to certain doom.

> But saying that the costs of giving the game to community are tremendous is simply misguided

Tremendous, no. Significant? Yes. The cost could very well be in the millions for a single project, but how many hours of gameplay does that actually buy? Do those later hours come at a significantly increased cost?

>The reason why publishers don't do this is also very clear - they want us to play their newer games and spend money there. They are not doing this because it's hard for me. They just want to maximize the profit, that's it.

I get why someone who plays games would want this. But as someone who doesn't play games, why on earth would I want to encourage this? It defies most basic economic theory.

You're suggesting a subsidy for gamers which everyone else would to pay for in the form of slower economic activity and lower tax revenues. I do not want to subsidize your games.

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
Everything is good policy if you're only willing to list the benefits, and not acknowledge that there are associated costs.

Perhaps the audience that would consume these old games simply won't be big enough.

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
Surely they must have value at an individual level, for people are willing to pay to engage in those. The time you spend playing games does very little to help the society around you, and might in fact distract you from more productive activities. Perhaps gamers would go outside instead, and reduce the burden on the healthcare system.

This essentially amounts to government intervention to reduce the already incredibly cheap cost per hour of these activities for a small minority of gamers. Is that good public policy?

l23k4··on Stop Killing Games fails to secure EU law despite 1.3M signatures
Yeah, but you don't get to choose where the money comes from and which projects get cancelled because of this last straw. These things have real costs which eventually affect many, many people who are not billionaire CEOs.

It would be absurd to disregard those costs and not consult the industry on them when writing laws like this.

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