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lock-the-spock

493 karma · joined April 16, 2022

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lock-the-spock··on Five richest men double their money as poorest get poorer
While true to some degree that people don't prepare sufficiently, many simply cannot prepare. Taking aside the U.S. which bankrupts hundreds of thousands a year through an insane health care system (providing both highest cost and one of the lowest outcome on the quality side across the developed world), most people in most xountries have not much svsing possibilities to begin with. The best use of money is most often to invest in your housing, or your kids' education, not to mention food, regular healthcare, and basic amenities (1/10 of the world population can barely afford shoes or a toothbrush...).

Where more wisdom could come in is for much of the lower and the increasingly nonexistant upper middle class. But this is a fraction of the population.

If you want to tell a family with two adults working in lower wage jobs and two kids, and renting an apartment, to "save" there is usually not much margin, and their saving amounts to building up a small emergeny reserve which is eaten up by any family emergency or damage to car or housing. Little chance to save for old age ..

lock-the-spock··on Cells across the body talk to each other about aging
You would likely enjoy the book "Power, Sex, Suicide - Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life" by nick Hall, one of the most insightful books I've read in a while. It is all about the evolutionary history of mitochondria and our complex cells and how it affects our and other animals' lives. I learned something new on every page. Dense but very well written and clear to follow.
lock-the-spock··on Writing books remains a tough way to make a living
That is indeed unusual and very impressive, congratulations! Are you willing to share any more details? E.g. fiction or non-fiction, genre, distribution channel, how you made your income? Thank you!
lock-the-spock··on Where Johnny Cash came from
I'm quite astonished to see people promoting intense child labour. No government in the world completely prohibits light child labour (in the household/farm, and from usually around 14 also light work outside as long as it doesn't affect school hours). Anything beyond this can and will affect them negatively as established by pretty much all research out there. You seem to have luckily made it through that, but many kids never recover from intense childhood labour.

> All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, > All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.

lock-the-spock··on OpenCola
This only means the flavours are derived from natural products like plants, bark, meat, milk, bone, etc. So not fully synthetic flavours (which are often from oil/gas), but still these will not be anything you would ever guess or recognise. Companies that use actual 'natural' flavours usually list them in the ingredientsas consumers take these as signals of the product being 'healthy' (e.g. fruit concentrates like apple concentrate or various citrus extracts, root extracts, leaf extracts, etc)
lock-the-spock··on OpenCola
Kola nut is the original caffeine ingredient in original coke. They replaced thus long ago with coffee-extracted caffeine, so there is little reason to still use kola nuts.
lock-the-spock··on Fairphone 5: Keeping it 10/10?
Given Fairphone is a rather small company they sometimes have such problems of economy of scale - no manufacturer will prioritise you if you make small orders.

That said, one reason for the Fairphone price is the "fair to the people labouring for the parts of the phone" part. I'm unhappy with the camera quality, but honestly knowing that the premium I pay means fairer working conditions is for me an important element. I prefer to pay the small social enterprise establishing a new kind of supply chain and developing a modular phone, rather than the Samsung CEOs and stockholders.

lock-the-spock··on Tesla sues Swedish state agency over number plate blockage
I'm sorry but your claim does not make sense at all given the meaning of the words you are using
lock-the-spock··on Amazon's $195 thin clients are repurposed Fire TV Cubes
> As many as 70 percent of laptops sent from companies to remote workers are never seen by companies again, Muneer Mirza, AWS' end-user compute general manager, claimed to The Register.

This seems quite an absurd claim. I can't find any counter data but this number is so high it can't possibly be true.

lock-the-spock··on Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs
Thanks, very nice summary and categorisation. Two nitpicks:

* In my view Switzerland is not doing fine because it is wealthy, it is doing well as it was historically difficult terrain to conquer (thus no one bothered to invade it in most wars) and because today it is surrounded by wealthy democracies, all of which are part of the EU and economically closely integrated with Switzerland through the EU-Switzerland agreements. If France wanted Geneva 'back' it could do so without much resistance, similar to the Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan dynamicy but this doesn't fly with the other EU countries looking on.

* I can't think of any EU bureaucrats who got in the news for corruption or similar, rather it always seems to be the national political caste which are then sent to Brussels as representatives. So the parliamentarians and commissioners, all of which are political appointees or get their post based on national party lists, and the political staff they bring along. See Qatargate - all Italian and Belgian politicians and party staff.

lock-the-spock··on Krita AI Diffusion
Maybe a nice analogy are the old trades: knitting, weaving, ceramics, glass blowing, woodworking, ... Still down for pleasure and a niche audience.
lock-the-spock··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
Thanks, interesting insight. Here it's just a normal thing to do. Why not do my neighbour a favour? The mail carriers mostly are regulars (except for the new Amazon carriers) so if you refuse parcels they will also respect this and not bother you.
lock-the-spock··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
Interesting, it seems in the EU countries I lived in, a different solution emerged: the mail carriers cooperate with local corner shops (common in any EU city) and even supermarkets to serve as pick up points. In addition there are package lock boxes run by the mail carrier and distributed in central locations. I have never lived anywhere where I would have walked more than 10 minutes to the pickup, usually much less. The only issue I ever had was with a huge bulk parcel which I had to pick up at a depot, and a deouevry from china on which I had to pay duties. But that were 2 out of probably thousands of deliveries over the years.

On neighbours, the carriers usually let you choose if you want this to happen, but it's just a normal part of life to accept (and hand over) your neighbour's parcels. I have done so dozens of times and had it happen for me, even in rougher areas where I barely knew the neighbours. I guess levels of interpersonal trust might be higher in Europe than the U.S.?

lock-the-spock··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
Most mail carriers (the majority of deliveries are carried by a national (ex) monopoly let you choose what you want to happen to your package. And we have many corner shops in EU cities and towns, and the mail companies have installed dedicated lockers as well in central locations, so a pickup point is usually 5 minute walk away. On the neighbour - for me that's normal. I guess we generally trust our neighbours more? We also do not have the strange U.S. laws that you can keep anything that arrives at your door, so it is normal for anyone to receive (and then hand over) neighbour's parcels. Like a real community...
lock-the-spock··on 13 days before the first eIDAS vote, still no public text
Thank you. I think the criticism is really just about the certificate requirement. I just don't see what other part of eidas could be considered to MitM anyone. But of course only the author would know for sure what they meant.
lock-the-spock··on 13 days before the first eIDAS vote, still no public text
This is quite an absurd summary, both legally and technically simply nonsense.

And eidas is about digital identity management, this critiqued part is just s tiny part of it, not a main feature, so this is not "what eidas is about".

lock-the-spock··on 13 days before the first eIDAS vote, still no public text
I have been involved in such processes (Trilogue), so here my take:

* We are talking about trilogues, meaning the commission has made a proposal, parliament and council has adopted their positions, and then parliament and council negotiated with the commission as broker to reach a final text. This takes place over many hours of meetings in different format and is a very complex process as each institution needs to make sure the document fits the legal and policy limitations set by the institution's position

* they only recently reached an agreement, which is done on the basis of very messy documents often thousand of pages in table format

* These documents are transformed into a legal text, which is done by parliament's lawyers

* Then all three institutions have to review the file with policy and legal experts to ensure it fits the agreed text

* Lawyer linguists check the text to assure references are correct and translations (23 language versions are all equally valid!) are fully aligned

* A few other steps, like formatting checks, etc

* Only then can the text be published as draft documents for the vote

All that, just to make clear that it's unfortunate it is not public yet, but it is not someone being malicious or intransparent, it's just a complex process. There is likely pressure to have the votes soon as it needs to be in force by early 2024. But before the vote takes place the files must and will be published, else the vote is moved.

lock-the-spock··on EU Parliament Civil Liberties Committee adopts position on CSAR
The previous commenter is not correct. Parliament votes for its own position on this law, which is then negotiated with the Council ( the 27 national government representatives) which itself has already developed a position. The two institutions negotiate a compromise (wir support from the commission as broker) which then both institutions must vote on in order for it to become EU law. So they can still vote something down later, but generally if it comes to a vote on the final text it is already a position parliament agrees with. In the EU processes laws that are unlikely to be agreed usually don't even get to a vote, rather the commission withdraws it's proposal and provides a new one.
lock-the-spock··on EU Official Hopes X Will Face "Peer Pressure" to Hire More Censors
Just a summary of this (credited) original source:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-x-has-fraction-riva...

lock-the-spock··on EU agrees to introduce eID ignoring privacy concerns
No, the state is what GUARANTEES your freedoms. This entire fiction of freedom without a state is absurd. Without a state there is no clean running water, no energy security, no protection from criminals, no roads, no school teaching your kids to read, ...

That said you need a balance, but this total opposition to the state doing anything new to face new problems or offer new solutions is just a naive ideology.

lock-the-spock··on EU agrees to introduce eID ignoring privacy concerns
Don't buy the simplified narrative... it's a complex process and this is far from a final text. Moreover, the legislative bodies legislate principles, the implementation still will need to be done by technical experts in a secure way.
lock-the-spock··on EU agrees to introduce eID ignoring privacy concerns
No disagreement in substance but I want to stress that the things you mention are all by different entities. The EU is basically a meta government (supranational organisation) with the commission playing the role of government and ministries, accompanied by a parliament and the council of member state ministers/heads of state as upper house, and then various agencies and bodies you'd also expect to see nationally.

EU would be when there's a final legislation, before that it is largely proposals (commission) or individual instituripns' views (parliament or council) and often various other entities are also cited as 'eu' positions even when they only represent a certain position/role or often even are just lobbies (BusinessEurope for example).

All this just to say that often what is given as an "EU view" is not actuall a consensus but a proposal or negotiating position.

lock-the-spock··on World's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley
Indeed, e.g. Paris metro is fully or nearly automated as they wanted to reduce the risk of driver strikes.
lock-the-spock··on Inside the weird and delightful origins of the jungle gym, which just turned 100
Sorry but this is quite wrong. There ar emany debates to be had about what we are primed withy but various behaviours, preferences, attentional biases, stimuli responses, etc are certainly inborn.
lock-the-spock··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
Somewhat off topic but it is quite stunning to me that American carriers just leave the package at the door. I lived in different European countries and in all of them the expectation is that the mailman (official mail, or any of the services like dhl, ups, etc) will ring the bell. If you don't answer they will ring the neighbour and then take it back and either try again another day or you can go to a pickup point. Instead the U.S. has an entire category of devices to avoid package theft when the solution lies in holding carriers to account. I don't want to open the garage for Amazon or Bol or any other delivery company...
lock-the-spock··on EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries).

No, the worst thing a company can do is to influence your desires, feelings and behaviours, causing you to spend money irresponsibly, getting your kids addicted to useless games, ... All that is also what this kind of tracking aims at. It is quite incredible how people have gotten used to being manipulated on a daily basis. Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery and the more the companies know about you, the better they can modulate it to your wants, needs and worries.

Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. You don't notice it anymore because it is so utterly ubiquitous, but it drains you and affects your feelings and thoughts most of the day.

lock-the-spock··on EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
Personally I find this quite an important issue. Whether you don't care is your own choice, but not all us are happy to live in a panopticon.

And the EU is in fact mainly a trade body, setting standards and categorisations, so there are likely some rules on toilets already in EU acquis on health and safety at the workplace, etc. I doubt they oblige a specific position though, you can rest in peace on the piece

lock-the-spock··on WeWork nears bankruptcy
I don't think Uber is sustainable. It seems everyone is getting shafted - the drivers, the customers, the Investors. Their only profitable part is the food delivery service, which is neither novel nor particularly good in comparison to others. Once the Saudi/UAE-Softbank money dries up or gets cold feet Uber is dead. At this point I guess it is mainly a money laundering service, like the entire city of London property market.
lock-the-spock··on The Moose Boulder Hoax
Nice little story and I'm sure the internet has many more such fake factoids, I recall e.g. an invented war on Wikipedia which survived as the authors credited books and no one checked whether those are real.

But I struggle to give an article much credence if it describes the westernmost tip of Portugal as an unbeaten track...

lock-the-spock··on Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance
Problem is that in that system the people able to shape opinion (= corporate media and the rich) will steer any debate in their direction.

Second trouble is the dictatorship of the majority - you'll never get minority rights or issues of the disenfranchised addressed.

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