I have never been able to read a book on a computer. It just feels completely unnatural, even though I read a ton of articles, forum posts, manuals, etc. on my phone or computer. Not a peasant because they could historically usually not read let alone afford a book, but I do love actual physical books.

The EU is slow moving. That can be detrimental to techhnological arms races sometimes, but the stability it provides also has a lot of benefits. Currently they are consulting start-ups in a bid to streamline innovation and incentivize venture capital. Germany is now actively trying to make business administration easier. So the necessary steps are being taken, but it will take time to implement as is the wont of the EU and its member states.

All change starts with talk, but I do think that European politicians see the acute need for a new innovation framework that is tailored to the times. Even when that framework is in place it will take several more years to visibly notice results. But then the EU per definition looks at the long game, so it’s not a bad thing per se.

It’s Boeing though…

Carney: looks like it’s time to start dumping US bonds again.

I think you should be good. If I only had some office people, it would make it a lot easier. But we have a lot of engineers who require specific CAD products (Catia, autoCAD) which would make it difficult, as well as we are completely locked into the Microsoft eco system (M365, MSSQL, Azure). Not even saying it wouldn’t be possible for most users, but it would be a massive undertaking (we have around 2000 users in 20 different locations) and I just don’t see us getting any type of support for this kind of project. Not in the least because we only jist migrated from on-prem to M365 cloud which was a multi-year project.

We are starting to use Linux more in the server space (Ubuntu and for some applications like Abaqus we will use RHEL) and I’m drafting a proposal to start switching certain databases to Postgresql to save on license costs, but that’s about it.

Eh, no. LTSC has an extra 13 months and you can get extended support for W10 enterprise, but MS made the pricing very unattractive (support cost basically doubles each year).

But W10 enterprise is going eol for mainstream support in October just like the home, pro and education editions.

I’ve been preparing our migration to W11 for 18 months now (we combined that with some other changes, otherwise a simple feature update would have sufficed). And no, linux is not an option.

They were not a founding member and even had their application vetoed by France before joining a decade later, but still well before the creation of the euro.

True, but all new members sign an agreement that they will eventually join the eurozone. It’s not enforced and there is no pressure to do so, but on paper they agree to it.

That’s an EU regulation, not a corporate measure. And it has drastically decreased the amount of littered bottle caps, so a good thing.

I think you have lost all sense of how much a billion is from it being thrown around so much. 5.5 billion is an enormous sum of money. Think of how much 1 million is, then imagine spending that 5500 times. It’s an obscene amount. Sure, some people have more wealth than that, but it’s still an absurdly large amount.

That’s why you have euthanasia laws in some countries. It allows you to say goodbye with dignity while you are still sane. For example, if you get diagnosed with an aggressive and untreatable cancer, it allows you to say farewell to your loved ones before you become a husk of your former self simply waiting to die.

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Where are you located? There are pills called Defumoxan which work so well I use them as an off switch. You can get them in Central Europe. I used to smoke for over 20 years and sometimes still give in, even after years of not having smoked. So then I smoke again for a month or 2 and then I order those pills and quit again within a week without any withdrawal symptoms.

My wife thinks I abuse it a bit, because I actually started planning weeks or months where I smoke, like you plan a vacation. She’s probably right, but I always enjoyed it and this way I don’t smoke 95% of the time.

The US used 14 of their largest bunker busters (GBU-57) at the Fordow facility. That’s as close as you can get to nuclear without actual nukes. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/22/how-effective-was-the-us-attack-on-irans-nuclear-sites-a-visual-guide

Dolphins will get high on poisonous fish and pass those around like a blunt.

We have blackbirds in our garden and I swear that I have seen the females shout at their lazy ass husband several times. They will tweet angrily, fly after them, hop after them, pull feathers from their tails and whatnot. True drama every time.

The cries for violence here are quite disgusting. I understand our American friends are frustrated, but violence is only going to get you killed. The police in the US have been receiving military gear for decades now. If you want violence, you will get it.

Then there are some major misconceptions about the 3.5% rule. That is for persistent non-violent protests. Week in, week out, for months at a time, before this yields results. Violent protests drive away many of the people you need on board to achieve genuine change and make it exponentially harder to get to your 3.5%. Try getting a grandma or a family with kids to join when molotov cocktails are being thrown around.

So for everyone here calling for violence, you are idiots and you won’t achieve a damn thing.

Meh

I moved to sopuli.xyz, which is also run from the Baltics (Finland).

There will never be a time where truth does not matter, whether you believe it does or not.