I vote that all Germans should from now on refer to distances in terms of Saarland - but rather than use kilo- mega- etc, you just add extra "A"s. Actually, better idea, you should change the name of Germany itself to Saaaaaarland.

I dunno man, trying to make grown-up real-world political deals with Trump has got to be like herding cats. My hat’s off to Starmer, he does seem to know how to play him.

if this is part of an effort to get beef recognised as a type of fish by the Catholic church, keep it up, this’ll probably work.

The usual stuff here - Wero instead of PayPal for person-to-person payments (but only if your bank supports it), use Girocard in shops rather than Visa or Mastercard, threema as a chat app, make use of your library’s e-book services, try to switch to a European email provider. They give two German-based examples for email - both of whom charge €1 per month for the lowest tier.

In my view, it was the US tech companies willingness to offer their services without charge that led to their current dominance.

Apparently threema asks for a one-time payment of €6, which reminded me that WhatsApp at first was an independent app that charged a one-off 50p if you wanted to use it after the first year.

That was low enough that many people did pay, making the developers a lot of money. Not superyacht money but still a tidy income. They made the superyacht money when Facebook bought them. Facebook then got rid of the one-off 50p charge of course, because they were going for world domination.

So the question is, how much are the general public willing to pay for privacy and some kind of corporate accountability?

who (if anyone) is profiting off of the high costs of the bricks?

If the these become required, will every brick manufacturer be able to produce them, bringing the price of them down?

They seem to be a generic concept - basically they are like bird houses in the shape of a brick, so anyone can make them. The ones I’ve seen from a quick internet search are all made of different types of plastic stuck together i.e. they are not a really simple thing to make. So I guess that, along with supply and demand (only one or two are needed per new house), is why they are relatively expensive.

Trees do actually improve air quality, by absorbing harmful gases like sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide through their leaves. Additionally they can reduce particulate pollution by up to 70% - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200504-which-trees-reduce-air-pollution-best

You live in a fantasy world if you think “Don’t go” is a feasible alternative. If I don’t go, someone else will, and all I’ve done is deprive myself of something that I want to make a point

Come on mate, you could say this about any kind of protest or boycott.

all I’ve done is deprive myself of something that I want to make a point

Yes that is exactly how boycotts work. You make a personal sacrifice as a protest against something that’s unfair or immoral.

If you’re not prepared to make a sacrifice, that’s OK, but at least have the honesty to admit you just don’t care enough about this particular issue.

Such a cop-out. Every boycott is a personal sacrifice, and every individual participating in a boycott knows that their one purchase isn’t by itself going to make a difference.

you mean you always plead not guilty, don’t you?

* we don’t end our sentences with prepositions from where I’m

✅ much better

The relentless attempts by European governments to insert themselves in everyone’s private communications is more than a little concerning.

I can’t be the only one to look at how quickly the US gov has been taken over by a fascist autocrat who is carrying out purges on the population and conclude that it is imperative that us Europeans strengthen citizens’ privacy from government and increase transparency in government, and not the other way around?

I think @rmuk@feddit.uk said elsewhere that they come with a refillable cartridge which you can put your own detergent in?

Thanks, I’ve found that. So far I’ve created one of the built-in accounts (seems to be on the testrun.org domain) and added my own existing email. I sent a message to my dad using my email, let’s see if I get any reply! Also curious to see what happens when I get other email such as marketing spam. I suppose each one will show up as a new chat.

What is it about carparks that attracts the scummiest scammer businesses?? Their whole business model appears to be finding new scams to rip off their customers with eye-watering fees and charges.

The people running these operations need to be made to do community service if not thrown in jail, because losing court cases doesn’t seem to be stopping them.

I wasn’t talking about other customers?

Who were you talking about when you said “I, too, get frustrated by slow-ass people”?

Cool, I’ve installed it so fingers crossed I’ll be able to get some other family members onto it. Thanks for the info!

I think I’m right in saying it was your government that put paid to the last 2 attempts to enable universal message snooping throughout the EU (called Chat Control in its most recent incarnation). Our shitty government - whether Labour or Tory - is one of the most eager to get its hands on such a draconian wide-ranging power.

I think what we’re seeing in the US right now should be taken as even more reason to prevent such brazen encroachment of government into individuals’ private lives. For that reason alone, I don’t think you should be so keen to allow the UK back into the EU; not without some kind of electoral reform at least (i.e. some form of Proportional Representation).

UK is one of the only countries in Western Europe (if not the only one) which doesn’t use some form of Proportional Representation. This does make our government somewhat rigid, and less representative. Is that part of what made us difficult to work with, in the eyes of other EU countries?

So it uses email as the underlying communication protocol? Does that mean you can use Delta Chat to message people who are themselves just sending and receiving emails? Or are Delta Chat messages only readable with the Delta Chat app?

My dad is steadfastly sticking with email while everyone else in the family is on WhatsApp. If I could use Delta Chat to chat with him while he still uses email, and likewise everyone else in the family, it could be a great way to start getting people off WhatsApp.

calculate pi to its maximum extent trolololol 😂