expedition32

I am an account holder for SNS/ASN. Let me explain something to you about Dutch consumer banking: it loses money.

The money is in giving out loans, mortgages, insurance and stock trading. This is why all the Dutch banks have almost completely transfered their services to their app and closed all the branches. It's why they have given control over to Google Pay and Visa. They don't give a fuck.

After my current PC dies it's probably game over for my gaming hobby. But hey I can use an LLM to order pizza I guess lol.

A beautiful statement by Newsom. Prisoners rotting away in a supermax prison is a much better punishment than the 15 minutes of fame they get from their execution.

One thing I noticed is that Eastern Europe is always quick to blame the Soviets for their communist dictatorships conveniently forgetting the millions of "fellow travellers" along the way.

And when the boom goes bust guess who will still be around chugging along?

The people who were talking about Brexit for decades turned out not to have a plan. Shocking. That's populists for you.

My mother isn't even poor (decent pension) but she asks a neighbour to drive her to the hospital instead of a 50 euro Uber. A taxi is basically the last resort.

Cats are like us. They don't give a fuck and consider the planet their private resort. It's what I like about them.

AMD did come up with a really good product. Their Ryzen chips beat anything Intel could muster.

If you follow that reasoning you can put them in Yellowstone.

Ofcourse they can be solved. But companies like to cut corners because of money. They don't want safe or clean they want cheap.

No taxation without representation. Controversial in 2026!

One of the nice things about living in a rich country is the ability to externalise certain costs.

They roundly rejected tech bro billionaires.

A famous football player in my country once said that sports is like war: anything goes as long as you win.

Everyone always forgets ASML which suits the Netherlands just fine.

But there will come a day when that country needs to choose between China and the US.

I find it endlessly amusing that America is emulating China's state capitalism now. If you can't beat them join them!

Also a lot of countries that can't trust the US -cough Maduro cough- will choose Chinese AI solutions.

Voter ID was an issue in my country. By law everyone has to carry valid ID on them at all times.

But it is considered vital that every citizen gets the chance to vote including homeless people so they had to find a compromise. Although ofcourse the number of hobos who want to vote is largely theoretical.

In every country the poor are less likely to vote. Bending democracy in their favour is what rich people do.

You're competing with 2 billion Asians. We're never going back to the 1950s no matter now much people cry about it.

This is exactly it. Signal was promoted in my country because it was not big tech.

People hated Facebook but still wanted WhatsApp. Free, no ads, no Silicon Valley. Privacy or anonymity are irrelevant.

I think from a legal perspective modding is technically a violation of the ToS.

But ofcourse the videogame industry has always turned a blind eye to it provided you don't make money from it.

The early 20th century was a time when women no longer wanted to be ladies. They wanted to travel on their own wearing more comfortable clothes and even -gasp- have jobs.

I think what killed the joy was traffic and speed cameras.

There's a reason why people take their Ferrari out for a spin in the mountains. Highways are just too safe.

And those companies make money from government sponsored R&D. and educational pipelines.

A cheap quartz watch from Japan and later Hong Kong was more accurate than a 5k handmade Swiss mechanical watch.

Remember that the 1980s was a time when people still needed a watch for PRACTICAL purposes- they needed to tell time. Which a digital watch does so perfectly that you can use it for celestial navigation. And without any maintenance.

Chips. Tiny batteries. Mass production. The Oriental black magic of the eighties.

For most governments 5 billion dollars is chump change compared to the possible reputational damage.

In my dreams Trump is revealed as a Chinese agent and gets a parade in Beijing.

Perfect crime. The kind of people holding crypto can't exactly go to the police. They'd have to show the receipts!

There are two kinds of people who hate KYC: conspiracy cranks and criminals.