At this point I'm hoping consumer brands stay away from the cartel and only buy Chinese chips to give those bastards what they deserve.

This whole debacle is certainly steering me towards RISC-V even if it means I have to give up a lot of games.

You can cut vegetable oil with ethanol for use in an old diesel engine just fine, 10-20% is fine. Old diesels will run on anything that doesn't self-ignite too quickly.

I live in a poorly insulated apartment. It's very cold in winter and heating it to 19°C all the time would cost around 500€ a month.

The problem is the choice of materials and the designs… no good shade against the sun (I have shutters and that helps a bit), concrete walls that give off tons of heat for days (impossible to cool by airing out at dawn after 3 days of intense heat during the day), no provision for AC or proper ventilation (it's built on top of the foundations from an old farm with a nice cellar it could have natural ventilation from there chilling the living spaces).

Some previous employee's last name became slang for “a major fuck up” in one of my jobs. I don't think that's too uncommon.

I agree. It isn't an absolute though: you can get employers to train you at their expense, and give you more work in exchange of raises that may not always be worth the effort, but there comes the most important thing that I wasn't told when I was younger and still seems to be a thing that some dinosaurs think: loyalty for employers only means you don't actively try to destroy the company, getting a better employer if the previous one won't pay enough or won't give you better working conditions is almost always easier than managing to convince a stubborn boss.

And always be a member of a union. If there isn't one, contact union people near you and they'll tell you how to do it, even if your boss is great you're better off in a union (companies can be sold…).

They don't learn because they don't have to.

Thank you for posting this. I had forgotten about it.

I like classic cars. Owning an EV made me realise I never cared what gets them moving, I just hate modern cars. I wish I could retrofit a Citroen CX with absurdly powerful electric motors and a decent battery.

The people who warned against this when the PATRIOT Act passed were called “conspiracy theorists” at the time.

The copyreich above all.

I also live in a country with very high tax and I'd need to make more than 120k USD per year to have the same standard of living if I lived in the USA. It's impossible to make that much driving trains and also working 40 hours a week in the US as far as I know. Lower tier blue collar work is even worse.

Low tax is for billionaires.

But don't worry social credit systems where you're barred from public transport is so dystopian only the Chinese do it.

Brands love to brag they're European but sell you Chinese tools, most of the time they're not even their own designs.

It's annoying that they don't have to be more transparent about this.

Beef is heavily subsidised either by giving money directly to the producers, or letting them get away with pollution (or deforestation in places like Brazil) and using terrible food and/or drugs for their product.

Without subsidies I'm pretty sure beef wouldn't be affordable even in rich countries.

Companies who get good deals on them and only care about the financial aspect.

Moyenne de 66000€ de recouvrés chez ceux qui fraudent, on peut arrondir à la moitié des dossiers pour être généreux en disant que les inspecteurs ciblent bien. Un inspecteur n’est pas payé tellement plus que 33000€ par an donc assigner quelqu’un à plein temps toute l’année juste pour ces quelques dossiers est rentable.

Comme une odeur de corruption quand on voit que ce n’était pas déjà une priorité.

Emmerder un ouvrier pour ses frais réels est une perte de temps en comparaison.

They're only common because of tax laws. Everyone else in the world uses box vans for most “work” purposes, and if not box vans, the same frame with something else in the back. Pickup trucks have their uses but they're worse than vans for most trades.

Et la part modale de 30% pour le fret ferroviaire en 2030… comment dire que c'est du foutage de gueule sans péage généralisé pour les poids lourds.

Depending on where they're based the data protection authority may act on complaints about this.

(Looks like they're German, I don't know if the authorities care about GDPR violations that much but if you feel like spending the time it may be worth it)

Self-cleaning and lubricating.