Yeah, that’s certainly one odd aspect. Also, there’s a ton of other methods to handle labour shortages. Like activating underused groups, such as women. Or offering retraining so people can switch to different jobs. And higher pay for sectors with shortages doesn’t hurt either, considering the already very low pay in Greece.

Running your existing workforce ragged is NOT the way to deal with this.

But hey, maybe we’re missing some cultural or political piece of the puzzle as to why they went this route.

The Greeks are insane for going along with this. Revolutions have started over less. Clearly their politicians no longer have the best interests of the Greek people in mind.

Guess I should stock up while I can huh?

I’ve been a RPI fan since the beginning and have used their boards for all sorts of projects and tinkering. But it’s hard not to feel like it’s losing sight of what made it attractive in the first place: low power and low priced computing. It had its charm in buying a Pi Zero and just chucking emulators on it and handing them out to folks who might want to have a go.

But with the more expensive, more powerful hardware you just can’t really use them for things like that anymore. Just too expensive and too much oomph for the use case.

We’ll see if the company finds its way. But this usually isn’t a good sign…

I really miss webrings. You’d discover the most absurd niche shit people were into. Especially since everyone seemed to have their own Geocities page or something similar. Nobody has one these days, as we all just use social media and big sites.

It really sucks. You just don’t get that these days now everyone is inside their own little bubble on the net.

Fuck ban-happy Reddit and its IPO shenanigans. That place is a dumpster fire that I wouldn’t piss on to put out.

Welcome to Lemmy. It might not be perfect, But At Least We Aren’t Reddit ™

God I’m so glad drinking isn’t my thing. I absolutely hate being around intoxicated people, much less the ‘get blackout drunk and don’t remember half the shit I did’ types. It’s so cringe people do that for fun.

There’s more of us… but: we are a rare species.

We got a brand new nine screen cinema back in december 2022. They actually run movies in the morning. Not all of them, unfortunately, but you certainly have good options around noon.

I love movies, but people not so much. So I usually pick the quietest showings. Sometimes I’ll see a movie in a completely empty theater. Friday afternoon around 4-5 PM is good for that.

I’ve actually got an unlimited movie pass, so I can see everything when I want. Usually the day or week it comes out. I’m seeing the new Planet of the Apes in… three hours.

Oh absolutely. Frankly I can’t imagine it being any other way.

Whenever possible, I schedule things as early as possible on the day. I’ll take that 8 AM dental appointment or whatever. And it’s not just unpleasant things either. I also prefer a cinema visit as early as possible for example.

I definitely feel like my day is ‘on pause’ whenever I’m doing a thing later in the day. It’s very annoying not to be able to enjoy the rest of your day because of it. So, early it is.

Microsoft also had a decent credibility with mobile device OS’s. They made OS’s for PDA’s like Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Pocket PC… those were all on some very capable devices.

God, I miss my Compaq Ipaq Pocket PC. That thing was a fucking beast.

Pretty much this, yes.

There’s also the complexity of approach procedures that they need to follow in order to mitigate noise complaints. Back in the old days, they’d just fly from radio beacon to radio beacon, with look-out-the-window navigation for the final approach.

These days, lots of airports are within or close to cities, which means a much more complex routing and specific altitude and speed restrictions. GPS made that possible; they’re simply too much workload for pilots.

So yeah, in emergency situations where GPS fails completely, there’s going to be some changes to procedures needed in order to make that work. They’d also need to increase separation between planes in order to prevent problems.

The simple solution is: nobody should fuck around with GPS since we literally all benefit from it.

Probably.

So, we complain to a regulatory body, they investigate, they tell a company to do better or, waaaay down the road, attempt to levy a fine. Which most companies happily pay, since the profits from he shady business practices tend to far outweigh the fines.

Legal or illegal really only means something when dealing with an actual person. Can’t put a corporation in jail, sadly.

You sneaky fucker. Thank god it’s a song I love.

Also, this exists:

https://youtu.be/3AeN-5PXaaQ?si=1j5cZb3B-F31yjXl

Well we are proud of Dutch manufacturing in general. We like to make good products, even if they might be bad for you: for decades, we had the best weed in terms of THC content. And the Netherlands is also a highly regarded global producer of XTC pills and amphetamines. There’s only so many tulips you can export…

So yes, loose tobacco is one of our fine export products. We Dutch also loved it; it was really popular to use in joints (see: Dutch weed) and rolling your own cigarettes tended to be cheaper than buying packs (we Dutch are notoriously cheap). These days people prefer a vape, or pure joint. And with smoking in general on the decline, loose tobacco is a rare sight here these days.

Well, Europe is a big place. The percentage of smokers differs from country to country, as well as the anti-smoking legislation and when that was introduced.

In the Netherlands, you cannot smoke in the workplace, restaurants, cinema, on public transport, near a hospital, etc. Sale of tobacco products is illegal to anyone under 18 and we’ve banned things like flavoured vapes.

Because of all these measures, ‘only’ 19 percent of the Dutch population 15 and older smokes, with people lower on the socio-economic ladder smoking more frequently. That’s below the European average of 19.7 percent.

Now, compare that to other countries like France (22 percent), Spain (23 percent) and Bulgaria (28 percent).

Now, those countries have anti-smoking legislation as well. But because they had statistically higher numbers of smokers, it takes longer to see the overall effect.

So depending on where you are in Europe, your perception of smoking habits could vary wildly.

Childhood asthma, unfortunately. I was born in 1982 and basically everyone smoked everywhere here in the Netherlands. If you had a birthday, you couldn’t see across the room due to the smoke.

Because of it I had childhood asthma, which cleared up immediately when my parents stopped smoking. In the early 90’s, things got a lot better with smoke-free environments. We eventually got full on smoking bans, thank god. As far as I can tell, it didn’t do any permanent damage.

I still absolutely HATE smokers and smoking. It is and was an antisocial thing and children should never have been exposed to it like we were.

American politics really is one of the dumbest, most corrupt things out there. Good god.

This feels like trying to trick your dog into taking his medicine, by hiding it in its food. So apparently your average US Senator is as dumb as a Golden Retriever if they need this tactic to actually get shit done.

It’s insane that Americans still tolerate this. Clearly they don’t have your best interests as their main focus.

In his video, he mentions the Humane review - but also the Fisker car review which was equally scathing.

He does excellent reviews and stuff in general.

I actually watched it before the ‘controversy’ and I think it certainly was a fair assessment. He clearly states the goal of the product and where it falls short. None of his criticism seems unreasonable.

Clearly, it’s trying to be an always-online communication, assistant and logging badge. Like a Star Trek commbadge on steroids. In theory, that’s a product that I’m very interested in. But when features are structurally unsound or actively annoying to use, well, I’m going to stick with the phone I’ve got.

Ironically, his ‘bad review’ got me interested to see what a version 2 will be like. Assuming they make it that far.

No single bad review ever killed a product. Because we all know that some things are just a matter of opinion, user error, etc. Opinions are like assholes: everyone’s got one. If I’m interested, I’ll read several positive and negative opinions.

But if your product is bad enough to warrant several bad reviews, that’s on you. Should’ve done better research, should’ve made a better product.

It really is. I’m going to gush for a minute if you don’t mind :D

I like movies, but buying tickets is expensive here in the Netherlands. Up until last year, I’d usually see about three, four movies per year in the theater. Things that I’d really want to see and that I knew I’d love. We had one movie theater, located just outside our city. It’s expensive and did not offer any sort of monthly pass.

In december 2022, we got a SECOND movie theater from a different chain. I’ve got the most perfect situation possible: the theater is about a five minute bike ride away from my house. Much more convenient than the other theater. They’ve got nine screens, all filled with luxury recliners. And they offer a monthly pass. Which I got shortly after the theater opened.

The pass costs 20,50 euros per month, so about 20 USD. It allows you to see an unlimited amount of movies with basically no restrictions. I can see as many movies as I want, when I want. Want to see five movies in a day? You can. Want to see Ghostbusters six times in a row? Go nuts. They even program classic movies for us movie buffs, they do marathons, exclusive screenings, foreign movies… if you like movies, you’d love this theater.

Since individual movie tickets at that theater cost between 10 and 14 euros depending on the day and time, you really only need to see two movies per month to make it worth it. But I’m not seeing two a month - I’m seeing at least three per week. I see Every. Single. Movie. that I could want.

Movie streaming / piracy can be convenient, sure. But there’s really no replacement for a state-of-the-art movie theater with bangin’ Dolby Atmos system. Not to mention those recliners are so comfy you can sleep in them if the movie’s a bit too boring.

I’m reaaaaaallllly loving my movie pass as you can probably tell.