So I’ve actually looked into the EU wallet stuff quite a bit. The article talks about age verification. The way the EU wallet works is that you can share individual attributes, you don’t need to share your identity at all. When you load your government ID into the wallet, one of the fields is over_18 which has a boolean value (true or false). Any service that requires you to be 18+ would only need to request this single attribute, nothing more. No names, no other personal information, just the fact that you’re over 18.

Data communication speeds have always been in bits/second. No marketing teams involved, it’s just the most logical way.

Nice car!

One thing that strikes me as weird though:

Perfect for napping while waiting at the laundromat

How do you have a new 2025 EV but cannot afford a washing machine? As in, in my country a washing machine is considered such an essential thing to have that if you are poor and you cannot afford a new washing machine when yours breaks you can apply for special government assistance to buy one.

It absolutely blows my mind that someone would prioritize getting a new car above getting the basics things you need to live.

It’s called the ‘inner platform effect’. They are basically replicating parts of the underlying platform (the OS in this case) inside their own application, until the application turns into a platform itself, one crappier than the one below it. You see this happening with web browsers and ‘web apps’.

Then maybe switch to a better OS / Window manager?

Much, much less. The city I live in wants to promote biodiversity and has adapted their mowing schedule for this. Large parts of public greenery are only mowed once or twice per year. Other parts 6 times a year. Some parts are mowed 20 times a year, e.g. fields for kids to play on, or where it would be a safety issue (e.g. high growth blocking view around a corner), but that’s just a small portion.

Also in some parts they only partially mow, to create spaces where there are different heights of greenery. They also sowed a lot of mixed flowers, which looks really nice.

The people needing a driving instructor generally aren’t good at driving.

The people needing a driving instructor generally don’t have a driving licence yet so they won’t be driving a car without an instructor next to them, who’s job it is to prevent things like this from happening.

“Anyone can design a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to design a bridge that barely stands.”

2.0 safety factor for a glass of water seems wasteful.

Engineer: the glass is twice as large as necessary.

Turn up the radio.

I have a similar hack for never getting a speeding ticket. There are these signs next to the road with large numbers on them. Turns out there is a glitch in speed cameras that results in them not being able to take your picture if you keep your speed below that number. You can tell your own speed on the big dial behind the steering wheel.

So when you see a sign, make sure the stick thing in the dial behind the wheel points to a lower number than was on the sign. boom, never get a speeding ticket ever again.

You getting old is what happened.

The lack of braces in python code makes it quite difficult to read for someone who’s used to languages that use braces.

A $1 million dinner? Does that involve buying the restaurant?

That seems dumb. I share an apartment with a friend, which is getting more and more common in this housing market. Would this law mean we’d be married even though we’re just friends or does it only apply to men and women living together (and does that mean that 2 people of different sex cannot live together as friends without accidentally getting married?)

Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a legally binding contract.

Antitheist

And Belarus

I’m sure it would trickle down at some point, right?

Probably the same as regular toothpaste.