https://www.theguardian.com/co...

Former lutherian here. It was quite easy to unsubscribe when I was an adult.

Some countries (like Germany) have a church tax, so if you list yourself as catholic or a number of other religions in the sensus you get to pay 8-9% in church tax.

Wouldn't you rather keep that money?

https://allaboutberlin.com/glo...

And yet we do it all the time.

It would be pretty stupid to drive a car without a license. Or drive impaired. Or speed limits!

I would argue most countries have laws to protect the stupid/legislate stupid away.

Some of these laws are more stupid than others though

Religious rules puzzle me.

I can see the reasoning for having rules 2000 years ago, to help avoid diseases etc. But that people still stick to them is beyond comprehension

The most amusing one is the alleged definition of beaver as a fish:
https://blogs.scientificameric...

Judaism has it's own quirks with rules and workarounds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Getting back on topic:
DST should be abolished, but it can't be done (or changed) on a whim. Systems need time to update their timezone database.
I was hoping this year would be the last year with DST in Europe, but seeing as people can't even agree on what time they want for "normal" time (it should be what is normal time today, and if you want more daylight in the morning or evening you should change what hours you work!) I can't see it being a reality until 2025 the earliest.

They already tried, but the results were a bit meh: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ

But we should never give up on innovation.

I was asking myself the same, and I found this

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

The general manager of Radiation Services WA, Lauren Steen, said capsules like these are commonly used industrially as fixed radiation gauges, which measure the density and flow of materials. They are widely used in the mining, and oil and gas industries.

Just tried using ChatGPT now and their "we're too busy now" page reads:

Sure sounds presidential enough! Why wouldn't a chatbot be able to write inspiring speeches using some A/B-testing to find out what resonates best with the public.

AFAIK, Tesla will only preheat if you use their navigation and navigate to a supercharger.

I don't know.. this seems to fit with "planned and acted with intent":

I mean.. what did he think would happen if he tries to initiate a armed response, and then goes on threatening the officers?

"Relax, it was just a prank, bro!" doesn't quite cut it as a defense here.

Just because a device uses wifi doesn't mean it's not proprietary nor does it mean it is easy to integrate with other devices who use wifi.

There are more wifi bulb brands than I care to remember, and every one of them come with their own app. The only thing that sort of works if it is a OEM from Tuya, then you can use the Tuya app.

Z-wave has one great thing I enjoy: Direct association. I can (with almost any z-wave-controller) tell lightswitch A to talk directly to light B.

The problems with Z-wave are several though.
The mess with unsecure/secure inclusion and communication. Device A can't communicate with device B because.. something.
Firmware updates that are not published, so to update a fibaro device I need a fibaro hub. Likewise Aeotec.
So many darn command classes and various support
Some cheap devices, like a dimmer I own, doesn't report back to the hub when I turn the light on using the dimmer. This might be due to point 1 above.
Maximum 4 hops. I believe zigbee has 10. Or 5? If you have a larger house that might not cut it. It helps to "reconfigure" the network, but still.

I have 20 or so z-wave devices. They mostly work. Temperature, motion and lights. But I've started to add a few shelly devices, tuya lightbulbs and tuya outlets for cheap effects and power measuring, because while a z-wave device usually costs $40/40 euro and up, Tuya bulbs and outlets can be had for $10.

But then I've started to feel the need for a IOT Wifi vlan, so I have to do some work to ensure that works..

Home Automation sure takes time and money

Not a million different solutions. Just a million different snippets of code, where an unknown number of them (i assume) compiles and does something meaningful. And from that I guess they find one that actually works? (Given this input, expect this output)

If you put random lines of code from stackoverflow together in various permuations, then one of them maybe solves a problem?

I don't know.. is this just the monkeys writing shakespear-problem reiterated?

How about using a reusable metal drinking bottle instead? Keeps your drinks cold too!

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bui...

I'm a sucker for straws my self, but I've had to change. We have some glass and metal straws that we use (the larger glass ones are great for shakes), but mostly I've stopped using them and instead use a reusable steel bottle.

To be very honest, the 3D sucks. Why you ask?

Because the director / animator constantly pulling focus make my brain go bzzzzzrk!

In the real world we move our gaze around, adjusting focus as we look at the foreground or background. Since Avatar did this for us it felt very exhausting to watch.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/0...

At least with 2 pilots there was a chance that at least one of them was qualified.

And as someone else said, the workload in a cockpit is high. There are several good reasons to have a two pilot configuration.

Try to first sell a game where the player can only die once.

Imagine playing the new Half-Life 2: Episode 3, and as soon as you die in the game, the game deletes itself / the license key. Game over man.

Or doing it in multiplayer? You would see a lot of paranoid campers hiding around with a sniper rifle.

I like the photo paths, and have even contributed my own.

A great way for almost everyone to contribute more imagery to google maps.