It is important to understand how electricity prices are determined in a large part of Europe.

Models are used to predict the production (weather prediction like sunshine, wind etc) and consumption needs for electricity on a hourly basis (I think it is going down to 30 minutes soon). Suppliers can set prices to deliver electricity for said time-slots. We then start allocating electricity, starting with the cheapest priced suppliers. The price paid for the last 1%, is the price we pay for ALL the delivered electricity.

Example, we can cover 90% of our needs with solar powered at 0.01 euro / KWH. The next 5% is from wind at 0.10 euro / KWH. The last 5% comes from coal at 0.50 euro / KWH. In this example, we pay 0.50 euro / KWH for ALL electricity, even for solar electricity !!

This was designed with the purpose to stimulate renewable energy. You get paid a premium price for it, lowering the ROI and therefore making it a more attractive investment.

Electricity isn't something you just can store without significant loss/cost and you can't just pump it into the network. Shutting down a power plant isn't cheap, so better to sell at a loss then to pay a big price shutting down your production (and starting it up afterwards which can take time in some cases). It is a bit more complex than this, but selling at a slight loss is offset by higher prices at other moments. And more and more home owners have systems in place allowing them to disconnect from the grid when delivering negative-values electricity from their own solar panels.

Some posts talk about it becoming a financial interesting situation to waste electricity when prices are negative. This is seldom the case, as traditionally we had fixed price contracts (multi-year contracts) or dynamic contracts (adjusted every month). Hence we wouldn't benefit from temporary negative prices at all. There is now a push for dynamic contracts, i.e. you pay what you consume for the price set that hour of the day. This stimulates consumers to change their behavior by e.g. charging their EV after midnight or during sunny periods. This to balance the well known 'duck-shape'.

Btw, even when prices are negative, this doesn't mean electricity is earning you money or is free of charge. We still pay taxes and transportation costs. Not sure about other parts in Europe, but where I live the energy provider and the network provider are different entities. We are still paying for the delivery of energy which often offsets any negative pricing.

Hope this clarifies a bit more how prices set in large parts of Europe.

Nope, the correct way is to mark the photo in the db as 'to be deleted', delete the photo, remove the entry from the db.

> The continent is making a big deal about keeping EU data inside the EU

This is often said and it isn't correct. The EU requires personal information to be handled by processors bound by AT LEAST the same protection as EU citizens have in the EU.

Argentina for example is GDPR compliant and can process EU data.

You are spot on. Chickens can detect flicker up to 140 Hz, so that is very, very close to 150. A lot more research is needed before this can be potentially rolled out.

SQL is Turing complete, which for me settles the issue.

I'm using about:profiles for that in Firefox. Each profile has it's own theme, so I know immediately which customer is associated with which browser window.

This allows me to have SSO access to different domains without the need for logging in all the time.

When a website doesn't work, most people try another browser. If that one works, it is obvious for them that the browser is at fault and not the website. Here at Slashdot, we know better but the majority of users out there have no clue. So for Firefox to protect their market share, this is a necessary action.

How much testing do they need to do? If you ask me, they already made a large step. Just by announcing, major infrastructure operators and application developers will double check if this is going to be a problem for their software. This will prevent large scale outages, compare it with Y2K where there was so many hype that (almost) everything that needed to be fixed was fixed.

Can't imagine that this has cost Firefox much effort that otherwise could have been used to fix bugs. It is very well possible that this will free up capacity in the future.

Btw, I am getting a bit tired of all those people that claim --every Firefox related story-- not to be using Firefox and keep complaining of changes made versions ago. Get over it, enjoy your current browser of choice and let us have ours. Respect there are others with a different opinion and let them be.

Things might have changed over time, but the GSM specification was such that your provider provides PLMN's (other mobile network id's) that you are allowed to roam on.

Providers are required to make roaming agreements and open access to their infrastructure to external providers. For example, your provider needs to provide security keys to the roaming provider. Location information needs to be exchanged, otherwise you will not be able to receive incoming calls.

In any case, your supplier is in the driving seat here and can protect you from nasty roaming experiences.

Now this is what I remember from GSM/WCDMA, so this might be a completely different system.

In most European cars, the odometer is associated with the engine. If you change the engine, you are allowed to change the odometer to the distance run with the new engine.

Possibly we'll see some changes in law as the odometer probably better be replaced with a device showing the power provided by the battery.

Wouldn't that increase latency?

This is not true everywhere. In quite a number of European countries, the manufacturer is responsible for what the customer could reasonably expect from the product.

> I very much doubt he meant for his statement to become dogma in the way it has

The original title Dijkstra gave his paper is 'A Case Against the Goto Statement'. It was a CACM editor who came up with the Considered Harmful version.

Funny thing is, they cannot.

If they would do that, their budget deficit would be above 3% which is not allowed by the EU. This to avoid countries to create an unbalanced budget and in case of financial problems asking the EU for a bailout (not that that isn't happening, but that is another discussion).

My statement didn't concern sales tax, but thank you for the reply. I was not aware that there is a band for sales tax in the EU. After a little search, I found that there is only a lower rate of 15% and a special lowest rate of at least 5%. See http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_c...

That there is no sales tax on goods moving between European countries is not completely correct. A private person buying goods in another European country is required to pay sales tax in the country where they buy the good. Regarding online purchases the following is stated: The seller will calculate VAT based on either VAT rate of the Member State from which the goods are shipped to the buyer (which is usually the Member State from which the goods are bought) or VAT rate of the Member State into which the goods are shipped.

Private persons do not need to pay additional tax/import fees when bringing goods over the border.

That companies do not need to pay sales tax on goods moving within the EU is a pure administrative optimization. Previously they could request their VAT to be returned but this was (especially for smaller companies) quite a burden. Note that in many EU countries, companies still need to declare VAT that they would have paid on EU internal trade. This is again pure an administrative issue in order to calculate the trade between countries and EU subsidies for that.

Could you please indicate which EU law was changed?

Right, there was no change of law. The law ruled on existed for many years, even prior to the existence of the EU.