You can call a piece of coal "off-white, tending towards darkish", or you can call it "black". Both are technically not incorrect. Only one of them is not intentionally misleading.

The whole shit is obviously intended to chill critique. If you are seriously offended by someone calling you an incompetent ass, then politics isn't for you, go get a real job.

And the police really have more important things to do than scaring pensioners who got a bit emotional online. (one of the most famous raids was in 2024 against a 64-year old guy who had called a minister "Schwachkopf" (english: dimwit).

Tell me you think that justifies sending the police to someone's home. Seriously, these people need to get a grip. You can call me dimwit all day and I wouldn't dream of sending the police after you.

What else would you call it when police arrives at your home at 6 am to search it because you posted something online? (like they would find a reddit posting in your sock drawer, I mean come on, seriously?)

During the ""Aktionstage gegen Hasspostings" (Action Days Against Hate Speech), around a hundred or so such raids are conducted on the same day, and a substantial portion of those is for insulting politicians.

Hahaha, "The API is indescribable." (Followed by an index of 14 Markdown documents.)

The details are clickbait, and the take questionable, but there is enough truth in it. From my perspective (I'm Germany, but I currently live elsewhere, but still follow German politics closely):

One, there is a considerable crisis in the German manufacturing industry. And the current government has pushed through (with questionable methods) and insane military spending bill while at the same time complaining everywhere else that there is no money and they need to cut this and that and everything else.

Two, there is a strong US influence in european politics, and especially in Germany. A long list of recent and current high-ranking German politicians has direct connections to US think tanks or corporations, and an even larger number found employ with these or US universities, etc. after they were voted out. One would have to be incredibly naive to think that they're hired for their competence or out of charity.

This is not the only case and there HAVE been police raids and quite a bit of police overreach, all in the name of a law specifically made to protect politicians. There have been several HUNDRED cases brought by politiciians against ordinary people for things they posted online.

You can discuss individual cases, but that doesn't change the pattern.

And, btw., this is not a right- oder left-wing topic. The dude in question here is a right-wing politician (the CDU being Germany's equivalent to the Republicans). Not the most right-extremist-wing, but clearly right-wing, pro-corporation, fuck-the-working-class right-wing.

Some famous Frenchman once said: Give me ten lines, written by the most innocent man, and I'll find something in them to hang him for.

Once the government becomes oppressive, there is no such thing as non-problematic data.

Corporations never, ever (pinky-swear) destroy evidence. What they do is destroy data before it BECOMES evidence. That's the whole trick. It's what they try to argue here: As soon as they asked, destroying the data they had asked to see became illegal. I sincerely hope this gets thrown out.

Can we please pressure Apple and Google into making duress passwords a standard feature on all OSs?

We need this to become common.

So someone is going to jail for it?

Because if ordinary people do something that is very very illegal, they do.

Seriously, "now" ?

These types of vans exist for a decade at least. Maybe not this specific model from that specific manufacturer, but I don't think that's the point here.

Yes, your government is spying on you. While hiding from you some of its most serious and worrying internals. Don't we just love how we are the people and in charge? lol.

Not strange if you've ever played a fighting game against someone not into computer games. They learn quickly that by just mashing buttons randomly they can often get a win without actually learning anything about the game. Same principle.

Of course they didn't. The name of the game is "disrupting an industry". Because on paper and in investor pitches, everything is straightforward, simple, and was practically waiting for them.

That reality is more messy, has more edge cases, doesn't always follow your process, is something you don't tell the investors and don't consider in your service until you've had the chance to cash out.

It's almost as if having humans around can sometimes have advantages.

But I'm sure this'll just be seen to add one more robot to the robot taxi. A humanoid co-pilot bot?

That's not an argument.

"Yeah, that guy is dead now. We have a pretty solid idea who did it. But not sure if that'll make him alive again, so let's not bother with catching them."

Your link - seriously?

"Tobacco giants say"? Dude, they said that smoking is actually healthy for a few decades. I'd trust my cat around buckets full of her favorite treat more than those companies.

Because the cost to society is paid not by the smokers but by all of us. And health care costs are only the tip of the iceberg.

There's no culling here. Both doom scrolling and smoking kill you so slowly that evolutionary it doesn't matter.