I don't understand why people still believe that C++ is usable as a systems programming language. It is simply not fit for purpose. I know, cause I tried for a uni project. And this was not at the beginning of the language. I'm talking mid-2000s, and C++ was incapable of making more than a few million network connections before crashing outright. And that's just the more obvious part of the networking code. The fact that developers never thought to test their networking libraries still baffles me to this day.

Systems programming needs robustness and safety above anything else. C++ is so riddled with holes it boggles the mind.

https://www.cs.wisc.edu/2025/0...

And DARPA has a whole program for it:

https://www.darpa.mil/research...

You are basing your argument on logic. Logic doesn't matter, this is a legal matter.

There is cheap hardware now. There are very few realistic userspace loads that require DDR5. Waiting two more seconds won't kill you.

You can just buy a 2023-era laptop. It works fine.

Your shit of mouse better not be the fluorescent kind. Jetten is IMO on the right track, though I wish there were more room for community initiatives where a larger battery unit evens out pushing to the grid, similar to how Ecopower in Belgium is a coop that puts up wind plants.

His Orangeness has helped this cause a lot. Even the most die hard anti-Europeans and anti-environmentalists are having to change their tune, they're having to fall back exclusively on racism as a selling point.

Correct, but damn that picture is changing quickly. The biggest issue are landlocked nations with no access to fossil fuels by pipelines other than those from Russia. Hungary, Austria, Serbia, etc.

Everyone else is getting gas and fossils from (mostly) the US by now, and they're less trustworthy than the Russians, so that is a problem.

You can bomb a coal plant too you know. It doesn't matter, you need something to provide for base load, and nuclear doesn't produce as much carbon emissions, so it's a no brainer.

I just learnt that the Netherlands had to fire up a coal plant this summer cause two Belgian reactors are offline. That is in addition to the gas plants they have. Let's hope the new reactors get here quickly...

Plus coal is expensive. It makes no sense other than as an expensive political gimmick.

No they're not. The solar panels and inverters are lasting longer than expected. Mine are still chugging along happily after 12 years, in fact I've only heard sporadic stories of failing inverters. Most of my friends just installed the panels and forgot about them. When I get a battery installed I'll need a new inverter, and I was surprised to learn they're only half the price by now, so the economics are getting even better.

We're also being charged for actual peak usage so not having solar+battery increases utility bills, the fact that you can't earn much by pushing back power onto the grid (what is it again, 6 cents/kWh?, I forget) is not that problematic once you learn to use your solar correctly: use power when your panels are producing or when your battery is charged.

Some people here are disconnecting from the grid entirely. They install lots of solar and a battery, and go and charge the car at work and connect it to the home grid when needed.

Investing in solar has been just about the best investment I ever made from an economic point of view. My overall usage is about 0, so I just pay for using the grid. The fact that you're also helping society is a nice bonus though.

They're getting there, it's a matter of getting the scale factors right. They already have for solar, EV is fairly new in comparison.

Over here more and more people are getting home batteries, if you already have solar you'd be a fool not to. Plus you help stabilize the grid, so it's also a matter of civic responsibility. One of the ways they encourage this is by charging for peak power usage: with a battery in place your peak goes down, and your EV car is basically a huge battery 10 times the size of your home battery anyway.

One problem is that EU car manufacturers are still ICE oriented, and so they're lobbying to slow down EV rollout here. Which is why people are starting to buy Chinese cars, they're better quality and they're cheaper.

Another issue is that many Europeans either live in apartment buildings or don't have parking in front of their houses so they can't charge off their home grid. Or if they can, they're limited to something like 6.5 kWh which is a real pain if you have a 100 kW car battery (i.e. 15 hours to charge the car). Changing all that infrastructure to this new reality is a long, expensive journey: communal charging points next the apartment block or in the underground parking, city wide charging point rollouts, updating the local power grid to accommodate speed chargers, etc. Our government recently invested billions in the nuts company that maintains/updates the grids.

If you let out apartments and houses, you're also going to have to make your properties "greener', or you get penalized in some way. For instance in Belgium you can't raise rent with inflation unless your property reaches a certain level of compliance.

Also new buildings have to be compliant anyway. So the benefits are trickling down. I do believe that some of these benefits should go to the people renting, not just the proprietor.

But you are right in that poor people don't have the money to spend on these things. Over here solar was subsidized a lot, but that no longer makes sense now because otherwise poor people subsidize rich people's installations with their tax money.

None of that means that green energy is expensive. It isn't. At all. That is a lie.

There is vaccine for Hepatitis C yet... So broad state level intervention is required to get a handle on its spread.

This is one of the things the NHS excels at due to how it's organized. It has its issues, sure, but it also makes great progress in areas that are simply unattainable in most types of healthcare systems.

All that is true... But maybe it's time people started exploring the 2nd hand market.

Buying a new computer isn't always necessary. A computer from 2020 will do just fine for most people. And DDR4 ram is considerably cheaper than DDR5.

Maybe this IS the year of the Linux desktop, cause people can't afford to use anything else (given Windows 10 is EOL, and everyone and their aunt is finding bugs everywhere, and Windows 11 needs TPM == new hardware). Or you could also just buy an Apple Neo, good value these days.

Or, more likely, if they went tits up their "property" (our personal data) would be bought up by people who are even worse.