Indeed. I’ve hit this kind of page like 4 times now in the past few days, so it’s an emerging new piece of hit-and-run garbage that wastes my time. Perhaps it just replaces Cloudflare’s broken CAPTCHA pages, in which case it may not be not adding to the time waste that CF already does.

The only Google anything I use is my email for ‘official’

Why is that? Most public services use Microsoft for email, I find.

FWIW, I boycott both; which means I am mostly using postal mail.

Indeed. And as well, even if growth were needed, Google is advocating for US growth at Europe’s expense.

Did you try eating the peppers after the tincture is made? I wonder how effective the alcohol-based extraction is… if there is any residual capsaicin left in the peppers.

Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” … Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”

The irony. Is the EU going to fall for this? Or does the EU realise that copyright is in fact the “regulatory friction” that “stifles innovation”?

According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.

Does Europe need growth?

And either way, how does making public service more costly by way of licensing fees increase growth in Europe? The license costs could instead be spent funding more European public workers. That’s growth, no?

Google is advocating for US growth at Europe’s expense.

Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection.

Closed-source software processes data non-transparently, thus compromising GDPR art.5. It’s also a shitty loophole around the GDPR, because when you run a closed-source app, you are technically the one processing the data.

It’s a hole in the GDPR that FOSS fixes.

Graphic of some of JP Morgan’s wrongdoing:

I bought some cola flavored candy and cola popsicles recently. Both had a hint of mint or eucaliptus or something fresh and penetrating like that… I wondered if that was part of the cola ingredient or if it was added.

Green chili beer is a thing in New Mexico. I tried some a long time ago, back in the days when decent beer was still non-existent in the states. And it was quite nice. So if you ever pass through NM then it’d be worthwhile to see if any breweries would share their knowledge.

(edit) I also tried red chili beer from the same brewery. The green chili was much better, which is also what I find with chili in food.

Looks like a couple good finds there. The 2nd one put me off at 1st w/an apparent dependency on Google drive, but after clicking forward it’s clear that we can skip Google and do a direct upload.

Thanks for the links!

It last worked in 2024. Throughout 2025 it presents the forms, accepts the document, then gives an instant permission denied when sending. Tried creating a new acct and same problem.

It’s something boycotters of Microsoft use to communicate to MS-hosted agencies to avoid supplying recipients with an email address. It gives us control over what MS is allowed to see.

It also channels money better. The recipient who needs to respond is forced to support the postal service instead of Microsoft.

How will they know the difference between an HTTPS connection to a website and a corkscrew (VPN nested inside of HTTPS)?

There is also a human rights issue here. Some servers discriminate depending on where vistors come from, which is determined by IP address. Getting equal treatment sometimes requires us to appear as the unmarginalised group by using a VPN.

There is a new law that allows merchants to stop giving paper receipts.

The forced use of e-receipts in Europe (France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, England, & Italy)

One of the big problems social and collaboration platforms is people go to where the people are, like Lemmings, with disregard to principles and ethics. I go to the ethical venues regardless of where the people are. Instead of feeding a harmful network effect, I would rather feed free and open spaces. If I were to contribute to MS Github, I would have to consider myself part of the problem.

Did you report the bugs on the Lemmy github?

No, and I wouldn’t. I created this community specifically for reporting bugs when bug trackers are in bad places like Github:

!bugs@sopuli.xyz

Most people are indeed probably using Firefox

The cross-posting problem is specific to Tor Browser, which is Firefox based. But that one was fixed in 0.19.5.

I was actually shocked to recently learn many are using their phones, which often means 3rd party apps (and which would not have any of the stock UI bugs).

0.19.5 only fixes one of the 4 bugs (cross-posting). None of them seem to be mentioned in the change notes.

141 servers are already running 0.19.5

Ungoogled Chromium and Tor Browser are perhaps less popular than they should be.

So not what their running debt is but only whether they can take on a new, specific one.

I knew the criteria was out of the hands of EU-based lenders, but didn’t realise the data is also out of reach to the lender. I suppose it makes sense that the lender would get no info other than a yes or no, if lenders have no discretion.

I noticed A shop had a rediculously priced phone (like €800+, something I would never buy) but advertised something like €9 if you take a contract. So it’s effectively a loan factored into a locked-in phone service plan. IIUC, the phone shop must arrange that with a bank and does not have the option of taking on risk, and then the bank asks the central bank if customer X can handle that loan, correct?

You can reverse payments through the bank in the EU as well but it’s seldom necessary, since the companies tend to revert the charge willingly when confronted by the consumer protection bureaus.

I’ve only had to resort to bank reverse a couple if times.

One was when I ordered a pair of shoes of what appeared to be an Italian website. It later turned out it was a scam site that listed popular models that were not made anymore and then sent you a ridiculously poorly made knock-off copy from China. I explained the issue to my bank and showed the knockoffs I got and a week or so later the charge was reversed.

That’s quite a surprise. I heard SWIFT/IBAN transfers were permanent and irreversable. I heard of mistakes being corrected but it required the two banks to collude and the bank of the recipient to do a money grab on their account, which I suppose would be impossible if a criminal closes their account. I wonder if your bank took a loss or if they colluded with the other bank. IIRC, banks have a minimum “investigation” fee of like €25 plus an hourly rate to pay bankers to deal with bad transactions. Did your bank offer that service for free?

The only similar things I know is the central bank keeping a listing of “unpaid credit” which make ban you from getting any new credit for a certain time.

Indeed that’s what I’m talking about. In Belgium it seems consumers have no control over whether a creditor can access the central bank’s records. Apparently the central bank simply trusts that creditors are checking records in response to an application for credit. I would like to know if any EU countries make use of an access code so consumers can control which creditors can see their records.

I don’t mean to imply anything about scoring, but certainly there must be some kind of mechanism to expose bad debtors to lenders.

In Belgium, there are no private credit bureaus but there is a central bank. Belgian banks are obligated to report loan defaults and cash transactions to the central bank, and creditors are obligated to check the central bank’s records. Consumers have no way to control creditors access to their records in the central bank. It seems to be trust based. The central bank apparently trusts that a creditor is checking a consumer’s file in connection with an application for credit by the consumer.