Agree, but your explanation stops short of the full explanation: because fraud appeared, people were not punished for it, so it grew until it mattered, so everyone was punished with bureaucracy. If fraud would be quickly and severely punished (by termination), it would be at a level close enough to zero to even ignore it. But I think companies think it is better to get lower paid employees with less ethics and save 10k while losing 1k to fraud, per employee.
Not sure why this happens to you. I have HA with several dozens WiFi devices and I have only 2 devices (one relay, one sensor) that disconnect regularly, they have both poor WiFi signal, one in a basement and one far from the AP. Almost all are on 2.4 GHz, not by choice, but they work well.
Ethernet did not stagnate. Ethernet on UTP did stagnate due to reaching the limits of the technology, but Ethernet continues to advance over fiber.
For 10 Gbps I find it simpler and cheaper to use fiber or DACs, but motherboards don't provide SFP+, only RJ45 ports. Over 10 Gbps copper is a no go. SFP28 and above would be nice to have on motherboards, but that's a dream with almost zero chances to happen. For most people RJ45 + WiFi 7 is good enough, computer manufacturers will not put SFP+ or SFP28 for a small minority of people.
>> Is it possible to create a social network (or "discussion community", if you prefer) that doesn't have any incentive except human-to-human interaction?
Yes, it is possible. Like anything worth, it is not easy. I am a member of a small forum of around 20-25 active users for 20 years. We talk all kind of stuff, it was initially just IT-related, but we also touch motorcycles (at least 5 of us do or did ride, I used to go ride with a couple of them in the past), some social aspects, tend to avoid politics (too divisive) and religion (I think none is religious enough to debate). We were initially in the same country and some were meeting IRL from time to time, but now we are spread in many places around Europe (one in US), so the forum is what keeps us in contact. Even the ones in the same country, probably a minority these days, are spread too thin, but the forum is there.
If human interaction involves IRL, I met less that 10 forum members and I met frequently just 3 (2 on motorcycle trips, one worked for a few years in the same place as I), but that is not a metric that means much. It is the false sense of being close over internet while being geographically far, which works in a way but not really. For example my best friends all emigrated, most were childhood friends, communicating to them on the phone or Internet makes me never feel lonely, but seeing them every few years makes grows the distance between us. That is impacting human to human interaction, there is no way around it.
I am trying to imagine. The end result is similar. In Europe it would be "unlimited unpaid vacation days on top of the mandatory paid vacation". The same problems will appear: self-restrict to taking it. Management would never help employees to take the days. My manager does not help me even take the mandatory legal days, it's all on me to deal with priorities and deliverables and find a way to still take vacation. With decent managers, there would be no burnout, but we are in a crisis of morals in corporate management, the job of most current managers is to make a career at the expense of the employees.
Oh I don't doubt that the mandated leave entitlements and severance would be kept. But I think actual leave taken would increase, bounded only by the fact that taking holidays is expensive, and kids have to go to school. So you balance your career progression and hence holiday spending power in the future against immediate satisfaction from taking leave. I think many jobs without a meaningful career trajectory would experience massive leave taking. Remember, these people can't be fired or demoted in any way. If the work has to be done, it might even cause employers to incentivise work differently.
I don't think career plans matter. Workload does. If you have a work plan and taking any free days puts it in jeopardy, you will not take any extra free days. And if not meeting the full work plan results in no salary updates, which is technically not a punishment and it is allowed by law in most of Europe, with some inflation (over 10% in my country) it is practically a pay cut, so you can't afford that.
That would certainly not fly in France, it would land the employer in a tribunal. Paying someone less because you gave them more work than could be completed during working hours?! Non, impossible.
Is it fair to put an entire continent in a position where it does not belong? If I recall correctly Australia and New Zealand were mostly colonized by the British Empire, not by "Europe", Canada by UK and France, US by Western Europe, etc. Europe is a continent, not a country, and Europe did not colonize anything, some countries did.
There is some valid criticism raised by farmers in my country (Romania) related to use of pesticides and other substances that are forbidden in EU, but permitted in Mercosur and products can be imported even with the forbidden substances in it. That sounds pretty bad, consumer protection is the only part that I still like about modern EU.
But is that really true, i.e. were you able to find actual facts supporting this? I'm asking because in Germany there are similar talking points driven by the farmer's associations (actually just the big agro corps, actual small-scale farmers don't have much of a voice in these) and everytime I tried to dig into a particular topic, it didn't seem to be supported by actual facts.
Who controls it though? A lot of non-compliant products are imported from China in plain sight, as there are 0 control and LATAM countries have no incentives in enforcing it.
Local producers follow the rules, dot theit i and cross their t, because it's more profitable to sell the premium parts of the cow to Europe and the rest in the local market.
There are controls here and also when it arrives to Europe.
Most of the cheaper honey you can buy in the EU is imported from China, and is fake, made from glucose syrup. The EU has tried to "regulate", but chinese producers don't care, no one except consumer groups and beekeeper unions pay for tests.
Maybe in ten years, when most EU beekeepers will have thrown the towel and moved to other occupations, the EU will act and forbid imports. But until then, well eat overpriced glucose syrup.
If fraud as blatant and old is tolerated, what do you think happens with meat, where controls are much harder if not impossible when dealing with things such as animal wellness?
Yep that is more and more the problem. Regulations are made "for show". Governments don't check them, don't enforce them (except extremely selectively), and companies are learning to just ignore them. But it's not just a problem for imports.
(note that the EU has already perfected this, as it is now basically standard for EU legislation to have rules about enforcement that always boil down to only allowing the EU commission to enforce legislation, or not enforce it. In other words: you, and even local governments, cannot use the courts to get compliance)
1) activists and lobbyists get what they want ... or they think so
2) governments get the votes they need without destroying the economy because political parties can lie about their "achievements"
3) companies (farms, what remains of industry) get what they want
Of course this will lead to a total disaster, sooner or later. Probably sooner. One where millions of lives will be very negatively affected.
Free trade is making this worse. Of course, China has always done this. In China, the law doesn't matter, only what the party says at the moment does. And even that is assuming there is zero truth to the constant claims that China encourages fake medicine production and even drug production for export.
In the US, this is now more and more the case as well. For example, xAI simply totally violated environmental laws (among others [1]) to get their datacenter operational and operating at all. Which, of course, really pushes their competition to do the same. The punishment? "Never do it again". Of course, it is essentially inconceivable that they're complying with the ruling (the datacenter is currently running and has not received extra grid power. In other words: the illegal generators are running right now despite the ruling, not only that but the second datacenter also has at least 45 illegal generators)
Food safety is ensured by controlling at the production level, with physical inspections. Given the sheer amount of food traded and imported the lab measures are very unreliable and costly.
Private consumer protection groups very often find problematic products. Honey is a good example, massive fake honey from China has been being dumped in the EU for the last 20 years, authorities don't care at all and allow it to continue.
Yes, the EU complained and regulated it in 2021[1], 2023[2], and nothing has been solved[3] since we don't control the imports nor ban them when importers don't act to reduce fraud and there is no enforcement when fraud happens.
From consumer perspective this agreement changes nothing, explicitly stating that. It does not allow lower quality of products imported from Mercosur. All EU standards for food safety remain applicable and EU may adopt stronger standards in the future.
Some stuff forbidden in EU is used in e.g. Brazil, but as long as residues are at safe level, it’s considered ok. European farmers are against this part, because their business model relying on only safe substances is threatened. However, it may be possible as well that EU regulatory pressure will push American farmers to adopt stricter standards for their exports.
No one controls for the food quality imported in the EU. If you read consumer protection specialized papers, they very often find problematic products. Massive amounts of fake honey from China is being sold in the internal market with absolutely no repercussions.
The only way to ensure food safety is to control the production sites, which Mercosur doesn't allow.
Private consumer protection groups have no enforcement power and their action is a drop in the ocean. Honey is a good example, authorities don't control, NGOs and beekeeper unions provide tests and data, the EU gives 0 f*cks and allows the swindle to continue.
Why is fake honey still so commonplace[1] in the EU if controls happen? Tests exists and are straightforward. The EU has been saying that they'll stop it[2], after a more than a decade of abuse, nothing happened because the fraud is so widespread but there are no systematic controls.
Safe level is a bad metric. Lately the safe level for alcohol consumption was set to zero, even if it was considered safe in the past to have some drinks.
This is why this FTA doesn’t restrict EU on making it more strict. If new health risks will be discovered, they will come up with new regulations and farmers in EU may have an advantage of being already compliant.
I used jQuery for the past ~ 10 years on smaller apps and I had no problems with it. Then I slowly replaced it with modern JS wherever possible and I found that today I am using jQuery only because Datatables.js depends on it.
It was a nice ride, many thanks to the people that worked and still work on it. Not sure we'll ever see a jQuery 5, but that's life.
It also ties you to a desk. If you're working in one location, a desktop PC would be more cost-effective and more performant. If you need mobility between desks, a small form factor PC would be easier to carry. And if you are an employer and expect employees to work from home on this keyboard, you need to buy monitors for their homes.
> a desktop PC would be more cost-effective and more performant.
But ugly and taking up space, which is why the iMac exists and has been pretty successful for decades at this point.
> If you need mobility between desks, a small form factor PC would be easier
Maybe, but performant AR glasses are changing that equation. The cyberdeck, as an ideal, still exists for a reason.
> if you are an employer and expect employees to work from home on this keyboard, you need to buy monitors for their homes.
Do you? Is that law where you live? Because it's definitely not here in UK. I'd rather work on my trusty 4k than some shitty cheapo Dell only provided to tick a box.
The first thing I thought of when I saw this was using a phone as the display. Not as good as an actual monitor, but a far more interesting setup than what you're imagining.
