Contact your representatives and tell them they should oppose Chat Control. The link above lists who they are and provides some templates for emails you could send them
From my understanding a significant portion of asylum claims in Europe came from Syrian refugees.
In December of 2024 the former Syrian president Assad was deposed and the country has (seemingly) gotten a lot more stable since. So it makes sense that asylum claims would be down in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
This is a good development. Not only does it mean that people will be able to go home in relative safety, it also takes away a lot of the ammunition (the fallout from the refugee crisis that has been ongoing since 2015) that the right-wing populists and fascists all over Europe have been using to gain power.
I'm at the "I'd like to ditch Windows, but whenever I try another Linux distro there are too many little issues really consider it a viable alternative" stage.
Under the DMCA a copyright holder can send out a take-down notice.
This is essentially the copyright holder telling you that they believe you to be in violation of their copyright. They are requesting you take down the content they believe to be infringing on their copyright, backed up by the threat of legal action.
The take-down notice is not forcing you to take down the allegedly infringing work. You have the option to send back a counter-notice, saying that you believe no copyright infringement took place. However, then the copyright holder might take you to court to determine whether this is a case of copyright infringement or not.
When the case is taken to court it is still up to the copyright holder to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this is a case of copyright infringement.
(I'm not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of how the DMCA works)
Also, in this case often the person accused of copying someone, needs to proof that they didn’t, which inverts the burden of proof.
I'm not sure that that claim is accurate.
To my knowledge it is not usually the case that someone who is sued for copyright infringement needs to prove their innocence before the court. Normally it is the accuser who needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the copyright infringement took place.
Could it be that you might be conflating it with YouTube and their ContentID system?That system is not strictly a legal requirement, but rather YouTube covering their ass so they don't get sued into oblivion for the many cases of copyright infringement that people upload to that platform on the regular
Edit: However, I do agree that the copyright system needs a pretty significant overhaul to better suit the digital age.
Mapping accurately is an incredibly time-intensive process.
A person or company that puts in the time and effort to accurately map an area, and sell the resulting product, deserves to get compensated for that time spent, in my opinion. And if someone comes in to take their work, copy it and sell it as their own, then that could justifiably be called copyright infringement or theft.
Just like how a painting of a church can be copyrighted (while the building is not), or how a dictionary can be copyrighted (while the words are not), a map can be copyrighted while the features that it depicts are not.
like wtf is a copyright for?!?
The copyright is for the time and effort spent to accurately map a region.
Like if two people happens to draw the same exact map, then what? Who gets to sue who? First come first serve? Literally does not make sense.
If they drew it independently, then there is no copyright infringement since there was no copying.But it is worth noting that the odds that two people independently drawing the exact same map independently are in reality very slim. It is highly suspicious if someone starts selling what is effectively a copy of your map.
In practice such cases of copyright infringement will have to be taken to court, where the person having their copyright infringed needs to prove beyond reasonable doubt that their copyright was in fact infringed.This is often difficult to do with maps.
I'm opposed to the death penalty. There are various reasons why I believe the State should not be allowed to hold that power over people.
That said, if you are going to have the death penalty as part of your legal system, at least be honest about it. Don't try to put lipstick on a pig by making it appear more civilized and ethical than it is.
Death penalty by firing squad is at least a very straight-forward and honest way of imposing the death penalty
While cars may have come down in price (or wages gone up) to the point where the average person can reasonably afford one, people can still view a car as a status symbol because historically it was expensive to obtain. That combination would result in utterly congested roads.
I may be misinformed, but I have the impression that India one of those countries where owning a car and driving is seen as a status symbol. Once you are able to afford a car, you don't want to be seen using the train with the paupers.
So while the public transportation system is extensive in many Indian cities, people will still choose to commute by car and be stuck in endless traffic.
On a side-note. I do not consider the government to be a trusted party. Whatever solution gets implemented needs to not provide the government any information that they can use for mass surveillance.
The two main requirements in my view are:
The website that needs your age shouldn't get to know your identity. They only get to verify your age.
The government age verification shouldn't get to know what service you are requesting access for. They only provide age verification.
Edit: You mention the certificate being short-lived, but one of the concerns mentioned in the proposed implementation for the EU age verification states that if that window is too short it can be used to determine identity.
The speed with high speed rail is usually made between cities, less so in dense areas. But that doesnt mean there is no gains to be made by improving track and running at say 130-160 km/h (80-100 mph)
To my knowledge these trains can alao accelerate quite fast because they are electric trains.
While I agree that the cost of operation and yield are a valid concern, the same argument could have been used against renewable energies like wind and solar only 30 to 40 years ago.
The price of these energy sources has come down a lot since, for a large part thanks to the modern day widespread use. We have a lot of experience generating power this way which drives down cost, and increases yield.
Novel techniques like the one described in the article don't yet benefit from that experience and scale. And if we don't try new things every now and then they never will.
That is not to say all novel techniques will be equally fruitful, but if you don't occasionally try new things you will never learn.
I cannot prove I didnt cheat..
Also, sorry for the fat-fingered quality.I drew this on my phone