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2 yr. ago

I'm currently testing https://piefed.social/u/Libb all my new participation will be posted there, at least for the time being.

A 50-something French dude that's old enough to think blogs are still cool, if not cooler than ever. Also, I like to write and to sketch.https://thefoolwithapen.com/

  • Hard to say. It mostly depends how much people are willing to purchase those useless goods and, then, how many people are willing to provide them an easy way to purchase those at the cheapest cost. If it's not China, it could be some other place. Think fashion if you want to understand how I consider the issue: it's a huge business with little sense to it when you think about it. Most people own way too much clothes already, more then what they would need in their lifetime but it's still not enough and they keep on buying more following trends and fashions, spending good money on something they don't need and they happily completely disregard the many environmental issues as well as the human ones (modern day slavery, child labor and so on). Because it's what they like and what they want an,d because it's so easy to buy a new pair of jeans or a skirt.

    Most people are lazy and they like simplicity above anything else. Simplicity helps them stay lazy. They like that even above saving money or protecting their fundamentals rights as citizens (or to keeping breathable the air and the water they need to stay alive), they like it more than getting a better (but more demanding) education, and so on. We're lazy everywhere, most of us at least. And I mean everywhere, including here when commenting: I got two comments, including yours, to my message while a majority of people silently downvoted it. The thing is their clicking of a button won't help anyone (certainly not me) understand why my comment may or may not have deserved to be downvoted but writing and explaining their point of view, or their reasoning, instead of simply clicking that button is already too much work for them.

    So, yeah I may be wrong that's a sure thing but I don't think a tax will change much in the amount of waste we create. Alas, it will be produced (and purchased) from some other place, end of the story.

  • and making it easier to set up new businesses.

    Send all the simplification you can to France, we need it. Badly.

  • If they do that (it's your hypothesis) it could also be for a similar reason people ask AI to do the thinking and do the writing for them.

  • My main point (the second one was kind of ironic, something online don't play nice with alas I tend to forget about that) is still that it should be to anyone to decide what they should and should not do ;)

  • trump wants relocation of manufacturing but how many Americans or Europeans want to work in a factory making 20 cent trinkets all day?

    None, true that.

    The thing is that most of those 'MAGA' or 'MEUGA' jobs will be automatized/robotized and even less people will be happy about not having a job at all than having a poorly paid one. But it's coming whether we want it or not. The only unknown is how fast?

  • Taxing to death is not the answer. Even Trump with its 'liberation day' knows what's needed is to re-localize the actual production and that taxing importation to death is only a mean to that end. Save in the EU, I suppose...

    It's so tiring.

  • Must delete?

    I'm not much into must do, this or that. Thx.

    Or if we are to tell people what they should do: why not trash the phone itself? Uber is but one minor symptom of much deeper issues, all related to phone usage and ownership. Get rid of the main cause, not of a symptom ;)

  • Not sure to understand the question? How could you not know?

    If you're thinking about finding the 'perfect' partner, forget about that. It's a lie. It's something fabricated to sell ads, page views and subscriptions to shitty services. Nobody (including you and me), nobody is perfect. So, no relationship can be perfect.

    My spouse and I have been together for 25+ years and counting. It was quite obvious very early on we're fitting together nicely but that was far from being a perfect match and we had a few rough times and, all those years later, we can still have. But we've quickly realized how lucky we were to have found each other, and we valued that enough to get over any difficulty or hardship. And we still do.

    So, to me that's a 'right relationship', just not 'the' right one as we could as easily have both been as happy with someone else if things had been different ;)

  • You should tell us what type of lighting you wanted to achieve and with what gear, so we may tell if you managed to do it.

    Like mentioned already, getting the right amount of light in the shadows can be tricky, even more so with reflective subjects, but that's just a matter of experimentation. You may also want to consider what matters the most to you between shutter speed and noise/sharpness? With that kind of picture, I doubt you need to focus that much on shutter speed, so you may consider lowering lower your ISO and use a much longer exposure (less noise in the image, for the same amount of light). That being said, it looks like you're on a promising path :)

    Silly suggestion: if you can't hide it, have you tried using the sewing thingy (sorry, I don't know the English word) that's visible on the fabric as a legit part of your composition? It could help drive the viewer's attention exactly where you want them to look.

  • Question con: si tu retires tout de rien, il reste quoi?

  • You're right, but once a few have that law the EU is a Union (and most countries are not against controlling us), so I would not hold my breath (posted from France, so you know ;)

  • They would not stop there.

    Our elected representatives are way too afraid of their citizens (which many of them would not mind if they could change those 'citizens' into powerless 'subjects'), and they've become obsessed with the idea of surveilling our every move. An idea that has been very actively encouraged by an industry that is more than happy to sell them the required surveillance technology for a lot of money. Money always wins, freedom (which can't stand without privacy) is screwed.

    So, I already made up my mind upon the quick disappearance of any online privacy, here in the EU. The cloud I'm using (for its full encryption) won't be able to stand against the law (and it should not). So, the moment they introduce a law to force backdoors into encryption I've already decided to quit using any form of online storage and as much online services as I can (one of the reasons I I went back to reading printed books—yep, I'm that paranoid save that It's not being paranoid at all).

    Those wannabe EU dictators, worrying so much about our own well-being (as no one in their right mind would express any doubt about their true motivation) they can go funk themselves.

  • It's going fine. Switched around 5 years ago, after using Apple products since the mid-80s. Switched to Mint, after trying a couple other distros. Mint ticks all the boxes for me ;)

    I have no desire to move back to Apple. even though I do miss some features (Spotlight, for example) being fully in control of my computer and software is priceless. And so is my freedom to use my computer however I fancy without anyone having a word to say about that.

    I still use an iPhone, though. Not much, but I do use it...

  • TV is such ad ridden garbage, I would never want to go back to that.

    We have not owned a TV since the 00s (and my spouse and I are well into in our 50s, so you know how old we're compared to your parents) but when I think 'ad ridden garbage' my first thought goes to YT, not tv which would come second (without an ad-blocker, how many ads are there with each single video on YT?)

    Generally curious, this sounds like a cry to protect something unnecessary in its current form. It needs to adapt to nowadays needs, not cry for regulatory changes to restrict competitors imo.

    i've not read the paper but, imho, that's exactly what the US want us to think. Which I call bullshit.

    EU creators can't compete on equal terms with the USA, that's why they need all the legal help we can give them. Then, and only then, the EU audience will be able to decide if those EU productions are worth their time and money, or not.

    And, once again, not just for TV/Movies. It's valid for all creators.

    There is almost nothing our governments here in France have done in the last 3 or 4 decades I would consider smart. The 'exception culturelle' is surely one of those smart decision. One I will support (and it doesn't matter if I like, or not, what most people are creating under its umbrella... which for the most part... I don't like). And I would not be surprised to finally see the US openly put a lot of pressure (with Trump and is tariffs war, for example) to force the EU to get rid of any semblance of cultural protectionism so 'the poor US industry would at last be able to 'freely' compete against our 'unfairly protected' local creators'. Or some shit along that line.

    I would like for us to stay diverse and not become a second-class wannabe US consumers (not even citizens). But I could be wrong, obviously, and maybe that would be amazing to eat the same cultural production the US as feasted upon?

  • Ask France, maybe? The French 'exception culturelle' law is doing a lot of work to protect local/French productions (and not just TV) against US dominance. Not always for the best mind you, but that's another question ;)

  • C'est pas une question mais un gros merci et un petit coup de pub pour mon hébergeur web. J'espère que c'est OK? Si ça l'est pas, mes excuses aux modos (et aucun souci pour supprimer, bien entendu).

    Il est français, c'est https://monarobase.net/. Leur support est efficace, rapide et... compréhensible, aka humain. Je viens encore d'en avoir la démonstration y a moins d'une heure de ça.

    Comme un gros con (très fatigué, stressé, étoussa) j'ai cliqué un lien frauduleux reçu par email et ai donné mes codes d'accès pour l'interface d'admin. Rien de fatal, il reste du 2FA en aval, mais ça reste une grosse bourde quand même. Une bourde qui nécessitait de réagir vite, ce que j’ai fait. Après avoir changé mes mots de passe, j'ai aussi envoyé un mail au support pour leur signaler ma dernière connerie prouesse et pour leur donner une copie de l’email frauduleux (pas trop mal fait), il était 17h46. À 17h52, je recevais une réponse pas automatisée avec quelques conseils pour m'assurer de changer ce qu'il fallait sans rien oublier. Et, suite un à nouvel échange de courriers, j'ai reçu un petit message m’annonçant qu’ils étaient aller vérifier et que tout semblait OK. Il était 18h06.

    En plus d’être compétent, le patron est sympa. Je ne dis pas ce qui suit est la norme mais il n’empêche ça c'est réellement passé comme ça : la toute première fois qu'il m'a aidé je n'étais même pas client chez lui ! Il s’est pourtant cassé le luc pour m’aider à faire face à une attaque contre un de mes sites alors que le support de mon ancien hébergeur, bien plus plus connu, était aux abonnés absents. Autant dire que j'étais ravi de passer chez lui à la seconde ou cet incident a été réglé.

    C’est un petit hébergeur qui n’est très certainement pas adapté aux gros sites qui ont des besoins spécifiques (tout ce dont j’ai besoin d'un peu technique, perso, c’est un accès SSH, et aussi du git) mais si vous cherchez à héberger votre petit site chez un hébergeur qui se soucie de ses clients… vous ne risquez pas grand-chose à regarder leurs offres : https://monarobase.net/hebergement-web

    Ça doit faire au moins 15 ans que je suis client et c’est pas demain la veille que j’irai voir ailleurs… En fait, j’ai même pas envie de m’intéresser à la concurrence : j’ai confiance en lui et ça, ça n’a pas de prix.

    Bref, désolé si c'est trop hors-sujet, j'avais juste envie de partager ça ;)

  • Any suggestions?

    Ignore the nuts, like we all do?

  • I've not clicked the link (without any description or comment, I see no reason to follow a link to YT). That being said, I would agree with your comment if the video was also shared elsewhere than on YT since non-YT alternatives already exist. I insist: also shared elsewhere, not published elsewhere as I'm all for reaching people where they are, not where I would want them to be. But I'm also all for not bowing to simplicity, conformity and, but isn't that linked, to laziness ;)

  • As others have suggested: next door local shops. And then, other online shops.

    For example, here in France, the law make it so books are sold at the exact same price everywhere, be it on Amzn or in one of our local bookshops. I'd rather talk to nice human being than fill a web form, and I'd rather do business with someone that can also do business with me than send money to some billionaire. So, I order at the local shop ;)

    I find almost everything I need. It just requires me:

    • to go there, or to pass a phone call (it's nice talking to people or to re-learn to do it... and it's never too late to start doing it either).
    • to plan my purchase, as those small shops aren't open 24/24 and don't have a bazillion and a half items in stock and they can't get it overnight either (which is good too as it helps me distinguish between what I need from what I 'stupidly' want to buy)

    And for the rare few things I can't get elsewhere (at the very least I will try to directly contact the seller on Amzn), well, either I will have realized I don't really need them, or I will find some alternative or, then and only then, I will order it on Amzn which since January had not been that frequent, but that's just me.

  • Rien n'est automatisé si tu veux dire programmé ou géré par une machine ou un logiciel. On a aucun appareil smart non-plus (pas même uen petite ampoule). Le truc le moins con dans la cuisine c'est le percolateur qui est programmable mais... on l'a jamais programmé ;)

    Si tu parles de planifier certaines activités, je peux te dire que (ma compagne bossant bcp plus que moi, je me charge de la plupart des corvées ménagères) je fais la lessive 2 fois par semaine max, les courses tous les 3 jours car on vit dans un petit appart parisien, la place est précieuse, y compris dans le frigo (et on aime cuisiner et manger des produits frais, pas des trucs industriels). Pour les repas, c'est variable pour savoir qui s'en charge de nous deux mais on va souvent se préparer de quoi manger pour un repas ou deux d'avance. On achète/mange des trucs de saison autant que possible.