Ads don't need to make you explicitly go out to buy the product to be effective. All they need to do is make you feel more familiar with the brand next time they and a competitor are next to each other in the store, and you need to decide which one to pick.
TL;DR: For stuff you'll need to buy anyway, brand awareness is all the ad needs to do.
They export them in droves to Europe, and I'd be very surprised if there's a single thing on a vehicle which isn't regulated stricter in Europe than in North America. Maybe emissions in California? Not much emissions from an EV, though.
They know exactly what they're doing and how people feel about it.
They haven't made money on Windows in years. Nobody has been willing to pay for a new version of Windows since XP. What they do make money on is cloud services. So Windows is a loss leader.
Just like the cheap rotisserie chicken at Costco is there to make you walk past and look at everything else they're selling, the modern role of Windows is to funnel people towards Microsoft cloud services, which is what makes them money. Step 1 of that process is to make sure you create a Microsoft account.
Sure, to a large extent existing in the US costs money, and you'd need to spend some on transportation or pay a premium to live in a walkable area. But beyond that there are still affordable activities you could do. Some things I've done in the US which only cost me the price of transportation:
Aforementioned frisbee in the park
Hiking with friends (met one of them at work, joined his group, brought a lunch box)
Various activities at a local community center or library (not all places have one, some places churches are the closest you can get)
Attended a weekly meetup about a topic I was interested in
Chatted with someone while waiting in a line
Sure, a lot of the more affordable activities you'll probably only be able to do once a week. You can do multiple activities. Sometimes you meet friends who invite you to other activities. Help, I have too many activities!
There are other ways to interact which don't imply treating people to things. Yes, in this case the person spent money on tickets, but he could have been on his way to any other activity and invited the person to join that. Or he could have offered the person to buy their own ticket and join.
"Hey, I'm on my way to play frisbee in the park, want to come?" -- totally free.
It doesn't, though. He was going to an activity, met a person on the way there, and invited the person to join. Had he been on his way to a free activity the gesture would be free.
"Going with the flow" doesn't necessarily mean "blow all your life savings", and it's kind of ridiculous to claim that it does. I'm sorry you seem to have been exploited by some people you were trying to connect with, but that's not what is being encouraged here.
He is very capable of thought. He's an intelligent and well educated man who puts on a persona to further his own agenda. He is lacking empathy and morals, not thought.
I don't know much about solo lead climbing, but it seems sketchier than I'm comfortable with. Had he done conventional lead climbing the belayer would have either avoided that problem entirely or sorted it out for him.
Also, climbing is pretty safe when proper precautions are taken. A lot of people seem to be a little laissez-faire about details like stopper knots, though. This guy was either missing one, or used one which was too small for his combination of rope thickness and belay/rappel device.
Anecdotal, but as a newbie climber I once went out with some friends who climb a lot outdoors, so I trusted them to know what they were doing. When it was time to rappel they attempted to use a figure 8 as a stopper knot, which naturally untied itself instantly. Clearly they didn't usually use stopper knots when rappelling, because if they did they'd know the proper knot.
I don't know about that, but the extra risky stuff is somewhat correlated with depression. Partially because they're okay with dying, partially because the extreme focus takes their mind off the depression.
Finland is a developed country. If they don't have enough computers for that it's a choice, not for lack of resources.
But does anyone do computer labs anymore? Every school I've seen the past few years issued either a laptop or a tablet to every student. That was admittedly in fairly affluent countries or areas, but again, Finland is a developed country. A country which routinely tops international rankings for education. They invest in education like a developed nation should, and could afford testing equipment if they wanted to.
Even China sometimes has to backtrack when they make decisions which don't resonate with the people. Even dictators need some semblance of support among the public.
I don't know anything about the system in question, but having an exam system based on live-booting sounds like a nightmare to execute. Most people don't have USB booting enabled by default for security reasons, and most people don't know how to enable it. I personally have to look it up every time for my personal devices, because it varies by manufacturer and I rarely need to do it. Having to guide 30 stressed-out 15 year olds through that process sounds like it would take longer than the exam itself.
My guess is they changed it for practical, not technical reasons.
I can't speak to whether they have the right guy or not, but it certainly seems like they only had illegally obtained data suggesting it was him, and then decided to arrest him anyway by planting some stuff in his backpack. So far they haven't disclosed any admissible evidence, considering the backpack broke chain of custody.
Ads don't need to make you explicitly go out to buy the product to be effective. All they need to do is make you feel more familiar with the brand next time they and a competitor are next to each other in the store, and you need to decide which one to pick.
TL;DR: For stuff you'll need to buy anyway, brand awareness is all the ad needs to do.