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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • In the past I had to upgrade my PC every 4 years (my first PC run on Windows 3.1), but my last one just works and even the GPU only fell out of minimum requirements of the newest and graphical shiny games end of last year (it even managed to run Starfield although it looked bad and lagged in cities terribly), but my backlog is huge, so I don’t care and if I care I can use Geforce Now or Game Pass for PC and stream that one game I can not play on my rig directly anymore.

    Our planet is on fire and consuming less is the only actual solution to that. Everything got more expensive. I literally don’t want to spent a lot of money on a PC that I do not need, because the one I have plays the games I want to play just fine (currently Dave the Diver) and on top throw a perfectly fine machine away, add to CO2 production and need to cut back on other needs I have because everything is so expensive.

    My machine is an i7-6700K 4GHz with a GTX 970 and 16 GB DDR 4. And the only reason this is not working with Windows 11 is the CPU and upgrading that would need a new board and at that point I need a new PC. Oh and I tested it at the beginning when Windows 11 came out, I can circumvent the restriction and install Windows 11 anyway, it’s just not guaranteed it will stay working and getting upgrades can be a hassle, but at least for the time I tried it I did get automated updates.

    I do not hate Windows, I tried to get Windows 11, I just don’t want to accept that a security feature for businesses makes my consumer PC invalid for it. I am a gamer and I would like to stay with Windows, but I am not buying a new PC unless a vital part of my old one breaks. I rather stay with an unpatched system and do anything that needs security on my phone/tablet on android. And no, I am 58 y.o. and I am not learning Linux, maybe if I were interested in the Steam handheld it would make sense, but I am not.


  • The recent jump in US productivity comes after a massive fiscal stimulus centred on green industry

    And the way they do it is by creating jobs in an industry that’s important for our all future.

    Others have explained why “productivity” is not the one and all messurement on how well a country /Europe does, but that Europe desperately needs to put money into their hands to get jobs in the green industry going, especially Germany, is definitely true. The Biden government made a huge effort creating these jobs, the question is if it isn’t just going down hill from here with that after the next election.



  • When I was taught about the ‘wage-price spiral’ at school, I asked the teacher why it wasn’t called the ‘price-wage spiral’, because at home my parents only ever talked about the need for higher wages when prices went up, and the teacher said: “Because your books about it weren’t written by the unions, but by industry.”

    “Some combination of moderation in pay pressures and firms’ margins will be required for services inflation to return to more normal rates,” she said.

    Let’s only talk about the wages and not the margins, right? And of course do not at all talk about big business and extremely rich people not paying taxes on the money their workers have made while not getting paid properly.


  • There is no reason to discuss pensions as long as the super-rich don’t pay taxes. The pension funds and every other social fund could be filled to the brim with even slightly higher taxes and they wouldn’t even notice anything missing. They would stay bloody rich.

    We have been getting older and having fewer children since we came down from the trees, and we have always been able to raise standards anyway. The only thing that doesn’t work is 1% of the people taking it all and putting it on a pile and sitting on it like a dragon.

    I am tired of the same old discussions, get the money from the people who have more than enough! Don’t let them drag you into discussions like this to point fingers away from themselves towards everyone else. Young vs old is not the fight we need to fight, poor vs fantastillion rich is the fight.





  • Trump has an uncanny ability to secure bank loans though

    Not after 2020 anymore because:

    President Donald Trump’s lenders have forgiven around $287 million in debt that he didn’t pay back, and most of it was related to Chicago’s Trump Tower, according to a New York Times report

    I am sure Deutsche Bank is not going to give him another Cent and any other bank will go and count stairs, because he is lying about everything, even about how many floors his buildings have. The times it was easy for him are over.

    On top of the 83 million he has a huge amount to pay to his lawyers and since he is not accepting the outcome of the trial and he has another 14 or so going on… and taking money out of his election funds is now also harder to do and getting elected is more expensive because Koch is helping his opponent and Koch has a truly endless warchest.

    Every financial transaction he does is under a looking glas now, no more face value and trust, he is seen as the financial sector should have seen him in the past: A naked “king” that pretends to wear nice clothes.






  • Maybe that differs per culture, but here in the Netherlands I know plenty of right-wing voters who don’t deny the issue at all. They acknowledge it’s a problem, sometimes even want to put effort into fixing it. Their arguments against are usually “we’re such a small country, so whatever we do won’t really affect anything anyway” and “it’s already going quite well, no need to be ahead of the curve”. I’d say that’s actually by far the largest group of right wing voters in my personal experience.

    It is not just happening in the Netherlands, I can see it in Germany too and there is this study that found it all over Youtube. It is the same group and the same denial, just their agenda framed differently, because they could not win over people with right out denying climate change anymore. They just switched the narrative to “can’t do anything against it” :

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/16/third-of-uk-teenagers-believe-climate-change-exaggerated-report-shows

    The report published on Tuesday shows a shift from the “old denial” – that climate change is not happening or not anthropogenic – to the “new denial”.

    These new denial narratives that question the science and solutions for climate change constituted 35% of all climate denial on YouTube in 2018, but now represent the large majority (70%). Over the same period, the share of old denial has dropped from 65% to 30% of total claims.

    The report authors believe that this shift is because the scientific evidence is now more accepted and hard to dispute, so those aiming to win people over to climate denial and delay must discredit the solutions and people pushing for climate action.





  • I think it is about this currently happening:

    https://www-wiwo-de.translate.goog/technologie/wirtschaft-von-oben/wirtschaft-von-oben-212-britische-atomkraft-hier-manifestieren-sich-die-spannungen-zwischen-china-und-dem-westen-in-der-britischen-kernenergie/29183042.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp German website translated with google.

    The French state-owned company EDF and the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) are responsible for the construction and future operation of Hinkley Point C. .

    On the one hand, EDF had to postpone the opening originally planned for 2025 several times, most recently to 2027. The energy company justified the delay with the Covid pandemic. EDF also had to adjust the costs of the project several times: While initially talk of 18 billion pounds, the construction of the power plant is currently expected to cost more than 32 billion pounds - a cost increase of 80 percent.

    This could cost EDF dearly. When the contract was signed in 2016, the Chinese partner CGN only agreed to cover 33.5 percent of the then estimated 18 billion pounds in costs. In return he received a 33.5 percent share in the project. Given the recent squabbles between the governments in London and Beijing, it would be no surprise if CGN sat out the next round of financing.

    Basically if the Chinese don’t pay the UK won’t pay either. This is terrible because EDF had already to pay a huge fine for a Finnish nuclear plant that finished (haha) 12 years too late and the French government is also running out of money building their own nuclear plants with EDF, while having to keep their old plants from breaking down. They had to raise the price of nuclear power for 60 % this year and decided to build additionally offshore wind plants, because they finally had to realize new nuclear power plants will arrive way too late. It’s a huge mess.