UN had been arguably irrelevant for a few decades. France had been irrelevant since it's been absorbed by the EU and they're just posting takes. This has been best described on an Economist article featured here a few months ago
https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/02/18/that-irritating-...
It happened as US diplomats at the UN felt so insecure and were so inexperienced that they not only took the bait, but made a CSPAN13 hearing hilarious and viral
Why are American diplomats unwilling to publicly acknowledge that Trump has a different foreign policy than Biden and Harris ? It just make them look like they don't have any coherence.
And since when have they been acknowledging and giving credit to what France says ? They're supposed to fly above it and talk to the EU
This is ridiculous.
China is getting ahead by just being consistent when they're saying they don't care about Ukraine, they just want Taiwan.
Ukraine proved that Europe will not have the will to do anything in Asia.
In the meantime, Trump made NATO relevant again after silently quitting it and abandoning Europe, yet their diplomats make scenes and feel threatened by France's opinions as they can't assume their own policies
The french cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) used to share leaflets to tell you to do just that.
The US government wasn't named, but it's part of the ones that like to do some economic intelligence and no euro who read the news would trust it more than a banana republic when it comes to crossing the border.
Now having a corporate device with little data is no longer outstanding. Everything is in the cloud these days.
As for personal devices, you can explain you're taking a dumb cheap laptop for your holiday as you're working on a desktop PC at home. You're not taking your entire house when you're on a trip, just a laptop to check tourism information and post blog posts
I myself bought a crap laptop on ebay to shove it in bags and backpacks and go to conferences and not be sad the day it's broken.
but above all, he's a citizen so shouldn't care about looking "suspect". He has a right, not a privilege, to cross that border. They can explain a judge how he looked sus if they really want to search his home.
In America, the defendant generally has the right not to testify against himself by remaining silent, both in court and when questioned by agents of the state out of court. Not a right to lie. This is why criminal defense attorneys advise everyone to shut up, shut up, SHUT UP without a lawyer present. Police can and will attempt to catch you in a provable lie.
> the most authoritarian places in the world wouldn't charge defendants for "lying"
What on Earth is this second part of your comment supposed to mean?
Do you expect to be able to lie to the government in an authoritarian country? And not be arrested if they catch you in the lie there? And not be charged or worse if they consider the lie serious?
Alright. Most places would investigate crimes and charge you for them before they look at your defense itself, so I had several worries about that
One of which is self indications (even of things that cops didn't know about or couldn't prove) that would allow them to just question anyone into admitting even a parking offense, but I guess you can shut up indeed
I was worried that they could use any crime in a broad area and just force everyone to say with who they were and what they were doing, but you can also shut up
I was also worried than on investigations with no real crime involved, they could just go play jeopardy and ask you what you were doing minute by minute, and get you to talk until something gets inaccurate (while they have cctv but you have no vcr in your brain). But again, you can shut up.
When I'll be in America, I'll remember not to talk to cops.
Not even to 911 as emergency calls are error prone :
You said someone was attacked by a suv and knife when it was a pickup truck and machete, you go to jail
> Not even to 911 as emergency calls are error prone : You said someone was attacked by a suv and knife when it was a pickup truck and machete, you go to jail
Very few states have anything resembling this specific federal statute, and one doesn't typically call 911 to obtain service from federal law enforcement agencies. And in the case of a 911 call specifically, "heat of the moment" and "good faith" do a lot of work.
Unless you obviously intended to mislead an emergency services response, you will not be criminally implicated from good faith statements made during a 911 call regarding some incident you merely observed as a bystander.
> I was worried that they could use any crime in a broad area and just force everyone to say with who they were and what they were doing
In authoritarian countries, that absolutely happens. In America and the West, police are generally expected to have reasonable suspicion of anyone they detain to interrogate, and the length of detention is also limited if no evidence validating suspicion is forthcoming. They could not simply arrest everyone in the proximity of a crime, and geofence warrants are controversial exactly because that was the standard in the analog world.
> I was also worried than on investigations with no real crime involved, they could just go play jeopardy and ask you what you were doing minute by minute, and get you to talk until something gets inaccurate
Again, they must have reasonable suspicion to even detain you. You are reasoning about law codes as if they were literalist computer code for a compiler. The law, at least common law in America, is written by and for humans who are expected to exercise good faith as a part of enforcing and interpreting the law.
Do know your right to remain silent, and ask for a translator and consular assistance if detained or arrested. Police departments will provide these things because attorneys in court will question the reliability and admissibility of any testimony in the absence of their provision.
Don't worry too much about police if you're in America to visit. They're ordinary people who mostly want to catch criminals who are hurting their community. Bad apples are rare, and bad apples who harass someone on a tourist visa are rarer still.
> Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding.
I don't like to have silhouettes instead of people on the back, and that buildings related to the current institutions are featured on so many designs
These are a current necessities, but nothing to sanctuarize for the future.
The only thing that should remain stable in Europe are ideas, and the Swiss got it better on their notes
> These are a current necessities, but nothing to sanctuarize for the future.
Although the ECB does not today "withdraw" notes in the sense that they cease to be valid for most purposes, it does deliberately destroy old notes and issue new ones with different images to replace them, so the original series must be getting pretty rare by now - not rare enough to be worth serious collectors paying money for it, but your ten year old may never have seen an actual old Euro €500 note even though in principle those still are valid money in the Eurozone.
> deliberately destroy old notes and issue new ones with different images to replace them
Big part of the reason for this appears to be security. Many years ago a high-ranking official from Finnish central bank told in an interview that bank notes need to be redesigned approximately once per decade. Reason is that it takes about that long for the materials and printing technology to get commoditised enough for criminal enterprises to be able to start manufacturing "high-grade" forgeries at any real scale.
Every generation of bank notes employs a whole bunch of newly developed technologies and tricks that make the notes themselves distinctive, as well as incredibly difficult[ß] to forge.
ß: Some of it is down to tightly locked down and guarded speciality supply chains. Some is due to advances in microprinting and ilk. If you had unlimited resources, you could arrange to have the necessary equipment, supplies, staff and materials to print your own forged money. It'd just be slow, low-yield and very expensive.
You're not "competitive" if you have to pay for workers, ink or investments.
Workers only get a wage because of communist populists who don't understand business, and (insert place - even the Philippines these days) has the most highest taxes and wages around the world.
Software is allowing industries to be so much smarter and efficient. Even without advanced systems, a 20€ smart switch allows my personal water boiler to turn on when solar and wind are so available that power prices go low or negative (and a startup, Sobry, allows me to enjoy or suffer spot prices thanks to my smart power meter that sends hourly usage data over the grid).
If your smart switches support it (Tuya/Lidl gateways doesn't, so there is still work to do), you can get some cashback when they momentarily turn some devices on or off to help offset imbalances on the power grid without relying on gas turbines.
Software is allowing governments to provide services online, 24/7, making driving to their overly large buildings a thing of the past.
Software is changing the way companies work with their customers and suppliers. It cut business trips so much that airlines like United had to review their routes at some point.
Software allows more trains to run on each track, and improves cross border services in dense areas in Europe
Software developers who support open source initiative such as LineageOS, ChromeOS or lightweight Linux distributions allow to keep devices for longer. It is valuable when manufacturers and Microsoft would like you to buy new hardware.
YouTube tutorials and online marketplaces allow customers to fix their old stuff or to buy second hands. It makes the economy more circular than it used to
Simulators allow new generations to fly cessnas or race cars on 1000 electrical watts at home, while video games allow kids to have fun together without racing cars on open roads like you used to
In these dark lawless ages, knowing how childish or OLD your users get can become key in making arch based linux safe and accessible
To resolve this thing while still preserving users privacy (we avoid finger pointing !), Nyarch linux proposes a disruptive workflow, challenging users with anime and pop culture related questions to prove what they're up to
Some people would like to pretend means of production are holy assets you're supposed to value and trade (INVEST!!! making value is for losers and _these_ workers), when it's just a consummable that should serve a purpose right now.
A computer is a tool and customizing the case is not unheard of.
Thank you for desmystifying the Mac.
Users know best.
> CoMaps forked out of OrganicMaps after a row about money
Organic Maps is organized as a for-profit entity. CoMaps is not. This is a real difference, and the former asking for donations makes it look like a scam.
Looking at the OrganicMaps app on iOS and it seems to be free, with an option for donations in the menu . What does OrganicMap specifically do in order to make profit?
Always the rows about some kind of BS that fragments, fractures, and defuses the efforts into pet projects instead of ever actually being a viable alternative for the majority of people to corporate offerings.
The hardest thing about any effort that is two or more people is the interpersonal, coordination, consensus, and organization aspects. Everything else is easy in comparison.
How hard a sell that is depends heavily on how much that person values their time. I know people who are experts in their field, who have had their with-source Wikipedia edits reverted to incorrect or misleading information by people who have more time to argue online than they do.
half of it is darkest dark punk roast, and sings about working in the drug dealing industry like it's shark tank, but to afford living in a wet flat with cockroaches while you have no future but to be killed or jailed before you turn 25
Pick your side (or not), but you'll never get into it without a streaming website as it's going too fast and in too many ways at once for physical distribution
Nice nice nice. I have a playlist of good russian rap, now I think I should start a collection of general foreign rap because well yea, I'll edit it in a sec
UN had been arguably irrelevant for a few decades. France had been irrelevant since it's been absorbed by the EU and they're just posting takes. This has been best described on an Economist article featured here a few months ago https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/02/18/that-irritating-...
But now, one of their takes made the news https://x.com/FranceONUGeneve/status/2081064968586232263
It happened as US diplomats at the UN felt so insecure and were so inexperienced that they not only took the bait, but made a CSPAN13 hearing hilarious and viral
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260727-us-walks-out-of-...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ror0VmAp9O8
Why are American diplomats unwilling to publicly acknowledge that Trump has a different foreign policy than Biden and Harris ? It just make them look like they don't have any coherence.
And since when have they been acknowledging and giving credit to what France says ? They're supposed to fly above it and talk to the EU
This is ridiculous. China is getting ahead by just being consistent when they're saying they don't care about Ukraine, they just want Taiwan. Ukraine proved that Europe will not have the will to do anything in Asia.
In the meantime, Trump made NATO relevant again after silently quitting it and abandoning Europe, yet their diplomats make scenes and feel threatened by France's opinions as they can't assume their own policies
What a world we are living in
reply