FriendOfDeSoto

Maybe barter is the wrong word in this instance. I mean rudimentary, handshake trade within an equally rudimentary community. Farmer A has wheat, hunter B shot two deer. A agrees to give half a blurb of wheat to B for 2 blorbs worth of prime venison. Both make it through the winter. That’s what I meant.

I’m not Scandinavian or live there, I think they are possibly the most cashless countries today. I’m in Japan where we just moved away from fax machines for banking and cash is very much alive and well. So I don’t have any specific experience to share, just general thoughts.

how much longer until they take cash and browser-based banking from us?

I would question the framing here. I don’t think “the man” will come in and “take it from us.” The move towards digital money and online banking isn’t so much prescribed by a dark cabal than it is driven by convenience. If the majority of people didn’t find anything useful about it, they would not adapt these things like tap to pay or online banking.

Bartering wasn’t made immediately illegal when currency came in. Currency was made to make bartering easier and more fairly divisible. Things changed at a glacial pace to get to our modern economy.

Banks and credit unions do have an incentive to get you to do your banking online. They can close all their locations except for ATMs and get you to do your in-person interactions with a central video call center. That saves them labor costs and they like that.

And security agencies and the revenue service like people spending digital, traceable money. It cuts out the gray area where under the table shenanigans take place.

As far as a push to online banking is concerned, there are a few factors that overlap. The aforementioned labor cost issue for the banks. A lack of legislation or regulations to provide banking that is accessible to preferably all people online. And then there is competing regulations to make it safe for people to use. And with that you run into the issue that you need the two biggest mobile OS’s to get you access via the web or the app that does all. This is where we need to lobby our political leaders and the stance should be: don’t leave grandma in the lurch. We have more old people than young ones in most western countries, old people vote in higher numbers, let’s frame a way to preserve online banking in the most privacy-friendly manner around how an octogenarian should be able to use it safely. I think this is how you cover most bases with a good chance of success, even in the pre-authoritarian US. That should include browser-based banking and authentication means that don’t only depend on Google and Apple.

As far as cash or concerned there will come a point where governments and central banks just throw their hands in the air and say: it’s too expensive to keep printing and then maintaining the money in physical form. That’s it, we go digital, damn a possible apocalypse and the fact that when we do we will be absolutely hosed when that happens. And, realistically, even if we retained physical money during the apocalypse, the economy would still collapse. Wars have shown us that money is quickly replaced by barter of cigarettes, booze, and other desirable or necessary goods. So you’re “only” left with the privacy and liberty considerations to spend cash without anyone keeping a constant ledger. And I fear they will be drowned out by “hey, we can stamp out all drug trafficking” promises. Not realizing that like most rivers finding the sea most drug traffic participants will find a way in the new digital only system as well. And that gives me hope. I think we will see physical cash disappear this century. But at the same pace, people will find ways to avoid being tracked.

What can you do? Keeping your fingers crossed, become politically engaged with parties who want to protect old people in an online banking world, and vote for politicians who want to preserve cash. Just know that your best funded co campaigners will be the mob and tax dodgers.

Wortfindungseuphorie.

We are just asking old questions here. The printing press, novels, and pamphlets were the end of truth! We struggled, many people died, but life moved on. Then newspapers, more death, radio, world wars. Television, photoshop, the internet - fewer deaths in between but still. And life moved on.

Every new medium brought a phase of uncertainty (and possible carnage). That’s where we are right now. Every time we think “this is the worst EVER.” Until the next thing comes around. We will figure out the slop tsunami as well. I think fewer people will die than during the reformation.

Some people will successfully bend truth to generated video or whatever. But in the end, most will not succeed. Because we get wiser at spotting the bullshit. Q Anon showed us the learning isn’t a linear development; it follows more of a two steps forward, one step back pattern.

Have you ever noticed the difference in screen quality before? Did you ever watch a YT video on something slightly better than a cathode ray monitor and thought to yourself: “hmm, this is shit.”? If so, don’t cheap out on the tablet. Maybe a used iPad might even be ideal. I’m leaning Apple here because Android tablet screens tend to be worse on average and there will be fewer good ones on the resale market.

If you don’t want a big TV, how about a smaller one that you can cast content to? Just as another suggestion because other folks have already suggested laptops.

As you get older, your eyes turn to shit and most of this won’t matter that much. So you’re right to be cautious on the spending.

I proudly watch movies on my phone. If I don’t want to watch Paw Patrol or Frozen it’s the only way to get some not-made-for-kids content in. And I can take it to the toilet and continue watching. And I don’t mean porn, just to clarify. Sure, as the cinematic experience goes, it isn’t what Christopher Nolan had in mind but shit happens. It’s that or nothing.

Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture.

“Random” “Random, with rules”

Me: They’re the same picture.

Having to learn about genetics made me drop biology as a subject as soon as I could in school. I might have been able to wrap my head around it slightly better than OP but not by much.

[Find in Page:] “Parent”=0 “Parents”=0 “Father”=0 “Mother”=0

It’s their job to guard their kids from this content first and foremost. It’s their job to put it into context for their children. But the article doesn’t even mention that any of this is a humongous failing of parents.

Next this commissioner will want to outlaw computer mice because they’re used to click pornographic content without verifying the age of the finger on the button. And roads because adult content actors use them to get to jobs.

The way forward is not banning or making worse all sorts of useful tools as collateral damage in this “think of the children” campaign. It is to get all adult content everywhere behind a barrier toddlers cannot break. We were fine with porn mags partially obscured on the top shelf at a news agent when that was a thing. And the salesperson making sure the customer wasn’t a minor. The solution isn’t closing all digital news agents.

And it’s quite telling that the existence of VPNs didn’t play a bigger part in this UK online safety initiative. Like it wasn’t obvious that when the west entrance to porn central was closed off, people wouldn’t naturally look for the ones in east, north, and south.

Edited typo

I’m not a geneticist, I don’t even play one on TV. But i’m fairly confident in saying: evening out? That’s not how this works. When your daddy’s sperm combined with your mother’s egg, a whole host of chance processes happened to make up your genes. It’s random as far as I can tell. It isn’t just averaging out between them.

Touché. If I were in your place I would still try and find another forum, even if you ended up giving all your data to Discord or something like that.

One of the reasons is adversarial policies. They will sniff out you’re using a VPN and they will throw stuff at you. Oh, weird activity from your account. Oh, change your password. Oh, we need to get a proper ID from you. Unless you’re getting $$$ betting info, it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Just out of interest: what’s on FB messenger that makes all the things you are willing to do to circumvent the grubby data tentacles worth it? I’m just asking because I came to the conclusion not to use FB a while ago and I haven’t looked back.

It took centuries to get to disposable contact lenses while trying to figure out the physics, both in optics and in manufacturing any sort of spectacles, at the same time.

Will the survivors of the apocalypse be able to pick up where we left off or will they essentially start from scratch? That depends on the apocalypse and on the survivors. Do documents and knowledge survive, perhaps in a stash or in digital form? Do the survivors include an optician or a material engineer? Chances look good if that’s the case. If no, life will get a lot harder for many people.

Germany is a collection of regions and former midieval fiefdoms that pretty much all hate each other. Munich and surroundings is representative of Munich, not the whole country. But a lot of the stereotypical things Americans think of when thinking of Germany will be there. Most of the South was occupied by US forces post WW2 and all the lederhosen, Oktoberfest, and Neuschwanstein Castle should feel just right for you. And that pisses off the Germans in the rest of the country like telling a Texan their BBQ is trash.

Somebody said Germans aren’t into smalltalk. That’s probably true by comparison to the average American but by comparison to their countrymen in the North they are positively chatty in Bavaria.

Bring cash or research at least two ways to get your hands on it while in the country. Just in case one method fails. A lot of places do not accept credit cards and that will probably extend to US debit cards that run on a cc system.

And yes, especially intercity trains are a clustereff of neglect and wear and tear and timetables are not to be trusted at all.

Don’t rent a car and just floor it on the autobahn. Take it at 120kph/75mph first for an hour before you put your pedal to the metal. Get a feel for the road and the rules first because Germans love a rule. And it decreases your chance of hitting a concrete pillar. No speed limit areas tend to be between cities, not on the built up areas. Know that speeding tickets will be charged after the fact or they will follow you by mail.

The staring people refer to here may be, to a large extent, that if there are no Chinese tourists in the area, American ones will be the loudest ones around, carrying their cute little fear of dehydration made manifest water bottles around. You look funny to us and we can’t help it. Don’t buy bottled water, tap is fine to drink. But there aren’t drinking fountains around. A lot of drinks in bottles and cans charge a deposit fee you’ll get back when you return the empty container to the supermarket - your kid will know the drill.

If you’re planning to cross borders be prepared for actual border checks. Our version of ICE crackdowns is making the federal police force delay EU cross border traffic with pretty much EU-illegal ID checks. We spend absolute millions of Euros, accruing a gazillion hours of overtime to catch two illegal immigrants or thereabouts. Political theater with waiting times for all.

Doesn’t difficult very much depend on what you think matters? You’re instantly missing out on anything app, anything QR-code related (ordering food in some restaurants, links, etc.), membership cards that no longer exist in physical form. Some places sell certain tickets online only and then you may need a printer or you’re SOL. I’m sure in missing something so that’s not extensive.

But at the same time, if you have a dumb phone, you can still stay in touch with friends and family. You’ll be missing out on images being sent that are bigger than 2 pixels. But you wouldn’t be completely out of the loop. And if you have an internet ready computer at home or at the next door library, just not on you at all times, I think that’s crucial. Without that you’re ending up in all sorts of trouble.

I would say it’s doable if you are good at not giving F’s. If at the same time you only want to use cash or just no credit cards you’ll be making your life much harder though.

Become active in your local politics. That’s where this urban design sausage is made. I’m gonna go ahead and doubt that your post here will reach many decision makers and urban designers.

The reason why you can angle that parasol is because it will cost more money. Anything the public can use will be abused and then broken. We cannot have nice things.

Never accept a pasta served by an “Australian mushroom.”

No one here can tell you for sure what’s wrong with your cable. So no one can answer if it will be good or bad over time. Slow (normal) charging is better for your battery than fast charging. A wobbly wire might stop and restart the charging process, which might be detrimental to the battery over time.

But it could also be that your port is so clogged up with pocket lint that the contact in your phone is affected and that’s why fast charging no longer works. Something could be broken in the brick you use and that’s why it won’t work any more. It could be that the cable was bent so many times it’s broken. It’s probably that.

You could try to narrow down where the error lies. If you use a friend’s cable does the same thing happen? Friend’s fine-working cable in your power brick? If you got a phone repair kiosk in your neighborhood, maybe ask them if they could clean your port. If they’re friendly, they can probably help you narrow down this problem also.

It turned out to be a Twitter clone from ten years ago and I realized I didn’t need that any more. If I didn’t need to reach some people who cannot overcome the hurdle the fediverse proper puts up before being enjoyable, I would not be using it today. But media popularity post-Elon-Twitter and relative ease of setup have given the platform relative heft. But it’s not open and not really federated so it’s masquerading and we don’t really want you know whose money is paying the bills behind the scenes either. If anything, the fediverse can learn from Bluesky a thing or two about onboarding people who cannot be asked to invest the time to make Mastodon enjoyable. It will take time, much more time, to get people, especially non-techy ones, to the new normal of being your own algorithm. I see Bluesky as a stepping stone in that direction that will survive in its own niche.

This verification efforts were kicked off earlier this month; this app hasn’t really launched yet, has it? I think proper implementation after a test phase will maybe come next year. I think it is too early to complain that aftermarket OS’s are being excluded. It seems to me that nobody has tackled that problem yet rather than this being a willful exclusion. And while the EU lawmakers thought it was okay to put the Googles of the world in a position where they get to be judge, jury, and executioner for the right to be forgotten, I have a feeling that GDPR and the general vibe within the EU will not allow this to only work with the help of one American corporation on the continent’s most used OS. We need to be watchful but not despairing just yet.

If your approach at dating hasn’t materialized in anything, perhaps it is time to change your approach. For me, the best things happened when I wasn’t trying at all. Be social, be courteous, be nice - and as the owner of a penis: non-threatening.

You have self identified a problem of anxiety. If your next step is to criticize all “females” as being difficult in terms of dating, you’re missing a beat here and making a bad word choice. The problem may be more of a you-problem than a them-problem. Also, no matter the primary sexual organ situation, people can pick up on both an air of entitlement or the scent of desperation.

Also, all cicadas shout for sex but not every cicada gets laid.

If there is no checking in place, like an airport security check and/or check for devices emitting radio waves. Also, the producers know where the candidates are at, don’t they? If they spot regular drone flights in the area, I think the game will be up as well.