If you look at the image on the left you’ll see that 5 of the smaller squares won’t fit in the big one.

I joined a boycott for an international conference that is planned for San Francisco at the end of October. The organizer started the movement in January, knowing what was to come. Things have only gotten worse since then… the organizers are determined to see it through… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Interesting. I think that there’s always been a tension between labor and environmentalists.

In the long term environmentally friendly policies help everyone, but in the short term they often inflict pain on someone, and often the workers (or farmers) bear the brunt of that, so they oppose the changes. Consider closing down factories that are polluting, or forcing farms to stop using pesticides.

Will you please explain more? I can barely keep up with local politics so don’t know anything about German parties…

My wife made our wedding rings (she’s an amateur silversmith). I keep mine on a bandolier on my backpack so I always have it with me, but I rarely wear it. My wife lost hers, somewhere in our home.

Helaas ben ik te lang om de nachttrein te genieten. Ik liever een lange dag met lekker lezen en relaxen in de trein.

It shows the evolution of the empire.

At some point the need for casus belli disappears and then the wars of pure domination begin.

You do realize that Iraq and Iran are not the same country, right?

A lot of TV have a USB port and can play directly from that.

My wife is Dutch and thinks that all American high schools look like an ivy league university and have students that look like they’re 20 walking around having sexy dramatic adventures. 🙈

Have they said “thank you” once?

I wonder how the comparison would look if you compared years lost per type of death?

That is, old people die of heart disease and cancer. Young people die of accidents and violence.

My point is that there is an actual difference. It’s not just a repackaged web app, and has actual drawbacks.

My personal plan is to move as much of my day to day stuff to a Mecha Comet, and also carry my Fairphone running Android for whatever proprietary crap that the world wants me to run. It’s two devices, but hopefully will minimize exposure to big tech.

My bank requires using a card reader for ID if you use a web browser. It can be done but it means carrying three physical things (phone, bank card, bank card reader) instead of one (phone).

Fireworks are banned starting in 2026, so I remain hopeful.

Of course, they were banned in most Dutch cities already, and I haven’t met a single Dutch person who expects things to get better…

I thought that it was journalists?

Yes, all the wires were black when I opened the panel up. 🙈

Other light switches in my house had no neutral wire, which is surprising to me since our house is not very old. 😥 This one had three wires, so presumably with a neutral… probably because it is right next to a power outlet, unlike the other switches I replaced so far, which let whatever hack the lazy person who wired this up easily add ground.

I labelled each wire what I thought it should be, based on where they were inserted into the old switch. The old light switch had no markings on it to indicate what each hole was for, but one was red, so almost certainly the live wire. One of the other two was the return wire and the other the neutral.

I ended up just guessing, which powered up the new Zigbee switch but didn’t actually light up the lamp. Swapping those two did the job and now it’s perfect in every way, although I’m waiting for some wall filler to dry so the ugly gap at the top can be eliminated…

But you will need more unused capacity to avoid wasting energy with lots of small batteries than with fewer larger ones. It does matter.

I think it is inefficient for each home in a neighborhood to have their own battery. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have a big battery for 20 homes or so?

It feels like individual action when collective action is needed.

That belongs in museum!