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[JoshuaFH]

Anyone seen TikToking will be shot on sight.

[Duuvian]

Complete ban is stupid. Ban on government devices is fine. Better regulation on privacy protections across the board would be fine. Better moderation would be fine. The answer is not to hypocritically begin building a Great Firewall.

Here is something I learned about moderators (in Kenya)
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/03/kenyan-court-first-to-tell-meta-it-cant-walk-away-from-a-lawsuit-just-by-claiming-its-not-from-around-here/

Spoiler: From article (click to show/hide)

The allegations also detail what moderators view as pay rates much lower than what should be expected for people hired to wade through the internet cesspool on behalf of a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars. An expose of the work conditions by Time last year contains this absurd explanation for lowballing moderator pay:

    Sama’s late founder Leila Janah attempted to justify the company’s levels of pay in the region. “One thing that’s critical in our line of work is to not pay wages that would distort local labor markets,” she said. “If we were to pay people substantially more than that, we would throw everything off.”

[Culise]

Complete ban is stupid. Ban on government devices is fine.

The ban, starting from March 20, will apply to corporate devices such as mobile phones and tablets which are enrolled in Parliament's mobile management application, a Parliament spokesperson said.

So the issue is what?

[scriver]

He was responding to me, I think

[Duuvian]

Yes I was.

[EuchreJack]

Complete ban is stupid. Ban on government devices is fine. Better regulation on privacy protections across the board would be fine. Better moderation would be fine. The answer is not to hypocritically begin building a Great Firewall.

Here is something I learned about moderators (in Kenya)
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/03/kenyan-court-first-to-tell-meta-it-cant-walk-away-from-a-lawsuit-just-by-claiming-its-not-from-around-here/

Spoiler: From article (click to show/hide)

The allegations also detail what moderators view as pay rates much lower than what should be expected for people hired to wade through the internet cesspool on behalf of a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars. An expose of the work conditions by Time last year contains this absurd explanation for lowballing moderator pay:

    Sama’s late founder Leila Janah attempted to justify the company’s levels of pay in the region. “One thing that’s critical in our line of work is to not pay wages that would distort local labor markets,” she said. “If we were to pay people substantially more than that, we would throw everything off.”

So is the joke that Kenya's Judges understand long-arm jurisdiction better than their EU counterparts?
I have to admit, that is kinda funny.

[martinuzz]

The EU Commission has presented it's new plans for the EU electricity sector. They want to give citizens the right to demand a long-term contract with set prices. Citizens can combine such a contract with a more dynamic contract, that follows the energy costs in real time. This can be good for people who want to use the lower electricity prices at night to charge their electric car.
They also want to give member states the authority to set a maximum price for electricity in case of an energy crisis.

Surprisingly social, they also added a clause that they will forbid energy companies from cutting off people from electricity even if they are in debt.

The Commission wants to go all-in on a transition to more durable forms of electricity generation. Gas powered plants will be phased out, sustainable energy sources (including not only solar, water and wind but also hydrogen and nuclear power) need to be at least tripled by 2030.

To make this possible, governments will be allowed to subsidize sustainable energy companies. The Commission wants there to be both a set minimum price for energy (financial stability for energy producers), as well as a maximum price (financial stability for energy consumers). Excessive profits will be taxed to be given back to the consumers.

[Madman198237]

-snip-

What is this reasonable nonsense? We can't have that in politics!

[jipehog]

The Commission wants to go all-in on a transition to more durable forms of electricity generation. Gas powered plants will be phased out, sustainable energy sources (including not only solar, water and wind but also hydrogen and nuclear power) need to be at least tripled by 2030.

Lets hope it is sustainable because some of that can get really expensive. While more solar and wind is great, as they have become so cost competitive in recent years that in some case they cost less than even operating existing fossil fuel power plants. However, one can't rely on intermittent energy alone, and new Nuclear power plants is the costliest method of production[1], and hydrogen is costlier than gas maybe even costlier than nuclear.

More importantly you will need to invest heavily in energy storage and upgrading your infrastructure. I haven't been following closely but it seem that EU has been investing heavily in that in recent years, however, it is unclear on what schedule and if it is enough. Planed HVDC interconnector and submarine power to Africa or Asia could allow to reduce cost in the long run. (btw the one of the proposed route to Asia goes through Georgia)

[1] i am going by USA data, could be different for EU due to economy of scale, though I doubt its by much, until now all the recent project I heard about went roughly like UKs highspeed train project :/

[Madman198237]

If you maintain a nuclear power plant and keep it running for a long time then it can become the cheapest power source because the fuel is so inexpensive (per kWh). The initial investment scares away today's profits-now obsessed investors and businesspeople.

[martinuzz]

Most nuclear power plants do not have a long enough lifespan to make cheap fuel worth the investment. Not to mention that running a nuclear plant requires more than just the fuel. Skilled staff, high security, just to mention a few. Nuclear power is expensive power.

The main benefit of nuclear power right now is it's low CO2 footprint.

[martinuzz]

In today's elections for the Dutch provincial government (and indirectly, the Senate), newcomer populist farmer party 'BBB' seems to have become the largest party according to exit polls.
Their main theme is being against nitrogen emission regulations for farmers, and they support using tractors to protest.

Strange times

[EuchreJack]

Tractors must be allowed to vote!

[hector13]

Tractors are speech.

[martinuzz]

But only if everyone gets a tractor!