I go into a lot of fancy houses for work and some of them have urinals in some of their bathrooms, I’m always quite jealous about them when I see one, would definitely be nice to have (and that’s coming from someone that sits to pee at home, but does experience some of the issues you describe).

They’re still popular here in Europe. My last car was a wagon.

I’m in the business myself, and the way I handle this is simple. When it’s coming from people I know personally, I look at it like I’m going to do it for free, I weigh that decision that way and only say yes if I accept that. I let them know my rates are quite expensive, and that I’m not asking that from them because I’m doing it as a favour/for the art/for myself (depending on what we’re talking about, weddings, portraits, short films, something for their business etc). Then I let them decide if and how much they’d like to offer, and I’m happy with anything, because I’ve already accepted this was something I was gonna do “for free”.

Weddings in particular, I did a bunch when I was young and these days I’d never pursue more work in that niche, I only do it for family/friends and then the last thing I want is for money to sour things.

Obviously you can’t be doing that all the time, thankfully I don’t and have plenty of properly paid work as well. But you gotta make the difference between favours and clients and can’t look at it the same way, if my wife’s cousin asks if I can help her film some clips for her cupcake side-business I ain’t gonna treat it like a corporate client and ask the 1200€+ day-rate.

Your are basically just making the case for nationalisation (which I agree with). Amazon, bol.com, Uber, all these things could be (inter)national services managed by and for the public.

I tried, it was terrible.

Except it’s the individual countries of the alliance that participate in the world cup, England, Scotland, etc.

Shut up, brand.

That must be so peaceful, I’m insanely jealous.

This is the name of a place in the Netherlands, I tried to Google these cubes but no luck, I’m very curious.

That was the joke I was attempting to make, yeah 😅

Well, you can’t buy a pack of smokes with that hourly rate, so that gives a clue…

That was me two days ago. Spoiler: nothing is fixed and now I’m even more late…

This is all American rave stuff, around here it’s just black, black and more black.

You’re telling me I could’ve gotten high with my cat this whole time?

I remain convinced I’ll die choking on some stupid piece of food… I’ve had a couple close calls already. It’s been a while though, probably so I let my guard down before the big one.

The only interest in developing EU tech is so that it has to abide by our modern regulations and play fair, it’s pointless if we just allow them the same free reign they get in the US, the European techies aren’t inherently less greedy than the Americans, they’re just kept in check by the regulations. It’s a fine line for the EU to walk between stiffling and enabling.

The classic blunder.

I’ve done one better, I’m just never going to the US again.

I’m both…

She’s a beauty.