fun thing about websites - they work perfectly in the EU. instant load times. it's not graphics slowing them down, it's adware tracking that's illegal in europe now.
My internet connection is technically a lot faster, but it craps out or slows down pretty often, and websites are so graphics and glut heavy that the extra speed just gets eaten up. My phone reception is pretty bad and I get broken up calls all the time. My printer sucks.
Browsing is so much better with something like Pihole or NextDNS. Especially on mobile! It sucks that being your own sysadmin or paying a service is the escape hatch for this bullshit.
Very nice! Love to see a product that isn't also a secret Trojan horse for a subscription. Quality networking hardware isn't cheap and you get what you pay for.
You have to pay somewhere. They really do seem to put thought into their products. I used to do a lot of sysadmin work setting up firewalls and stuff. So I can really appreciate how much these devices do. I believe you can put a docker container on the FW to use other OS solutions in conjunction.
Love my firewalla. There are also DNS based ad block services available. But... you're sending all your DNS queries to some random 3rd party, so... Mixed feelings
I suppose at some level you have to trust someone. By and large they seem pretty transparent about things and are very customer focused. If they weren't making money on the device then I'd be more worried they were making money on me :).
Yeah, that's basically my view. If the service is free, it's because you're the product. Currently, though, I'm worried that firewalla's business model isn't maintainable: you can't keep providing forever service for a one time charge.
We also have antique internet in a lot of places, for similar reasons to why certain parts of Manhattan had direct current mains until early in the 21st century
But yes, the reason you listed is the real one
Edison himself hired the best technicians and subjected them to emotional abuse until things worked, then filed patents on any of the resulting innovations he understood & began disinformation campaigns against any (eg. alternating current) he did not.
See: Topsy the Elephant; electric chair
More seriously though, anything with a synchronous motor or a transformer didn’t work in that part of the city, but it was where all the early adopters of consumer electrical appliances lived for decades, so a lot of designs needed universal motors, which are still pretty common in power tools etc.
Oh, I'm sure! I have a trip planned to Europe later this year and I plan on bringing my laptop, so I'll get to experience the joy firsthand!
ABP will be like, "Nothing on this page to block!"
I remember watching websites loading years ago on slow internet. The page would refuse to display anything until every ad had loaded first, even though the page without ads was done loading 10 seconds ago.
Those things ruin everything.
Are there any majority-Anglophone communities left in the EU now that Brexit has removed Britain? I kinda want to move to Europe, but have never managed to stick with the task of learning any of the foreign languages I've tried long enough to become fluent in any of them...
But honestly you'll have a much better time if you make an effort to learn the language of the community you're in. Plus it's good for the brain to keep learning.
yeah but I'd feel kinda like a colonizer moving there... maybe if I put the "h" back in my last name they'd forgive whichever ancestor of mine removed it to try to fit in better with the British?
Don't worry about it. Lived in Germany and Belgium for many years with minimal German, French or Flemish. Travelled through Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Baltics, no problem at all. Though if you want official English speaking, then there's always Ireland.
Speaking to the "foreign language learning" component - the two things that have powered me through past the basics has been getting to *use* the language everyday (immersion, bay-beee!), and having something I'm already interested in that is prominent in the target language.
Seriously I found it a challenge to get someone to try my rubbish French & German on. At least in major cities, nearly everyone under 60 seems to speak pretty good English. And is happy to do it. You'd also learn the language by immersion I'm sure.
