It helps that 90% of the population can cycle to work if they have to. Remote work is also very big.

Don’t forget trains not running due to leaves on the track.

Germany also was very punctual with their trains during the war.

> Have you ever tried to build and maintain a shuttle PC yourself? It's obnoxious.

The benefit of a SFF PC you made yourself it that it doesn’t use proprietary hardware like the Steam Machine, is easily repaired and easily upgraded.

This is very true. I had a Ryzen Mini PC up until a couple of months ago, when it broke. Low quality VRMs, needed board repair.

Support says I need custom molds to reapply the liquid metal thermal compound, or it would 100% leak. Regular thermal compound just isn’t good enough. It was true. I could send it to China and they would fix it for free, but it would take 60 days and I would have to pay tariffs.

I just cut my losses and harvested the RAM and SSD for something more dependable.

In most of Europe you can drive a 4250kg EV with a simple drivers license you got after taking six lessons in 1972. Madness.

Anything over 2000kg should require a truck license including retesting every five years imho.

A reasonable range small EV weighs more than that. 3500kg is reasonable. Regenerative braking and brakes in general are much better than when those weight limits were imposed.

A Tesla Model 3 is under 2000kg. Anything above that is either an SUV or a poorly designed car. 2000kg+ is a lot of weight if it plows into a group of people or the back of a car. There should absolutely be an incentive for manufacturers to produce lighter cars.

The EU is working on the M1e car class that has a weight cap of 1500kg. It would be great if cities would only allow cars under M1e to enter.

I’m European and protection laws are nice to have but if a shop doesn’t refund you those laws don’t automatically give you your money back. That is where a credit-card comes in handy. I don’t know any bank that offers this protection on a debit-card.

Yes, but even then you can usually go to the bank, at least in italy despite not being called chargeback you can ask a refund for scams or similar issues. More modern fintech banks give you this option directly in the app, otherwise you might need to chat with an operator

At least here I see online that there's the possibility to do so (even with debt cards). However, I guess that with a credit card it is going to be less annoying for you, or any way easier for you, since it's their money on the table and not yours

I'm talking about italy btw

Edit I also think that prepaid cards here are what have less protection

And most Europeans that have a credit-card need to pay them off at the end of the month. Technically they are charge cards. Unlike a traditional credit card, a charge card does not allow you to carry a revolving balance.

This is not true. Plenty of Europeans have credit cards which work exactly like US credit cards.

The main difference between credit cards in Europe and in the US is that poor people can't get them here.

> The main difference between credit cards in Europe and in the US is that poor people can't get them here.

Nah, really the main difference is that the EU caps interchange (paid ultimately by the merchant) at 0.3%, whereas it can be upwards of 3% in the US for high-end cards. Without big interchange earnings, there's little reason for issuers to push credit cards, and they're less attractive to consumers (interchange pays for 'reward' schemes).

I was denied credit card after changing jobs. I did have some student debt, but small amount on small payment and rates were low. Also had other credit card but not high limit. Nothing in negative credit history.

Did get the same card a few months later after probationary period. But yeah even without significant existing debt you can get denied in Europe.

Let's not pretend that predatory lending is not a thing in at least some EU countries as well, just because it takes other forms (installment payments, buy now pay later etc.), but as a general trend, I'd agree that it's much less common.

I have to pay it off each month unless I want the high interest rates (20%? Not sure, a direct debit clears it monthly after payday and the 1% cashback is credited each year

This is very unusual these days.

The global stock market has been outperforming Bitcoin for a while now.

Serial and PS2 is even cheaper to implement than USB yet I’m happy that we removed those ports in favor of something modern.

One of the many reasons not to buy Logitech.