Neshura

Same, the only thing talkings to the internet are my reverse proxy and the security cameras (only when viewing them from outside the local network, quite like what reolink does there)

I go out of my way to exclusively spend money with the one publisher I’ve found who does not put DRM in their ebooks. I spend lavishly with them because good practices need to be rewarded monetarily in capitalism or they die out.

The rest I pirate.

Robbing a store is illegal. Murdering someone is also illegal, however one of the two is for good reasons punished much more harshly.

At least here in Germany the bypassing of DRM is so legal they don’t even try to get you for it. The only thing they ever go after nowadays is distributing and consuming that cracked content (get logless VPN and that problem solves itself). But if you go and rip Netflix movies for your own enjoyment they have no leg to stand on in court unless you distribute it.

I will never stop being confused by this law. Just crossing the street cannot possibly be illegal anywhere. I’m fully convinced the entire thing is an elaborate joke by the americans.

Over here you can even make copies for personal use or sharing with a close group of friends.

I love the unintended consequences of declaring that the internet is to be treated under the same laws as radio broadcasts. Suddenly being allowed to make a recorded copy of anything as long as you yourself create the copy becomes significantly more important.

Between this and infinity nikki actively blocking non SteamDeck devices I have a feeling that Valve will bring the hammer down on this sometime soon.

When people buy a game, the store front says it should run and then it doesn’t they’re not going to yell at the developers. They’re going to yell at the store and I doubt Valve wants to bother with the extra support workload that entails.

There is a distinct difference between taking out a loan on your house and saddling it 100% with debt again. Obviously any loan taken out should under all circumstances be one you can comfortably pay back.

Taking out 20k on a 1m home is way different than taking out 20k on a 100k home.

Plus, at least here, if you lose your job the following happens:

• for 2 years you’ll get 80% of your previous paycheck (assuming you worked long enough to qualify, iirc 5 years. if not you get time deducted)
• at the same time as the end of your current employment you have the option to stop/reduce payments on the loan for a time due to special circumstances (technically not mandatory but not bank will give you a large loan without this added insurance, iirc interest will still accrue in this time essentially extending the length of the loan)

Couple that with not being stupid and getting a loan that eats your entire home as backing and you are pretty much safe from any short term disruption in your finances.

To touch on a few other points:

• yes blindly investing is dumb, if the market gives you an uneasy gut don’t invest. That thing has a habit of being wildly irrational until it suddenly and very quickly is forced to realign with reality
• if you have the luck and are in a union that negotiates your wages you will likely receive a “pay rise” aka inflation compensation every couple of years, in such a case a loan as I describe it also makes sense for personal use (in small sums) because inflation will further reduce the interest. Think taking out a loan to renovate a room instead of saving up for it, after everything is properly accounted for the loan backed by property variant will leave you with slightly more money (depending on general interest situation, if interest rates are high but inflation low things might differ)

And worst comes to worst, rent out a room in your house as a sublet and use that to pay exclusively for the mortgage. Any loan you ever take out against an owned home shouldn’t have higher monthly payments than that anyway or it, as you say, turns into an insane gamble no one in their right mind should take.

at least not without preparation, it’s insane that you have to figure out inheritance in advance or your descendants get screwed. If you set things up properly then here you can inherit a primary residence tax free, but if you don’t set things up then you’re just shafted.

One example: If you get to own a house (that’s paid off) not having debt on it is stupid because you get the lowest interest a regular person possibly can get. Even if everyone else has interest rates up to their mouth you’ll get a rate so cushy investing the money in any index fund will outperform your interest payments.

How anyone in leadership gave the OK for a connector this asinine is beyond me. That’s, on a technical level, a very real fire hazard