TWeaK

Sounds like the Alcoholic’s Anonymous loophole will work, you just need to decide your higher power is a doorknob or whatever.

Denmark is already doing the same thing anyway. You haven’t highlighted any particular advantages of KylinOS over other variants of Linux.

I don’t think it would be wise to install an operating system developed for the Chinese military. That’s just moving the problem somewhere else - instead of trusting Microsoft and the US, you’re trusting China. China are much more likely to have off the shelf hacking solutions for their operating system than whatever variant of Linux you freely choose.

It does happen often, and it changes over time. For example, my HSBC app used to work just fine without Play Store at all, then it requried some integrity, now it requires strong integrity.

Yeah it’s very hit and miss though, and potentially the bank could require strong Play Store integrity, which can only be achieved with a clean keybox file (hard to find).

With regards to contactless purchases, you’re actually better off doing it with the physical card contactless, in terms of consumer rights. A contactless card purchase is processed as “Cardholder not present”, where the seller assumes some of the liability for verifying the transaction is legit. With such a purchase you can easily argue that someone stole your card and made transactions without your permission, making it easier to claim under consumer protection laws.

This type of purchase has existed for decades and was used for catalogue purchases as well as early internet purchases. If you make a purchase with your card and PIN, or your phone with its PIN, then the purchase is considered authenticated by you and it will be harder to argue it wasn’t you. These days a lot of internet purchases are also authenticated (often by SMS or apps) but a contactless card purchase is not.

Magisk (root) plus possibly modules. I don’t think Revolut requires that, I think you can just set Magisk to Zygisk domain and hide root by putting Revolut in the deny list.

If it requires more then you’ll need to look into MicroG implementations on your device. Assuming Pixel devices (because the user above said GrapheneOS etc), then you’ll be installing MicroG as a Magisk module along with Play Integrity Fix, Shamiko, Tricky Store and Zygisk Assistant, at least for Android 14. You’ll need a clean keybox file though, and those are very tricky to get, if you want to pass strong integrity but you should be able to get most Play Store Integrity checks to pass then. Without the keybox though some banking apps won’t work (because those banks are bastards) without passing strong integrity.

At least you can get around that.

Isn’t Revolut that company owned by the son of a member of the board of Russia’s Gazprom? Weren’t they also partnering with a mobile phone company that was owned by Russians, so to get around sanctions they sold it to a German Russophile for €1, meanwhile continuing to pay profits to sanctioned Russians?

Revolut isn’t really a good alternative for Buy European - and I say that as a user myself. By all means take advantage of the deals and low rates (good currency exchange rates), but be wary of integrating it into your traditional banking and definitely think twice before making it your main bank.

Rail contracts and train companies aren’t the problem. The problem is rail stock leasing, which has obsene prices and pushes the public-facing train companies to both be expensive but also run a paper thin margin. Nationalising the train companies won’t do anything about rail stock leasing, the government needs to focus on the root problem, not buy out the under-performing public facing business at a high price.

The thing is there are multiple companies/sectors involved here, and this isn’t addressing the worst of them (yet, if ever).

First you have the railway lines themselves. These are run by Network Rail, which is already a part of the Department for Transport. This part covers a significant expense, but it’s needed and run fairly lean.

Then you have the train companies. These are the ones running the trains, they are typically private businesses. They lease rail stock (trains and carriages) and sell tickets, while paying Network Rail for the use of the lines. These are the customer facing businesses, and South Western Rail is one of them and the one nationalised in this story. In spite of having high ticket prices and revenue, they have low profits due to high costs.

Lastly you have the rail stock companies. These are the real villains, frankly, much moreso than train companies. They set leasing prices for trains, and in turn cause the train companies to run at paper thin margins. They aren’t customer facing, so the public eye isn’t upon them and they get away with a lot. They have established long term contracts, so simply nationalising a train company won’t end this deal.

However, nationalising train companies does mean that the government (either the DfT or the new Great British Railways) will be negotiating with rail stock companies. In theory, the government are a bigger entity, so have a better negotiating position, and also they should be more motivated to bring the costs down. Private rail companies make more money overall with paper thin margins on high prices, not only because a small percentage of a bigger number can be bigger, but because having a small margin puts them in a better negotiating position with local government (“You have to give us a good deal, we can’t afford to operate otherwise, and you need us”).

So nationalising train companies might lead to lower prices in future, through fairer leasing rates on rail stock. However this won’t start to happen until these contracts are renewed.

Really, a much heavier hand is needed from the government, one that focuses specifically on the rail stock leasing sector.

They already fulfilled their targets in the stock market, time to reset the deal until they’re ready for the next round of manipulation.

Not that odd, if anything I thought it was strange that someone would give their name and their family’s image to a paper, particularly on a subject as contentious as this.

“Al Moy” may also be a pseudonym. I wonder if “Al Moy” even exists.

Also, while the Torygraph have pulled the article on their site, it’s still up on yahoo: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/earn-345k-soaring-private-school-090000096.html

“It seems as though families like us are paying more and more, and being squeezed on everything from our salaries to our outgoings. I know each party has its flaws, but I think the Conservatives are at least a bit more transparent,” he says.

More like the Conservatives didn’t target those with lots of money, those who can make reasonable adjustments, instead focusing on those who already have very little.

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They were required to apologise also, although sincerity cannot be ensured.

Edit: Or rather, the Met police and NPCC have apologised, it seems like the officer has not and generally shows no remorse.

He should have been charged. The fact that none of the legal avenues have involved him is obscene.

Maybe, but I think a transitional approach would be needed to minimise the damage locally. In other words, get the services up and running first, so that the alternative is at least somewhat viable before you force people to pay for not using it.

Yeah, I mean we do get some American food over here, but it’s sold as specialty stuff and ridiculously expensive. I’m basically addicted to US Dr Pepper (they use a different recipe in Europe, hell in the US and Canada Dr Pepper is produced by Pepsi but in the EU it’s made by Coca Cola) but the price is already crazy. A 12 pack is about $6 USD (pre tax) on offer in Walmart, in the UK on Amazon it’s £28 (inc tax) for 2 ($38.05 or $14 per 12 pack). On the shelves in places that have it the cheapest price is probably £1.50 per can ($2.04) but only goes up from there.

There are a fair few US candy shops around Europe, at least in major European cities, but more than likely these are money laundering fronts first and foremost.

Thank you, this is something I’ve been screaming from the rooftops.

Trump doesn’t care about the American people who will pay his tariffs. China doesn’t care about Chinese people paying their tariffs on US goods (although there are probably fewer US imports to China anyway). The EU does care about its people, and shouldn’t tax them with tariffs.

Tariffs only work if you can prevent the local harm (eg Canada were going to tax electricity exports, the US can’t stop buying electricity so Canadian businesses wouldn’t lose sales) or to at least have a plan beforehand to reinvest in local businesses that can replace the imported good.

No, blind retaliatory tariffs would be stupid. When someone is punching themselves in the face, the correct thing to do is not to also punch yourself in the face.

Tariffs have 3 effects:

• The buyer pays more.
• Because the buyer pays more, the seller makes fewer sales.
• The government collects tariff tax revenue.

Whichever way the tariff goes, export or import, it will negatively affect that nation’s people. An import tariff, like this, would negatively affect local consumers. An export tariff (eg Canada tariffing electricity exports to the US) would negatively affect local businesses through lost sales (the genius with Canada is the US can’t stop buying electricity, so sales local sales would stay the same).

The only way a tariff makes sense for a country is if the tariff tax revenue is reinvested into the local economy. For example, if you tariff imports, you should use that revenue to incentivise local businesses to grow to replace that import.

Trump is not doing that. He’s just collecting tax money from American people. He’s almost certainly going to spaff that away on some scam, probably crypto, and basically bankrupt the American taxpayer and fuck up everyone’s livelihoods.

EU countries should not copy Trump and blanket tax their citizens for American imports. If the EU were to implement tariffs (and I argue this isn’t necessary or worthwhile), they should only be done with a plan to reinvest, such that there is a net benefit. Blunt tariffs with no plan will almost certainly have a net negative effect.

China is like Trump, in that neither of them care much about the negative effects on their people. That’s why China went hard with retaliatory tariffs. The EU does not need to emulate that behaviour.

The EU never really had much in terms of American products, ie food stuffs. The kind of American products the EU has is primarily internet services where there aren’t always alternatives (or at least ones that are as polished as the big US ones). Then there’s the fact that most people don’t even consider a lot of things as American - WhatsApp isn’t even recognised as owned by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook/Meta, for example, for many people in spite of it being overwhelmingly the most popular messaging app in many countries.