It can be both of these. People do drive with disregard to the safety of others, and if the road was designed better drivers would naturally slow down to protect themselves and their car.

There’s numerous forms of traffic calming beyond speed bumps - raised intersections at crossings, chicanes on one-way streets, curb extensions at crossings, median islands for pedestrian crossings, placing trees along the street side to limit distant vision, and even just adding some curves to a long street will all naturally compel drivers to slow down.

I can see examples of all of these everywhere I go in the Netherlands, and it works: we have ~4 vehicular deaths per 100,000 compared to the US’ 12.6 per 100,000.

Yes, there was a lot of work to do. Which is why waiting almost two years to start working is so fucking appalling. They should have started in early 2021!

Biden took office Jan 20th, 2021. Garland didn’t appoint Jack Smith until November 18th, 2022 - one year and almost ten full months later. Almost halfway through Biden’s term. What Trump did on January 6th was obvious and well known before Biden took office, the fact that Jack Smith wasn’t appointed IN EARLY 2021 is a colossal failure on Biden’s part.

So it turns out most of my youtube subscriptions are history related, but…

• Kings and Generals for historical battles because I’m a giant nerd.
• Miniminuteman for fun debunking of archaeology myths
• Mark Felton for WWII history
• toldinstone for Roman history
• History Matters for short introductions to historical topics with amusingly drawn characters
• The Tim Traveller for slightly odd and very nerdy travel destinations
• History With Hilbert because… uh… look, I like history okay?
• Atun-Shei Films for US civil & revolutionary war history
• WorldWarTwo for a documentary of WWII that advances one week per episode (originally recorded in real time)
• TimeGhost for general history done by the same people that make WorldWarTwo
• antichef is some guy that started as a pretty bad amateur chef trying to make Julia Child recipes. Now he’s a decent amateur chef doing the same.
• Dr. Glaucomfleken for medical jokes
• Townsends for early American history and recipes
• Primitive Technology to just chill and watch a shirtless guy in the Australian outback build housing and tools from absolute scratch
• UshankaShow for Soviet history and discussion of life in Soviet Ukraine

Biden’s inaction, and his appointing Merrick Garland who also did far too little far too late, are only two of many events in a long chain that built up to this.

Before Biden there was the failure to do anything about Obama’s war crimes, the failure to do anything about GWB’s numerous war crimes and lies that started two wars, the failure to do anything about Reagan and the Iran-Contra scheme or the rigging of HUD, the failure to actually prosecute Nixon… all the way back to failing to actually prosecute the confederates that murdered 1.5 million people. Jefferson Davis was never even prosecuted, and was released from jail after two years without a trial.

The US is broken because it has never held powerful people responsible for their crimes. The revolution to depose a king only established an oligarchy of the wealthy.

Another option: give urinals their own stalls / rooms. Just give everybody privacy.

I moved from the US to the Netherlands, and it really makes this whole attitude even more insane. Like, the solution is easy and obvious: GIVE PEOPLE PRIVACY IN BATHROOMS.

There’s no need for gendered bathrooms if everybody gets their own small stall or closet that actually provides privacy. I do mean floor to ceiling doors, not this weird and creepy as fuck American “we need to see you shitting just in case you’re doing smack” nonsense that leaves gaps between the panels large enough to make eye contact and engage in a firm handshake through.

I don’t know how many times I’ve walked out of the toilet closet and immediately met a woman cleaning the men’s room. And it’s fine!

I was the sysadmin for a local company that mainly did custom ecommerce & CMS site building for local companies. Way before I started they also provided email addresses to local residents, and the first like ~100 people to sign up got a free account for life. We offered like 250MB storage, which was pretty awesome in the pre-gmail days.

Anyway, one of the lucky residents to sign up was a very interesting guy. In and out of homeless shelters, he ran for mayor every election, and at one point built his own three-wheeled Segway-like thing that he decorated to look like a Roman chariot that he would ride around during the weekly farmer’s market.

So yea. One day we get a call and the usual tech support bump it up to me because they don’t understand it. I answer the phone and am met with a barrage of rants about how my company is in league with the satanic monsters at AOL trying to stop him from becoming mayor and how once he’s elected he’ll blow our cover and expose us all.

Dear reader, he was trying to send an email to an @aol.com account that didn’t exist, and was getting a “no such address” reply from their “mailer daemon” - their mail server software.

I didn’t know who he was before then, but that’s how I learned.

One wonders why the application “used for everything related to authentication with government services” runs on a Private Sector cloud.

I read (no citation here, I forget where I saw this now) a while back somebody involved saying that their procurement policies require they accept the lowest bid tended, as long as its legally submitted and not obviously a scam.

So yes, typical neo-liberal right-wing mentality is very much at fault I suspect.

Since the article is in Dutch, let me try to provide a little extra context:

1. It’s not actually the company that runs DigiD, that’s Logius, who is part of the ministry of the interior.
2. It’s about the cloud-hosting company that DigiD runs on. The DigiD code was open sourced, though it looks like the GitHub repository is now archived (https://github.com/MinBZK/woo-besluit-broncode-digid-app)
3. It really is used for everything related to authentication with government services. Doing your taxes, scheduling an appointment with the city government for <insert anything>, scheduling a doctors appointment, getting a prescription refilled, on and on.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t DigiD created by Logius, which is part of the “Interior Ministry” to roughly translate into English?

Eh, learn something new every day I guess.

From now on I will only use Newtons when discussing temperature.

It sure is. But it’s also really, really easy to convert between the various units of measurement.

Yes, a US audience:

1. CNN is an American company
2. My comment was specifically for Americans that may not understand or appreciate the situation, as houses there are built very differently and are less prone to baking their occupants during summer.

Why does my labeling the unit of measurement bother you so much you have to comment on it specifically? I’m genuinely confused here.

Why? I’m clearly addressing an American audience from a non-American location; specifying if I’m using Fahrenheit or Celsius just helps avoid confusion. Does the label of the unit bother you?

Hell yea; I love the rain here. You’ll get so many weird looks from Dutch people saying that, but whatever. Fuck summer, I’d rather live with year round winter personally.

After living in the Netherlands for about three years (moved here from the US) I finally gave in and ordered an air conditioner. I was slightly worried about my neighbors judging us for it (it’ll hang out the window, it’s hard to not notice) only to learn that they also bought one that same day.

All the homes are brick, and are well suited to retaining heat through winter. I only set my thermostat to ~65F for a single room and leave the rest of the apartment unheated and the other rooms average about 50F. In summer though it may peak at 85F outside, but inside it will hit 100F and just stay there for hours even when it’s back down to 65F outside at night.

Awesome in winter, and an oven in summer.

It’s not all that remarkable for being in Europe, but… five weeks vacation per year.

Ah, I see you’ve met my mother.

The IND (Immigration & Naturalization Department) has pretty good docs online and in English: https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/work/residence-permit-self-employed-person

Not just any business; IIRC lawyers & doctors are restricted, and prostitution isn’t allowed. Although if you bring a spouse they are allowed to work without restrictions, including prostitution… if that’s your/their thing.

There’s no minimum “value” or income requirements at first (though if you want to get renewed at the two year mark you’ll need to demonstrate the business is doing at least something), you basically just need to put 4.5k euro in your business’ bank account and never let it go under that base 4.5k.

General advice: read everything you can; what I just wrote is ~3 years old and could have changed since. I paid an immigration attorney to handle my & spouse’s application something like 1k euro and think it was well worth it. Shipping stuff by boat usually comes with a minimum space purchase, which also means a minimum cost of 5k (again, few years old on that reference…). Most electronics aren’t worth bringing due to the AC/DC difference, though I disassembled my desktop and brought everything but the case and power supply in my luggage on the plane.

And lastly, if you are seriously considering it, learn the language. I can’t stress it enough. This isn’t just a two week vacation, you will eventually need to interact with dentists, doctors, repairmen, delivery people, etc, who probably speak great English but it isn’t guaranteed – especially if they’re older or if you live outside the randstad. I know some fellow Americans here that barely know any Dutch and it makes everything feel more difficult for them; even basic knowledge helps a lot if you’re on the train and you hear an announcement “the rear of the train is staying at the following station and going back, if you wish to continue further move to the front cabins”

Avoid Duolingo, it used to be good but it’s all AI-enshittified shit. I recommend Busuu, and when you feel like it’s starting to make sense do some actual lessons. “NOS Journaal in Makkelijke Taal” (“NOS Journal in Easy Language”) is good to watch; it’s a 8-ish minute news report of the day in simple and (usually) kindof slowly spoken Dutch. Just keep watching until it works.