Germany, with 100% paper ballots, has preliminary results in by the end of the night. That’s preliminary as in “everything has been counted, but we haven’t double-checked anything yet”. The final result comes later and has never differed in even close to significant ways from the preliminary one. Most of the time delay is not due to voting but to give people and courts time to deal with any challenge there might be.
The German constitutional court declared voting machines unconstitutional for the simple reason that they don’t allow people with just an ordinary education, no specialist knowledge, to ascertain for themselves that the vote is kosher.
The CCC actually tried to get them outlawed based on technical grounds, including that it’s impossible to have electronic voting that is both secure and private (“can’t prove to the Mafia boss how you voted” type of private), the judges listened intendedly and asked many smart questions, just to then turn around and say “yeah we barely understood that and we’re practically all professors and it’s our job, can’t expect J. Random Citizen to do that between shifts”.
On the flipside there’s overseas territories which don’t use the Euro, and there’s been plenty of talk of a multi-speed Europe. Single market won’t be negotiable, though, so there’s going to be inspections at the border keeping refrigerated eggs and chlorinated chickens out.
Links but no screenshots, insert joke about Gnome’s UX.
The Steam store is a nightmare for discovery.
It’s brilliant actually. I mean it’s still arguably a shitshow, but Steam is very good at letting shovelware sink to the bottom of their algorithms.
1000xResist was an indie title that was named GOTY 2024 by a few publications, but they only just crossed 100,000 copies sold about a week ago.
Not bad for a story-focussed adventure.
Sifu sold 3m, Baba is You about half a million. The game may be brilliant, the GOTY award may be perfectly deserved, still ain’t going to play it because it’s not my genre. “Story-focussed adventure” is like a quarter of a step above walking simulator when it comes to ludological complexity I’d rather read a book. That’s of course just me, for the general audience… well, it’s niche.
Also btw young people never drove sales. The reason is simple: They’re broke.
I was talking about the foundation itself, not foundation+subsidiaries. And yes ever since the writing was on the wall wrt. google funds they’ve been putting more and more money in investments to make sure they can survive, as opposed to grants. Still keeping with the foundation’s mandate, though, e.g. all their VC investments into AI are the polar opposite of what the likes of OpenAI are doing. Kinda sceptical e.g. huggingface will ever turn a profit, much less a significant one, but it’s important to have them.
Firefox is a way for them to make money for their charitable projects. Always has been.
They’ve been opening secondary streams of income – also via Firefox, like pocket and stuff, but it’s unclear whether that would even allow them to keep developing Firefox. It certainly would mean that Mozilla doesn’t have any money left over to give to others which is their main purpose of existing.
If you actually had a look at their actual numbers, they’re a charity you know, they’re public, you’d see that the bulk of money is spent on charity. Mozilla has never been a charity to develop Firefox, Firefox has always been the breadwinner for Mozilla’s charity operations.
The Commission already has an instance and the ECJ also has an instance. I didn’t find one for the parliament, they might not even want to have one but instead leave it to the parties. A parliament instance would amount to the EP president policing parliamentarian’s speech not just inside parliament but also outside of it, kinda iffy.
Three days is the (generously calculated) time until civil defence will have soup kitchens up and running, and at least over here they stock three months worth of lentil stew, pea stew, and bread and more than enough diesel to keep logistics, kitchens and crucial infrastructure such as water pumps running. Heating, push come to shove, would be supplied at the gymnasium of your local school or suchlike. Recommendation is to have 7-10 days worth of stock.
But yes I’d recommend against (completely) relying on stocks that need preparation because electricity and water might fail. Canned soups and stews are good and don’t forget canned peaches or such so you can have dessert. Woodgas burners are cheap camping supplies and you’re bound to be able to find some sticks somewhere so with some water reserve you even can have your morning coffee.
The EEC is such an underexplored subject in the Cyberpunk universe. Member states are actually democratic (shocker, I know), votes in the European Council are allocated according to the member states’ wealth, a hundred million eddies per seat. Want to be a Merc? The European way is to go to a trade school which churn out licensed special force commandos. ESA literally rules space, even Arasaka has to bend the knee, there. Forget nukes if you try shit the EEC is going to drop a couple of asteroids on your head. Worker’s rights? Well yes your implants won’t right-out kill you if you quit your job, and the unions are probably just as capitalist as the companies, maybe reverting to a guild system (both are speculation, as said: Underexplored). Overall much more and much smaller companies, the EEC is actively working against Megacorps being a thing, though at least the Asian Megacorps have a solid position on the European market.
In our timeline it’s often forgotten how the EU started out as a trade cartel and that this stuff is still very deep in its bones, yet somehow the Cyberpunk timeline also manages to capture the fall of colonialism. The EEC is more than powerful enough to take over lots of stuff without breaking a sweat but I guess the consensus is “why should we take over Night City then we have to rule it”.
Regarding foreign policy: Canada indeed is the closest ally. NUSA relations are tense AF because Americans be jealous because NUSA politicians like to distract from their own incompetence and propagandise, USSR solid economical working arrangement (EEC can squeeze more productivity out of Eastern Europe than them and Moscow gets a cut), Asia in general, South America, Africa, generally solid relations but of course competetive, Japan, arch competitor. Also, ex-member of the EEC. Is it even possible to call Japan and Arasaka different entities.
And, yes, the EEC controls the eddie. Primary or secondary currency all over the world with the exception of the USSR.
I guess at this point it’s a matter of numbers: Cases do exist and are egregious (especially because the US somehow doesn’t understand that light 24/7 constitutes torture), but compared to the total number of Germans crossing the border it’s not even a drop in the bucket, they can’t say “The US has a policy of making your life hell” based on pure factual data because “isolated cases”.
So putting out a travel warning at this point would be Germany slapping the US across the face which, no matter how deserved or politically warranted or opportune, is not a thing mere civil servants are supposed to do.
Meanwhile, the outgoing minister is going to say “nah let my successor deal with that shitshow”. TBH Baerbock has been awfully quiet ever since the coalition broke. I guess she might actually have caught a case of civil servant fiddlesticks (An actual term in German, “whoever moves first loses”).
It’s not an agency it’s the ministry of foreign affairs and right now they’re operating in maintenance mode as we don’t have a government proper, only a caretaker government until the Bundestag constitutes itself on the 25th where a new chancellor can be elected.
The change looks like it does because it’s the kind of change a ranking civil servant can do without checking in with their minister, it’s considered non-political.
In ruins would mean the streets and buildings have decayed past the point of habitability and usability.
You’re being overly literal. The standing of the US, its position in the world, all that is certainly in ruins. And, yes, so are plenty of buildings and infrastructure. Whole states are, economically, barely on the level of developing nations, if that.
I live in a diverse multicultural community.
Which is not the US. Your community might make up part of the population of the US, but what you have regarding the “more” part of “more than the sum of its parts” certainly isn’t shared with the rest. It thus isn’t part of the American civilisation, for that there would have to be a shared civilisation, a shared “more”.
Pray tell, how is that rule of law going? Constructive political discourse? Good relations with your neighbours and allies?
“Not in ruins” my ass.
We just have a bad government.
Because you don’t care to have a good one. Because you don’t care to look over the brim of your burger, to connect with people who do not already happen to be in your in-group. None of those groups has any allies because each is saying “fuck you, got mine”. Solidarity is a curse word. “Solidarity”? Them marchers is all commies, tell me kid are you a red??!
How can you know you cross lines when you don’t care, are apathetic?
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
…I don’t think I need to attribute that quote.
There may be traces left, true, but if OP’s “The American way is to not care” ideal is lived by, what I described is exactly what you get.
And, yes, Americans are a lot more alienated from another than pretty much any other people.
And you misunderstood entirely.
Last I checked, “not caring” has exactly the meaning I took it to have.
You can’t have one when everyone’s alienated from each other, that’s the point. Civilisation is more than the mere sum of its parts: When you do not care about someone else deciding to e.g. oppress a fellow compatriot you only have the sum, not the more. A population, but not a civilisation.
You can have a civilization made of many civilizations
That’s not what e pluribus unum means. That’s what in varietate concordia means.
What if I told you that Germany is a federation. NRW would be the fifth largest US state, Bremen the third smallest (actually, almost identical population to DC), most of all the US has more states. They can do stuff in parallel that’s no excuse to not have quick election results. And now don’t come with “but there’s so much space in between” you’re not sending the results via horse buggy are you.
And, no, of course the federation doesn’t legislate on state elections. It gets to say how federal (and EU) elections are run. State’s rights my ass in Germany the federation has no tax office, it’s all collected by the states, and their police can’t put boots on the ground outside of international borders (incl. airports) and the train system (cf Amtrak cops). Certainly can’t just decide to invade a city like is happening in LA. They also don’t have anything like ICE, that’s all state responsibility.