In Europe, we changed to the Euro not that long ago. I was a student and I used to use a shared laundry machine. It was the day before returning to school. I was barely alone in the dorms. Let’s do a laundry !

The machines were updated to get euros. There was another machine just to change the coins, especially since the washing machines only took one kind of coin (20 cents).

I put one fresh euro in the exchange machine, expecting to get 5 coins of 20 cents.

Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>… Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>… Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>…

What ?! The machine was buggy and would not stop. I grabbed a hoodie to put the coins in it. Soon, it was not enough. After what seems to be an eternity I was there with around 50€ and kilos of coins.

The thing is, harmful apps are now difficult to detect compared to years ago. The hackers prefer to get the control of your device without ruining it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botnet

And Barbie. What a spin-off !

This is a full book and not just the cover for fun and giggles!

In The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America author Julian Montague has created an elaborate classification system of abandoned shopping carts, accompanied by photographic documentation of actual stray cart sightings. These sightings include bucolically littered locations such as the Niagara River Gorge (where many a cart has been pushed to its untimely death) and mundane settings that look suspiciously like a suburb near you.

Working in the naturalist’s tradition, the photographs depict the diversity of the phenomenon and carry a surprising emotional charge; readers inevitably begin to see these carts as human, at times poignant in their abandoned, decrepit state, hilariously incapacitated, or ingeniously co-opted. The result is at once rigorous and absurd, enabling the layperson to identify and classify their own cart spottings based on the situation in which they were found.

Is it still legal to have this in the USA?
It has been banned in Europe in 2018, but allowing to sell the stocks for 6 years). Now they use nuts shells powder, apricot kernal powder, or similar things. It’s not necessary to put platic in it.

Harry Plotter ?

What a foul

stronger

This makes me want to phase it out faster.

I have tried nearly everything. Chili powder or black pepper only works until the next dew.

I tried a special spray, it’s useless.

The only thing that worked for me to cover the whole garden was special grains made of wood and black pepper oil. You can throw it around the garden and it last one or two weeks.

For raised planter bed, I put nets originally used to cover trees for birds not to eat the fruits. It can be cut to any size and cats don’t like to walk on it. Some issues :

• it’s fragile. You need to replace it after one or two years.
• plants go through the net. It’s hard to remove then.
• once there was a tiny bird in it. I found it soon enough for it not to starve.

You are right. How do they still allow plastic bottles ? That’s a huge waste of ressources.

You know what? It’s BECAUSE of the US that we, French, have this now.

I am not confident that it could be “the end”. Just a pause. Like between 2014 and 2022.

Another question related to your answer : how can I guarantee that the content I create (comments) are available for scraping ?

The issue I have with Reddit and all is that we can’t freely access to the content, especially the past content. I don’t want instances to be sold in like 10 years, compromising access to old content (or with advertising in them). I would like to be able to replicate one rogue instance into a new free instance.

This is strange. I can post on different instances.

The mayor of Paris since 2014 is Anne Hidalgo. She has removed cars from Paris since day one - ten years ago. A call for her destitution is now a meme (“Hidalgo démission”). Anyway, most of the residents like her.

In France, people were surprised because we have big historic pharma corporation, with tons of public subventions. However this shortage revealed that they make the packaging of the drugs now. The actual substances are made elsewere.

They also focus on R&D for new bankable drugs. Not the ones that are important - new ones that could make tons of money. I have a thin hope that the gouvernement will make new regulations to produce locally.

Edit. In June 2023, 210 million euros have been gifted to big pharma corps in France regarding this issue. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/13/france-to-re-shore-production-of-50-key-medicines_6031218_7.html

Yeah, it’s a global shortage. We have these issues in France too.

Answer from the article : “simple analysis can unmask the fraud. Like the fatty acids composition test, or the sterol composition, as well as the spectrophotometric constants”

Oh. OK. Easy. Next time at the grocery store I will check that.

If it’s time spent, you just have to be French.
(From a French spending the end of the year with familly and friends).