You can do chargebacks, it's just that you are not likely to have business with that merchant again. No big deal, given that that merchant is proven to be not very reliable with your money, right?
The issue arises when there is no other merchant, in other words - when there is a monopoly, or something close to it.
Which is exactly the case with Meta. That's the issue. If you are in U.S., please ask your representatives to take some anti-trust action and split this company once and for all.
This was the first thing I did when I landed in the South.
Answer: very easy. You know the shape from the flags and logos, you can't miss it. Magellanic clouds are harder to see, and require a place with little or no light pollution, but they're there too.
Fun fact: in Chile they sell tours to look at the sky - in Atacama desert, where light pollution is very low. A bus brings you to the desert and you look up. They also provide a tour guide who knows the sky and has a laser pointer (yes, strong laser pointers can be used to point to objects in sky). Sounds ridiculous, but is 100% worth the money. The view of Milky Way in its full unpolluted southern glory is breathtaking.
A go-to joke of the tour guides. Question: "So, you are in Chile and there's no polar star. How do you tell where's north?". Answer, after some ideas from tourists: "See the mountains over there? That's east. Like I said, you're in Chile."
> Given the very limited space available in Paris centre, I don't really see an easy way unfortunately...
Bicycles take less space than cars, both on road and when parked, don't they? A four-lane bicycle highway is as wide as one-lane car road. If anything, people switching from cars to bicycles should produce more free space for the city, not less.
Many streets have been transformed to one way or made cycle-only so some critical arteries are getting congested a lot. I feel the violence and anger too, you don't even need to go to Paris, the suburbs are becoming a mess of seething drivers. I get a lot more of very dangerous behaviour, insults from drivers on shared infrastructure as I did 5 years ago, even though I have my kids in a cargo and I cycle around the max assisted (25km/h) speed or higher if my legs work, most of the time.
I see shouting matches at least once a week, angry drivers honking on streets they can't even pass a bicycle... And isolated infrastructure is not always possible...
I feel this has become another part of some culture war, where I just don't have a license and drive my kids around in a bicycle (I don't want to drive a car) so I'm some angry green extremist out to annoy every driver out there...
In Paris, most people who are now biking are people who would have taken public transportation before, so the amount of cars on the roads is roughly the same as before.
I don't live there anymore but I grew up in Paris -
I knew absolutely nobody living in Paris driving to another location in Paris. It's always been metro first, bicycle sometime. Almost all of the passenger car you see in Paris are people driving from the suburb.
Many cars in Paris are driven by people commuting to Paris from outside. There is a real fracture between suburbans (who don't vote for those changes happening in Paris) and city residents who votwd for them.
Funny that you chose Amsterdam to give an example: this is one of the places in Europe where there actually are IT startups - some "home-grown", some moved from elsewhere. "Nobody" is plainly not true.
I specifically chose Amsterdam for that reason actually, it is probably the best place in Europe to start and run a business and it still sucks compared to the US.
Americans can actually move to the Netherlands easily because of special arrangements for starting businesses, but you won’t be surprised to find out most aren’t taking them up on that offer.
> I don't understand why he went back to Russia --- on principle, maybe?
He was a Russian politician and was intending to stay one. In the eyes of Russian public opinion, a politician who fled abroad - opposition or not - is not a politician anymore, but some foreign guy living in comforts of some Germany or England, either on money stolen from Russians or on the payroll of CIA, not worth listening to. Interests of polit-emigrants and interests of Russians in Russia do not align, and the general public knows that.
This is why Navalny returned and Yashin never left.
I confirm the previous poster: in the eyes of even oppositional public those who fled loose credibility -- at least that they can't call people to the streets under SWAT batons; and also living abroad they lose sense of what matters and events are important.
It could be an argument, but no politician inside Russia call people to the streets either. Navalny abroad had more influence than all other opposition personas in sum.
> Personally I'm going to move out of the country as soon as it forbids the cash transactions
Which country is it? In many jurisdictions cash transactions are already illegal above certain threshold. It might be that you won't have too many places to go.
I absolutely should not anthropomorphise LLMs, but I can't get rid of the feelling that "it" was writing this answer with a mischievous smirk, and was having a lot of fun in the process.
Don't take me wrong, but it certainly sounds that your mom needs some Linux in her life. Pick a stable distro, set things up once, leave them be. For basic stuff like web browsing Linux is stable, reliable and won't do any surprises for you.
She has Ubuntu for a long time and it was really good. I forgot why I left Windows in the new machine, but I think she’s dependent on Zoom at least, maybe a couple of other apps. I may give Ubuntu or Mint another go when I’m visiting next time.
In either case, it’s insane that it’s come to the point where Linux is recommended on the basis of UX for non-savvy people. I wish vendors has these options and support, but people who don’t have a savvy friend or family member will probably never even have a chance to consider it.
If what Google does - closely observing us, collecting the data for further analysis, often without our knowledge or permission - is not surveillance, then what it is? Which word should we use to describe these activities?
I would say a "data-driven business model". Google is not "closely observing us" in the sense that a policeman surveilles a criminal. And it's not without our knowledge or permission. Google won't learn much about you unless you volunteer the information. At worse, it might learn that a certain browser visited X or Y website (until the browser cookies are cleared). Plus, they collect data to improve their services and serve relevant ads, not to put people in jail.
The issue arises when there is no other merchant, in other words - when there is a monopoly, or something close to it.
Which is exactly the case with Meta. That's the issue. If you are in U.S., please ask your representatives to take some anti-trust action and split this company once and for all.