vorpuni

As if sex workers were treated fairly in the EU…

Free software activists in Europe have been saying for decades that it’s a matter of sovereignty and the investments may be painful at first but will end up saving untold amounts of money.

The Marshall plan goodwill has run out now.

I also live in a country with very high tax and I’d need to make more than 120k USD per year to have the same standard of living if I lived in the USA. It’s impossible to make that much driving trains and also working 40 hours a week in the US as far as I know. Lower tier blue collar work is even worse.

Low tax is for billionaires.

Unions at least know good lawyers but it wasn’t necessary at all, the first denial was just to waste my time. Sadly union membership in France is becoming insignificant so they’re not as good as they once were.

And I was saying France is “communist” in jest.

The regulation is all right in France but insurance definitely has some very favourable laws (many delays for notifying them are quite short to the point where with shortages of GPs you have to waste everyone’s time at the ER if you really need to be off work).

Every workplace accident I’ve had has been denied at first due to technicalities. In France, touted as the great communist system where you pay nothing (which is of course wrong).

Google has every incentive to break reCAPTCHA competitors and/or use botnets to spam anything not protected by reCAPTCHA.

The children*

They’re only common because of tax laws. Everyone else in the world uses box vans for most “work” purposes, and if not box vans, the same frame with something else in the back. Pickup trucks have their uses but they’re worse than vans for most trades.

France.

General checkups are considered a US only thing that is actually detrimental. You don’t go see a doctor if you’re all right usually, there a few stupid reasons you still have to. If you have a benign seasonal illness but you need to be off work you need a form filled out by the doctor so your employer has to allow it and the health insurance can pay if they need to (I’ll spare you the details but it mostly depends on the duration of your illness), if you are joining a sports club you typically need your doctor to certify you’re fine to do that (this needs to stop doctors aren’t nannies and they have too much work as it is!!!).

I’m very fortunate that I have a GP who’s generally available within a day or two. There’s a shortage for all healthcare professions, the French refuse to believe it but it’s mostly because it pays shit: Luxembourg and Switzerland don’t nearly have as many issues getting enough staff in hospitals. A lot of people don’t even have a GP. If you can’t travel the waiting times for some exams or specialists are 6 months or more, people think this is somehow acceptable. You can still do medical tourism at the expense of French insurance if you border one of the richer countries, any money leftover you’d have to pay would be a pretty reasonable amount but they may try to wriggle out of paying claiming you’re doing medical tourism for no good reason.

For cancer checks if you live near one of the good hospitals for cancer you don’t have to worry too much about them making you wait until it gets to stage 4. But you have to be assertive and advocate for yourself if you don’t and possibly give up and go 500 km away.

For a broken arm you’d pay nothing usually unless you’re in the cracks of the mandatory extra insurance thing because you don’t have a job but you’re also too rich for the State-funded one, so maybe around 50€ including X-rays and the cast.

France is very behind on mental health care and psychiatric wards in hospitals are a disgrace mostly due to extreme understaffing by doctors. For most other things they’re all right except busy ERs have insane waiting times and they have no money to hospitalise you if you will survive so they’ll send you home even if you barely have the strength to get into a taxi.

The food in hospitals is all right but I wouldn’t ask too much of the vegan options.

But don’t worry social credit systems where you’re barred from public transport is so dystopian only the Chinese do it.

There are special measuring tools to check it the power is really turned off after you flip a switch.

So no, electricians (who get to retire) do not do this! You check the tool before and after every check as well!

And in enlightened countries that are France or copied their stupid law: the vultures keeping the boomers alive hooked up to expensive machines can also get the children to pay. Unlimited money hack for victims with more than 2 children.

Self-cleaning and lubricating.

Trim clips are cheap, check for all the broken ones you can find and replace them. Double sided tape and some packaging materials like foam helps with rattles if stuff just doesn’t fit perfectly, if stuff is already off it doesn’t take much extra time to stick a few pads.

(If the manufacturer charges too much for clips, you can probably find them on AliExpress using the part numbers, they’re often a bit annoying to substitute so if you’re only saving a few dollars by trying your luck with a mix of generic ones, I’d say don’t bother. If you don’t have any, plastic levers for trim are also very useful and cost very little, the metal ones tend to scuff things and covering the ends in tape makes them too bulky)

This summer I may sleep in my smelly basement since I work nights. I’ll get a cot so I don’t have to be on dirt, but it’s better than a room where the temperatures are over 30°C even on smelly wet dirt.