I heard about this from a podcast called The Missing Cryptoqueen from the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p07nkd84

In a way it's a classic ponzi scheme so in that sense it's not that novel. But this Dr. Ruja, as she was known by people who "bought" OneCoin, sold herself and OneCoin super well and took full advantage of the crypto craze. The scale and then disappearance are crazy.

Maybe this is in the article but I think the leading theory is that she's in the UAE or Qatar or something. I assume she can't really travel but she can just live like an actual queen over there and those governments won't care about where he money came from.

Things have been going shit here actually, and blaming minorities for a country's problems is still a surefire way to win votes. As a dutch person I'm sad, embarrassed, and scared.

Ha! He's a comedian making a joke. Perhaps not the best joke, but obviously a joke. He's even on stage in his role as comedian.

After all the vile things Wilders has said that were dead serious I feel like this is nothing.

Probably good publicity for the comedian though, and of course it's some political points for Wilders and the rest of the far-right ("look how violent these left-wing people of color are!").

I use Organic Maps as much as possible. For public transport I use another app (not google maps but a local app for my country). Sometimes I check google maps if I can't find a place or if the opening times are missing on openstreetmap (the source for organic maps).

The main issue with organic maps (and I think any map app based on OSM data) is search. Especially in places where multiple languages are used I've found it quite frustrating.

Valencia, for example, has Valencian/Catalan as its main language on OSM, but Spanish is very common. If I search in Spanish I don't get good results. A small typo will also mess things up. That's pretty frustrating and means I often have to go to the website of wherever I'm going to get the proper name in Valenciano without typos, or I have to look it up on google maps.

Damn, I wouldn't have recognized him from that photo alone. Fuck cancer, I hope he can enjoy the rest of his life which will hopefully still be many years.

I think to a large extent it's a case of cognitive dissonance.

Loads of these people have defended Trump for years, supported him despite his obvious lies and grifts and so you kinda have to believe that whatever else he comes up with is also true. If you believe all his previous falsehoods, why not the next?

To admit he's full of shit means your whole belief system has to change. Trump supporters have lost friends, alienated family, spent their money on him... It's much easier to keep believing in him than it is to admit you've been wrong all this time, cause that would mean having to admit you've been taken for a fool this whole time AND it means all your efforts and sacrifices have been for nothing.

That's great! Glad it's working out.

One thing made me chuckle though:

with only 4 gigabytes of RAM

Am I just old or is 4GB actually loads of RAM?

Bizarre. But the article outlines a lot more vulnerabilities. Seems like every part of this device is poorly secured.

IOActive's hacking technique exploited glaring security vulnerabilities they found in the shufflers, the researchers say: They bought their own Deckmates for testing from second-hand sellers, one of whom told them a password used for maintenance or repair. They found that this password and others they extracted from the Deckmates' code were configured in the shuffler with no easy way to change them, suggesting they likely work on almost any Deckmate in the wild. They also found that the most powerful “root" password to control the shuffler—which, like all the Deckmate's passwords, they declined to publicly reveal—was relatively weak.

This is just ridiculous / hilarious.

How do you define "things"?

On a global scale and on average, life for humans is getting significantly better than, say, a century ago. The number of people dying from preventable diseases, war, natural disasters has been steadily going down for a while now.

Of course there are many more people on earth than there were 100 years ago, so accumulatively there is a lot more suffering now.

Also, the lives of individual people, the state of certain countries and areas are certainly getting worse.

As for non-human animals... For most of them the world is getting increasingly less habitable and for those who are raised in an industrial setting for human consumption, living conditions are largely atrocious.

I think your question is too broad for a single answer. But you might be interested in this now 17 year old (!) TED talk by the late Hans Rosling, which at least partially answers your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w

1. Just because I have heard of NordVPN doesn't mean I'll necessarily use it (in fact I use arch mullvad, btw.)
2. Let's see some numbers that ads work. You can't just calculate how life would be without ads, but I wonder what would happen if ad expenses for all companies would be capped somehow. When cigarette companies were severely limited in terms of advertising they saved a ton of money. Of course people already knew their brands, but still.

I think ad space sellers wildly overestimate the effectiveness of ads and google has made it far worse with targeted ads. People have gotten used to saying things like "ads work" and "brand recognition" but does anyone know the numbers? Or is this just repeating some phrases you've heard?

I don't know the numbers myself, but I'm quite skeptical.

Yeah but you won't know if it will pay off until many years after studying, so it's a gamble.

For the majority of cases having a university degree will give you a higher salary, not to mention the value of the experience of going to university as well as the connections you make there (both personally and professionally).

University in the US is just stupidly expensive and the loans have a crazy interest rate.

I'm from the Netherlands where you'll receive money from the government while studying. You can take a loan on top of it with minimal interest and so it's basically always worth it if you can afford it and are academically able to.

It is probably a politically popular move in South Africa and especially considering the many problems South Africa is facing I understand your skepticism. However, it also makes historical sense SA does this.

Israel was one of the very few countries that continued its relationship with South Africa during apartheid. Israel would buy raw materials and South Africa weapons as well as technologies like nuclear. It's the reason why South Africa actually had nuclear weapons for a while and still have nuclear energy (pretty sure still the only African country). Israel also helped them make petrol for vehicles out of coal, which sounds insane but was a way to seal with the sanctions against South Africa that prevented them from importing oil. The apartheid regime undoubtedly lasted longer because of Israel, and South Africans haven't forgotten this.

The support for Palestine is widespread in South Africa because of this as well as the parallels between the apartheid regime and the Israeli government.

So yeah, it makes political sense for SA to take Israel to court like this, but I honestly think a big reason for it is historical and showing genuine support for Palestine.

Good start though, right? More than most fines for similar infractions

That shows because this article (even the title) tells you France will have parliamentary elections, not presidential. Macron will remain president regardless of the outcome.

I thought I was done when I guessed oven, but there was no clear feedback saying I won. Went to the comments for the actual answer.

So my feedback: fun game! If possible, perhaps add something like "very close" if you guess something that's almost the answer but not quite. Or oven could have just been wrong, since that wasn't the actual answer.

This makes me so sad. Goddamn Correa fucked up the country with his corruption, idiotic economic policy (an insane reliance on oil), connections with organized crime, attacks on the press... Now he's fucked off to Belgium (where his wife is from), who refuse to extradite him.

Ecuador is seeing a big increase in drug related violence which until like ten years ago it didn't have. Covid made things a lot worse for sure, but the country was already going downhill and Correa's regime was a huge factor.

Lasso (the current president) certainly didn't make things any better. He's pro business, anti-abortion, part of the elite, and besides being anti-Correa not someone who I want in power.

Ecuador needs its own Nayib Bukele! But this assassination is going to scare a lot of candidates. Imagine wanting to implement a harsh crackdown on drug gangs... You're gonna put a massive target on your back.

I'm hoping Yaku Pérez can do well again, but I'm very worried about Luisa González. If she wins I can see her pardon Correa and bring him back to Ecuador. If that happens the country is truly in deep, deep shit. Even more so than it is now.

• the government doesn't take climate change seriously
• it is basically impossible for a large group of people (including me) to ever buy a home
• any sort of nature here is dead and over half the country doesn't seem to care
• inequality has been growing for decades
• the country is incredibly polarized
• after over a decade of neo liberal VVD policy, the majority of people apparently yearn for even more right wing policy
• Ajax are 12th in the eredivisie

Or course I'm being a bit dramatic but considering how things were I do think the Netherlands is going to shit a little bit. Of course it's a better place to live than many other places, but in my opinion it's definitely getting worse.

Scary times for Argentina

Why would his parents kill themselves if he is the one who committed the crimes? I don't understand what his parents have to do with this.

Does Venezuela have enough electricity to sell? If so, I suppose this is a good thing. More cooperation between neighbours, clean energy, remote communities with (cheaper) access to electricity...

I'm totally opposed to Maduro's regime, but isolating Venezuela is probably not going to improve the lives of average people there.

It's a complicated situation because this will improve the lives of people in remote communities while at the same time some (or a lot) of money will end up in politicians' pockets. Still, hopefully this will be a net positive.

Organic Maps (google maps replacement) - https://f-droid.org/packages/app.organicmaps/

AntennaPod (podcast app) - https://f-droid.org/packages/de.danoeh.antennapod/

Yeah I'm also Dutch and agree with this 100%. Forming a coalition always takes time. If anything I think they're actually going quite fast. I was expecting the VVD and NSC to push back more than they are doing.

Honestly I'm fine with them creating this coalition quickly. The sooner it's formed the sooner it can collapse.

FYI "The Hawks" is a branch of SAPS, the south African police services: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawks_%28South_Africa%29

Seven

It would be if it were true, but they're just working on forming a coalition to create a majority in parliament and that always takes time. As a Dutch person I really don't agree with the idea that Wilders is having a particularly hard time forming a coalition. If anything it's going more smoothly than I expected. I think in a month or two we'll see prime minister Wilders sitting next to Willy (the king).

*alley

I live in the Netherlands and I buy fresh produce four or five times a week. Freshness wise it depends on the fruit or vegetable. I wouldn't say most things only last two days but it's not like it's gonna last ages, especially after it's been opened/started.

As a happy user, I highly appreciate the ongoing development!

So by that logic as long as a candidate doesn't support the "practices that put us in this decadence" they are good enough to vote for?

If this guy would be in favor of rounding up all gay people and shooting them, would you still vote for him? What about making it illegal for women to do paid work? What about shutting down all newspapers? If he proposed those things, would you still think he's the best candidate?

If not, then where is your line? Because to me he already seems pretty fucking extreme.

You can also not vote or cast a voto en blanco as a protest. Why not do that instead of vote for a Trump / Bolsonaro type person? Do you think they were successful presidents who made things better in the US / Brazil?

But your lifestyle does impact how likely it is you die from covid. Poorer Trump voters are probably more likely to have a relatively unhealthy lifestyle; maybe more likely to smoke, perhaps less likely to do exercise, perhaps older? And I'm fairly certain that Republican voters are less likely to be vaccinated against covid.

Not sure what your point was exactly, but wanted to point out people absolutely did not die at the same rate across the board and political affiliation (and therefore the likelihood of being vaccinated) could definitely be a factor.

Very interesting and depressing article.

A fundamental reason for the lack of clarity over the role sex or drug trafficking plays in the fate of Uruguay’s missing women is that neither prosecutors nor police are looking for the evidence.

So, are the police involved in the trafficking and that's why they're not doing anything and withholding information? Or are they just incompetent / underfunded / undertrained?

It's like they actively don't want to solve these cases.

With that attitude it sounds like they wouldn't even want you to visit. A huge part of the appeal is that Bhutan remains very unique, with a distinct culture and few tourists.

They don't want people to come who are looking to climb a famous mountain, go partying, chill on the beach, and other things people go to nearby countries for.

I'm from the Netherlands and certain parts of Amsterdam are full of tourists almost all the time, with very few normal people living there. Venice is an even more extreme example, or some party islands in Asia or the Mediterranean.

Bhutan goes in the opposite direction. By making it so expensive to visit they filter out a whole bunch of people who could/would ruin what they want to preserve.

But what happens if someone sends you an email from a non-gmail account? Can you react then?

If so, does it just reply to this email with an emoji in the body? Cause then you're basically just replying in the exact way as before, google just added a quick-reply button with a predefined body.

I'm personally not a fan of nonstandard functionality for something as ubiquitous as email. Email should be exactly the same regardless of the client that's used.

Yeah I understand the context of Pim Fortuyn of course and I agree it's not a good joke or anything like that. I just feel like this is made into way too big of a deal for what was probably an off thr cuff comment.

I do think that "fuck around and find out" should be true. Baudet for example is just a fascist who is friends with the Russians and wants to destroy democracy in the Netherlands. I honestly think that until his party is outlawed it's a good thing he gets hit with umbrellas and beer bottles. Fuck him so hard, I don't think what he says should be tolerated.

He's been in parliament since 1998. Longest currently serving parliamentarian I believe.

Don't get me wrong I hate everything he stands for, but your comparison with Trump doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I'm guessing is only based on his appearance.

I dislike Wilders as much as the next guy but criticizing his appearance just seems stupid. There is so much wrong with his words and actions, there's really no need for discussing his looks.

Don't care he was cheating, and the fact he was president is only relevant to explain the imbalance of power. It was immoral because he abused his power; he was a boss who took advantage of his intern.

Your wish has been granted, there are plenty of countries other than Bhutan with relatively few tourists. Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia I think are all way less popular with tourists than Vietnam and Thailand, for example. Loads of countries in Africa are barely visited by tourists too. No need to pay a daily fee in those places.

No this is a great thing. His opponent is an ally of the former president Rafael Correa, convicted of corruption and now hiding out in Belgium. She would bring him back and pardon him.

Correa constantly attacked the press, forced the US to close a naval base which kept the waters around Ecuador safe from drug cartels, and Correa himself has ties to criminal organizations.

If you only know this new president is center right and the woman who lost center left I understand you would think this is not a good result, but as a left of center person myself I am immensely relieved.

Same here. And their mortgage is lower than my rent.

Can't complain too much though cause at least I can afford rent. Many other young people are still living with their parents, need housemates (who aren't their significant other), or live in squalor.

Still, our generation has been fucked over in terms of housing. Home owners get so many benefits (loads of tax breaks, ability to install solar panels, etc) while renters are stuck. I don't see it getting better anytime soon either.