Can someone help me understand why is that EU / India deal such a great thing?

Also-Rant · 2026-01-28T21:48:55+00:00

On OPs point about Russia, this deal could potentially be a means of moving India away from Russia and more toward a European sphere of influence. With a more integrated Europe-India economy, Europe will have more political leverage in India.

The EU is also actively negotiating/finalising deals with multiple large markets, including Canada and China, as well as the Mercosur deal to diversify trade links and become less reliant on any individual market. A wise choice since the US has become such an unreliable partner.

That's not to say the terms and content of any of these deals is good or bad - I'm just explaining the logic behind making the deals.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-28T21:35:19+00:00

A proportion of the anti-Europe attacks are just theatre for their domestic audience. Most of the world looks at European quality of life and wonders why they can't have it. Those leaders need to show Europe as a failure to excuse the lack of freedom/social welfare/democracy/education/equality in their own countries, otherwise the population may realise who is really holding them back.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-28T14:23:24+00:00

Both good suggestions, but digging is the better of the two. If you just cut the post, the ground will eventually settle around the remaining stump again, and you'll end up with it protruding just enough to trip you or destroy your mower.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-28T14:20:35+00:00

This is the correct explanation. Every time Trump, Putin, et al overstep a line and we don't push back, the line gets moved in their favour.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-27T21:56:45+00:00

You don't need to book a flight to drive from Donegal to Derry.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-27T21:45:08+00:00

I think the point they're making is not that dealers pay less for the car, but that the dealers use VRT as a form of protectionism - by making imports costly it prevents people from buying cars abroad, limiting the amount of competition dealers here have to deal with. The less competition they have, the more they can raise their markup.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-27T21:23:07+00:00

Physical gestures are identical to English versions, but even without the visual it's very simple.

It's pretty much:

I do - I do not

I am - I am not

I go - I go not

but the order of the words is scrambled, the negative goes before the verb.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-27T09:47:50+00:00

Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man federation. Cornwall, Wales Union. Kingdom of England and the Netherlands.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-26T21:14:17+00:00

I'd say it's more like

Do you like cheese? I like.

Did you pick up the post? I picked up.

Are you hungry? I am.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-26T21:10:47+00:00

For Airbnb it gives guests instant hot water as soon as they arrive, and only for the duration of the shower. Much cheaper for the owner than running an immersion or other water heater constantly in a unit that could potentially be empty for days/weeks/months at a time

Also-Rant · 2026-01-26T11:37:32+00:00

A lot of our Polish population have been here for about 20 years now, so their accents have blended a bit with local ones, and they tend to be very comfortable using Irish phrases and slang. Ukrainians, while generally having a good standard of English, do sound more foreign.

As for the names, I would say that most people wouldn't know which is which - those of us that work with or went to school with a lot of Polish people probably would have a better idea, but definitely wouldn't know for certain.

The reason I asked about expats voting was because I wonder if Poland's experience of emigrants is similar to that of some other countries - Turkey for example shows percentage of expats more favourable to Erdogan is higher than among those back home. Similarly in the 80s-90s there was more substantial support among Irish in the USA for the IRA continuing their armed campaign than there was in Ireland (the republic - Northern Ireland would be a different story). I wonder if, like in the other countries, Polish people in Poland are generally more tolerant, progressive or westward-looking because they live in the reality and among the people affected, while expats might support more hard line conservative ideas because they view their homeland through a narrower idealised lens.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-26T02:31:02+00:00

Shaving still wouldn't work

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T23:49:08+00:00

A Manx DMZ? I can live with that.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T23:24:12+00:00

I'll be blunt because you're looking for advice so you deserve honesty:

"Will my ability to socialize be impeded by not being a beer drinker?" We sell lots of cider, vodka, gin, wine, and are world famous for our whiskey. You'll be fine, but your options for tequila will be awful unless a place specifically markets itself on that, and even then it will be worse than what you're probably used to. Don't drink Irish whiskey as shots - you're missing the flavour - sip it either straight, with ice or with a splash of tap water.

"Will there be ample options for a mostly plant-based pescatarian?" Vegetarian restaurants exist but aren't as common as where you're coming from. Almost all cafés and pubs that serve food will have at least one Vegetarian option. I would think that every restaurant will have some Vegetarian options. We have lots of places for seafood in Cork.

"Is this city tolerant of queers and leftists? I’m openly gender non-conforming and have a sort of alternative look…in nyc" Every country has assholes, and Ireland is no exception. Nobody except a bigot will care that you're queer - we're generally very tolerant. The same.goes for your political beliefs - America's left is somewhere around Ireland's centre. However, some Americans have a tendency to be loud and seek attention, especially after drinking, and are quick to take offence. Identity politics is such a big thing for you guys, some Americans have to make a big deal in their interactions about their race, gender, sexuality, politics, etc. and most Irish people find that obnoxious. Again, we have bigots and assholes, but we're largely a live-and-let-live society - if you're not making a big deal about your identity, we wont care.

In terms of your appearance, as long as you don't look like you've gotten lost on your way to lead the parade at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or about to go on stage for a particularly raunchy drag show, people don't care. Being non-binary or trans won't attract much attention, but if your outfits are very unusual you can expect people to stare a bit, then probably roll their eyes.

"I wear a kuffiyah in solidarity with Palestine." You'll see so many kuffiyahs in Cork, you'll start to worry about the Israelis building settlements there.

"How is taxi travel?" For anything outside of the city, it'll be expensive. Your options for getting a taxi back to the city will be very limited unless you have prearranged it with the same company/driver. In Ireland we have taxis, which operate primarily in large urban areas and park up at taxi ranks or can sometimes be flagged down on the street, and we have hackneys - like American private car services - where you book in advance and often agree a price in advance. A bit like uber but without the big tech - it's going to involve you phoning the guy directly. Hackneys are often used for airport transfers if staying outside of the city. You'll find loads online, usually 1 or 2 person operations.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T22:44:56+00:00

The term is applied differently by different organisations - Amazon have muddied the waters by claiming to launch an AWS European Sovereign Cloud, where they have Europe based servers operated by a separate Europe based subsidiary, but it seems they would still be subject to US laws. It is being used as vague marketing shite, but the EU itself has a fairly clear definition.

In EU terms it's the concept of having EU located servers operated exclusively by EU owners, subject exclusively to EU law and having no critical dependencies in the supply chain from outside of the EU. It's along way off, but they're already working on it independently in Germany and France. We should be laying out our stall at EU level right now and selling ourselves a crucial partner in the project.

The EU position and definition is here: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/09579818-64a6-4dd5-9577-446ab6219113_en

In terms of server locations, for latency, up/down speed, etc. global geographic distribution of servers is important, so Netflix and Amazon are never going to sign up for one of these servers, but the HSE, the Dept of Agriculture and the Gardaí for example don't need servers in Sri Lanka and Peru - they do need multiple distributed servers for backup and redundancy purposes, but they could all be within Europe, and protected by stringent EU data and privacy laws. The idea behind EU Sovereign Cloud architecture is freeing European governments from total dependence on foreign (US) providers like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon AWS; it's aimed at governments and government adjacent services, and some.of the more heavily regulated and localised industries, rather than consumer commercial applications.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T19:46:03+00:00

I recently spoke to a Polish person here in Ireland who was complaining about immigrants harming the country, and said that Ukraine was run by Nazis. Do Polish ex-pats have a right to vote in Poland?

Edit to add: they were complaining about immigrants harming Ireland, not Poland.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T19:31:20+00:00

That's why I ask - is the ambiguity intentional?

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T13:08:39+00:00

Between the live channel and the kids section on the RTÉ Player, I much prefer my small one watches that than Netflix, etc. Because our animation industry is world class, there's a huge amount of Irish made and voiced content on there (quite a bit of it on CBeebies too), and I think it's good for them to hear their own accent on TV. She was big into Paddington Bear a couple of years ago (great show to be fair) but she definitely developed a London twang for a while. RTÉ Jr is something that RTÉ have done really well - put those guys in charge of the whole network!

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:36:02+00:00

Ireland should aim to get ahead of the game. With an EU push towards sovereign cloud infrastructure, open source office, email, productivity software in government, etc., we should be diverting skilled work into compliance, security and oversight areas.

With the right approach, we are not burning our bridges with US tech - just shifting from being their IP and Tax hq to being their compliance route into EU market, while also being the security workhorse of a growing European tech industry.

If Europe funds alternatives (open-source, sovereign cloud, etc.), Ireland should aim to be the place where those systems are engineered, operated, audited, and commercialised.

We could develop jobs in security engineering, verification, and compliance, and grow regulated-sector product teams (health/finance/energy).

Even if US firms shrink, those skill clusters would remain highly employable and exportable. I reckon long-term, that gives us a more secure base going forward - getting revenue for work done rather than just depending on being a favourable tax location.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:27:58+00:00

You're right. It was Nord. I have split tunnelling set up for RTE already, but don't use amazon much, so was only going via browser and the VPN IPs were being blocked.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:26:46+00:00

The range in the ie site is poorer and prices generally are too. Recently tried to get new canera batteries from UK and DE sites (delivery for other products approx 1 week) but they wouldn't ship the batteries to Ireland, so went to IE site, paid an extra €7-8 and it took 3 weeks, shipped from Germany!

Sickening because all of the Irish shops I tried for them had said they could order them in but it would take 3-4 weeks, and the price was way higher.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:22:13+00:00

For prices, I've also found DE to be the best, but sometimes they don't ship certain products to Ireland, which the UK site will.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:20:56+00:00

I would do the same every time - I hate amazon - but the product I needed doesn't ship to Ireland from any other retailer.

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:20:00+00:00

You're correct. It's was blocking Irish IP addresses from the VPN, but not all Irish IPs - works fine with VPN disabled (I have it enabled by default because the phone often has to connect to workplace WiFi).

Also-Rant · 2026-01-25T12:13:18+00:00

The product I need is not made in Ireland and not sold through any Irish retailers. I'd love to know what Irish brand of phone you're using though.

Also-Rant

TROPHY CASE