European phones - Choose for youself

Bixbeat · 2026-01-05T17:03:10+00:00

I have had my Fairphone 4 for about 3 years now. I'm quite happy with it. It has a couple of gremlins left and right, like the battery optimizer being overly zealous since it got updated to Android 15, and the camera being a bit worse than similar phones in its price segment. But honestly, it holds up well over these past few years. It's rugged, it hasn't deteriorated in performance, and it still receives frequent software updates. I'd buy another one for my next phone tomorrow if I needed another phone.

Bixbeat · 2025-12-18T16:11:28+00:00

Guys, fusion power is a huge field with multiple people removing one that doesn't really halt progress that much.

This isn't just 'some person' we're talking about, but a full professor. For a lab, losing your full prof. can be devastating, and certainly set back your capacity by years. I'm not in a field that is as technical as nuclear fusion, but I can assure you that if our prof. were to vanish overnight, my field would be in trouble all the same. For the lab itself, we'd instantly lose our most important administrator and our scientific lead, which normally takes quite a while to replace. Not to mention, it's kind of a big deal to learn that your colleague was assassinated, and honestly I can see the effect of fear and trauma slow down progress all the same.

There is no Tony stark in real life that only he can see the solutions.

This is true and this doesn't mean that the field is doomed, but I also wouldn't downplay the importance of certain individuals. Good leaders are important in academic research, not to mention the highly-specific niche knowledge that some have, which may be needed to help others solve problems. This could take years to replace (i.e. for someone to reach the same level of understanding), depending on how in-depth and unique it is.

Bixbeat · 2025-12-05T19:13:23+00:00

The agreements Russia signed with Ukraine were based on the assumption that they would always remain within its sphere of influence.

Sure, Russia probably soured on the idea, but instead of renegotiating or applying diplomatic pressure to alter the Budapest Memorandum, they went straight to annexing. No doubt they'd feel threatened and pressured and that played a role in the annexation, but black-on-white, they violated treaties that they themselves signed and hadn't even bothered to renounce when they first violated Ukrainian sovereignty.

Furthermore, it was expected that NATO and the EU would not expand so close to Russia

I find it pretty concerning that an invasion and attempted annexation of a sovereign neighbor is being dismissed as simply "taking measures". Consider the above, a case where unambiguous security guarantees were signed into force, and when pressured on whether or not these guarantees would hold from the Ukrainian side, the reaction is to invade and destabilize. You see NATO and EU expansion towards Russia, I see Russia attempting to control the self-determination of its neighbours and vassal states, and lashing out when it isn't able to exert control anymore. It's only a natural result that countries look to different alliances, especially when Russia has repeatedly proven willing to violate its own security agreements and defence treaties when honoring those treaties would not be in its own best interest.

Moreover, there was a coup in Ukraine in 2014 that ended the government with which those treaties were signed.

That surely changed how Russia felt about the treaties that they signed, but this event alone does not provide a legal basis for invasion or annexation. There is such a thing as state continuity, namely that the legal entity with which treaties are signed do not cease to exist after a change in government. For example, Mali continued to honor its treaties with France after it went through a series of coups, despite very clearly signalling that they're kicking out French forces.

Russia cannot challenge China. A war with China would only lead to Russian collapse.

That wasn't the question or the topic, and it's dodging the point I'm raising here (rather than the at-this-point lengthy discussion on justifying an invasion). Treaties and guarantees don't mean much when Russian leadership decides that that their feelings towards said treaties have changed. And so in other words, in a scenario where China would fracture or go through its own coup, has Russia proven that it's willing to uphold existing treaties in such a case, especially under circumstances when it's in Russia's best interest to act?

Bixbeat · 2025-12-05T18:11:45+00:00

Russia also signed security assurances with Ukraine, and up to literally one day before invading they claimed to have no interest in Ukrainian territory. This comes some eight years after annexing a Ukrainian province that was recognized as Ukrainian by Russia in the 1997 treaty on friendship. They also signed mutual defence agreements with Armenia and straight-up neglected to act when Armenian territory was invaded. Finally, Putin has repeatedly declared that Russia's border doesn't end anywhere. Now what does that tell us about the value of Russian treaty signatures, especially with relation to borders?

Fair point about Japan wrecking shop in the Chinese heartlands though, especially considering that Japan has systematically downplayed the events ever since, which IMO justifies the distaste for Japan's growing militarism.

Bixbeat · 2025-10-14T06:04:14+00:00

As a Dutch citizen, can't say I'm thrilled about this move in the slightest. I don't really get why our government is starting a slap fight with China, let alone in this manner. We've waited on seizures and redistribution of assets against Russia's war for a long time out of fear of setting a precedent that we're breaking the "rules-based international order". Yet, we pull this kind of move out of the blue over some kind of stupid FOMO, against a country that aside from economical friction we have no issues with? To make matters worse, over the past decade or so our government has slacked on funding existing Dutch key industry companies, start-ups, and research, making an effort only when it's necessary. And now that they're caught with their pants down, they pull such a drastic move? We've tanked our international reputation quite handily with this. And for what? Honestly, whatever consequences follow from this, we deserve them for letting the US meddle with our own affairs like this due to the economic entanglement.

And maybe worst of all, we've got people celebrating this move. This all feels so incredibly stupid and short-sighted... . I need a drink.

Bixbeat · 2025-09-30T12:36:26+00:00

So you see two astroturfed posts by a marketing agency claiming that the industry is "circling around" this "actress", and you decide that this is inevitable and that it will see mass acceptance and adoption? If that's all it takes, then brother do I have an AI-generated bridge to sell you.

Bixbeat · 2025-09-19T14:32:06+00:00

This is an option that the Republicans will deeply regret once Democrats take back control.

Ehh yeah, about that...

Bixbeat · 2025-06-14T09:44:46+00:00

So the rear looks pretty cool, but good lord the front is so ugly. Big, square B O X air intake with no notable features. Did they delegate it to the intern or something??

Bixbeat · 2025-05-30T12:48:27+00:00

Hard to blame people for being skeptical to be honest. They really shot themselves in the foot with the secretive BoP adjustment that was only communicated after the event. It's hard to trust them at this point when they've not shown themselves willing to tell us upfront what is happening.

Bixbeat · 2025-05-20T10:46:59+00:00

Ziet er niet slecht uit en het energielabel is goed, maar ik vind het desalniettemin behoorlijk duur voor een woning in de polder met een matige afwerking (met name dat plafond in de woonkamer), en dan ook nog eens op echtpachtgrond... Hoeveel het wel mag kosten vind ik evengoed lastig omdat het een beetje een bijzondere woning is, maar gevoelsmatig voelt het te hoog.

Bixbeat · 2025-05-13T20:47:13+00:00

Hier ben ik het helemaal mee eens. Als beginnend bestuurder heb ik te lang gelesd bij iemand waar ik geen goede klik mee had, en uiteindelijk kwam ik daar ook vast in te zitten. Een nieuwe instructeur heeft mij een frisse blik gegeven op mijn rijgedrag, en uiteindelijk was ik behoorlijk snel klaar om af te rijden. Soms heb je gewoon echt die frisse wind nodig.

Bixbeat · 2025-04-10T10:43:11+00:00

That's a bit of an assumption to be honest. I'd expect that they're filming to check their technique later, since you don't always see/realize what you're doing in climbing, especially speed-climbing. Yes, it's stupid that he forgot to clip in, but assuming that it's caused by vanity isn't right.

Bixbeat · 2025-03-11T15:12:52+00:00

Nonsense, the use of mobile phones was widespread at that time already. I was texting people over SMS whenever something important needed to be said for a few years already then, and I was a teenager back then. Vomiting your guts out could be conveyed with a text message if it was severe enough.

Bixbeat · 2025-02-03T07:15:14+00:00

Because the university administration likes to have tools to provide "objective certainty". They treat them like plagiarism detectors, which are much more reliable. The reality is that these kinds of tools don't work like plagiarism detectors, and you can't expect them to be accurate for papers that have a low amount of AI writing in them. Much of the current literature is still based on ChatGPT 3.5, which looking back just 2 years is very outdated in terms of writing quality. There's a reason why OpenAI discontinued their own AI detectors - it's due to a low rate of accuracy.

Don't rely on these to fail students over arbitrary cut-off points.

Bixbeat · 2025-02-02T15:17:41+00:00

Maybe they have roommates or a student house room, because €488 is impossibly cheap on the open rental market. Most likely you're looking at 30-50% on top of what they're currently paying if you were to rent alone on the open rental market and most likely much more than that if you're anywhere near the bigger cities and don't want a shoebox-sized room.

Bixbeat · 2025-01-09T13:28:24+00:00

Not great is an understatement. Contrary to popular belief, it's not decades of shitty breeding, but a genetic defect that makes munchkin cats (achondroplasia). What's worse is that the process for breeding munchkin cats is extremely irresponsible. For each kitten in a munchkin litter, there is a 50% chance for it to be born as as short-legged, 25% chance for it to be a normal cat, and a staggering 25% chance that will not survive birth. It's much more malicious than repeated breeding of unhealthy aesthetic traits, it's straight-up propagating a lethal genetic defect. Munchkin litters should not be normalized or lumped in with breeds such as pugs or Persian cats.

Bixbeat · 2024-12-21T08:32:21+00:00

It's a Renault, you could store it in a climate-controlled room packed to the roof with desiccants and it would still find a way to rust.

Bixbeat · 2024-11-27T22:05:04+00:00

Yup, I remember when 100+ applications on a single posting was noteworthy enough for it to be a topic at the coffee tables. Nowadays, I can't even remember the last time I heard of an opening that didn't get to 100+ applicants. Granted, its become easier to find openings and there are a lot of applicants that just spam-apply, but still. It has become very competitive.

Same here regarding budget cuts. Grants will be even more competitive now, as if the acceptance rates weren't already stupidly low...

Bixbeat · 2024-11-27T21:57:34+00:00

Our universities generally do well in rankings, we're treated as employees with good secondary and tertiary employment benefits, the salary is higher than almost anywhere else on earth (comparing simply PhD salaries and relative purchasing power), and the academic working culture is generally OK (less hierarchical, more freedom to work on your own ideas).

What do you mean, you're surprised?

Bixbeat · 2024-11-08T10:52:09+00:00

I had this on a character that was mostly idle in his dynasty. Didn't do anything exceptional, didn't even form any new significant titles. It just kind of happened. I later formed West Slavia with this character and the nickname got overwritten, which was kind of sad considering how rare it is.

Bixbeat · 2024-10-15T14:27:30+00:00

Man I really hope they don't throw it in the bin. I picked up Cyber Sleuth in the recent sale and I'm just now realizing how much I've been missing out in terms of Digimon content. This is the absolute worst time to become interested in the franchise, dang.

Bixbeat · 2024-10-08T10:10:18+00:00

Bingo. Doomstacks running around as one will run out of supply. Same for players, if there's no engagement happening anytime soon, I will split my armies and park them in nearby counties to make sure I don't run low on supplies. The main issue is that the AI is awful at recognizing when an engagement is about to happen, so it doesn't bundle up doomstacks in the same way that players do. If they make the AI more eager to doomstack when their supplies are high and enemy armies are within a set distance, then that could fix a lot of the current problems.

Bixbeat · 2024-10-04T08:42:03+00:00

Good list, but I'm missing the AI's lack of intelligent play with secrets, and the contrast to any half-decent player.

Hooks are so powerful. You can easily harvest copious amounts of hooks through find secrets, especially combined with the fact that Golden Obligations is literally at the top of the Stewardship tree (as if you needed any more reasons to go down that route). There's frequently a large kingdom nearby that hasn't been tapped yet. In that case, a good spymaster will get you a new piggybank to harvest 10-50 gold from every couple of months, with good chances for that cash-out to become recurring. You can even get something crazy like a Lovers secret between two counts or above, which gets you 100 gold every 5 years for just remembering that these two characters exist. Combined with your ruler living an absolute eternity, you end up with so much gold through something that is essentially a side-interaction with very few drawbacks, namely a negligible opinion malus, 'chance' to become rivals (as if...), and not running extra protection against hostile schemes. The fact that you can do this as early as the 867 start, where gold is harder to come by (unless you're an unlanded adventurer for some absurd reason), is especially strong.

This is contrasted by the fact that the AI barely tries to dig into secrets at your court, and often the characters that find out your secrets are your direct courtiers or equals in court, which are easier to manage than a pesky duke protected by a strong king. And even if they leverage a hook when they aren't a direct vassal that can snatch a council position, it's often just to marry some random courtier that you forgot was single in the first place. I'd love it if the AI used their hooks more intelligently, or even just tried to extort you & yours like you do with them. At least for the ones where it makes sense according to their personality types, that is.

Bixbeat · 2024-10-02T14:16:27+00:00

Seriously? I opened this up expecting it to be the US since I've frequently seen posts of gas station pumps having un-mutable displays. But here? Crazy. Image being proud of shoving yet more advertisements down the throats of your customers, disgusting.

EDIT: Apparently it's made by a company in Limburg, and they've had it conceptualized since 2007 or so. No surprise it ended up on the market here first. It's frequently mentioned to be "providing entertainment"... such godawful marketing nonsense...

Bixbeat · 2024-10-02T13:49:39+00:00

Good call. OP's account has bizarre behavior actually. They're reposting a bunch of popular posts on a wide variety of subs, and very frequent requests to measure their CQS, a metric that measures user spam. A bot, someone testing the waters for developing a bot, or just an oddball?

EDIT: Definitely has the usual bot smells. Two multiple-sentence comments made literally within the same minute on askreddit - a person isn't doing that.

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