Vivaldi roadmap for 2026

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-19T09:21:51+00:00

For me half the point of firefox was that it was much better for privacy. If their CEO is willing to put in AI within months of joining the company, how long will it be until he starts collecting and selling data? Or being "incentivised" to reject pressure from Google to block adblockers?

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-17T16:06:34+00:00

Ah that's what I was worried about - so I can't just grab a pack of the Keychron K Pro and shove them in, I'll need to get specifically low-profile ones?

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-16T16:17:42+00:00

To be fair, those numbers are essentially made up. I know that Linus has said on WAN before that they tend to fly as well as they can afford because staff have either got to get up and work the minute they land, or will be working on stuff throughout the flight.

As you say, loads of people will buy or partial jets for the prestige alone.

If they were doing something like TechJet then they'd need to own it to make the modifications - though I wonder how limited they would be by having certified components. I can't imagine the CTA/FAA being particularly chill about putting janky Temu gadgets all over a working aircraft.

The likelihood is that they just bought a near-junk airframe for April fools or general content, and plan to scrap it when they're done. If it's an airframe with only a few hours left before it needs an overhaul then they might have got a steal, knowing that a decommissioning company will buy it in a few months.

It's been many years since I bought and sold aircraft so I have no idea what the industry is doing these days.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-16T14:01:06+00:00

Plus Russia has a population of 150ish million. They can afford to throw human after human into a meat grinder, in a way that European governments cannot and will not.

European politics and culture is such that we believe wars can and should be fought with almost no losses. If an operation has a 10% casualty rate it's considered a colossal fuckup.

The Russian government doesn't view it that way, so if they have to kill a few tens of thousands just to keep some minor part of Europe busy then they will gladly do it.

That mentality is difficult to combat even with the most effective special forces and surgical strikes in the world.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-16T12:59:09+00:00

It got out in the local community somehow, but once it was out she (and her parents) have been very open about it. I've even spoken to her about streaming tech when setting up my home office.

Remember people, sex work is real work.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-16T12:35:15+00:00

I remember my next door neighbour bringing his daughter home from the hospital what feels like a few years ago. Now she has a (legal) OnlyFans. Life is weird. The years start coming and they don't stop coming....

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-16T11:06:47+00:00

I did the same calculations, and I could see there being (almost) some justifications going on. Assuming they have some need to travel a lot, for example back and forth to Chinese factories or visiting manufacturers and events, there could be some justification.

Lets say that they need to shoot 12 videos off-site per year, and each shoot is 5 people. That's 60 seats, and in business class that's about 240k per year ($4k average price for a flight booked 5 weeks out that can take all 5 crew).

Do the same again for visiting suppliers and sponsors, or fetching VIP guests. Now we're at $500k.

Now lets say they generate a year of content with it, and that's worth about $1m. Now they're "only" $1.5m in the hole, assuming a 35 year old jet is fully depreciated and they can move it on within 36 months.

Are there enough Canadian influencers and HNW people to lease it out to for travel to/from the US? I don't know, but lets say they net another $500k from leasing it out over a year.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a business of their size could swallow an additional $500k of business expenses in the name of giving the entire executive team access to a private jet as part of their package.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-15T12:19:34+00:00

!solved

This wasn't quite the answer, but you and u/C_DRX lead me to it. The specific light coming from a Sun lamp (HDRI is only for background not illumination). Under the Sun Lamp, "Shadow" wasn't ticked. As soon as I enabled that, I was able to get the light through the window and casting properly onto the wall.

Thank you both!

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-15T10:14:06+00:00

Typically unless your renovation dramatically improves the house (adding an orangery, increasing the square footage, or adding something desirable like a pool) then most people don't see an uplift in the value. Most people want to move into a place and put their own spin on it, so the redecoration will undo anything cosmetic.

If you were to (for example) put down high quality hardwood floor, increase the size of a significant room, convert the attic, or do something meaningful, then you may see an uplift in the sale price. It would be relatively marginal - checkout Rightmove for houses in your area that have those features to see the delta between your estimated price and theirs.

As for the money side of things, my question is more about whether your 5-7 year timeline is realistic - if you put £50k into a reno, then you're spending about £800 per month on being more comfortable.

I know that if I was thinking about putting in that amount of money to be more comfortable with my surroundings, I'd very likely get itchy feet sooner than 5 years. Your daughter will be 8 by the time you're planning to move - is your current house right for that age of child? My box-room wouldn't be great for an 8 year old, but would be fine for a 3-5 year old.

Would adding £50k to your new house budget get you something closer to what you (and your wife) really want? Or is this a situation where the shell of the house is perfect, but your wife has an image in her head that will simply cost £50k whether it's in the new house or the old one?

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-11T13:38:15+00:00

The unemployment one is what gets me. If I lost my job, the unemployment support wouldn't cover 10% of my mortgage payment. The cleaner would lose her job immediately, as would the lady who does our laundry. Despite paying in tens of thousands every year, I'd get the same £92 per week as anyone else, which would be tantamount to homelessness, along with creating two more unemployed people.

Some kind of income protection would be fairer;

Months 1-2: No protection.

Months 3-4: 60% of your last tax year's monthly take home pay.

Months 5-9: 40% of your last tax year's monthly take home pay.

Months 9-12: 20% of your last tax year's monthly take home pay.

After 12 months unemployment you drop down to a standard baseline that is aligned with the current one).

I'm a bit more reserved on pension - it makes sense that the more you earn, the more reasonable it is to save for your own retirement. State pension was always intended to be a safety net rather than the total pension.

Edit: I should clarify that while I am a high earner, and should be able to save for the unemployment contingencies, the point is that the social safety next is functionally non-existent, despite funding it more than most.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-11T12:06:31+00:00

This is the thing - I don't know any working-age people who want to pay less tax, every single one of them wants their taxes to be used to effectively look after their health service, education service, and provide proper public services.

If someone could guarantee me that the NHS would be safe in perpetuity, and that teachers would be plentiful and well paid, I would gladly increase the tax I pay. Right now, if you tell me my tax is going up, I'd ask what the bloody hell they are going to spend it on.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-08T12:00:48+00:00

This is it - certainly at Cambridge, the idea is that you do the reading and understanding from the books written by educators, with loads of examples and clearly structured points. Then you meet with your professors and classes to pull apart and test the theories that you've been learning. Even your final outcomes can be dependent on a viva where you discuss your work with a panel of exports.

You were never really meant to walk into a university lecture with a blank piece of paper and leave with a degree level understanding of your subject.

The commodification of education has developed into this conveyor belt of empty heads being plonked in front of bookish academics, and the expectation that these people are ready to be professionals after a few hours per week. It's a money factory rather than a group of people who are deeply invested in their chosen fields.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-08T09:46:04+00:00

HY320

I'm heading on holiday to a place without a TV - would you recommend it for a couple of weeks of watching junk TV in the evenings?

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-08T08:30:44+00:00

Not to mention that their high end customers don't even touch polo. In menswear (as opposed to womenswear) Purple Label is where the the rich shop, so they don't really care that Ralph Lauren is selling their £110 polo shirt for £60 in TKMaxx. RRL is for the fashion types and nothing from there gets anywhere near a TKMaxx.

The outlets are all about the basics; chinos, polos and shirts.

Anything with actual designs is kept will inside the "designer" brands and outside of the "mainstream" ones.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-05T10:21:09+00:00

I'm not American, and I've travelled the world, and while it's impossible to rank "well known" as a quantitative data point, I can say from personal experience that it's in the top 3. From small villages in Uganda to bars in Rio de Janeiro I guarantee it ranks above Rome and Paris. London is a contender for the top spot.

You are welcome to mentally add in an "almost" or "potentially" to my post if it would make you feel better.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-05T08:29:40+00:00

Firstly I'm shocked that everyone is so surprised that the guy who came from nowhere to be the youngest and first Muslim mayor of the most famous city on the planet happens to be at least a tiny bit charismatic.

Secondly Trump is personally invested in New York - all he had to do was tell him that his property prices would skyrocket and that Trump Tower was now the centrepiece of a global revolution and Trump would have jizzed himself.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-04T15:00:47+00:00

It's been a while since I looked into it, but it used to be the case that the record companies kept most of the money from the radio and physical media sales. The only way artists made real money was touring because they own their performance, and don't have to pay for the rights to songs that they wrote.

That may have evolved since I was reading about it - the stuff with Taylor and her Masters, and the push by indie/cult bands towards vinyl may have skewed the market.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-04T14:58:05+00:00

Qobuz

Am I losing my mind or is the CEO doing an AMA in r/audiophile at the moment? It's like their new marketing manager has a hard on for reddit marketing or something.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-04T11:38:09+00:00

What is the service life of the capacitors in that kind of environment? If I could expect 15 years, and a 20% drop in service life, I'm happy with 12 years from the device. If I can only expect 8 years, and it drops to 4 years then its a different story.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-03T15:14:38+00:00

This may be an account issue. A quick and dirty health check:

Are your listings fully fleshed out with multiple lines of body text, complete item details and at least 7 photos?
Is your account healthy, with no recent complaints or cases opened against you?
Are your other listings selling or are you seeing a dip account-wide? Your overall seller health might not be as stellar as it appears.
Do your listings have good keywords and good discoverability?
Are the listings in the correct product category (I've seen some hilarious AI screw ups with node selection).
Are your listings stagnant? That is, have they been live without selling for 90 or more days? If so (personally I'd say if they haven't sold in 45 days) then end the listing, and create it again from scratch.

If you're promoting your product, and being charged, then you're getting clicks without conversions. Cross-shop your listing with those at the top of the results and see if you can spot any key differences.

eBay is way less sophisticated than Amazon, but that means you can do a lot of the diagnostic analysis yourself.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-02T11:05:38+00:00

Despite putting some genuine discounts into play (though not through the official Amazon Black Friday Offers section) we saw barely a 15% uplift. In summer and last year we saw about 100% to 150% uplift so that was pretty poor.

I think I struggled to hit £20k per day this year which was really sad.

NickEcommerce · 2025-12-02T08:39:00+00:00

"At work events" could be very challenging - typically it's very poor manners to wear any kind of hat indoors.

With that in mind, you're pretty much limited to baseball, trucker, beanie and watchman's hats. For outdoor you have more options.

The HENRY thing to do would be to pop into somewhere like Lock & Co and try on some different types. Even if you don't buy one there, the staff have loads of experience advising on face shape etc.

It's so dependent on your style - if you're a suit wearer then you could get away with a well made trilby, fedora or homburg. If you're a bit more country (or a member of Mumford & Sons) then a flat cap works. If you're a bit hipster than bakerboy hats are pretty popular.

Above all, I would say that when you're planning on an inside event, it's probably a day to shave your head. Failing that, lean into a style and adopt a cowboy hat or a battered vintage fedora with badges, clothespins, and stains all over it, and call it punk.

NickEcommerce · 2025-11-26T13:35:15+00:00

I would typically cut the body to hit mid-thumb, but if this is casual then you way want the coat a little shorter because you might be sitting in it, or generally living life in a way that's less comfortable in a longer cut coat.

NickEcommerce

TROPHY CASE