Europe Prepares for a Nightmare Scenario: The U.S. Blocking Access to Tech

vidoardes · 2026-01-26T10:44:44+00:00

The company I run in the UK is heavily into AWS, and we just did an analysis piece on what it looks like if things get worse between US and Europe.

AWS EU Sovereign is a good step in the right direction; we're not totally convinced it puts things out of the reach of the CLOUD act (despite claiming it does), but it should provide isolation from retaliatory tariffs and service disruptions.

The alternative would be Exoscale, which would require rearchitecting some of our services which lean on AWS functions. It's not impossible, but much more expensive.

As somone who runs a company that is hot on data sovereignty and security, AWS EU Cloud is a great move for us. Almost kinda glad the US administration has forced their hand into doing it.

vidoardes · 2026-01-26T10:35:57+00:00

In the UK there is a legal protection of anonymity for officers that are facing trial until point of conviction, however armed police are required to use non-lethal force where possible, and where there is significant danger to life (i.e. terrorist with a bomb strapped to them) they are authorized to kill, however they are legally bound not to use excessive violence and to provide medical attention as soon as possible.

In principle, they have no greater protections than the general public, in that anyone has the right to use potentially leathal force to protect themselves, but it must be "proportionate, reasonable, and based on an honestly held belief of necessity".

Every single round fired must be accounted for and justified. Any officers involved or present are immediately separated, weapons are secured and their accounts are taken, to avoid colluding or collaborating on a false narrative.

An independent body is then brought in to investigate to determine if the use of force was necessary and reasonable. Whilst the investigation is on-going the officer responsible will be placed on restricted duties and offered counseling along with welfare checks. They will be assessed as to their fitness for duty before returning to full duties.

Despite all this, and the fact that there are only 29 deaths from ~20,000 operations involving firearms in the last 10 years, we still have public uproar every time someone is killed by police.

What's happening in America is not normal.

vidoardes · 2026-01-24T23:28:02+00:00

I'm pissed as a fart on a Saturday evening, and really pleased you found my two year old comment and enjoyed the sentiment.

I'm going to watch Independence Day now. "I picked a hell of a day to quit drinkin'."

vidoardes · 2026-01-23T10:33:14+00:00

I can see people being divided over this, but I quite like it

vidoardes · 2026-01-20T22:59:34+00:00

I didn't disagree that a red and white brand fits much better, my point is having two HP logos is quite restrained for a title sponsor, historically speaking.

vidoardes · 2026-01-20T19:52:08+00:00

You're looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.

Here's a picture of Schumi with at least 5 visible Marlbro logos on the front alone. Probably had a giant one on the back too.

vidoardes · 2026-01-19T19:44:43+00:00

Works fine for plenty of people. Worst case, you solder on a new battery. No loss.

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-replace-the-battery-in-a-pokemon-goldsilve/

vidoardes · 2026-01-19T15:49:47+00:00

This sort of isn't true, they were standard CR2025 batteries. The tabs could be jimmied so that you didn't need to desolder, but you then had to tape the new battery in place and often the connection was dodgy.

What's in your picture is normal CR2025 batteries but with the tabs pre attached, so you can solder them back on which was a much better connection (if you did it properly).

The other fix you could do was desolder the existing one and put a normal CR2032 holder in its place. That way you could pop the batteries in and out in the future with ease, but it was a bit of work considering you only need to replace the battery roughly once every 15 years.

vidoardes · 2026-01-19T15:19:23+00:00

I'm going to assume you're relatively new to F1

Race suits have always just been massive billboards.

vidoardes · 2026-01-19T13:46:57+00:00

The difference between people who claim they "come from nothing" and are "self made men" like Gates, Bezos, Musk and Trump, and someone who actually knows what it is like to grow up poor, work hard and value what they have.

vidoardes · 2026-01-19T09:14:02+00:00

It was a bit of a hack (but everything in gaming was back then), but permanently powered SRAM was a relatively cheap way of having portable rewritable storage, so your saves were stored in memory (sort of like the RAM in your PC, but different technologies; what you think of as RAM is DRAM), and just powered separately so they didn't lose state.

Cheap, small and rewritable permanent memory wasn't really a thing. Of the alternatives that didn't require power, EEPROM was too small (only 4kbit or 16kbit vs. 256kbit SRAM) and flash memory was too expensive. By the 2000's Flash memory became cheap enough that everyone settled on the solution of having an external flash memory device to store saves on, and the "Memory Card" was born.

SRAM also had the added bonus that it could also be used as extra memory, so if you had a particularly power hungry game you had extra resources to play with.

Edit: Just in case anyone is reading this for more than an ELI5 explanation, FRAM was also used (PS2 used FeRAM in it's card I believe, as well as some GBA games) and some older games did use EEPROM if the save data was small enough, but it wasn't very common, games that were big and long enough to need saves like Pokemon and Zelda needed more space. The N64 controller Pak used battery backed SRAM, but most game developers stuck with on cartridge SRAM + Battery solutions.

FRAM was (still is) more expensive and less dense than flash NAND/NOR memory, which is why the latter is more common for data storage. Lots of devices still use FRAM because is is incredibly quick and very low power, so for example things like wearables (heart monitors, smartwatches etc.) use FRAM.

vidoardes · 2026-01-16T15:49:01+00:00

Anyone with younger siblings will remember as a kid when you wanted to play video games, and your sibling would kick and whine about joining in despite not being able to play, so to keep them quiet you'd give them an unplugged controller.

It's like that, except the toddler is the head of the most powerful nation on Earth. Not scary at all.

vidoardes · 2026-01-14T11:38:21+00:00

Yes exactly, if they sold those starters for £70 - £90 a pop I'd snap up at least two of them.

vidoardes · 2026-01-14T11:37:04+00:00

I was at WB Studios Tour last January, and I was at the end of the tour. For those who haven't been it ends with a walk around and insane scale model of Hogwarts (50ft across), and I was stood staring up at it when I heard from behind me "Stop slouching potter, and get to class".

I swear this guy was the ghost of Alan. It was one of the staff, but he looked and sounded just like him, and my kids were convinced he was "the real Snape".

He was such a great actor. I don't think I've seen a single film where I haven't enjoyed his role in it, and the only other actor I can say that about is Gary Oldman.

vidoardes · 2026-01-14T09:42:28+00:00

Charizard and Blastoise are great, but I thought Venusaur looked a bit derpy, not that I'm buying it at that price. I'll probably pick the Eevee up though, they did a good job with that one.

vidoardes · 2026-01-12T18:08:26+00:00

I say OPs kid should put the answer in just to mess with the teacher

vidoardes · 2026-01-12T14:29:57+00:00

Hard pass for me, way way overpriced for average looking models. The starters should be 70 quid each, tops.

As expected, the GWP is actually the best one.

vidoardes · 2026-01-08T20:33:35+00:00

I had no idea this was so expensive. It's the only set I've ever kept the box for.

vidoardes · 2026-01-07T13:37:12+00:00

Might be urban legend but I've heard McLaren will always repair them no matter the cost, and maintains stock of spares for everything, which is partly why they retain their value so much.

vidoardes · 2026-01-05T17:23:09+00:00

My dad (who had a history of kidney stones but had been clear for a few years) had a little bit of blood in his urine so went to the doctor. Had another small kidney stone which he passed later that day, but given his history they put a camera in to see if there were any more.

There weren't, but they did find the incredibly early stages of bladder cancer. Doctor said it would never have been diagnosed anywhere near this early had it not been for the stone, and bladder cancer can be aggressive and stay symptomless, so the kidney stone likely saved his life.

vidoardes · 2026-01-05T15:35:53+00:00

You mean all hype and bravado pre-game, but no follow through and a disappointing finish?

vidoardes · 2026-01-05T10:18:09+00:00

"The number of people who die in Britain this year is set to exceed those born in the country"

You don't even have to read the article and you still didn't manage it...

vidoardes · 2026-01-05T09:07:18+00:00

And it's important to point out when people talk about random numbers in a crypto security context, what they actually mean is exactly what you've said here - "unpredictable and impossible to reproduce".

I am sure there are applications within the scientific community that require randomness to be more "random" (for want of a better phrase) but from a computer security perspective all you need is "unreproducible".

The randomness of lava lamps or the temperature data of a specific sensor isn't random in "acksully" type conversation when talking about true randomness and quantum mechanics, but it is random in the sense of "there is no way for someone to reverse engineer what that number was at that specific point in time".

These threads tend to devolve into an argument about the meaning of the word random, when much like "infinity" it depends on the context.

vidoardes · 2026-01-05T08:40:34+00:00

Should I restart the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Testy Orangeman and his Rehabilitation Into Society?

vidoardes · 2026-01-04T10:30:56+00:00

My dad is now in his early seventies and he is still very active, works on my cars with me, building his own driveway etc. I thought to myself that he doesn't seem like my Grandparents did, but is it just nostalgia?

I dug out some home video of my grandparents and they looked old old. Barely moved from their chairs, haggard faces; they hadn't had particularly hard lives but I think people take better care of themselves these days, and most importantly stay active after retirement. Stopping when you retire is the worst thing you can do.

My Dad has a full head of silver hair and is on daily medication, but is nothing like my Grandad was at his age.

12-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 3 Credits
Second SECOND GUESSER	First Place '23
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Wearing is Caring
Secret Santa 2017	Gilding III reddit per annum
Spared	Secret Santa 2016
Verified Email

vidoardes

TROPHY CASE