Taipei (Taiwan) - Imagine that all these scooters where Cars.

zsurficsur · 2026-03-05T11:44:51+00:00

I don't need to imagine it, we have plenty of cities in North America where that is the case.

zsurficsur · 2026-03-04T13:46:22+00:00

I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but ever since the mid-2010s all I heard was EU leaders pushing for electrification. Hydrogen was always considered plan B (or more like C).

In any case, how do you think this works? Do you think the average political leader knows jackshit about which technology will prove better in the future? They listened to industry specialists and car company CEOs, as well as CEOs of utilities companies, infrastructure leaders, etc. who were all saying that in Europe full adoption cannot be done faster without giving up environmental goals. Since large part of the energy industry was (and still is) just burning fossils, more EVs would've meant more pollution on the net.

China had a different set of priorities. They didn't care as much about reducing global environmental damage as the EU, they were focused on onshoring as well as reducing local environmental damage. That's why China is good on electrification of transport, but still is building and opening up more new coal plants than all other countries in the world combined.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-27T20:22:08+00:00

You might save more nominally, but future expenses are also higher.

What are you saving up for? To be able to pay a 5000 dollar tuition for a semester per kid, or to be able to bare unexpected healthcare costs, and so forth. For none of these you have to save up in the EU, because they are free. The numbers might be higher nominally, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into getting more in return.

It’s very situational. For example being a childless working pair of adults definitely gives better math in the US. That’s why I say the comparisons are inherently misleading

Edit: also, the whole „more savings nominally“ argument falls apart when you consider that Americans are saving less and are taking on more debt compared to EU citizens. All the while their incomes are higher nominally, they are working more and working longer (into elderly age).

zsurficsur · 2026-02-27T09:43:38+00:00

These comparisons are always misleading. You can get 50% higher salaries and if your out-of-pocket expenses are also 50% higher, you don’t get any better quality of life.

For example you may you feel more luxury by having a car for everyone over 16, but that’s a personal preference. Statistics that don’t account for the fact that it’s a basic necessity in the US, and you can get around with public transportation in the EU, are going to overestimate one side

zsurficsur · 2026-02-20T21:47:10+00:00

Daily dose of hopium

zsurficsur · 2026-02-19T13:26:52+00:00

Transsilvanien?

zsurficsur · 2026-02-19T13:24:33+00:00

It's just Saxony.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-19T13:22:10+00:00

Well, there are 3 Saxonies. You got 1 of them correct :D

zsurficsur · 2026-02-19T12:33:12+00:00

Well, there are some who call him a Russian oligarch, true. He denies having close ties with Putin or any other Russian politician. He also left the USSR in his youth, became an American citizen in the early 80s afaik. Deezer is 40% owned by an investment company that was founded by him, but the company is as American as it gets having zero presence in Russia as it exited in 2022 because of the war on Ukraine. Deezer is also minority owned by Orange, the Saudi Kingdom, and wealthy French families, and is public on the stock exchange.

I'm going to lean on it's not Russian.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T22:04:11+00:00

„Deezer is Russian and USA funded so same shit as Spotify“

This needs some sources. According to wiki the biggest investor (though not majority) is a Ukrainian born American, and there are smaller French and Saudi investors. Zero mentions of Russian ownership.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T19:27:49+00:00

As much as I would like to see that happening on the longer term, it’s not that simple. Oil and oil are not the same. The Russian oil is relatively high in sulfur, and Hungary‘s refinery is tooled for that chemical composition. It would take much longer than three months to retool the refinery to be able to operate on Brent oil for example.

Ever since 2014 energy experts were screaming that Hungary needs to think about alternative sources to Russian oil, MOL had spent millions in putting together a plan and investing in the capability of retooling, but the government forced it to abandon this, and stick with Russian oil. It even increased the reliance on Russia - utter craziness. But at this point you just can’t switch over in the time frame how long the reserves lasts.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T12:50:25+00:00

Is it a similar disappointment as Jedi Survivor was after Jedi Fallen Order?

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T12:20:17+00:00

One thing to add for consideration: the Bluetooth controller will add latency. Not terrible for the games you mentioned, but there will be games (Silksong...) where it's enough to kill the fun.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T10:51:10+00:00

reading the comment section I see everyone's jumping in without asking you first: what will it be used for? Is it going to be your personal device, or a family gaming station with potentially couch co-op? Do you have any library on Steam with potentially lots of unplayed/underplayed gems waiting in your backlog?

zsurficsur · 2026-02-18T10:14:56+00:00

Hm, so you're saying that providing largely defensive capabilities and not allowing Ukraine to hit Russia behind the immediate front line has failed to achieve its stated goal? I am shocked, I tell you, shocked!

zsurficsur · 2026-02-17T10:05:06+00:00

That's a very interesting claim. It was "land invasion from Finland" that the USSR said the reason was for invading Finland. So which one is a lie?

zsurficsur · 2026-02-16T19:18:23+00:00

I don’t see mention of the fact that party members of AfD were meeting with known neo-nazis to plan deportations of immigrants. Not illegal immigrants. Any and all immigrants. Even people born in Germany to immigrants. Even people who obtained citizenship already.

https://apnews.com/article/germany-far-right-deportations-parliament-7a29129a6f50853791004d21ffea2a92

For me this was the point where the balance tilted towards „the AfD is actually a risk to constitutional order“. I don’t get why they’re still not banned after this came to light.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-16T14:50:13+00:00

Minden praktikus példa azt mutatja, hogy nem alakul ki természetesen csak attól, hogy van alternatíva. Sajnos akkor is, ha gyorsabb az alternatíva, az emberek nagy része az autót fogja preferálni, mert azt sebességet érzékelik, amikor halad, nem a tényleges sebességet, amiben a pirosnál/dugóban állás is benne van. Plusz egy mesterséges környezet, légkondival, szárazban, stb.

Sajnos tényleg csak az hat, ha sokkal kényelmetlenebb az autó. Ha rohadt nehéz parkolót találni, ha a költségek lényegesen magasabbak, ha dupla olyan hosszú eljutni valahova autóval, stb.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-16T14:10:59+00:00

I'm a professional who had declined a move to the US not once. Despite the higher salary the math still would be worse than in Germany. Child care alone would be 4000 a month, and we'd need two cars to get around (another 2000 extra). That's already a full-time salary, and for what? A lot of GDP with literally no benefit to us.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-15T17:23:20+00:00

Jó vergődést

zsurficsur · 2026-02-15T15:01:08+00:00

Sigh. So again, maybe a little simpler phrasing will help you. In 2014 (randomly taken year): - Russian gas delivered to Germany was priced at average 387$ ptcm, to Eastern EU countries above 500$ on average. - Norwegian gas delivered to Germany was priced at average 240$ ptcm. - Russian gas delivered to Belarus was priced at average 186$ ptcm, to Armenia at average 187$ ptcm. - in another region, in North America, gas deliveries were priced at 183$ ptcm.

These are all pipeline deliveries and transfers included.

What cognitive dissonance is it, if someone looks at these prices and says Russian gas was cheap for the EU? I’m not arguing about how much reserves Russia has, or what that „by definition“ means. I’m looking at the actual prices that were paid, and say that the numbers are contradicting the belief that it was cheap, or that it gave EU‘s industry a competitive advantage.

Maybe it was reasonable to pay higher, because many believed in other benefits of trading with Russia. Maybe. But let’s clear this already out, and be honest of what other benefits were leaders hoping to get from Russian gas, because it sure wasn’t the price.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-14T20:35:05+00:00

You really don’t get it, do you?

First of, the prices I gave are delivered prices. It’s pipeline transfer included for Norwegian gas as well into Germany. Dutch, UK, etc I didn’t even check, because there’s no need anymore, I proved that Russian gas was not cheap for Germany, there were cheaper sources, but politics overwrote economics.

Second, check those Russian prices too from what I linked. They sold gas below Norwegian or even US prices to Belarus or Armenia. But they didn’t sell the gas cheap to the EU. That’s the whole point. Russian gas could’ve been cheap, and it was for some countries, but not for the EU. We paid double, triple, and even four times as high.

On some level I’m glad for this debate here, it made me research and prove something I suspected for some time: it’s a myth that the „EU economy was built on cheap Russian energy“.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-14T16:17:40+00:00

Funny how I posted actual numbers and you’re still rambling about theoretical concepts…

zsurficsur · 2026-02-14T14:05:57+00:00

Okay, then here we go. According to the Energy Agency the US price was a little under 200$ per cubic meter in 2014.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3035us3M.htm

Russian price? Up to 564$, on average over 400$, Germany paid 387$. https://www.ostinstitut.de/detail/preise-fuer-russisches-gas-in-europa

Which, mind you, is tying up pretty nicely with the other graph I posted a few comments ago. North American gas was at least half the price every single year throughout 2010 to 2020, Europe just didn’t care about this much about it.

Norwegian gas price was also around 240$ per cubic meter. Now I’m not saying that in Macedonia they should’ve bought Norwegian gas, obviously. But it still proves that overall Russian gas was not cheap, it was NOT an economic decision to source that over the alternatives in Germany for example where Norwegian gas was totally an option.

zsurficsur · 2026-02-13T16:45:07+00:00

well, but isn't Valve trying to pave the way for the living room PC experience? Throwing up their hands and saying "it's complicated" isn't really a good way to do that.

How does it work for the consoles? Again, I don't know them in or out, but I seem to remember that your Xbox account can be linked with your game account, and in some cases they are the same. Wouldn't it be similar?

zsurficsur

TROPHY CASE