I’m not german but how about a big “no” for that genious suggestion?

This type of idea puts me in such a state of mind I don’t even have the energy to curse.

Listen to science. Actually listen to experts and learn that people produce more and better in shorter work days. Want more work hire more workers, plan activities better and automatize repetitive, predictable, tasks.

Politians work for the people. The people owe them nothing. Stop trying to force socities back.

I am not into competitive gaming but I’ll be damned if I understand why the the anti-cheat modules are built into the game instead of being an aditional package that is installed and verified through the tournament platform.

In my country, jury duty can be refused and is deemed as a role, not an obligation. It is an honor, as it is very rare to have such added role in court; takes very complex and often serious crimes. People called for it often accept but I have heard of situations where people object from personal or moral values.

And, again, in my country, voting is not an obligation, nor legal, nor moral. It is a right and the duty to vote is considered a matter of respect towards the right that was acquired through a revolution and the individual right to be part of the political destiny of the nation, no matter how small.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs, here, but I don’t care.

A duty arises from a personal sense of necessity to do something. Call moral obligation if it is easier for you. Being moral relative… Obligation is determined, enforced and enforceable by law.

I have the duty of cast my vote in any election, not an obligation.

A simple example.

You be the judge of it:

• punched through a tempered, textured, 3mm thick glass, leading to several cuts on a hand and wrist
• kicked a glass panel on a door and got a nasty cust on my toe
• several instances of cutting myself on different types of thorny bushes
• perforation with glasses rim on my eyebrow
• severe cut on my other eyebrow, another on the bridge of my nose
• broken arm, twice
• fall from a 1st floor balcony, landing on a bush, after breaking a cabinet with my back and legs, until finally reaching the ground
• hundreds, if not thousands, of small scrapes and bruises
• bitten by dogs, leading to deep gouges, on my calves
• severe tear on the back of my left hand, with a broken bone, not exposed, leading to surgery
• many, many, many sprained ankles and wrists
• three pulled teeth plus all the bleeding from losing my baby teeth
• minor burns on hands and fingers, from cooking
• several nasty cuts from kitchen knives and a perforation by a lobster spike, which led to a severe infection, with a piece of lobster shell stuck underneath a finger nail
• a few near choking to death episodes
• two electrocussion incidents (230V), for mere seconds

duty ≠ obligation

To need it explained and clarified into body of law is scary.

I’m going to risk there is none.

Many hand to hand combat weapons were bespoke to the user.

Using an example I’m fairly familiar with:

In Portugal, we have a martial art called jogo do pau. It uses a simple wooden staff. Today’s schools insist the staff has a standard lenght, width and shape.

An old school practitioner I had the pleasure to meet taught me the staff was always made to fit the wielder, not the opposite.

As a general guide line, it should have the lenght of the distance from the wielder’s armpit to the ground but there would be people that prefered longer or shorter staffs. Some people would prefer thinner staffs, nearly cylindrical in shape, others would prefers heavier, thicker, almost eliptical in profile. The amount of customisation and variation capable of being put into the weapon itself was so diverse, it made each staff unique.

I’d risk this same logic would apply to more classic weapons, like the flails you ask about.

There are a few EU alternatives. Why are those not being considered.

LiberaPay is one.

I’m not against supporting a software in a recurring form but the web browser is essentially the lock and key of accessing the entirery of what exists outside your machine.

That would garner an immense power to whichever entity developing one. Remember Microsoft and the IE case.

Firefox is not perfect and apparently on a downwards spiral but what made it stand out was because it wanted to be free and for all. Chrome is far from being a good thing.

Hey, Nelson! How are you doing? Are they busting your chops?

Debian is my daily driver and for regular people I help. Comes with a service card saying “it will work and you will like it”.

I help for free. If someone does not like it, they can pay to have what they want done. But they don’t get to ask for help again.

Debian

Enough said.

I did and nowhere is Signal mentioned in the article.

You state Whatsapp uses Signal. So, again: how?

To my knowledge, under Signal, the encription keys are locally generated and stored, and the traffic flows between end points as a closed packet.

This does not seem to be the case here, as the keys are generated and stored outside your equipment and, thus, are viable to be used by a third party to access packets.

But I admit I speak heavily burdened by technical ignorance.

How?

The Mafia and most, if not all organized crime syndicates, started as a way for people to defend themselves from abusive governments, officials, etc. Mafia thrives by getting along with people, not openly prey on them.

Syndicates also tend to be patriotic, in the sense that they are defending or at least looking to preserve their interests where they are rooted.

Mafia tends to arbour great disdain for police and similar forces. They can be useful if bribeable or somehow coherced to look the other way but they are still police. The enemy.

I’ll give you an extreme example.

In Brasil, the Comando Vermelho is one of the largest, if not te largest, criminal organization on the country. They are well known for their extremely violent and cruel methods. Yet they are the biggest employers in the areas they control. They build schools, pay people for their work (mostly unrelated to criminal activities), distribute food, run clinics. They act as de facto police, courts and punishers, to keep peace. They nearly replace the state because the state nearly abandoned the poorest of poor, amongst who they set grounds, in the favelas.

I can’t imagine the resistance they would pose to an invading force.

And, I can’t confirm this, but I have a memory of reading somewhere that during WW2, the Mafia helped the Allies infiltrate areas.

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Still too rich for my blood

That sounds very nice!

I don’t have the money for a FairPhone.

But unplug from the net? Sounds strange. The model I checked is a fully fledged smartphone. Nothing that signaled the phone was about not having advanced functionalities.