Humanius

From my understanding a significant portion of asylum claims in Europe came from Syrian refugees.

In December of 2024 the former Syrian president Assad was deposed and the country has (seemingly) gotten a lot more stable since. So it makes sense that asylum claims would be down in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

This is a good development. Not only does it mean that people will be able to go home in relative safety, it also takes away a lot of the ammunition (the fallout from the refugee crisis that has been ongoing since 2015) that the right-wing populists and fascists all over Europe have been using to gain power.

The article speculates that the increase in pedestrian deaths is due to e-bikes and e-scooters. I’m not convinced that this speculation is based on actual data though.

After a bit of digging I found a government resource on road fatalities:
https://catalogue.data.infrastructure.gov.au/dataset/australian-road-deaths-database

This data does not seem to track the vehicle that caused the road fatality, unless that vehicle is a bus, heavy-rigid truck, or articulated truck. So there would be no way to determine from the data available whether the increase in fatalities is due to e-bikes and e-scooters.

Oops! We accidentally added Putin himself to our top secret summit Signal group-chat

It is not that funny when it is your home that gets blown up

I’m Dutch, but I don’t live in a place that is particularly affected by these explosions, nor am I an expert on the matter… but I’ll drop my two cents, based on my reading of the situation

These explosions are happening in cities like Rotterdam and the Hague. They are places that traditionally have gang/mafia activity.
From my understanding a lot of the explosions are related to underworld dealings. It’s possible that there is some petty conflicts as well, but the individuals are almost always connected to the underworld somehow.

It’s also worth noting that in the NL (as I imagine it happens in other places?) crime tends to come in waves.
Criminals figure out a new effective method to commit crime. The police and institutions scramble at first in order to deal with it. Then eventually they figure out an effective method in order the combat the issue. After which criminals lose interest and either the problem moves to a different location, or they change tactics.

Edit: The article also mentions that “the use and possession of fireworks generally are also laxer in the Netherlands.”
This is simply not true. The kinds of fireworks that are legal in the NL are much more restricted than they are in Belgium and Germany, and you can only legally purchase and use it leading up to New Year’s Eve.

The dangerous stuff is illegally imported from Belgium and Germany.

OS: Unraid

It’s primarily NAS software, with a form of software raid functionality built in.
I like it mainly because it works well and the GUI makes is very easy to use and work with.

On top of that you can run VMs and docker containers, so it is very versatile as well.

I use it to host the following services on my network:

• Nextcloud
• Jellyfin
• CUPS

It costs a bit of money up-front, but for me it was well-worth the investment.

Yeah they should just sit back and do nothing while their government finishes the job! /s

Charging the battery for a moped is not nearly as demanding as charging the battery for a car.

I’m not entirely sure, but I believe that Vietnam is one of those countries where most people get around on a moped, and also one of those countries that has already been shifting towards electrifying their moped fleet. If that modal share doesn’t change they might not need major infrastructural investment in order to strengthen the grid.

Edit: Battery swapping stations are also quite common for mopeds in countries like Taiwan. Those can be trickle charged rather than fast-charged.

While I would normally agree that labeling a protest group as terrorists would be government overreach, I’m not sure if that is true for Palestine Action. Their protests have more similarity with terrorist actions than I would be comfortable with

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/4/palestine-action-what-has-the-group-done-as-it-faces-a-ban

Particularly the last bullet point in that article is a big one

In June 2025, the group carried out one of its most provocative actions to date: infiltrating RAF Brize Norton, the UK’s largest airbase. Activists used electric scooters to breach security and vandalised military aircraft with red paint.

You can’t break into a military base, vandalize property, and expect the government not to do anything about that.
I’m all for pro-Palestinian protests and standing with Palestine, but this is not it.

Pro: It’s radical and cool and you get to shoot your gun! Pew! Pew!
Con: You occasionally have cases of innocent minorities getting shot by racists

The “racist” between quotes in the headline just means that that one word is a direct quote from someone or something, wheas the rest of the headline is paraphrased. In this case it’s a direct quote from a coroner’s inquest by Judge Armitage.

I’m not a fan of this style of quoting, since writing singular words between quotes could easily also be read as insincerity or sarcasm. But it seems to be pretty common in English language media.

Edit: Judge Armitage also writes that this police officer being racist isn’t just incidental, but rather that the police station he is working at apparently has a work-place culture that has normalised racism (as per the article)

My server has also not been liking the heat over the past month

Though in my case it’s because drive 3 is sitting in a slot that is possibly not getting enough airflow. It’s consistently running a bit hotter than the other drives in the system.

I really should get around to moving it to a different slot.

For context, before people jump to conclusions:

Russia is not party to this landmine treaty, and Ukraine having to adhere to this treaty is essentially forcing them to fight against someone who plays dirty while having their arm tied around their back.

Other countries that have announced that they will be withdrawing from the Ottowa Treaty are: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (Coincidentally all bordering Russia or Belarus)

I’m not sure if buying American equipment is a good way to rid ourselves of our dependence on America.
It allows America to control our supply of spare parts and software updates, and it doesn’t bolster the European defence industry.

Converting that to a yearly inflation figure:

1.015¹² =~ 1.196

So about 19.6% yearly, assuming it will stay at 1.5% monthly for the next year.
By Argentinian standards that is honestly not too bad

Failed wheat harvest which caused a bread shortage.
Bread was a staple food in 18th century France.

I’m not quite sure if it is similar to the rice shortage in Japan today however. When the French couldn’t eat bread in the 18th century they went hungry, but when the Japanese today can’t buy rice they can just buy a different carb.

Its the difference between barely scraping by on bread, and being inconvenienced by not being able to buy cheap rice.

Would be a noble goal to bring obligations closer to something voluntarily taken and not just obedience.

It may be noble, but it is also a bit out of touch with reality.

When you participate in society (even if it is something as simple as buying groceries at the supermarket) then you have to follow the rules of that society that you participate in. We have decided together as a society, democratically, what those rules are.

You can’t then say “I’m not playing by the rules” and expect people to just accept that.

Edit: Fixed a typo

This group calls themselves Reichsbürger, and from my understanding it’s essentially equivalent to Sovereign Citizens in the US.

Installing a monarchy may be the stated goal, but it is not in itself the reason why people join this group. Rather it is about illegitimizing the current government so that they (supposedly) do not hold power over you.

There are various reasons why people would join a group like that, but a common one seems to be that they are running away from the consequences of their actions in one form or another. If the government is illegitimate, then the pain their society imposes (e.g. unpaid fines, mounting debt, etc) is also illegitimate.

The reason for the government’s illegitimacy is irrelevant. All that matters is that the state should be illegitimized in some way.

Correct. There is freedom of movement between the EU and Switzerland.
Switzerland is also part of Schengen, so there is not even a need to show a passport at the border.

The article does say that it was the local council that wanted to prevent them from moving there.

I’m not saying there definitely is a discriminatory motive… I do not know how the people of Switzerland look at the Romani people.
But given the way Roma are treated in much of Europe, and Switzerland’s reputation for being somewhat conservative, I am not discounting the possibility that they are being discriminated against here.

The equivalent in the US would be if a couple of families of black people wanted to move to a predominantly white town in the south, and the county would step in claiming there are no more homes available.