Jesus Christ, everyone should know it especially if they’re flying there, to the island known as Ireland. And yes all the locals would.

Yes there are parts of Ireland and Scotland which are close but the engineering challenge is so vast that it would cost hundreds of billions if not trillions. The channel tunnel was a major feat of engineering made possible by the relative shallowness of the channel and boring through soft rock and chalk.

The sea between Ireland and Scotland is 2-3x as deep and through granite & igneous rock. A tunnel isn’t an option. People have proposed a bridge instead, assuming they can figure a way to sink piles 100-150m into the sea floor and build a 20 mile bridge over waters that can have 15-20m freak waves, high winds and storms. Or the seafloor that is scattered with thousands of tonnes of unexploded ordinance.

But even if they did all that, trains in Ireland / UK aren’t even on the same track gauge. Nor would anyone to travel to the tip of Ireland to get to the hinterlands of Scotland, to change trains, to get another train to catch another train to get anywhere in England. Not when it would be easier and faster to get a ferry/coach or just fly.

So basically the idea comes up every now and again but it is not practical or feasible.

The odds are and were actually zero since no such tunnel exists. And if people are aware of the chunnel spanning 20 miles they sure as hell would be aware of a tunnel between Ireland and England which would be a nigh impossible feat of engineering whether it went directly, or circuitously through Wales or Scotland.

I had a US colleague stay with me in Ireland for a week and he was asking if it was possible to catch a train to England. It’s amazing the geographic ignorance of some people and Americans seem to be especially afflicted. Maybe it’s because the USA is so big, large cities so far apart, and public transport so terrible it doesn’t occur to them that Europe is not the same.

Only the headline asserts “built-in backdoors”, the actual link… not so much.

A reasonable reading of the proposal, assuming it came into effect, is that ISPs, banks, telcos etc would be asked to retain certain records for a number of months or years in a harmonised way. Law enforcement agencies would be required to ask for it in the exact same way they ask for records right now and all the rules concerning GDPR etc would still apply.

Open source tech has zero to do with it, it’s a matter of policy.

Data retention != mass surveilance. Data retention != built-in backdoors. Even the link summary spells out exactly what the purpose of the proposal is (criminal proceedings) and the intended objective (data retention standards).

What I’d wonder is why it’s such massive expensive for Duolingo to hire 2 or 3 people to cover a language anyway. Presumably most of the work is contractual - hire somebody competent to produce a course, get somebody to say the lines, refine the course based on feed back and that’s mostly it.

Where did I write they were directly equivalent or as bad when I didn’t? Such an idiotic response quite honestly. At least address what I actually wrote not what you imagine I did.

This not a tough concept - the legal consequences for road users of varying types should be similar. Assholes on bikes are a thing and they should suffer the through the same legal framework as their vehicle brethren.

I think cyclists should be treated the same as drivers in so far as possible. And that includes obeying traffic signs, issuing of tickets and so on. I’ve almost been run over by cyclists who run red lights or go the wrong way up one way streets. It’s small consolation that a bike is “lighter” than a car if it still means some 120kg asshole slams into you because rules are for other people.

Probably only works for dumb bots and I’m guessing the big ones are resilient to this sort of thing.

Judging from recent stories the big threat is bots scraping for AIs and I wonder if there is a way to poison content so any AI ingesting it becomes dumber. e.g. text which is nonsensical or filled with counter information, trap phrases that reveal any AIs that ingested it, garbage pictures that purport to show something they don’t etc.

Worth bearing in mind that EV sales increased something like 24% in Europe from last year, so Tesla (lack of) sales have to be adjusted for that. Even if the number of cars they sold had remained static it would still be troubling.

Let’s hope no rumors swirl that JD killed the pope with a contact poison