@Mitch ;) thanks

3/4 of respondents said gays should be allowed to adopt children; in 1998, that was only 1/2.

@Cerberus Sure. Why should biological parents be the only ones who can screw up a kid's life?

Yay!

Besides, adoption doesn't create any new victims of this cruel world.

So let me know when you become a parent.

@Cerberus I guess the other half failed to realize that lots of gay people were already raising children

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No. Only half of the other half.

@Robusto Well, they STILL fail to realize it

@Robusto I don't plan to.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, you can be against x while knowing that it occurs.

@Cerberus Yeah, I suppose. There's layers and layers of irrationality here.

Why is that irrational?

I am against terrorism.

I know it happens, though.

No, I mean, the different ways people can be opposed to gays

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Such as?

@Cerberus never mind

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OK OK.

I wasn't disagreeing with you.

At least not that I was aware of.

How is your telephonic quaest?

I bought a Nexus 5

from my own carrier

It was a close call, they wouldn't have sold it to me if I didn't identify myself as a customer

My wife likes the phone, though, so I think the switch-over will go smoothly.

It's thinner than the N4 and less slippery

well, not much thinner, but it feels a lot thinner

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You mean they couldn't otherwise tell that someone trying to buy a phone from them was a customer?

@Robusto No, I mean, if I weren't a subscriber to their mobile plans, they wouldn't sell me the phone at all.

Gods help you if you're a tourist whose phone broke.

There is literally nowhere to buy a phone here.

The frozen north now includes Toronto?

Hasn't it always?

Well . . . I have often thought of Toronto as a civilized city.

But when I was there we stayed at the Four Seasons, so perhaps that gave me an artificial sense of civilization.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ooh, congratulations!

Despite the mediocre battery and camera, I am sure you will enjoy it.

Oops I failed to resist a jab.

@Robusto Well, Toronto is civilized. But Canada's mobile phone industry is a cartel of customer-fucking oligopolies propped up by overregulation

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 As opposed to?

It would be really nice if Japan, America, and Canada broke their teleco oligopolies.

We have an oligopoly too, but at least the phones themselves are free.

As in liberated.

@Cerberus Yes, I enjoy the fact that I was able to use the Nexus toolkit to just factory-reset it to the latest android instead of having to download OTA after OTA

Good, good.

@terdon As opposed to almost every other product in Canada. Consider, for example, the landline phone industry. Imagine the chaos, where you can just buy any phone from any manufacturer in any store! Or the TV industry, where you can buy any TV in any store! And in neither case do you need to provide ID or demonstrate that you subscribe to a particular phone plan or cable TV service.

@RegDwigнt I am reading this article in Die Zeit about the occupation in Amsterdam, and the one Dutch word they use is spelled incorrectly: gezelig.

> Das Mittel überwuchert den Zweck.

Very nice.

Like Triffids invading the Triffid-oil factory.

Or just invading society.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, yes, true. I was just pointing out that mobile providers are an oligopoliy in more places than not.

@Cerberus Dream on. Guess who pays for our politicians.

@Robusto Yeah, that's the problem.

@Cerberus Immer so.

Somehow, former beloved Dutch Eurocommissioner Kroes managed to come up with a really good proposal: I don't know how she withstood the lobbyists that Brussels is teeming with. Then the Commission was forced to support it. The Europarliament also supported it, because they usually vote for the good things in the end. Guess what happened?

Got voted down by special lobbying interests?

Lobbyists got to the national governments.

So yes.

yup

The Council of Ministers, who can veto such things, came up with a new proposal.

Instead of a true common market with no more roaming at all, beginning in 2016, they proposed: 5MB free roaming a day within the EU, beginning in 2018.

They did the same thing to the net-neutrality clauses from the same proposal.

I don't know what happens now.

@Cerberus How did they even come up with that without prompting from the carriers?

Haha, without prompting?

It rather seems like they read the carriers' teleprompts word by word at the press conference.

But it's interesting how the EP is still relatively good, while our national governments are easier to corrupt.

That is, you need to corrupt the majority of 28 ministers on telco stuff for this. The relevant ministers form the Council of Ministers, depending on the issue.

calix me inebrians

@cornbread: ^^

@Cerberus Pfft die Zeit. They're just like Bild but without the redeeming feature of page 3 girls.

@Mitch Bild has page three girls?

Wow, it really is the Sun, why the hell are we taking it so seriously in Greece?

@arrowfar True! If only the park were real...

@terdon Bild is really bad, year.

I also think it is the world's largest paid newspaper?

@Mitch Mmm not quite!

They have fewer Bilder, more Zeit.

@terdon hm... maybe page 1?

It just seems strange. Every time those fuckers come out with a new article on Greece, it makes frontpage news here. I can understand it when it's a more serious publication but a rag of this sort?

Grrr

Heh.

Yeah, serious Germans don't read Bild, let alone take seriously what it says.

The Greeks tend to treat foreign press as a monolithic body. If it was in the Foreign Press, it hasta be good.

@Cerberus Very disappointing. I just looked at Bild and couldn't find anything. So basically Bild and Die Zeit are the same except for their font.

@terdon Yeah, the same thing often happens here, it's ridiculous.

@Mitch You couldn't find anything, not even a single Google hit for "Bild"?

@terdon Haha. Bild is the newspaper for idiots/people who can't read/people for which reading is annoying/the majority of people.

@Cerberus no. I couldn't find a single salacious picture. with lots of exposed skin. Also, get off my lawn.

Your lawn?

@Cerberus No, thems reads Bunte.

@Mitch "People for which"? Really?

@terdon really.

@Mitch This good enough?

@Cerberus yeah. front page girls. but the web version doesn't seem to have them.

I also have one with you with nipples.

@Cerberus yeah. my lawn. I just seeded and if you damn kids keep walking on it, it'll never grow nice and even.

@Mitch Would you really say that or was it in jest? If the former, why? Why not whom or who?

Why am I walking on your lawn?

@Cerberus I don't know! but stop it!

Why would I?

@Robusto That looks very serious.

oh ya

@terdon I find whom extremely outdated, and who obviously wrong, so it which was the only alternative I could come up with.

Look man, I'm not some school teacher.

No, them serious Krauticans read Frankfurter Allgemeine.

@Mitch Pfft, weasly words.

@Cerberus I deleted that before it offends someone's sensibilities.

:21283140 "Bewiesen! Frauen fahren besser Auto"

Does that mean that women drive cars that are better than the ones men drive, or that women drive better than men when driving cars?

They sure drive better when driving snow plows, I'll tell you that!

@Cerberus Seems like many women in those pages have nichts anzuziehen . . .

@Robusto yesterday's papers

All papers are yesterday's papers.

@terdon Haha ridiculous, who cares?

But as you wish.

@Mitch If there former, then it would have been ein besseres Auto (weird) or bessere Autos.

@Cerberus I don't, to tell you the truth, but it's the kind of thing that can get you flagged, so I figured better safe than sorry.

So, no, besser is an adverb, and Auto fahren is idiomatic for "drive a car".

@terdon Your prudishness offends my sensibilities.

@Robusto Yes, the poor creatures! Have you seen The Onion's PETA video?

@Cerberus No.

@terdon I would wear such a flag with pride.

@Robusto It's nice.

Fine, fine, put it back, I'll leave it alone.

Presumably, this is based on real PETA ads?

And @Robusto I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination! I'm a nudist FFS!

@terdon I won't, I don't care enough either way muwaha!

@terdon You are?? Really?

@Robusto Is that a ... fashion magazine? I can't tell from the pictures.

Yes

Funny.

@Mitch Who can?

That sets our demands for your picture in a whole nother light.

@Cerberus Well, not in any kind of organized way. I just always go to beaches were nudity is not a problem. Those are very common in Greece. I don't go to those silly organized resorts where clothes are forbidden. Just places that aren't jam-packed with people and nobody gives a damn.

OK OK.

No nude vacations to nudist camps?

@terdon All beaches used to be nude beaches. Then civilization happened.

@Robusto Yup. So I look for those places where civilization has either receded or never quite made it.

@Cerberus Oh, good heavens, no.

@Robusto all those animals running around the forests with ... with no.... shudder ... with no clothes on.

@terdon So it's basically only on nude beaches?

With friends?

@Cerberus Yeah, nudism is very accepted in Greece (which is odd given the prudish nature of Greeks). Basically any beach that's not jammed will have nude people in one corner or another. There are some that are designated nudist beaches but, again, with certain exceptions, that's just because the nudists go there, not because it's organized in any way.

Hell, I did a naked bike protest twice in Barcelona.

@terdon nudist spots = the bald heads of nature where people equals hair

@terdon OK nice.

We have nude beaches here, and I doubt whether anyone would do anything if a corner of an ordinary beach were occupied by nude people.

@Mitch lol, right on :)

@Cerberus googling for 'peta ads nude' shows NSFW real ads

However, many of our beaches are really crowded, and it probably wouldn't go over well there.

@Mitch Nice!

But now I must run.

@Cerberus No, and I wouldn't feel comfortable either.

With clothes on.

Oh, and we have had nude bike rides here.

Bai!

@Cerberus even more uncomfortable. where do you keep your keys?

@terdon But it's not just that they're an oligopoly on mobile service. They're also an oligopoly on phones, which has gone way past the point when that sort of thing made sense or was tolerable.

I see

seems like a lot of trouble to go to, not to mention more places for sand to get in and need for more sunscreen

At least in the US you can buy most phones directly from the vendor. In Canada you can't even do that.

@Mitch marginally more sunscreen. And it's no trouble at all. Less, really. You don't need to worry about packing a bathing suit.

And it just feels better.

You nailed it, perverse is the word.

@Mitch I should inspect them more closely when next there is a nude bike demonstration.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I still struggle to comprehend why Amazon.ca doesn't have normal phones at normal prices, like here.

@Cerberus amazon.ca is a joke.

But why?

I have no idea.

Amazon.de is much better. Though not nearly as good as .com.

Amazon.de always has phones cheaper than all Dutch web shops.

Well, usually.

Amazon.ca has a fraction of the products .com has, and the prices are uniformly worse. Also, .com ships some things to Canada, but doesn't ship other things.

Like, Lego. It's so cheap on amazon.com!

There are always sales

Com does that to us too.

but on amazon.ca we get dick.

If only.

and amazon.com won't ship Lego to Canada.

@Cerberus lol

I mean, yes, most unfortunate.

I'm sure Amazon.com won't even shop Lego to Denmark!

And amazon has these affiliated retailers, but so many of them only ship domestically.

Yeah.

I got some .com credit a few years ago.

But what do I do with it?

@Cerberus well, why the fuck not? They ship lots of things lots of places, but not Lego, and not phones.

@Cerberus buy books.

I know!

I have bought one book off that credit.

if I lived closer to the border, or travelled more often for work, or had some other travel mule I could use, I could get so much stuff so cheaply.

So I wonder how the carriers can make it so that normal shops don't sell phones at internationally competitive prices in Canada.

Even when our dollar tanks I can still save money

I once ordered books from Australia.

Because books are often ridiculously expensive here.

@Cerberus They sign deals with the vendors so that the vendors only sell the phones directly to them.

From the other side of the planet!

Wow.

That should be illegal.

That limits anyone else's ability to even order the phones at wholesale.

I don't even understand why the phone mfrs want to support this corrupt system

like, is Motorola happy with its Canadian sales being limited to only Telus customers?

Why aren't there 1000 companies that buy wholesale in America and sell the phones in a webshop in Canada?

@Cerberus cross-border duties

This calls for an anti-trust investigation.

Wait, you still have significant duties?

What was NAFTA good for at all??

How much?

I don't know. I'm just speculating.

Also, the market is so skewed that most people don't even know how bad it is.

Sure, but a single web shop could change that.

Not easily

Yet none have appeared so far.

There aren't many national phone carriers; most of them only operate in one or two provinces

Most provinces only have two, maybe three carriers to choose from

@Cerberus I bet it will show that there is absolutely no collusion among the 'amazons' com vs co.uk vs de vs etc, and that not only does one hand not concern itself with the other, they are totally unconscious that the prices might be different on their different web sites.

There are barely any MVNOs

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Same here, except the virtual ones.

Most of the MVNOs offer shitty prepaid service

no data, or data at exorbitant rates that's not useful

I do wonder why the big three sell capacity to the virtual providers at reasonable rates.

They are forced to

Are they really?

at least, here they are, but there are limits

I also wonder why all three have their own virtual providers, with good rates. I am on Voda's virtual provider.

yes, we force our phone, cell, and internet companies that have large, established networks to sell capacity

That is good.

But then why don't we have even better providers?

The virtual ones are good, but still not nearly as good as Germany or Austria, let alone Estonia, where 1GB is 50 cents.

I imagine the cost price of 1GB is far below 50 cents.

Man, when I went to Austria, I pre-paid and got a data-only SIM with 1GB on it for 10 EUR and that was a fucking amazing deal

from T-Mobile, no less

not some hard-to-find MVNO

Right!

You can get that here as well.

10 EUR for 1GB is a lot more than 50 cents

But from a virtual, probably.

but here, you can't get anything for $10 or $15.

Yes.

You'll be hard-pressed to get a data-only sim from anyone anywhere unless you're already getting a phone sim.

So why were there no virtual providers here that offer you, say, basic service but without a bundle for €3 (that should pay for maintenance of the network), and €0,50 extra for each GB?

Luckily, we don't have that N-A culture here where people's plans are linked to other plans.

Which should be illegal anyway.

They're trying to introduce that stuff now.

Okay I just found that our carriers do have data-only plans, they're called "Ipad" plans

Hahaha.

Such names happen here too.

So, min $10/month, and you bump up each tier as you use more data

150 MB for $10? A steal!

yeah, they're stealing from you

Hehe.

So where are the cheap virtuals?

That is the cheap virtual for the more expensive network owner

That's the same plan from the big-name vendor

Same exact service, btw. Same network, same owners.

Now tell me the market isn't structured to be as confusing as possible.

Hehe of course.

It is extremely confusing here too, up to court cases about "unlimited" etc.

But you know what? My current provider is not so bad if you use few data.

Vodafone's virtual.

I can turn my bundle into cash by calling paid phone numbers.

And retrieve 60% of the theoretical amount I pay for the bundle.

However, of course they only sell bundles at discounts, in order to confuse people, so I could get [about 120% of what I pay] back in cash.

Why doesn't grammar have such brackets when you need them?

@Cerberus Yes you tried explaining this to me before and it was confusing.

There is one company here, Wind Mobile, that has great plans and will sell you phones even if you're not a customer. But they're a recent startup and they've had difficulty building out their network, so I had to quit them because even though I supposedly had 5GB HSDPA data it behaved like I had 0GB 2G data.

oh, and here's something annoying. Let's say you have a phone and a 4G tablet. You probably don't need separate data plans for each, right? So you can get a shared plan (which is fine). But for the privilege of doing that, you pay $10/month JUST for the sim card for the tablet.

AND they disallow tethering.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 On reflection I think that kind of chaotic pricing schedule means that they are confused. They are just reacting to local information.

@Mitch No, there is no confusion on their part. There are three companies that control 99% of the market. They each have two faces: the expensive face and the cheap face. They all change their prices in lock-step

You should have seen them panic when there was a rumour that Verizon might open up shop up here

The three of them teamed up to make ads to for TV and Radio talking about how great they were and how awful Verizon was and how un-Canadian it'd be for the government to let Verizon in.

Or maybe it's quite the otherway around, it's like airlines who are all running some big dynamic linear inequality solver in the sky, and at this very moment when you inquire, the optimum price for that exact phone choice you made, is price X, and then 10 minutes later with a zillion route changes and other buying decisions made, the price is Y. So to the computer it is totally rational, but the individual it looks insane.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That sounds like a cartel

if not by conscious direct communication, by unconscious fashionable copying.

@Mitch yes, I described it as a cartel recently

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh. You stole my idea from the future

That's not the first time I will have done that

or it won't be.

It wasn't my idea about Toronto being civilized. I'll give you that.

Also 'cartel' sounds like an amusement park ride. That way it doesn't seem so bad.

"cartel" sounds like the name of a telephone company. Coincidence? I think not!

hmmm.. "Monopoly Steel and Rail and Car- for all your big industry needs"

I'd buy from it...because that's all there is.

I tried to buck the system and buy the phone I wanted from the vendor with the best price. I wasted hours and hours and ended up buying from the very company that keeps me captive.

gotta go. cya

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 0GB is a tad scanty.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'm afraid the double SIM is also expensive here, a total rip-off, nobody does it.

Tethering is always allowed, but only because some judge said so.

@Mitch That is the essence of oligopoly: it is always an informal cartel.