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David Mulder

 Discussion on answer by Obie 2.0: Do …

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David Mulder
Jan 17 03:35
@terdon Given that in most developed country minimum wages make this impossible I would argue that this is quite a unique thing about the United States, thus not making it a trivial claim.
David Mulder
Jan 17 03:35
Had to downvote, because I would strongly read the claim as "Are there americans who work full time, but don't earn enough to pay for basic necessities", not "all americans" or "most americans", just "americans". (Which given the very high World Bank poverty rates in the USA and the minimum wage that doesn't get you over the state specific poverty lines in most/all states... that seems like not deserving of a "deemed incorrect" claim)
 

 Discussion on question by Inquiring M…

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David Mulder
Oct 22, 2024 14:05
@mdewey "As a rule if you have to ask yourself "Is this a scam" the answer is "Yes". " is a horrible rule. That rule only works if you aren't sceptical enough. Random example: Somewhat recently we were booking a boat trip, and we were sincerely worried it was a scam, as the invoice looked shady (different city, no company registration, etc.)... long story short though (and after a bunch of scrutiny from our side): Not a scam. "Is this a scam?" should be a question you should be asking yourself whilst travelling more often than only in the cases where you actually were getting scammed.
 

 Discussion on answer by lambshaanxy: …

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David Mulder
Jan 4, 2024 16:51
@MindwinRememberMonica Acting as if perceived ethnicity doesn't affect travel experiences a lot is... absolutely bonkers. Perceived ethnicity (combination of color of skin and shape of face primarily I guess) is completely objectively a big part of travel. It completely changes the risks involved with various activities. I have absolutely no idea why bringing that up on a travel site would be an issue...?
 

 Discussion on answer by Paul Johnson:…

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David Mulder
Jan 3, 2024 00:30
@Mołot Didn't see the author of this post come back here, but "Any device that is supposed to extract extra heat from the electricity is therefore a scam", is a perfectly true statement. (When considering heat pumps you need to consider the entire system, and the system as a whole barely heats up). As is the statement about eletric heaters (news flash, heat pumps are not eletric heaters, as eletric heating refers to "a device that converts electricity into heat").
 

 Discussion on answer by Trish: Would …

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David Mulder
Nov 24, 2023 02:30
@Trish you wrote a comment that literally just said "please read the tag at the start" and then edited the comment to be less toxic and then when someone highlights that it was you who didn't pay attention you edit your comment and attack the person who pointed it out...
David Mulder
Nov 24, 2023 02:30
@Trish 🤦‍♂️ please read the conversation you engaged in. It started with me responding about a discussion in the Netherlands about how such a law could take shape.
David Mulder
Nov 24, 2023 02:30
@Trish which in the Netherlands would already be covered under warranty, even beyond 2 years, all you would have to show is that 1) the expected lifetime of a hand mixer is more than 2 years and 2) that the defect was due to the use of plastic parts which couldn't survive for the expected lifetime/plastic parts which aren't used in industry/etc (to be fair, this is how the law was written afaik, not necessarily enforced unless someone feels like getting into a lawsuit)
David Mulder
Nov 24, 2023 02:30
@Trish Something that breaks in the expected lifetime of a product always falls under warranty in the Netherlands. The only difference is that the first 2 years the manufacturer is responsible for proofing it wasn't them, whereas after 2 years you're responsible for proofing it wasn't you.
David Mulder
Nov 24, 2023 02:30
@Barmar Discussion in the Netherlands around this I heard was about making the act of planning obsolence illegal, rather than something that can be inspected on the product. Similar to e.g. price collusion, you can't definitively tell that two companies are colluding by looking at their prices, you need inside information (e.g. a whistleblower).
 

 Discussion on answer by tddmonkey: Ho…

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David Mulder
Jun 30, 2023 19:17
@slebetman Even the most generous moment it stopped being a 'confusing mess' was when 'callback hell' turned into 'promises'. Promises were introduced in 2012 and the last browser got them in 2015, so that's around 10 years. And I assume that Nate Barbettini is actually referring to async await, as promise chains were still 'a confusing mess' often, so then we're talking about 2017.
 

 Discussion on question by jgtor: Inte…

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David Mulder
Jun 15, 2023 15:38
Not an answer and not nearly as bad as you, but two anecdotes: 1) I reported my old passport as lost and since then on my new passport whenever I enter the EU in some countries they spend an extra 5-10 minutes manually checking stuff after refusing entry through any automatic gates. 2) My wife's passport from central europe somehow gets an incredible amount of attention in all central asian nations. We have absolutely no idea why, and they always let her through in the end, but something about her passport is apparently suspicious 🤷‍♀️ . Point is: These things can be pretty weird.
 

 Discussion on question by Jayadevan V…

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David Mulder
Dec 20, 2022 09:48
@JayadevanVijayan I just wanted to clearly specify why I downvoted. "Not logical" and "So illogical that it breaks suspension of disbelief for a lot of people here" are two different things. We weren't criticizing a fictional group of people who made the rule, but rather your idea. Within the context of your universe a rule that would not cause suspension of disbelief could thus become e.g. "only the church is allowed to write/print".
David Mulder
Dec 20, 2022 09:48
-1 for reasons in comments above. Whether the ink is applied all at the same time (printing) or progressively (writing) would not be the thing authorities and popular opinion would focus on. Given an anti-printing propaganda campaign the focus would be on how printing made information be widely available or how anything not written by a human comes from a demon or something like that.
 

 Discussion on answer by Franck Dernon…

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David Mulder
Aug 31, 2022 10:33
@Relaxed Surprising to hear, as as various bank cards I use split 'fees' and 'withdrawal amount' and I never saw a bank that was able to 'notice' that the ATM requested a different amount of money than I selected. But interesting business model, as I have a hard time understanding how you pay for those atm fee rebates in that case~
David Mulder
Aug 31, 2022 10:33
@VladimirFГероямслава Did you by any chance withdraw from an euronet ATM, they are a known private 'scam' network. Having withdrawn from Austrian ATMs a couple of years ago there were no fees with mastercard and visa cards.
David Mulder
Aug 31, 2022 10:33
@Relaxed Is this referring to stuff like the 6 euro fee per withdrawal in countries like Thailand? Or is this some US specific fee?
David Mulder
Aug 31, 2022 10:33
@WGroleau What's the difference between paying a fee and then getting it back, and not paying a fee in the first place?
 

 Discussion on question by Charles: GD…

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David Mulder
Jul 19, 2022 03:05
So the idea 'we give you product now, you pay with your privacy down the line' is just another version of the same scheme. And that's not even talking about the social pressures to be on certain platforms.
David Mulder
Jul 19, 2022 03:04
And to get back to the point, people are pretty stupid, just check all the research coming out of behavioral economics. People are especially weak against constructions of the type 'I give you X now, and you give me Y in the future'. The typical way this is abused is through 'pay later' loans and the creditcard culture in the US (according to a Dutch news article from a couple of months ago 19% of the US is in debt with a negative net worth if I remember correctly)
David Mulder
Jul 19, 2022 03:01
Add to that the part where around ten companies were basically able to track everybody's behavior across the web everywhere and the general centralization in most companies (look especially to how such centralization of data has been used in countries like China) and and I absolutely question why you call it a huge success.
David Mulder
Jul 19, 2022 03:01
@Charles Calling the internet a huge success when we are in a situation where the combined information from all publicly available data leaks can often already spell out a person's whole life is... questionable.
David Mulder
Jul 18, 2022 17:26
@Charles Putting the onus on the user is a typical capitalist response, after all, that's exactly how the internet initially worked and look at where that got us. Companies are highly motivated to link 'loss of privacy' to 'product' rather than 'specific feature'. What GDPR does is make each individual privacy choice separate and force companies to put some minimal time in thinking about what they are doing. It's sincerely not hard to comply. (Tip: ico from the UK gov has an amazing guide to GDPR)
David Mulder
Jul 18, 2022 17:26
Do note that he should then also block countries like Japan, Canada, Brazil, Israel, Kenya or Argentina (and I am probably forgetting a bunch). It's definitely not a majority of the world (yet), but privacy laws are far from rare. Being really careful with what you collect (the absolute minimum you need) and not doing anything shady with it makes a lot more legal sense than trying to block any users from countries that protect their people.
 

 Discussion on question by chrono_tach…

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David Mulder
Jul 15, 2022 02:35
@BSMP Note that that's exactly the reason why in my experience companies expect 6 or 7 'logged' hours of work, not 8.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ted Wrigley: …

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David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
@TedWrigley Isn't the argument absolutely trivial: Your company is paying you everything you're due. If you're only working half the time you agreed upon, they still end up paying you for the full amount of time. The transparency is required because the company paid for your time, and they might not be aware that you aren't upholding your part of the purchase. (cont.)
David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
It's the same thing as when you go to the shop and you buy a carton of milk and at home you find out it contained water and you would say "ethically the shop is okay, as it's not their responsibility to communicate fairly and transparently". That's utter ****ocks. If you are part of a trade, then ethically you have every responsibility to be transparent about what you're providing. That's true when you're a shop, when you are an employee, or when you're in marriage.
David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
And as to your whataboutism regarding companies not sharing the details of their trades with other people... what moral basis would there be to require them? The important thing is that they are transparent about what they are providing you... and in my experience they are incredibly clear and transparent about that part.
David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
@TedWrigley Hello whataboutism. As always 'someone else being bad does not justify you being bad'. And honestly, I can't even think of a good example of what it would look like when a company is opaque in a way that 'abuses' your relationship with a company. Closest I can think of is a company not communicating that they don't have the money to pay your salary... which is a decently rare occurrence. Because an employee not putting in his hours is basically the same thing as a company not paying the agreed amount.
David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
@TedWrigley Even when you do not get paid 'per hour' doesn't change the fact that a company is buying a certain number of hours from you. As a person you can decide to either sell your time or to sell specific products. Both wage and salaried employees fall in the 'time' category, whilst for example gig works sell 'products'. And yes, if the company knows that you are only working 10 hours per week, and they are happy with the output, then all is good. The important part is whether you're clearly and transparently communicating with the company.
David Mulder
May 24, 2022 07:37
-1 "It seems to me that you get paid for the results you produce, not the work you do". You take this for granted, but most jobs actually are paid per time-unit, not per result. Obviously there wouldn't be a problem if he is working on a per-gig/per-project basis, but to me it seems that he's hired for 40 hours a week.
 

 Discussion on answer by WHO's NoToOld…

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David Mulder
May 18, 2022 15:58
And lastly a more personal note: Do not take this criticism as censorship. The thing to realize is that just because WBC is one of the better known hate groups that doesn't make every negative statement automatically true.
David Mulder
May 18, 2022 15:58
Just noting a few things: most importantly being awarded attorney fees is not necessarily a form of any income, after all, that's not going to pay much better than just being an attorney in the first place (do remember that fighting legal battles costs a lot of time). Whether you decide to donate the earned money to a church is up to the individual, so if you want to consider it actual income it needs to be more than just 'legal fees'. (cont.)
David Mulder
May 18, 2022 15:58
Secondly the BI quote mentions a lawsuit in 1995 which I can not find any documentation of, it sounds like the Snyder v Phelps case, but that one only had $16,510 in legal fees and was a decade later.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ben: Is it re…

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David Mulder
Apr 20, 2022 21:44
Please note that the Cardiff Philharmonic story has quite some nuance; the music in the planned program was about (a Russian) war including musical representations of war. The idea that such music takes a different meaning when Russia is actively waging a war against an ally... shouldn't be so hard to understand. How this would relate to jingoism (Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations)... I have no idea.
 

 Discussion on answer by Justin Thyme …

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David Mulder
Apr 8, 2022 02:57
First let me say: I agree. At the same time, what might or might not be possible in the future is kind of unknown. Especially as we really don't understand most of the brain. But main point is: If you do go down this route, appreciate the non trivialness of such a task.
 

 Discussion on answer by ohwilleke: Ca…

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David Mulder
Apr 4, 2022 04:03
@Joshua thanks for finding and sharing that! Maybe worth making that into an answer? (Probably doesn't change anything for the OP, but definitely would result in a higher quality answer)
David Mulder
Apr 2, 2022 10:22
@Joshua The thing though that in the US the police isn't concerned with what the cost of damage is. After all, it's not their responsibility or problem, as it's all blamed on the target to be apprehended. As @Tim makes pretty clear, the american perspective is that it's just a risk of life. As always, the US dream is truly: The lucky get rich and the unlucky get poverty.
David Mulder
Mar 31, 2022 16:03
@GuntramBlohm Yeah, I am waiting for Texas to declare independence and privatize their police: "Black friday deal: Standard police protection package for $999/y, replies within 7days. Deluxe police protection package for $499/m including 24/7 phone support". It's always fascinated me how the US intentionally hovers somewhere between the western world and third world countries in it's approach to public services and citizen welfare.
David Mulder
Mar 31, 2022 16:03
@Flvsser For whatever it is worth, in Europe (specifically I am familiar with Belgium) the idea is that the 'cost' of the police doing their job should be equally spread across all citizens, so in such scenarios the government still pays up. When I heard a year ago about the cited story for the first time it sounded - from a European perspective - absolutely shockingly unjust.
 

 Discussion on question by Ally: How c…

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David Mulder
Jul 22, 2021 15:50
Alternative: Family once wanted to help a friend in trouble who absolutely refused to accept any gifts no matter how much she needed it. The accepted 'compromise' was that they 'hired' her (off the books 🤔 ) to do various odd chores for them and the local church. Of course this only worked because she was unemployed anyway, but in that case it's nice.
 

 Discussion on answer by Itai: Is it a…

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David Mulder
Jun 10, 2021 12:15
There is just nothing at all backing up your claim that foreigners commonly get in trouble due to specific Japanese laws. Japan is a fairly mainstream liberal country, this isn't the middle east or the US or something like that.
David Mulder
Jun 10, 2021 12:15
Searching around the closest thing I found is stuff like 'don't use someone else's transit card, don't use weed, and don't carry a weapon around, etc.' Which applies equally in most countries. Looking for news articles about 'foreigners arrested in Japan' it's all about people doing drugs and people who were drunk and resisted arrest and murder... once again things that land you in jail outside Japan as well.
David Mulder
Jun 10, 2021 12:12
@Dúthomhas The point was that you made a completely false claim and when asked for advice on how to find information backing your claim you told people to do something which ended up giving lots of bullshit. So yes, I was very clear that I wasn't sure whether your Google results looked so different or whether you were intentionally putting people on a snipe hunt.
David Mulder
Jun 10, 2021 00:18
@Dúthomhas I am unsure now whether you're trolling or whether Google is giving you such different results, because for me it's giving a general article about faux pas such as wearing shoes inside, not wanting to sleep on a futon and general travel advice (enjoy the scenery on the train rather than sitting on your phone type stuff). And then there is articles about the japenese legal system and what to do when the police stop you, none of those support your claim there are laws that commonly get foreigners in trouble in Japan.
 

 Discussion on answer by Philipp: Why …

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David Mulder
Feb 24, 2021 00:45
@Relaxed If my understanding is correct a lack of copyright notice might make an innocent infringement defense even harder, but in practise innocent infringement defenses tend to be exclusively fair use defenses and I couldn't find a single innocent infringement defense that hinged on the defendant believing they weren't infringing copyright because of a lack of notice. So yes, in theory they could have legal consequences, in practise best I can tell they don't for the last couple of decades.
 

 Discussion on answer by gowenfawr: Ho…

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David Mulder
Jan 7, 2021 13:22
@TylerH You sign a digital contract with a service that for a certain amount of money they will provide a service. During this process you also give them your payment details. When the payment doesn't come through that doesn't affect the contract, unless the contract states that failure to pay will end the contract. See the linked question on law.SE. Pragmatically suing isn't worth the effort, but legally they absolutely have every right.
David Mulder
Jan 7, 2021 13:22
@TylerH That's exactly the type of scenario the referenced question is asking about. Obviously it's cheaper for Shutterstock to just call it a day and end your access rather than sue, but legally that's far from their only option. (Maybe (and I doubt it) the OP never cancelled their subscription and just started to fail to pay, so they disabled his access, then SS got access to hi CC and re enabled his access)
David Mulder
Jan 7, 2021 13:22
@Marquizzo Failure to pay doesn't change obligation to pay: law.stackexchange.com/a/37826/280
 

 Discussion on question by thegreatemu…

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David Mulder
Nov 22, 2020 22:51
Related: security.stackexchange.com/a/72461/25355