A few years ago I got myself a nice tea maker with adjustable temperature and brew time. Then I got some nice Assam tea, brewed a pot, and it turned out so nice I decided it didn’t even need milk. Then I ended up on a wikipedia spiral and found out that the Brits apparently started putting milk in their tea when they started drinking Assam tea, after being used to milder Chinese teas. Heh.

One of the companies making GPS navigators for cars used to advertise lifetime map updates. Small print: lifetime of the device, two years after release

Whatever it does, it doesn’t seem to help with colors.

EU is at least trying to do something about that. As of last year stores are required to display the cheapest price they’ve had for an item in the past three months when they have something on sale. Not all stores comply, and of course they try to get around these by the usual shenanigans, like basically the same product being available from the manufacturer with two slightly different item codes.

Edit: I think I was mistaken, and it’s 30 days, not 3 months

Soon after it was formed, somebody dubbed Finland’s current government coalition the IKEA cabinet

-took seven weeks to assemble

-barely holds together

-leans heavily to the right

This is pretty close to how it works here in Finland, although I’m not sure if it’s based on national or EU legislation. The cost of recycling is baked into the price of any electronics, and as a rule of thumb, you can drop off any small devices to be recycles at stores that sell appliances. When it comes to bigger appliances, the stores only need to take your old one if you’re buying a new one. You can of course also bring them to municipal recycling centers.

I know the Finnish National Library acquires and files a copy of every newspaper or magazine issue released in Finland, and many Finnish language ones released outside Finland. Other countries probably have something similar.

I realize I’m very privileged. If I’m working on an issue for a whole day or a half day, everything I do during that day is part of the solution and will be billed to the customer (and I’ll be paid for by my employer too). If that includes taking a nap, so be it. Results are what matter, as it should be. If someone ever starts saying I’m taking too long to do something I may consider changing my ways.

This takes me back to the era when every other online store was selling DVD-gramophones.

I debated whether I should say NA or American, but I figured I don’t know what Canadians use, so there we go. Anyway, nice to see that debate is still alive and healthy. I gave up on it ~20 or so years ago. Writing unitedstatesman was exhausting after a while :)

Not a native English speaker, but my hunch is, soccer will almost certainly be understood. Also it will identify you as American.

Critical mass. When it has been the default way to message anyone and everyone for over a decade, it’s pretty difficult to start converting everyone and their literal grandmother to start adopting something else. I understand it doesn’t enjoy quite the same status in the US though.

Very glad I saw this. I’ve been getting increasingly fed up with Google Maps. Their map in my area is full of annoying errors, such as routing you through roads that haven’t existed for a decade, or along private roads that are not open to the public. And no matter how many times I report them, nothing ever gets fixed. Going to give OSM a try and hopefully make the switch for good. Already saw that the map in my area is in much better shape than Google’s.