A few years ago I saw a talk how some hackers where able to fool arm vein scanners. I think it was a talk on the chaos communication congress

Hey, can you provide a source for that? I just tried to find something on wikipedia about it. While the organizational form positions DW significantly nearer to the government than the rest of german public broadcasting, it is not like the government does the journalistic work or has a direct say in it. So while a critique on DW being too close to the federal government seems fitting, calling it propaganda and the literal governments news outlet seems far fetched.

Ooohhhh, now I see that it is Ellen. I first thought it was Bernd Höcke, a current polititian for the nazi party AfD in germany XD

I always thought of the polyjuice to be a restricted substance, that you can't easily buy. And making it yourself is not easy and takes like 2 months. That would severily limit the cases. I mean, like how often do school kids in our world put drugs in food or drinks of their classmates? I'm sure there are some cases, but probably nothing wide spread

Drawing clear boundaries for yourself is a good thing and has nothing to do with narcissism. They are about what is important to you. Disagreement over such boundaries can mean the end of the relationship, for the better.

Though it sounds like you are somewhat overcompensating in some areas due to your family experiences (I might be wrong in that). A serious relationship also means meeting the partners needs. If you draw the boundaries so hard to rule out any compromise, then dating will be very difficult, maybe impossible. So you need to be clear with yourself of what is really important and where you can compromise.

Your examples are very different. First its about "doing something" for her, which is too vague to answer. Might be anything. Just using the phrase "Do it for me" is not manipulative in my view. It might be something that is important for her. If you can compromise on that, why not meeting her need? If not, then communicate it and the reasons clearly. If thats a problem for her, the relationship can still just end.

Then its about keeping contact with your family or potentially nursing your parents. That seems to be a hard (and probably healthy) boundary for you. She should accept that. Though talking about it in a non-pressuring way is ok.

And the last two examples are these low stakes situations, where probably the communication is going wrong. These are easily solvable without much drama, by compromising (and yes, ording from different restaurants or having one person cook while the other orders is also a compromise). Do you know the 4 sides of a message? I think it is a quite important concept about communication, since sometimes the anger or sadness, that you her from your partner are not really about what they are saying. Human communcation can be quite complex.

A few months ago a german activist (I think it was Arne Semsrot) wrote a book about how low and middle positions in government agencies can work against the governments intentions in case of a extreme right wing takeover by the AFD. Though I don't know, if it was translated to english or would be 1 to 1 applicable to the USA.

Though having cash is not enough. The stores also need to be able to accept cash without internet usage. I think we had a case in germany a few years ago, where some supermarkets could not sell anything, because the servers, to which the local payment system connected (also uses for cash) didn't work. Not sure, if that was because of a security incident.

I think these nations setup the ISPs to look for the packets using a VPN protocol. This protocol is only used between the user and the VPN provider, so the target website doesn't see it. Though I think this can be evaded too with a bit of work (masking the packets as normal web traffic). One reason why repressive regimes also want to control the devices of the user.

What people want in life often comes from what they experienced themselves previously. You mentioned charity. I've put 13 years of my life into being a scouts group leader, organizimg weekly meetups, many events and multiple scout camps a year. I'm very passionate about this, since I've got so much out of being a scout since I was 7, growing up with a community, that was meaningful and not harsh and punishing as school. I wanted tp give these experience back to the next scout generation. And during my time as scout group leader I could grew even more, making my own life better through helping others. Soon I will shift my focus away from the scouts (currently its too much together with work; also I want kids soon).

I'm not saying, that you need to do this. I just wanted to explain where my motivation comes from. I get a sense of fulfilment and I'm proud of what I've done and I'm proud of the kids, that I saw growing up and now being group leaders themselves.

Finding something, that you are passionate about is very important. It doesn't need to include external responsibilities. Taking responsibility for your own self, like putting in hard work to learn a new skill, can be as fulfilling as the above.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCRwcz2aV8 is really crazy, that americans seem to think, that you need to be able to get out of everything by yourself. In the line of: If something bad happens to you and you are not able to get out by yourself, then it is your own fault and nobody should help you. Though this is already often talked about.

Another scary thing is how little you like your government (being it of the State or federal). It seems Americans don't want the government to do much, not seeing at as a tool to handle modern problems. Back when I was at Reddit I read a thread about why americans opposed state run free healthcare for all. One user wrote something like "Don't see, why we should solve the price issue by letting the state (so taypayer) pay". The user just ignored the immense power, that a government of a big and wealthy nation has. It can easily press pharma companies to set prices low enough, without stiffling research and innovation. But that would be against freedom, I guess? Really difficult to understand.

Though changing the american system is a big task. Months ago I've seen a good video on youtube on that topic by TypeAston. I think its this one Would Universal Healthcare Really Work in the U.S.?

Und doch bleibt der menschliche Faktor: Wenn man sich vertippt und "Bernd" statt 50 Euro versehentlich 500 Euro überweist, hat er das Geld rechtssicher in wenigen Sekunden auf seinem Konto.

Das ist doch auch bei jedem anderen System so, oder? Bei normaler Überweisung und auch bei Paypal Freunde (was ja auch eine Bezahlmethide ohne weitere Absicherung für Käufer ist)

Honestly, rotating the toilet 90° would make this good. I learned that it has advantages being able to lean your head against the wall while shitting. Having salmonella a very small apartment in Tokyo made me appreciate that convenience.😆