Enkrod

I own a lot of Strauss stuff and am extremely happy with it. Shoes, trousers, shirts. Workwear or casual clothes it’s a bit less fashionable but A LOT longer lasting.

I do however think it’s pretty boring, I love bandshirts and tees with printing on it commenting on coding or roleplay and of course they don’t have that. But i have to say my Strauss polo-shirts are still like new while my bandshirts are losing their prints and starting to get tiny holes.

EDIT: oh shit! They offer prints and even embroidery now! Time to update my wardrobe!

Vaultwarden is a self-hosted, fully FOSS implementation of the Bitwarden API that works with all Bitwarden Apps and Browser Addons.

Been using it for years and am extremely happy with it. It’s fully client encrypted so the server only works as storage for fully encrypted blobs

Surveillance systems are able to differentiate between identical twins. Even if they look the same and have the same genetic code.

Good surveillance software can recognize you by the folds in your jeans and wear patterns on other clothes. It’s not a good forensic method, but it’s just one of many data-points for a stochastic analysis. And if you try to wear anti-surveillance-fashion (it’s a thing) this is just another data-point on your profile. Anti-surveillance fashion honestly makes you more recognizable to the system, because you are “more different” from other people.

Disappearing would also mean that you never carry any identifiable electronics, (like a cellphone, not even a google phone or a smartphone, ANY cellphone).

Also the LACK of identifiable electronics would in and of itself be a VERY identifiable data point. Or, if you gattaca that too, the person you would try to impersonate would have to stop using their devices while you use them.

Lastly the surveillance system doesn’t even need to connect your profile to your or any real ID, the profile it builds will be build on the things you do, wear, say and how you act. It can be connected to your ID post-factum.

Gattaca relies heavily on a lack of technology that we do have today and the in-story over-reliance on genetics (for example there are no security cameras in that NASA-building, because they rely completely on genetic identification for everything security related).

Unsurprisingly, a movie set in a fictional world is not a good guide to today’s very real privacy concerns.

I think the biggest difference is that many european states have parliamentary democracies vs. the US’ presidential democracy.

This, combined with proportional representation voting systems, that more accurately represent the will of the populace in parliament, leads to a need for governmental coalition building, necessitating a more concilliatory and a little more non-partisan politics. While usually allowing for a more effective government, since the head of government represents a legislative majority.

It does have its own challenges and is far from perfect, but I think the current US government is a fitting contrast of a minority elected, non-concilliatory, highly partisan government that might become completely and utterly unable to do any governing by the midterms.

The US is also a good example that the age of a democratic system doesn’t mean it’s a good system. In fact I far prefer the very young post-WW2 german system to the very old american or british systems, though it could stand to learn some from the nordics, especially Finlands open list voting system.

Just be aware that The Wandering Inn turns into the absolutely longest rambling mess of dozens of viewpount characters.

It’s often lovely, but sometines it just goes on and on and on… It is roughly three times longer than the entire Wheel of Time series, and its word count surpasses War and Peace, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hunger Games combined and it is still unfinished. Pirateaba writes like a mad person.