Just a regular Dutchman from the Netherlands, actually. I got all four languages in school, and got quite a bit of exercise in French as a kid, so some of it stuck with me.
German is similar enough to Dutch that you can mostly bluff your way through it after highschool.
I’m pretty much a fluent English speaker. My native tongue is Dutch
There are certain sayings, phrases or slang that I may not be intimately familiar with. And sometimes I can’t think of a word that I really should have known and I need to look it up (but I get that in Dutch too)
But generally my thoughts are in English, when I speak English, which I think is a decently good sign of fluency.
Following movies is no problem, but I still prefer to have English subtitles under them in case I miss anything. Watching with subtitles is just something I’m used to anyway, because most movies in the NL are not dubbed, but rather the OG language (often English) with Dutch subtitles
I also speak a bit of French and German, but I’m nowhere near fluent in those.
Lunch having to be paid is not an EU rule. It just happens to be that multiple countries in the EU have such rulings.
In the Netherlands lunch can still be unpaid unless your union has agreed otherwise in the collective labour agreement.
My job has unpaid lunch according to the employment contract (But thankfully they aren’t too picky about working exactly 8 hours in a day)
A few years ago I went back from 40 hours per week to 36 hours per week. In practice this means one five day week, and one four day week with Fridays off, giving me a long weekend. A few colleagues do this too, and some others opted for a 32 hour week, with four days each week.
It has been a pleasant experience for me, and I would preferably not go back to a 40 hour week.
I finally feel like I have time to enjoy my weekends again. Leaving me enough time to do chores, fulfill social obligations and engage in my hobbies.
It is also helpful that after taxes the wage difference between working a 40 hour week and a 36 hour week is not that significant in the Netherlands. So I would easily trade the wages for the healthier work-life balance.
Probably best to make a report, that way they see it.
From my understanding it isn’t the colours themselves that are copyrighted, but rather the system around it. If you happen to accidentally use a colour from the Pantone library without paying them for the privilege, that is allowed. But any system that uses the Pantone names / structure should pay for the rights to use that system.
I’m not working today :D
January 1st is a national holiday in the Netherlands, and I took three bridge days (vacation days to bridge the gap between a public holiday and a weekend) between Christmas and New Year’s.
On top of that I have every other Friday off, and that happened to coincide with this week.
So with only three vacation days spent I have 11 days off from the 25th of December to the 4th of January.
I’m using the time to move house, so not much relaxing sadly.
Don’t Stop Me Now is great too
If you can’t have sex with the sex-machine making machine, what even is the point?
There is a difference between human-scale and humanoid.
Human-scale just means the robot needs to fit in a space where humans should also fit, while humanoid means it is supposed to resemble a humans not just in size, but also in shape. A humanoid robot would generally have a torso, two arms, two legs, and probably a head.
As an example, a roomba fits in a human environment but is not humanoid. You could hypothetically make a humanoid robot that is capable of using an ordinary vacuum to vacuum the same space, but it would be significantly more complex and more expensive to do that. A purpose-built roomba is a much more cost-effective solution for cleaning up after humans.
Given that it’s a humanoid robot, I suspect that this is more of a marketing stunt than any practical deployment of robots.
Humanoid robots don’t make a ton of sense in manufacturing. Why mimic the sub-optimal anatomy of a human when you can make your robotic work slave have any appendage you want, which are designed to be optinal for their task along the assembly line?
Humanoid robots mostly only make sense in spaces that need to be designed for humans (like homes or hospitals) where the robot needs to regularly interact with human infrastructure.
It could maybe be convenient to transmit files to your own devices without having to fumble around with wires, bluetooth, or the cloud?
Any specific reason why they should be phones older than 2020?
Hypothetically the police could come with a warrant and force you to hand over the footage you recorded. It’s a higher barrier than if footage is being uploaded to the cloud, but it can still happen.
And even if the cameras are not uploading their footage to the cloud, it still wouldn’t sit well with me if every other house has a camera pointed at the public street
Where I live it is technically illegal to record the public street with an automated camera, but it’s not really being enforced. So there is Ring cameras everywhere.
Big companies using the informal you in formal communication can be seen as a way to try to make themselves feel smaller, more approachable, more person-like than they actually are.
I’m not saying that is necessarily the reason behind it, but formal or informal you do invoke different feelings and associations when they are used.
Formal you (u) shows respect, whereas informal you (jij) is more personal and buddy-buddy.
I’m also Dutch and I still occasionally use it when I want to be polite to an older person I do not know very well, or to someone who is in a position where I want to show a certain form of “respect” (higher social standing?)
That is probably also why the government uses “u” in its communication. It is proper to be seen as being respectful to your citizens. And saying “jij” after “u” is less likely to offend anyone than saying “u” after “jij”
The rules are a bit vague when you are supposed to use it, and most people will go “zeg maar jij hoor” (you can say [informal] you) after you start with “u” (formal you)
Yes, but it’ll take them another ten years
Electricity generation would suddenly also get a lot harder. Without dynamos I think the only real option becomes solar panels.
I’m no expert, but I believe this is down to the individual member states.
In my country (the NL) it is technically not allowed to film the public street with an automated camera, which effectively makes Ring and equivalents illegal to install in most places
Practically this is not really enforced though, so you see them everywhere anyway.
I think that is incorrect. They discontinued the model X and model S, meaning they are only going to focus on the model 3 and model Y (which are their better selling models)