No, that's not true - the change was that you could only install software from verified developers, not only from the app store, and now they've partially walked that back too and "are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified." ( https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de... )
Or just live like a European? The cost of a Latvian investment visa is something like the price of an average new car. It's obtainable to most anyone gainfully employed in skilled labor in the USA. Virtually anyone here that wants one can get it and move there.
Exactly. I think people think it means you get an EU passport immediately or something and can spend 364 days a year in any EU country?? You only get a Schengen visa and are restricted to 180 days total outside of Latvia, inside the Schengen. But you can do that without a Latvian residence permit...
AIUI it's 10 years to get an EU - sorry, Latvian - passport and for an individual year to count towards that you need 183+ days a year in Latvia
Other than years to citizenship, isn't that the same deal anywhere in EU?
The point is getting a residence permit in EU country is step 1, and step 1 is accessible to fairly average white collar US worker who wants to move to the EU.
Especially given that odds are better than 50% that you will find yourself in a new, larger Russia at some point in the next 5-10 years. Not cheering the prospect, but it seems like Putin knows the US won’t get involved in Europe anymore, and therefore Russian expansion into all former Soviet territory, at minimum, just makes sense.
Latvia is more likely to defend itself successfully than Ukraine, Latvia joined NATO in 2004, an aggression there spells the end of the whole Russian oil industry, and after that Russia's North Korea.
NATO is dead. Latvia, if defended, will be defended only by anemic EU forces. Trump has made clear that he views alliances as purely transactional, and he’s obviously correct that due to geography the US has nothing to fear from any non-nuclear scenario. Therefore, I doubt either Europe or America will honor Article 5 for the other anymore.
To be fair, this is because there's long-standing [but disputed] evidence that healthcare providers drive up costs/utilization when they can refer to hospitals they have equity stakes in.
There are many EU citizens who don't hold your opinion. Are they allowed to do business with the these entities on their own terms? Why can't you just de-google and de-apple and de-meta and let other people make their own decisions?
Sure they can, by setting up a VPN. The same kind of software-config friction people have to overcome to avoid the anticompetitive megacorpos. I'd say it's sensible to have the default lazy option land somewhere in the middle rather than completely lopsided against users.
He also lacked the authority to realize the full vision, being only a guest of Trump. Hence the inevitable conflict when it came to the big beautiful bill.
I've actually seen LLMs put spaces around em dashes more often than not lately. I've made accusations of humanity only to find that the comment I was replying to was wholly generated. And I asked, there was no explicit instruction to misuse the em dashes to enhance apparent humanity.
I can name 4 cities easily where you're paying mortgage+extra driven by the "buy-to-let" craze over here.
I'll assume you mean the UK is a phenomena in that case.
I think the difference for the UK is it’s HCOL but low pay, so people there can’t afford the mortgage down payment as much, which is not normal for say American HCOL cities.
The car market right now makes no sense to me. Interest rates are high, prices are high (inflation + tariffs), unemployment is rising, inventory is low, and yet car sales are booming? What gives? People panic buying before tariffs have a bigger impact?
It's more that in America, cars are for the most part an inelastic commodity. It's very, very hard to hold a job and maintain your life without a car except in the densest of metro areas. Since the population is still growing, sales of cars keep going up and people get trapped in predatory loans or conditions. Used cars are also harder to find and more expensive, which pushes people into these predatory conditions.
I think it's a really poor indicator for the future. America literally cannot function without cars, and if people cannot afford cars they cannot afford to work.
A ten year old Honda Fit is like $12K, pretty fuel efficient, and probably reliable and low-maintenance (I owned one until recently). People aren't buying $50,000 new Ford F-150s because they just need a working car to go to work and the grocery store.
> People aren't buying $50,000 new Ford F-150s because they just need a working car to go to work and the grocery store.
Let me introduce you to half of my block. And I live in a city with fantastic public transit where you don't even need a car. I see those loan notices in mailboxes....
"Car" typically means "passenger vehicle" in common parlance, at least in the US. A lot of truck sales like you point to are fleet sales for work vehicles, so this person is probably pointing more towards non-fleet sales, where the RAV4 is indeed the top seller.
Maybe some people need a car to get to work, plus maybe they also want good optics with it, not wanting to be perceived as "broke" by the rest, so they splurge on a new car without any thoughts on financial responsibility just to keep up appearances.
It’s the optics part that breaks the camel’s back. Any decent car goes from A to B. Only expensive cars have the “optics”. The car is a status symbol that carries you around, and the poorest are the most “vulnerable” to need such a status symbol to compensate.
It mirrors perfectly the luxury fashion industry where more branded merchandise is bought by broke people than by rich ones (unbranded luxury goods are a different beast).
It's not just optics. For consumers who care about safety, newer and more expensive cars generally have significantly higher ratings for both passive crash safety and active collision avoidance. You might not care about such things but there is a real and measurable difference.
I would disagree for a different definition of optics. As someone else who replied to me mentioned, the top selling vehicle in the US is the Toyota RAV4. Based on the many people I personally know who own them, this is a vehicle that says "I'm doing just fine thanks" even when that is very much not the case.
It doesn't even matter if someone is actually looking or not, what matters is that owner has the perception that others are looking, so will act on that.
You don't think many people are judgmental on appearances or at least think they are being judged?
That's the main reason why people get a better paying job, buy a fancier car, fancier clothes, nicer haircut, go to the gym, take Ozempic, etc so they can influence how they are perceived.
