I agree on all points. Well said and reasoned. It’s a very complex logistical problem and it requires balancing millions of constantly shifting factors and political priorities.

Both forms of transport receive enormous subsidies - trains even more so than planes. They are both artificially cheap. Trains even more so.

No, but allow me to ask you in the same spirit: do planes require tens of billions of euro of subsidies each year for train tracks? No. Obviously these two forms of transport are quite different. The EU subsidises air travel (including said avgas tax exemption) to the tune of around €30–40 billion annually depending on what you include and what you consider to be a “subsidy.” Using similar criteria, rail is subsidised to the tune of €40–75 billion per year. So rail gets a lot more investment despite it serving 16% fewer travel kilometers per year in the EU than air travel.

Remote viewing in Jellyfin requires significantly more work from me as the server admin, but it is just as easy for the remote viewing clients. I don’t have to do any first-time setup for them. I recommend an app or two for the media type they’re using, and all they need is URL, login, password.

Thanks for your suggestion. I spent some time investigating this to see how feasible it would be. I have my own domain and static IP, so setup on my end would be pretty straight forward. Users would need to enter my domain:port on first login, but I could walk them through that. I’m going to give it a shot and see how practical it is. If the performance is better, as you say, then it probably trumps those features you mention. With the exception of subtitles for me and the family. We use subs most of the time and need on-demand selection. Automated subs are very hit or miss.

It’s also disappointing to hear the Jellyfin app doesn’t support downloads but I guess if Streamyfin is available on all the platforms then I could just use that.

I tried Finamp and the UI is very not good on iOS. It also lacks a lot of features compared to Plexamp.

The hot dog is a little expensive but considering prices in LA these days, most of these prices are actually pretty reasonable. LA is a very high cost of living place now. Wages are far higher than almost anywhere else on the planet.

Trains are more fuel efficient, but there is a lot more which goes into the cost of these transport modes than fuel.

I’m comparing these modes of transport because they both receive subsidies, including tax exemptions for avgas. The EU subsidises air travel (in many ways) to the tune of around €30–40 billion annually depending on what you include and what you consider to be a “subsidy.” Using similar criteria, rail is subsidised to the tune of €40–75 billion per year. So rail gets a lot more investment despite it serving 16% fewer travel kilometers per year in the EU than air travel.

I think I agree directionally but I keep coming back to the efficiency issue. The longer the journey, the more inefficient the cost becomes relative to planes. It scales linearly. More and more money would need to be poured into a less and less efficient transport method. Once you hit 4-600km, flying is almost always faster. Faster tracks and trains for direct routes are INCREDIBLY expensive to build and maintain and staff.

Plex is still MUCH easier to share with my friends and family. I’ll be sticking with Plex until the UX on Jellyfin is comparable. Also Plexamp is the best music app I have ever used. It’s unbelievably good. Also Plex has more features like the ability to download and select new subtitles on the fly, and consistent skip intro functionality across all apps on all devices.

And multiply those costs for a family. Trains receive more subsidies per km in Europe but cost far more for the distance. I say this as someone who prefers trains. They’re just not that efficient compared to planes. There are solid use cases like local commuter trains and for shipping. For longer journeys, planes are a clear winner for time and cost.

With Radarr, Sonarr, and Plex, I get a better TV and movie service than anything I could pay for. I can afford to pay, and I would, but they won’t offer anything reasonable. I ditched Netflix years ago when they removed the rating system to promote their low quality schlock. They kept removing content. Content would auto-play. Discovery broke as they kept trying to make me watch things I didn’t want to watch. If they make their products worse, and keep charging me more every year, they shouldn’t be surprised when I leave.

That is a political decision and can be changed at will.

How do you propose taxing profits from other countries would work? Send the military in and take it by force? Ban the company from selling products in Germany unless they pay some arbitrary amount like North Korea? Do you pro-rata their global profits? How do you reconcile when some regions are more or less profitable than others? You imply something that is frankly crazy. Not even Zimbabwe tried anything like that, and they stole huge swathes of land and ended up with a starving population.

If it were that simple, Trump would not have had to threaten the G7 for an exception for his companies, he could just have withdrawn from the treaty.

That is exactly what he did. It’s in the article. Please read it.

Exactly. That level of control scares me.

The NGO called “Collective Shout” is behind this one. They are a feminist organisation against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.

The EU is investigating a digital euro, but you won’t be pleased to learn that one of the key reasons is to increase tracking and compliance. Meaning their stated goal is to be able to restrict how the currency is used, by who, when, and on what. The EU is the very last organisation to ever create and maintain an anonymous and agnostic currency. We have that already with monero.

Going on a computer with internet access gives one the ability to exact enormous damage on the world at exponentially higher scale than anything one could do in a car. Should all computer use be actively monitored?

Yeah, those “kill switches” are marketed as being effective but they are imperfect. Same issues with Private Internet Access. They’re probably good enough for most people for browsing the internet, but when torrenting, it takes just one TCP packet to give you away.

I live in Copenhagen. We have plenty. They’re relatively expensive though, so obviously most bikes are not (yet) ebikes. We are also experiencing a bike theft epidemic, which discourages people from buying expensive bikes. Another factor is the country is flat as a pancake and the weather is rarely hot. It’s much easier to get to work without working up a sweat on a regular bike. In fact, people often relish the ability to get some exercise in the morning and evening. Lastly, Copenhagen isn’t very big. We don’t have the same crazy distances seen in American cities.

This one seems fairly obvious to me. People regard their cars as they would their homes and computers: personal space. They don’t like their personal space being regulated, even if they don’t intend to break the law. An analogy might be monitoring one’s internet traffic. Sure, I don’t intend to break any laws, but I still don’t like it. Any politician wading into this fight is going to get their asses handed to them in the next election.

I think it’s time to have a radical rethink of taxation, because this race to the bottom appears inevitable. We will never get every country to sign up to this, and in a world where profit is increasingly driven by IT services, it is easier than ever to domicile in a tax friendly country. I propose the following:

1. Institute a land value tax. This has many benefits but in the context of businesses, it is impossible to evade or avoid. Land can’t be offshored or hidden in a the Seychelles.

2. Increase VAT. There is already a robust mechanism for collecting VAT derived from foreign companies. Increasing this tax is achievable and realistic.

3. Eliminate exemptions and tax breaks for personal capital gains and income.

4. Abolish corporate income taxes. These are generally already gamed to minimise booked profit. Eventually shareholders have to sell shares or draw down on OE. Tax this.

Not necessarily. If that were universally true, all multinational companies would have their seat in the country with the cheapest taxes, which they clearly do not. There are other factors. But yes, it’s one of them.

You’re correct in that it’s not universally true, but their premise is mostly accurate. Especially in a world which increasingly sees income generated by low-friction IT services. These can be easily relocated.

The global minimum tax isn’t that. It literally wouldn’t matter if the USA were in or out, because the broad global agreement means, if the Americans don’t collect the 15%, some other country can and will.

I’m not sure you understand how this tax treaty is intended to work, or in fact how income taxes work with regards to tax domiciles. Business tax is levied against profit accrued in the location in which the sale is ascribed. Microsoft can sell a German an Office license, and they are liable for zero tax on any profit if the sale is from the U.S. entity. However any products sold in Germany are liable for VAT, and that requires a tax presence. VAT is outside the scope of this tax treaty. It is concerned almost exclusively with tax on profit. By instituting a floor, it doesn’t matter if Microsoft domiciles in Germany or Ireland. They’re subject the same minimum taxation on profit. This avoids situations like the Double Irish Dutch Sandwich.

The user above is correct: if the U.S. won’t impose a tax floor, companies can and will relocate their (at least for tax purposes), if their tax floor (including subsidies and exemptions) is lower.