Jimius

Sounds like enough material for a 3 hour youtube documentary

Car companies are short-sighted in general. During COVID they had cancelled their semiconductor orders. And when during the end of 2020 the factories were telling them to place their orders. They didn't. Soon after all capacity was sold out for years and the industry had an enormous self-inflicted shortage of electronics.

"customs duties on electronic transmissions"

Is this really a thing? How would you ever enforce something like that?

Poland gave us Chopin, Marie Curie, kerosene, vodka and the Witcher 3/Cyberpunk 2077.

The Talos Principle A community who share book tips on existential philosophy and the meaning of life. A theme in the game.

Anything server or database related is already on Linux. Managed by professionals. The problem are the desktops. Those still run windows, it's a walled garden. Government windows licenses are dirt-cheap. support is ubiquitous and almost everyone knows how to work with windows. The cost of switching is just too high.

The added benefit is no reliance on foreign tech companies who will kow-tow to autocratic governments. Also since we can afford to develop open source software, it will also benefit poorer and developing countries. Which is a goal on it's own, but will also put the the EU in a good light elsewhere.

While technically correct. I don't think the existence of Hans Island, an uninhabited speck between Greenland and Canada really counts as a land border between the EU and Canada. Any trade would happen by ship or plane directly between the continents. Not a border corssing on Hans Island.

Although, if EU rules require some kind of land border... Hans Island might be important after all.

The EU is not a geographical union despite it's name. Even then, Canada and Europe share a common border; the Atlantic Ocean. Also it's part of the Commonwealth, Has a strong economy, social politics, The Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian tradition. And they speak the two most common European languages. Canada makes more sense than Türkiye if you disregard distance.

Didn't even know that. Makes the recent news how his secret trip to Israeli-occupied territories got leaked all the more revealing of his true allegiances.

That's all technically correct. That's how it works in a lot countries, Europe included. But that's not how it feels, or what people think is going on. They're paying into a system that is going to benefit them. Even if what they receive is derived from future taxes on other people. They contributed to the system, therefore they are also entitled to benefit from it.

If history had taken a different turn here or there. It could have easily been French or German or Dutch. In "our timeline" it happened to be the British Empire.