Been using Synology for more than 10 years. Very used to DSM and my default would have been to continue.
The drive policy was a calculated insult to customers. I don't buy the argument that Synology was incurring support costs. If true it should have charged for support. It looked price gouging.
As result I switched to Ugreen (2x 4800 Plus units) and think I'm unlikely to buy Synology in the foreseeable future.
Really? I have taken chickens to the vet twice (in 8 years).
First was one taken by a fox. My wife chased the fox and he dropped the chicken (she was too heavy for him). She had a broken leg and a broken wing. Both perfectly treatable and she went on to make a full recovery, resumed laying. As result of her closer contact with people during her recuperation she became very tame and socialized with visitors on the deck in the evening. Arguable she became a pet after her vet treatment.
Second was one with an eye infection (eyelids swollen so she couldn't see). She also made a full recovery.
I don't take every sick chicken to the vet, but if you've kept chickens for long enough you get an idea when it's likely to be mworthwhile (it's never financially worthwhilte). What's worthwhile will vary according to what you can afford and how you relate to your flock generally, the age and health of the hen and likelihood of recovery.
Your apparent implication that the EU is coercive is false. Very simply, if you want to do business in the EU you have to comply with the mandated market standards. No hammers are involved.
The EU is the greatest peace project in history not, as many (including Donald Trump and many right wing libertarians eg) characterize it, as an oppressive entity. It's why countries are keen to join it and to adopt common (shared) EU standards. It's simply better than having multiple competing national standards.
Market power and diplomatic power are different. No EU diplomacy whatever was involved in the UK's sovereign decision on the UKCA mark or USB C and related matters. The EU does have diplomatic representation in London and uses it to, e.g., let the British govt know it will face trade sanctions if they violate the terms of the UK Withdrawal Agreement (threats to break international law were made repeatedly by the last UK govt).
NI is recognised as a "contingent" part of the UK. (contingent because as a gerrymandered legacy colony imposed on the Irish people it is a disputed territory).
There certainly is an implied agreement that there will be never again be a hard border with customs controls. Both govts accept this and the UK parliament voted for the NI protocol because of this. Disputing this is simply absurd and pointless. Pointless because the days of unionist dictation to the rest of the population are over and they won't be coming back. Get over it.
Utter claptrap. The UK govt announced its intention to abrogate the withdrawal agreement. The EU did not renege upon the agreement -- which specifically includes terms about the EU's rights to punish non-compliance. And the UK's "compliance" included repeated unilateral abrogations.
What's overlooked by many commenting on this is that cooperation with UK science will not revert to pre-Brexit levels.
EU scientists do not have freedom of movement to the UK, nor do their families and any dependents. The bureaucratic obstacles to movement are considerable and there are no signs that this is about to change.
UK scientists are still applying for jobs abroad in droves. Irish universities receive a great many applications from the UK for every job advertised (UK scientists can move to Ireland freely because of the Common Travel Area).
Additionally, EU residents no longer even have the right through their residence to visit the UK. That makes organizing collaboration with Britain more complicated if you have a PhD student from Iran in the group, or a postdoc from China.
Unless I missed something at the time, EU residents (not residing in the UK) who were not EU citizens never had an automatic right of entry to or right to remain in the UK by virtue of EU residency (with some very narrow exceptions like accompanying an EU citizen spouse - though the UK made exercising this right very difficult in practice so that it was usually easier just to apply for a visa).
Much as I thoroughly oppose Brexit it's worth pointing out that other EU countries also made excersing the right to travel with a spouse difficult.
Before Brexit I gave up trying to take my wife on a couple of business trips in the EU as they were too short notice to arrange the supposedly free visa, which in theory shouldn't have been even needed but definitely was in practice.
Nothing to do with science, but one exception is school children. It used to be easy for a class of children from France to visit the UK with a special group passport for school/youth groups, which could include the Syrian refugee child etc. That's no longer possible, so these trips (to help learn English) now mostly go to Ireland.
Regarding your last point, is that from your own experience or can you point to some online resource. I ask as an Irish academic working in the UK who would potentially like to return home at some point!
Nonsense. There is no pretense that GB and NI are in different countries. They are in different trade zones.
As for "our" country, here's your reminder that all of Ireland was coerced into the UK by colonisation and oppression and that NI is a contingent part of the UK not an integral part of it.
A majority of its people voted against Brexit; a majority favour the NI protocol and the Windsor agreement; and a majority will vote in due course to end the imperial gerrymander imposed at gunpoint on the Irish people (likely within 15 years, now that unionists are a minority in decline).
It was the UK govt and parliament's decision to separate NI so that GB could go "buccaneering". As for "surrendering" the English will get over it, just like they got over losing most of Ireland and the rest of the empire.
This will be a significant boost to London, already home to vast amounts of money laundering via real estate, all facilitated by well established networks involving thousands of middle class professionals and the UK's crown dependencies with convenient secrecy laws, nominee directors etc. to conceal beneficial ownership. 70% of the apartments in most premium developments are owned offshore, many with concealed ownership -- 11% of all of the properties in Westminster alone.
I recommend the following books by Oliver Bullough:
This is arrant nonsense. EU countries are NOT busy dominating each other nor are they engaged in colonialism, unless you think the Brussels Effect is about colonialism instead of the EU punching above its weight in setting norms and standards.
The EU is actually a very effective mechanism for preventing countries dominating others. A current case in point is the EU acting as a restraint on the historic domination of Ireland by the UK.
The UK expected Ireland to be forced out of the EU following the UK's exit or that the EU would sacrifice Ireland (compel it to have a trade border with the EU in order to protect the status quo of the open Ireland/NI border). Neither happened. Instead the British were obliged to uphold the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement -- a change from the UK's customary bad faith in dealing with Ireland.
Very simply the UK couldn't and cannot afford sanctions the EU would impose if the UK repeated its colonialist behaviour.
You'd be better off reading up on how the EU came into existence and on how it actually works (why VAT for tax eg) than making unsupported assertions.
State level percentage sales tax is simple enough, but the US has gone overboard with every jurisdiction implementing its own form of sales tax, and implemented using asinine calculations.
Sometimes percentage, sometimes flat, sometimes combination, sometimes based on the volume, sometimes based on the mass of an ingredient, sometimes based on time of year, and on and on it goes.
And it could be from federal, state, county, city, transit region, federal agency. I look at my mobile phone bill or hotel receipt and there are 4 to 10 (literally 10) itemized taxes, and I have no idea if I am being scammed or not.
And the items applicable to sales tax and exempt from sales tax is constantly changing. And the entities exempt from sales tax and the documentation requirements, placed on merchants, is always changing.
This is just the website for US federal diplomat sales tax exemption instructions.
This type of complexity exists for federal employees, for 50 different state employees, and on more local levels.
I can only assume there is massive amounts of under and overpaid sales tax, with all these avenues for corruption and mistakes. And how much of the country’s productivity is wasted on calculating and auditing all of this?
Edit: this turned into a long rant, but just look at what a simple merchant is expected to know or implement in its systems to sell trivial consumables:
> In addition to the specific text, each tax exemption card bears one of four animal symbols indicating the specific type of tax exemption of the cardholder:
• Owl: mission tax exemption cards with unrestricted tax exemption.
• Buffalo: mission tax exemption cards with some degree of restriction.
• Eagle: personal tax exemption cards with unrestricted tax exemption.
• Deer: personal tax exemption cards with some degree of restriction.
The drive policy was a calculated insult to customers. I don't buy the argument that Synology was incurring support costs. If true it should have charged for support. It looked price gouging.
As result I switched to Ugreen (2x 4800 Plus units) and think I'm unlikely to buy Synology in the foreseeable future.