Just a spoonie tracking my writing progress to talking about my health... and a few other things in between like art, history, & science. I like learning and quotes that look pretty.
Amazon.com Inc. faces the biggest ever European Union privacy fine after its lead privacy watchdog hit it with a 746 million-euro ($888 million) penalty for violating the bloc’s tough data protection rules.
CNPD, the Luxembourg data protection authority slapped Amazon with the record fine in a July 16 decision that accused the online retailer of processing personal data in violation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. Amazon disclosed the findings in a regulatory filing on Friday, saying the decision is “without merit.”
“There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party,” Amazon said in a statement, adding that it plans to appeal. “These facts are undisputed. We strongly disagree with the CNPD’s ruling.”
The decision concludes a probe started by a 2018 complaint from French privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net. It cautiously welcomed the decision.
“It’s a first step to see a fine that’s dissuasive, but we need to remain vigilant and see if the decision also includes an injunction to correct the infringing behavior,” said Bastien Le Querrec, a member of La Quadrature’s litigation team, adding the group hadn’t received the decision.
EU data protection regulators’ powers have increased significantly since the bloc’s GDPR rules took effect in May 2018. It allows watchdogs for the first time to levy fines of as much as 4% of a company’s annual global sales. The biggest fine to date was a 50 million-euro penalty for Google issued by France’s CNIL.
CNPD didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Local laws bind the Luxembourg authority to professional secrecy and prevent it from commenting on individual cases, or confirming receipt of a complaint. Amazon has its EU base in Luxembourg, which puts the local regulator in charge of monitoring its data protection law compliance.
Amazon has drawn scrutiny in recent years for the vast trove of data it has amassed on a range of customers and partners, including independent merchants who sell on its retail marketplace, users of its Alexa digital assistant, and shoppers whose browsing and purchase history inform what Amazon shows them on its website.
The company says it collects data to improve the customer experience, and sets guidelines governing what employees can do with it. Some lawmakers and regulators have raised concerns that the company has used what it knows to give itself an unfair advantage in the marketplace.
The privacy probe also adds to intense antitrust scrutiny of Amazon’s business in Europe. Amazon is being probed by the EU over its use of data from sellers on its platform and whether it unfairly favors its own products. Germany has multiple probes into Amazon’s sales. The U.K. is also examining similar issues to the EU.
The European Commission last month also said it sees potential antitrust problems with voice assistants and the data they allow Amazon and others to collect on user behavior.
Hey, I just wanted to make a reminder to folks in the northern hemisphere, if you are thinking of buying a generator, do it now while they’re available, if you wait till it’s the middle of winter and the power goes out you’re gonna be stuck. summer is the best time to buy one up north.
Same for folks down south, do you remember what happened last winter with the power outages in Texas? Don’t wait till its winter to buy a generator or space heaters and food stuffs, start prepping now, and hope you don’t need it. It’s better to be over prepared then under prepared, we can’t bank on the grid not failing, especially in democrat run cities that already see power outages on a regular basis.
If you don’t have a non-electric heat source/viable warmth options for the winter you should seriously consider a generator or wood stove, you need to be prepared for power grid failures and weather emergencies.
Generators are expensive, and if you don’t have a supply of gas stored up, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy one. If you cant afford to go out and buy one, most people have a gas generator sitting in their driveway. Get a 12volt, 1000watt inverter that you cam clamp onto your car battery. They cost like $80 or so.
You cant run large appliances off of it, but its more than enough to keep your refrigerator and deep freezer running, charge your phones, and aa batteries.
Your fridge doesn’t need constant power to keep your food from going bad so you can go out and idle your car for an hour every 4 hours or so.
Next, you focus on gas storage. Every month, go out and buy a 5 gallon gas can and fill it up. Write a big number 1-12 for whatever month it is on the can and do this for a year. Now you have 60 gallons of gas stored up. Once you cycle back to the month you first started doing it, empty the 5 gallon can in your car and fill it back up.
Once you have an adaquate amount of gas stored up, it makes more sense to buy a generator.
Also. Trying to heat your house with electric is a losing battle, espically if it isn’t heavily insulated for cold winters. Use those candle, ceramic flower pot micro-heaters all around your house and under your crawl space to keep your pipes from freezing, or better yet, a kerosene heater. You can make coffee on top of them too.
You can get away with getting one replacement spout and just leaving the old ones on to keep the can sealed. Just remember to put air valves in all the cans so you can easily swap the spout. Or, if you get cans with this sort of spout
you can rip out that red button lock and they become much easier to use. You still have to pull back on the spout to get it to pour, but you don’t have a shitty safety lock getting in the way.
Also, based on some pages I have seen, Starfire doesn’t seem to even put expectations on Mandy, she’s nice to her and even brags about her still despite not having powers. Its only really other people putting expectations on her because she is Starfire’s daughter (and they don’t know who the father is apparently..) so she hates her mom…because other people expect her to be like her mom. Whereas I doubt Starfire herself would ever hold it against her, especially considering she hides her orange hair and skin color so Starfire would have some reason to be angry because Mandy is literally hiding that she is even related to her and treats her like shit.
A goth (who actually looks like the child of star and di ck) tamaranian daughter sounds like an interesting idea. Too bad it was not executed in a good way, and the end result is… well this crap.
Not only that but after bitching and moaning about not wanting to be like her Mom when she SUDDENLY gets powers the same she’s like “oh actually I really want to be a superhero and enjoy the popularity” so her arc was be a bitch until the universe rewarded her.
In the animated series (this is clearly inspired by), Tamaranian powers are fueled by emotion.
Thing is, I saw JLongbone’s video on IANS, and I’m not sure they ever actually established that. So it seems like wossname just manifests her power out of nowhere, unless you happen to remember the two(?) episodes where it came up.
And given that this is a YA comic, much of the target audience wasn’t even alive when the show end-
Wait a second. Is this aimed at the Teen Titans Go! audience?
I swear, I could see the gleams of a good comic in there, but it’s buried under wish fulfillment. Maybe if her desire not to be like Starfire was actually jealousy and envy, and wossname was in denial until the climax, and realizes that being like her mom doesn’t make her less of an individual, a la Miles Vorkosigan.
Maybe if Blackfire showed up earlier, instead of out of nowhere, at the start of Act 3. Heck, maybe if it was even hinted at before.
Incidentally, Raven gets roughly one featured scene at the end, and it’s somehow actually good and in-character. I’m as shocked as you are.
Frankly, it was awful. Everything everyone is saying is true, this graphic-novel is complete and total garbage
The protag is beyond unlikeable, doing nothing but bitching about her life, creeping on a girl she likes like a fucking rapist, outright having no plan for her future, then getting pissy at her mother for even daring to suggest she go to college (and not even in a ‘you must be a success’ way, just in a ‘what do you want to do?’ way), then as said above: getting superpowers when it’s convenient, and deciding not only does she like having powers, but that she enjoys being on the Teen Titans too
So in other words, ‘I Am Not Starfire’ is a story about someone who isn’t Starfire, until she decides she is Starfire
Frankly I’m on board with the fan theory that Penguin is her father, that at least makes some amount of sense
She's actually "correct" in a nefarious way by asking you to Google it yourself because, yeah, OP is wrong. He doesn't use child slavery to source lithium...
He uses child slavery to source cobalt to make lithium batteries
So by asking you to do your own research on the lithium sources, she's derailing in his favor.
• Release the tension in your shoulders and jaw.
• Do some neck stretches.
• Take a few deep breaths.
• Breathe and stretch if you are wearing a binder.
• Take a break from the screen every so often.
• Move around if you need to.
In Brazil, people take spectacular pictures tempting fate by hanging from this famous rock.
No photo-shops. These are real pictures:
You Can check on Snopes.
Incredibly brave people…?
The truth is, the rock is only a few feet above the ground.
All that is required is the proper perspective!
Remember this lesson when you read/view material on the internet or media.
Sometimes, the truth is a lot different than what it appears.
Something witty goes here @strivingforabetterlifenow - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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