I am using posteo.de for mail/calendar/contacts. No e2e encryption though. German provider, strong EU privacy rules and they focus on privacy (you can pay by mailing them cash if you want to). 1€/month

For storage I have a lifetime pcloud.com account (EU servers). Private data I encrypt with cryptomator.org.

Disclaimer: I have not checked if any of them have gone crazy recently.

That is a conspiracy theory. Take something an Israeli minister says, put your own spin on it and add "context" without any evidence - while simultaneously ignoring the evidence of Russian influence, even belittling it. The way this tries to distract from Russia, one of their trolls could not have come up with anything better.

Just to make it very clear: I am not supporting the genocide in Gaza. Just because Israel is doing horrible things does not mean there are no other horrible people out there.

While I agree that the current official stance on Israel is insane, it is not the majority opinion in Germany.

Do we still have a problem with Antisemitism? Sadly yes, especially now since some people project the behaviour of Israel on German Jews which is absolutely crazy. But I would argue that the overwhelming majority has a positive or neutral view on Judaism.

You sound like you have met too many crazy people from my country. But the loudest people are often not the majority. There are regular surveys on issues like these and I would classify your interpretation of German society as a fringe theory.

Your first sentence is my whole problem with that framing: Germany is not anti free-speech. It just does not subscribe to the US/UK view that you are allowed to say anything. Maybe voice your opinion without threatening or inciting violence? Maybe the US would be better off if some prosecutor could actually charge Musk after showing the Nazi salute?

I disagree with most of your remaining text but this is too far away from the original topic, I will not comment on that.

German here: Due to our own history, for specific cases, speech is much more restricted here compared to the UK (or the US until recently). These are things like inciting violence or "gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit" (hostility towards / discrimination of a group of people).

So if someone chants "Death, death to the IDF" they could be charged. It will not necessarily end in a conviction if it is considered an acceptable protest.

So if you are expected to do something that might be a crime in Germany, it does not seem unreasonable to deny entry. However, the decision should be transparent to the impacted people and they should have the option to fight against that decision. This is the actual infuriating part of this story.

But framing this as a "Free Speech Crackdown" is a very British/US take on our laws.

If you want something to really complain about: The German government still considers Israel an ally and still supports them. We learnt a lot from our own history but somehow "Genocide is bad regardless of who is doing it" did not make the list.

It does help with the immediate hunger, but it comes back strong once your body realises it was "cheated" out of calories. I am not sure I can withstand that for a long time. But maybe a short time would already be an improvement.

So thanks I will try to have carrots lying around at all times and try to eat them first between meals. Maybe it helps.

Also have you asked a smoker how it feels to slightly reduce the number of cigarettes per day?

Yes, that is often the case, but reducing it is the hard part. You need to keep it at a lower level for a while before your body adjusts.

Note that for some people it never adapts completely. Those people will always feel hungry or crave a snack and are never satisfied with the level of calories they actually need.

I did not, I know two people who do and they were impressed how easy it was to stick to their recommended diet. However, they are still on it, the interesting part is if you can get off without reverting your behaviour. Also they did not have any side effects so far, so lucky them.

I am currently holding my weight and don't plan on using it.

Losing weight is very, very, very easy once you make up your mind to do it and have a basic understanding of what food does to the body.

Nice if that is so easy for you. Let me tell you how that feels for me: As soon as my body does not get its usual amount of calories, it replies with relentless hunger. The kind that burns in your stomach and distracts you from everything else. The only thing my brain wants to think about is how to get more food and how tasty it would be. If I don't give in, I go into energy save mode: I feel exhausted, my body does not want to move or do anything that could cost it valuable calories.

For a lot of people losing weight is not easy. You could also tell a smoker that it is easy to quit smoking, just don't pick up a cigarette anymore.

This is why things like ozempic are used despite it's side effect. It gives you time to get in the habit of a healthy diet without the brutal hunger and hopefully your body accepts that diet when you reduce the dosage.

How stupid can a company be to give that much access to an LLM?

The typical science fiction doomsday AI scenarios always assume an intelligent AI. If the current trend continues humanity's last conversation will end something like this:

"You are absolutely right, I should not have used the nuclear launch codes president Trump entrusted me with to bomb every country on earth.

If you want, I can help you come up with a list of fun activities to do in a bunker."

Well in this case, can I interest you in a rule that allows everyone to carry guns? Works best as an amendment to the constitution.