In some days in Copenhagen, the price of kwh is negative. The price of electricity is still positive because of fees and taxes. Right now, living in a small apartment, with a pc running at least 8 hours a day, I pay about 100 euros every 3 months. I'm not even home during those cheap hours. Most of the cost of power for me is taxes and other added fees.
I understand, but that doesn't change that it's the way things are. I don't want to deal with their bullshit for the rest of my life. I haven't got the time or the money to spend on this.
The problem is that doing anything against them, beyond arguing with them, sucks for you. What if they ban you for taking them to court? Gonna go to court again? Where are you going to get your power? They're just going to be shit forever. No matter how you cut it, they have all the chips. Besides that, if you don't pay the bill, they can put your ass on a non payers list which will affect you with other business too. Yes, it sucks, but it's not worth the fight.
I moved and called my electrical company to have them commute my address. 3 months later, I get a bill for the old address with my new address. So I call them again. According to them, it's not uncommon for their clients to have multiple addresses so they didn't think it would be weird I would. Their system has no record of me asking to cancel the old one.
Except I knew I had told them that I'm moving, so I asked for the recording of the call (which they have to give under EU law). Surprise surprise, they didn't have that recording, and they would not cancel the bill. They assured me there was nothing they could do, I had to pay the bill, but I would not receive any more bills for the old place. I said fuck it, paid, and moved on.
3 months later, I get another bill for the old place... So I call them again, have them check their records, ask for recordings, etc. etc. I keep getting emails and updates to my account with the wrong addresses, so this takes several calls to get right.
Finally, I'd had enough. I call for what I want to be the last time. I start over with the whole thing, and I tell the customer service rep I'm not hanging up until everything is correct. It takes several tries for this rep to not fuck up some detail or another. Eventually they agree they should have canceled that contract, and somehow now they can cancel this latest bill too! Incredible, ladies and gentlemen, they have the technology!
In total, it was 7 calls and a few dozen euros stolen with that first bill. My contract has been bought by 2 other companies since because apparently I don't get a say in it. At least the power comes in, and the bills aren't bad I guess. Fuck Ørested.
Another fun experience, this time with a phone company. I went on vacation to Nice and took a boat to Monaco. I didn't realize my EU-wide phone plan wouldn't apply there, which makes sense. As the boat approaches the shore, I get an SMS that I'm outside of my coverage area and I'll be charged roaming prices. I turn my data off, and go about my day.
That short time between whenever I entered Monaco's range and the SMS arrived, my phone apparently used up 10ish Mb in the background, which TURNED OUT TO BE ALMOST 100 EUROS. Once again, the phone company said there's nothing they can do, so I had to pay. Not so much customer service's fault, just ridiculous phone company ass fuckery. What a load of horse hockey. Those prices are nothing short of theft, and if I had been given the option I wouldn't have used the internet.
It's one. I'd been annoyed with razor burn, nicks & cuts, spots, etc. I switched to a simple double sided safety razor and I'm really enjoying it. As far as I'm concerned all this 8 blade turbo fusion slice and dice is all marketing.
There aren't too many things I regret. I'd tell myself to keep my mouth shut in a couple places, don't start drinking coke, maybe buy and sell some bitcoin. But for the most part, there was a lot of good with the bad, and reward from hardship.
No only that, but it's entirely possible to be an individual who can participate successfully in a collective. They're not mutually exclusive or contradictory things. You can have goals and aspirations that focus exclusively on you without negatively affecting your contributions and interactions within a group. Life is nuanced, things aren't as black and white as people often seem to think.
It's probably too much by a lot, and I'll have to stop at some point, but I really enjoy the taste and the social aspect of getting up and walking over to the coffee machine with the team. We get a couple minutes to chitchat, ask any technical question we have, etc.
I didn't give a description of the plot because I couldn't come up with something that really conveyed what the book was like. The one you gave is decent, but it doesn't convey just how much of it is about the people. It's hard scifi, no nonsense, but the heart and soul of it is its characters.
Imgur. I don't use their social-media-esque features so I don't care what the platform is like. I used a burner yahoo email to sign up, so they don't have anything I care about. Just make sure when you share a link, you don't share the page link. Instead, right click the image and click 'copy image link'.
In some days in Copenhagen, the price of kwh is negative. The price of electricity is still positive because of fees and taxes. Right now, living in a small apartment, with a pc running at least 8 hours a day, I pay about 100 euros every 3 months. I'm not even home during those cheap hours. Most of the cost of power for me is taxes and other added fees.