Netherlands

All but one supplier of electronic components in Amsterdam has shut down. The most recent shop to go under was Hecke Electronica. This was actually a mere retirement by the owner in his mid-70s. But all the other shops could not overcome the struggle for business.

According to the owner of an electro shop which sells light bulbs (not components), it’s not interesting to sell components because you do a lot of talking and only to get a sale that earns 20 cents.

A shop that traditionally only sold plastic toy models (“MUCO”) has allocated half the shop to:

Things they seem to be missing are along the lines of:

The masses of Amazon.com consumers did this. People who prioritise saving a couple euros above the environment while looking the other way as exploited human factory workers pee in jars to keep up with the pace of reverse-centouran robots that keep people’s noses on the grindstone for lousy wages. Only to then toss new non-defective goods into a landfill because they did not reach Bezo’s profitability standard amid warehouse space shortages.

I will only shop offline, with cash. And my focus is on repair, so I need hacker tools to repair broken appliances that consumerist Amazon patrons dump on curbs. So from where I sit this is dystopia unfolding. Unbanked people are fucked. Law may not directly explicitly force you to lick a bank’s boots but if you don’t you’re simply marginalised like an insect under a steam roller.

At the same time, the number of shops selling useless junk souvenirs to tourists is uncountable. But not a single Bus Pirate in town. Clogs and shot glasses won’t help fix a washing machine PCB that has bricked itself due to an anti-repair design.

I always have a hard time finding these things locally:

• malt vinegar powder and liquid (not Sarsons.. I know where to get that and there is nothing wrong with it but just want to try something different)
• steel cut oats (sometimes called Irish oatmeal but I've seen the standard rolled oats also called Irish and that's not what I'm after)
• Liquid Smoke
• Flipperzero (unlikely on any shelves, but worth asking)
• Bus Pirate
• Mongolian Fire Oil -- not sure if there is a generic name for this stuff but it’s a kind of spicy hot oil with a quite unique character

Any shops in Amsterdam worth a look?

cross-posted from: https://lemy.nl/post/1616675

Na twee handelsdagen vol klappen en blauwe plekken op de beurs kunnen beleggers dit weekend bijkomen. Hoewel? Velen zullen zich voorbereiden op morgen, als de beurzen weer opengaan. Houdt de paniek aan door de handelsoorlog die de Amerikaanse president Trump woensdag ontketende?

Beursanalist Corné [...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27388490

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31374897

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