This will directly stop Irish based people shopping on Amazon as the Irish Amazon is useless and everyone buys from Amazon UK. These fees are going to change that big time so it’s not all in favor of Amazon

If Amazon was competent and saw that as a problem (doubtful, given how hard it is to filter items that actually ship to your country, as opposed to claiming to do so but then on the checkout page tell you otherwise), they could likely bulk-import the items to Ireland, then ship from there.

I assume Aliexpress is ~~going to do~~ doing [1] exactly that to bypass the 3 EUR fee. I wonder if the packaging rules are a shortsighted attempt at sabotaging Chinese sellers without making it obvious.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1ukojbr/i_place...

I agree that amazon.ie is useless, but i think that Irish shoppers will still buy from Amazon UK for more expensive items, where the €3 fee is relatively insignificant. Amazon UK, even with the new €3 import fee, is still cheaper than local Irish retailers who take price gouging to new levels.

“stay strapped” is a fantastic sign off.

ESL here, apparently this phrase has multiple meanings. The first result was "broke", and "stay broke" definitely doesn't sound right. The second one was "having a gun", which I assume is metaphorical for staying on your toes in the context of an increasingly hostile socioeconomic environment.

There's also another meaning when it's spoken by someone in black leather whom you have to address as "Mistress".

Yes, it’s the second one. “Strapped” alone generally means “broke” or “in a bind”, but native English speakers would rarely if ever use it in the imperative.

ESL as well ; I was assuming that this sign-off was referring to the kind of tourniquet you'll see drug users strap on before an injection.

I assure you there are several Sean Byrnes in Sligo, and at least one in Drumcliff

Yeah it's pretty much a John Smith, which I assume was half the point, and is now most the problem.

perhaps they like their work

I feel the age here helps I’ve context for the feedback. like you aren’t going to recommend they go get a 5k worth piece of machinery or say this is absolutely amateur and is a simple concept and doesn’t deserve discussion

We were told no phones in schools. I used my phone. They confiscated it for 2 weeks. I was like yeah fair enough.

I don’t understand why this isn’t done now?

My kids were basically required to have a phone for school. In theory they could use a laptop for everything but in practice it was assumed you had a phone.

They were supposed to use the calendar for assignments (and were given time to use the calendar), the teacher would tell them to take a picture of the white board with their homework assignment on it, and they used some private app (don't know the name of it) for messaging the teacher.

This was a few years ago though, so maybe now the tide has turned?

Edit: The rules have changed:

https://tea.texas.gov/taa-letters/implementation-texas-house...

That’s actually pretty cool if they’re being taught to use the organizational tools of the phone.

I’m strongly against phones in school, but as a child myself, I was extremely unorganized. And did not get my act together fully until college, when I had a simple laptop with a calendar app where I could plan out all my classes, assignments, etc.

This is pretty wild, I had no idea any school was like this. What grade and area was this in? Public school?

High school, central Texas, public school. I think the idea was to teach appropriate use of devices.

that would be illegal right now, kid/parents can call police you stole their phone and you would be in trouble with police, any school rule isn't above the law, which is why there must be confiscation option clearly mentioned in the smartphone ban law