Got pretty peeved with EU and my own bank today.

My bank was loudly advertising how "progressive" they were by having an Open API!

Well, it just so happened I got an inkling to write me a small app that would make statistics of the payments going in and out of my account, without relying on anything third-party. It should be possible, right? Right?

Wrong...

The bank's "Open API" can be used to fetch the locations of all the physical locations of the bank branches and ATMs, so, completely useless for me.

The API I was after was one apparently made obligatory (don't quote me on that) by EU called the PSD2 - Payment Services Directive 2.

It defines three independent APIs - AISP, CISP and PISP, each for a different set of actions one could perform.

I was only after AISP, or the Account Information Service Provider. It provides all the account and transactions information.

There was only one issue. I needed a client SSL certificate signed by a specific local CA to prove my identity to the API.

Okay, I could get that, it would cost like.. $15 - $50, but whatever. Cheap.

First issue - These certificates for the PSD2 are only issued to legal entities.

That was my first source of hate for politicians.

Then... As a cherry on top, I found out I'd also need a certification from the local capital bank which, you guessed it, is also only given to legal entities, while also being incredibly hard to get in and of itself, and so far, only one company in my country got it.

So here I am, reading through the documentation of something, that would completely satisfy all my needs, yet that is locked behind a stupid legal wall because politicians and laws gotta keep the technology back. And I can't help but seethe in anger towards both, the EU that made this regulation, and the fact that the bank even mentions this API anywhere.

Seriously, if 99.9% of programmers would never ever get access to that API, why bother mentioning it on your public main API page?!

It... It made me sad more than anything...

Official declaration: I am a fucking moron.

Last year, I acted stupid (as suual) and didn't invest enough money into some tax saving instruments.

I also picked the wrong taxation method and ended up paying more than double taxes.

Thankfully my country has an option where you can claim a refund by filing a return form.

And so I go ahead and I hire a finance guy who can help me do my taxes.

We sit at the table and do the math. It turns out my savings mindset prevented me from not investing enough and now it is difficult to claim the tax as refund.

I legit had no issues in investing more. Rather I was looking for ways to do so but I didn't. If I had done it, I'd would be paying zero taxes as my earnings would fall below a certain threshold.

Only trick is to evade by unethical means. Should I be the Jeff Bezos of my country and save my hard earned money from going to corrupt politicians?

Either way, I am a moron. Fucking hate my stupid decision.

I see Amazon taking a lot of flak and being called a monopoly, but they aren't. Sure, Amazon sells branded items, but the majority of items are sold by small mom-and-pop businesses that have access to markets that they would not have without Amazon. Case in point, I've ordered items that have come not just from the US, where in live, but Europe and Asia. I just ordered some 4711 cologne, and was sort of expecting that it would come from Germany. Nope, it's coming from a small seller in Japan. Amazon is a global equalizer that enables people from all over the world to sell to people from all over the world. The politicians messing with that are going to remove that ability, and we will all be the poorer for it. Maybe this is a rant after all.

Fuck external stake holders, like politicians, those know-nothings, that pump their ego by finding multiple "issues" with our software like how we display the privacy data agreement and impose their stupid fucking nonsense rules on our software. Even if it is not part in any official law or GDPR
So there is the request that one needs to scroll down the whole data privacy crap nobody reads until you can press "Continue" and we *have* to implement that shit. Although it is completely out of line with Apple's usual installer handling. Nobody will understand it. It cripples the workflow.
But some Mr. Important demanded it, as if he is protecting users with this and makes a great contribution to the data privacy in our country. Yeah! And guy is so high up, unreachable for us through all the layers of other people, leaving us no time and means to dissuade this shitty request. If all your 'ideas' are so great you should not be allowed to do jack shit.

Darn Wednesday! At my work we finish half an hour later on Wednesdays than on other days of the week. I often remember this halfways out of the building and then turn back. What a waste of time! I like regularity, same work hours every day, please. This added half hour is not my employer's fault though. It's because of some stupid twits in the Finnish government who decided that everybody in Finland including Åland Islands has to work half an hour extra every week - without getting paid! Why? To "make the nation more competitive". Those braindead Finnish politicians seriously believe their own crap? How the hell can any country be more "competitive" by pissing off their workforce? I mean, if a country is competing about anything, that should be citizens = tax payers and successful companies = also tax payers.