ciferecaNinjo

I’ve been using LaTeX to prepare legal documents in PDF format with a tree of PDF bookmarks like this:

• list of facts
  -- exhibit A
  -- exhibit B
  -- exhibit C
  -- exhibit D
• law
  -- national
  -- international

So if you click “exhibit C” in the sidebar of the PDF viewer, it jumps to that document which has “exhibit C” in the corner of the doc in a bubble, along with commentary like “redactions in Bob’s version but not Alice’s”. I have no idea to what extent courts and lawyers appreciate or oppose metadata like this.

Some recipients want to see a verbatim version of the document without my markups. I am tempted to use the \usepackage{attachfile} … \attachfile{exhibit_c.pdf} which puts a thumbtack on the page whereby someone can click it and extract the original version without markups. The problem is that this embeds another redundant copy of the document in the PDF so every document presented will have two copies and ultimately double the size of the PDF.

Is there a tool or method that would enable just one copy of every doc to be stored in the PDF and the commentary to be in an overlay layer that can be toggled for printing and also toggled for on-screen viewing?

PDF annotations kind of try to have that effect, but the PDF standard for annotations is a disaster. Most apps force their own way of rendering a PDF annotation, which is often implemented as a tiny yellow Post-It note and it ignores the author’s font. PDF annotations lack control and look like garbage in most PDF viewers and likely even worse when printed.

(update) This thread mentions several ways to write annotations on top of a document in LaTeX:

https://overflow.manganiello.tech/exchange/tex/questions/15314/how-can-i-superimpose-latex-tex-output-over-a-pdf-file

I’ve always used the overpic method. But the problem is no one talks about how to make the overlay content a separate layer that viewers can give different treatment to. When a viewer opens a PDF where overpic was used to apply markups to an original PDF, it’s all the same single layer to the viewer. E.g. I tell Okular not to print annotations, and yet it prints my overpic markups anyway.

The top response to this thread mentions the pdfcomment package. I’ve used it. It gives no way to put an object of your creation in the annotation layer. You can use a \pdffreetextcomment command but then you have extremely limited rudimentary control over the appearance.

ATM it’s not even clear if the PDF spec can accommodate an annotation layer that is not confined to a fixed set of spec-defined objects.

solution

The LaTeX package ocgx2 seems to solve the problem. It supports custom user-defined PDF layers than can be toggled in many viewers. This code adds an evidence label that can be toggled on and off:

\usepackage{ocgx2}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage{hyperref}
…  
\pdfbookmark{Exibit A}{A}
\includepdf[pages=1-,picturecommand={%
  \put(500,800){\begin{ocg}{Evidence labels}{el}{on}
      \Large\rotatebox{-45}{\fbox{Exhibit~A}}
    \end{ocg}}
}]{evidence.pdf}

I figure the moment I turn on the heating the ultimate source for energy is Russia. So at that moment, I would be feeding the wrong side of Russia’s war.

Anyone else trying to see how long you can go without heat? I hang out in a room that has no external walls. I’m probably unavoidably leeching some heat off the neighbor’s wall.

I guess if it drops below 5°C indoors I will have to throw in the towel to prevent water pipes from freezing.

I heard Starbucks offers nitro coffee (which is supposedly a fizzy coffee with nitrogen). But apparently no Starbucks in Belgium offers it, according to staff at the central station store.

Anyone see it served anywhere?

I’ve always been skiddish with the idea of authorising a creditor to grab money out of my bank account, rather than me initiating the transmission. I like to be in control because creditors can be shitty.

But fun fact: it turns out the law entitles payers to claw back the money up to 8 weeks after it leaves the account. Eight weeks to change your mind. This is also written on the sample SEPA direct debit form referenced by the link. To have an 8 week entitlement to a “no questions asked” refund gives more control than initiating a payment on your side because if you send a payment, there is no refund option once it is sent.

Reading the law suggests the purpose of the SEPA direct debit is in fact to give consumers enough confidence to trust the mechanism.

There used to be a Triodos branch here:

50.83856°N, 4.35009°E

But it seems to be a travel agency now. triodos.be still exists but gives no address. This was the only bank that I considered ethical.

Perhaps a consequence of COVID19, customer service is trending toward enshitification across the finance (banking & insurance) and legal industries as it gets increasing rare that you can simply walk in the door and get service. There has been a gatekeeping uptick where you are asked if you have an appointment -- blocked from talking to someone without one.

A pension company lobby desk cop (gate keeper) said call to make an appointment. Then when you call the phone system is broken.

In another case I was forced to call, then they said over the phone “send an email”. Of course their shitty configuration uses Google, which is another barrier to entry.

In another case I entered a building and could speak to someone but only after filling out an application for a visitor badge. There was a little red fucking asterisk next to phone number and email -- required fields. So indeed, I could not simply talk to someone vis-à-vis without having an email and phone number and the will to share that info.

So we have to ask, why all the tight security? Is the customer service so poor that there is a notable risk of outraged customers doing something destructive?

We need a right to be offline in Belgium before the enshitification gets so thick we cannot function.

I found a list of mortgage lenders here:

https://hellosafe.be/pret-hypothecaire/taux#Notre_comparatif_des_meilleurs_taux_hypothecaires_en_Belgique

It’s hard to trust that as a complete list because it seems to be published by one of them (hello). There are only a few that I do not recognize as main street banks (but perhaps they still are nonetheless).

I’m not interested in main street banks. Too much baggage. Too many shenanigans like forcing you into “relationship banking”, where the bundle in a bunch of shit.. unwanted current and savings accounts and forced insurance provider. They get around the law by saying you have “choice” as they give a less favorable interest rate for not taking the bundle. Fuck all that.

Any suggestions on mortgage lenders who are well separated from banks?

RCS seems to be replacing email-SMS gateways. RCS is supposedly an open standard, but apparently if you do not have Android 8.1 or newer, you cannot use RCS to send an SMS in Belgium.

In principle, iiuc, you should be able to use a desktop app or browser to send an RCS msg. But for some reason it’s a shitshow.

Mobile carriers in many countries provide a free email→SMS gateway service, so if you have no SMS capability or credit, or you are outside the country you can still get an SMS to someone using just email.

I had a look at many SMS gateway lists¹, and Base/Telenet and Proximus are never mentioned. Orange has no Belgian gateways, just:

• Orange NL: 10digitnumber`@sms.orange.nl`
• Orange UK: 10digitnumber@orange.net
• Orange India, Mumbai: 9digitnumber@orangemail.co.in

Doing an MX lookup on @sms.orange.nl gives nothing, so the service to Dutch subscribers has apparently been unplugged.

Orange claims to support RCS (Rich Communication Services) exclusively for Android 8.1+ devices. Yet wikipedia shows the Orange service to be discontinued… that it only lasted 2012-2019.

OTOH, an article (fr) claims all 3 carriers (Base, Orange, Proximus) deploy it around 2020.

Indeed that’s absolute fucking garbage that all parties to the conversation must have an Android -- in effect: SMS 2.0 is only for Google patrons. RCS is touted to be an open standard alternative to walled-gardens. But f-droid.org has no RCS app. Nor does Debian.

So, RCS can fuck off. Are there any old email gateways for Belgian GSM subscribers that are perhaps widely unknown?

Orange has this roughly explained service:

https://easymessaging.orange.be/

So you cannot simply send an email. You must register. And registration demands a mobile number (needed because the SMS callerID will be “spoofed” to your number). It does not state whether your own mobile number must be an Orange number. So it’s unclear if senders must be an Orange customer, and it’s also unclear if the recipient must be an Orange customer (though unlikely because you cannot know easily what carrier the recipient uses).

For me, it’s broken. I could not get past the verification step. If anyone else attempts it and succeeds or fails with that, feedback would be appreciated.

① Link farm of SMS gateway lists:
https://www.email-unlimited.com/stuff/send-email-to-phone.htm
https://when2work.com/help/emp/find-text-address/
https://gist.github.com/spangey/518e358959e545bf03fc
https://helpcenter.horizonwebref.com/en/articles/6221095-what-mobile-carriers-do-you-support-for-free-text-messaging
https://web.archive.org/web/20241213132316/https://www.lifewire.com/sms-gateway-from-email-to-sms-text-message-2495456
https://avtech.com/articles/138/list-of-email-to-sms-addresses
https://20somethingfinance.com/how-to-send-text-messages-sms-via-email-for-free/

I believe if you buy a house in Belgium the only people who know are the seller, the lender, insurer, and the notaires. It’s supposedly not public information -- unlike other countries which publish an open database of who owns what property, searchable by anyone.

Even the water provider (Vivaqua) does not know, despite a law whereby if a tenant bounces without paying their water bill, Vivaqua can hold the home owner responsible in some situations. But as a practical matter Vivaqua is blocked because they do not get automatic access to ownership info. They must go through a long beurocratic process to obtain that info (so at some level the gov must know as well.. likely the property tax offices).

Anyway, I just brought up Vivaqua as an example of the extent of privacy home owners are granted in Belgium. If Vivaqua has a hard time getting the info then so does everyone else.

Or so it’s said.. my question: where is real estate privacy written? This whole concept of real estate privacy in Belgium is non-existent as far as my preferred search service knows. I could not find any information about it. Real estate statutes were overhauled in 2021, so It’s unclear if the privacy factor remained.