Mario Zechner (@[email protected])
mastodon.gamedev.place
Today was ... interesting. If you followed me for the past months over on the shitbird site, you might have seen a bunch of angry German words, lots of graphs, and the occassional news paper, radio, or TV snippet with yours truely. Let me explain. In Austria, inflation is way above the EU average. There's no end in sight. This is especially true for basic needs like energy and food. Our government stated in May that they'd build a food price database together with the big grocery chains. But..

Via siderea | The Austrian Grocery Price Comparison Website Story [tech, law, Austria]:

The following is magnificent, and I commend it to you.

Over on Mastodon, programmer Mario Zechner gives a first person account of how his exasperation with his government’s (Austria) corruption and ineptitude led to him preempting a government web development boondoggle, and subsequently unearthing a whole world of anti-competitive illegal grocery pricing and precipitating federal antitrust action. A heartwarming story of screenscraping, data science, and international amity.

2023 Sept 15: Mario Zechner [personal profile] [email protected] : https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@badlogic/111071396799790275