lampenrad

If Germany is a "corrupt country", than what‘s the rest of Europe?: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/koyyv5/european_pub...

That is not the case. Otherwise, with regards to the war in Ukraine, Germany wouldn’t get this singled out when it comes to criticism.

In fact, one of the biggest domestic criticisms of the government right now is their terrible communication strategy.

English is the lingua franca and as such Anglo media has an incredible amount of power in shaping opinions in the West.

And frankly, the reporting, particularly from Anglo and Eastern European media, has had a heavy anti-German bias for weeks now. (Up from the usual moderate bias)

The whole argument hinges on the claim that 35% of electricity in Germany is generated by gas. This seems very high and I couldn‘t find a source for this claim in the article.

According to [1], it‘s 14% (for consumers). This includes a large number of CHP (combined heat and power plants), which produce district heat and cannot be replaced with nuclear power.

Then there‘s 36% of industry usage , of which 1/5 [1] is used for power generation in industry power plants. I‘d assume that quite a few of these on-site power plants do other things too, like CHP, and cannot be replaced with nuclear power. Ignoring this, it’d be

14% + 36%*21% = 21,56% of total Gas used for power, in reality, much less would be replaceable with nuclear.

The EU economic think tank Bruegel claimed [2]:

A technically and politically difficult decision to delay the closure of German nuclear power plants in operation until the end of 2021 could free up another 120 TWh of gas

Germany used 945,3 Twh in 2020[3], of which 94,8% was imported[4] That’s 816,14 Twh.

In 2020 55,2% of the imported gas came from Russia [5], so 494,7 Twh. So, according to Bruegel, a respected European think tank, Germany could replace 24,3% of the Russian gas it imported in 2020, if it managed to re-open its power plants closed in 2021. (the ones put out of use years earlier are being demolished[6]

[1] https://www.springerprofessional.de/erdgas/produktion---prod... [2] https://www.bruegel.org/2022/01/can-europe-survive-painlessl... [3]https://www.weltenergierat.de/publikationen/energie-fuer-deu... [4] https://www.bveg.de/die-branche/erdgas-und-erdoel-in-deutsch...

[5] https://www.t-online.de/finanzen/unternehmen-verbraucher/id_...

[6] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_D...

edit: corrected an error

In 2021, Germany got 55% of its gas from Russia (the rest from other European countries). Depending on how much overall consumption can be reduced, European suppliers might be able to cover most/all of it.

Previous discussion from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292

As of October 2020 Tesla comprised 18% of 2020's global market [1]. Still the clear leader, and almost the only contender in the US, but globally other automakers are threatening their lead.

Worth noting that VW owns Audi and Porsche, so according to those statistics, VW made up 12% of the EV sales last year. They’ve been catching up quite a bit.

This article is very US-centric and self congratulatory.

The vaccine is called BNT162b2, because it was fundamentally developed at Biontech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tozinameran

Tozinameran[1] (INN), codenamed BNT162b2 and more commonly known as the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, is a COVID-19 vaccine developed by BioNTech and manufactured and distributed by Pfizer

https://www.thelocal.de/20201110/biontech-four-things-to-kno...

While global headlines tend to lead with Pfizer's involvement, Şahin insisted to Spiegel: "It is our technology."

It bothers me how Americanized the Western media has become. If Biontech was a US company and Pfizer was European, exactly 0 US media would call it the „Pfizer vaccine“. Yet most European media outlets have adopted the US-spin and now call it „Pfizer Vaccine“ (or „Pfizer-Biontech“ at most).

In a series of interviews over more than seven months, senior Pfizer executives and other managers shed new light on how the vaccine project took shape.

Reading the article, it doesn’t look like the spoke to anyone at Biontech.

BioNTech simply plugged the genetic code for the spike protein into its software. On Jan. 25, BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin designed 10 candidates himself.

Ah yes, the Germans simply plugged it into their software. Disregard over a decade of fundamental research done by hundreds of scientists with hundreds of millions of Euros in funding. Now let‘s focus on all the hard work American pharmaceutical Managers did.

To assemble its mRNA production network, Pfizer used its own money and didn’t take any from the federal government. Executives said they didn’t want to give agencies outside the FDA more leverage over the design of the trials.

Yes, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tozinameran

In September 2020, the German government granted BioNTech 375 million euros ($445 million) for its COVID-19 vaccine development program at a time when Pfizer funded its portion of development costs without government funding.[20] BioNTech had also received 100 million euros ($119 million) in financing from the European Commission and European Investment Bank in mid-2020.[21] Also: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/pfizer-va...

And speaking of „Operation Warp Speed“: Coincidentally, „Light Speed“, the name Biontech gave its vaccine development effort, started in mid January. A time when almost nobody had even heard of the virus. Operation Warp Speed wasn‘t announced until April 29, three and a half months later.

Thank you for the correction. I trusted a news article without carefully reading the source myself. My bad. I added a different survey.

Edit: Someone corrected me, I quoted the survey wrong. But here‘s another source (YouGov survey, 2012), saying that 43% had a real tree and 17% an artificial one: https://statistik-dresden.de/archives/5195

Also, I don't know anybody here who has a fake plastic tree - these aren't really a thing here, basically people either don't have a tree at all, or they get a real one.

Plenty of people in Germany have plastic trees. According to an Emnid survey from 2017, 1/3 preferred an artificial tree: https://presse.vonovia.de/de-de/aktuelles/171220_kuenstliche...

I went through this today. In German there‘s a really great Podcast „Coronavirus-Update“: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/podcast4684.html

30 min/weekday a science journalist talks to Christian Drosten, a world-renowned expert on Coronaviruses, who explains things in a very concise manner. Yesterdays episode was „We have to protect the elderly“, where Drosten talked about the high risk for the sick and elderly and trying to fully get this point across to his own father over the weekend. He also mentioned that we should work on hopefully achieving a broader societal awareness of this over the next week or two.

I talked to my mother and father a bit first, sent my mother a link to this episode and told her to put me on speakerphone. We then listened to it together and discussed it a bit afterwards. I found this to be really helpful.

My mother was in denial until 2 weeks ago, when she went a bit hysterical for a day and has been concerned (but okay) since. My father was mostly in denial until today. He also bailed out soon after the podcast ended, because it was a bit much for him. But overall he took it quite well and is taking it more seriously now.

Overall I am very happy with the way this went. Sorry, this isn‘t very helpful if you don‘t speak German. But maybe you are able to find a similar thing in your native language.

Very neat design, but there are highly advanced toasters nowadays. There just doesn‘t seem a market for them in the West (yet?).

Bloomberg recently covered high-end Japanese toasters: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/this-japa...

If you google gates belt drive snapped you‘ll find plenty of anecdata of belts lasting only a couple thousand kilometers (and others who ride them for tens of thousands of kilometers with no issues).

Here‘s a (German) Video from a guy with a severely damaged (but still rideable) belt after 4500 km:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n16gN7RDWEY

In the comments you‘ll find people whose belts snapped at 1050 km, at 1000 km and one at less than 2000 km.

I don‘t know how likely this is, it might be quite rare. But since it‘s non-repairable it‘d make me uneasy on longer bike rides.

Another disadvantage is repairability. If your chain snaps you can fix it with a quick link or a pin and a little multitool with chain tool functionality. If your belt snaps you‘re screwed, unless you carry a spare belt everywhere.

Do you have an accent (preferably from the Anglosphere) that gives you away as an expat? The stigma (at least in Germany) basically doesn‘t apply to native English speakers (or at least much, much less so). Nobody here makes fun of Kevin Costner for being named Kevin. The stigma is specifically about lower class Germans frequently choosing certain foreign names for their kids.

I'd imagine having kids will have a similar effect (probably 100x stronger).

Sure, but putting the burden of existence on another human to alleviate one‘s existential pain doesn‘t make the problem go away, it only puts it on others that had no say in their own creation. Overall it increases the amount of suffering (unless we‘re talking about adoption in the case of the child, too).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial...

In 1999, Enercon, a German company and leading manufacturer of wind energy equipment, developed a breakthrough generator for wind turbines. After applying for a US patent, it had learned that Kenetech, an American rival, had submitted an almost identical patent application shortly before. By the statement of a former NSA employee, it was later discovered that the NSA had secretly intercepted and monitored Enercon's data communications and conference calls and passed information regarding the new generator to Kenetech.[69] As German intelligence services are forbidden from engaging in industrial or economic espionage, German companies are frequently complaining that this leaves them defenceless against industrial espionage from the United States. According to Wolfgang Hoffmann, a former manager at Bayer, German intelligence services are aware which companies are being targeted by US intelligence agencies, but refuse to inform the companies involved.[70]

I definitely don't want to mess them up too much

You‘re actively trying to get other people to boycott them, which would eventually put them out of business. It‘s the first time I’ve heard about them and I don‘t care one way or the other but be honest. There‘s no „openness to believing“ the „potentially complicit“ here, your post is a complete contradiction.

Genital mutalation of a child is fine (assuming here it wasn‘t a medical necessity. Maybe it was in this case, hence why I didn‘t downvote), but taking a completely non-sexual photograph of a healing wound is considered weird. Sums up modern America pretty well.

Here are the labor costs compared to other nations from '00 to '11: https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imageca...

They might've grown above EU average since then, but they certainly got some catching up to do.

Real wages have increased since '07, yes, but that was also the lowest year in decades. The fact is, that it's barely above where it was 25 years ago: http://www.bpb.de/cache/images/7/61767-1x2-article620.gif?FF...

And I don't see, how the reunification of Germany would've caused real wages in '07 to be lower than in '93. I'm no economist, but Hartz 4 and the Agenda 2010 in general seem like a more plausible cause to me.

No, for a long time Germany was the only significant solar market in the world. German tax payers and individuals spent billions when it was still far from economical, jump starting the whole industry:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-china-is-domi...

The timeline of China’s rise began in the late 1990s when Germany, overwhelmed by the domestic response to a government incentive program to promote rooftop solar panels, provided the capital, technology and experts to lure China into making solar panels to meet the German demand.

China, according to Chung, had “dabbled” in solar energy only as a source of electricity to help impoverished rural areas remote from its power grid. But then some of its pioneering companies became intrigued by the income that manufacturing solar panels for export to Germany might bring in.

China then decided to follow Germany’s lead again, developing its own “feed-in tariff” that paid handsome prices for electricity generated by rooftop solar. The result was a surge in domestic demand for solar.

By PV Watt per capita Germany is still number one by a large margin at 511 (Japan is second with 336, China is at 56).

Close to another 100!:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/

The proportion of time Musk devotes to each company is derived from a description he gave at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June 2017. "The Boring Company is maybe 2 percent of my time, Neuralink 3-5 percent, Open AI another couple percent,” Musk said. The rest is split almost evenly between Tesla and SpaceX, he said, but “slightly more Tesla—it’s like a drama magnet."

It doesn't stop at the German border, though. And if you look at this map, the distinction between S and N is much less clear: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_domestic_pro...

Southern Germany, Western Austria, Northern Italy, Switzerland and parts of France: There's a big wealth cluster in the larger region around the Alps. Why? I don't know, but as a South German myself, I'm not too convinced by the claims of the article.

DHL has been operating Packstationen in Germany since 2001: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation

There are 3,000 Packstation machines in Germany[1] and 90 percent of the people living in Germany were within ten minutes of a DHL Packstation.[2]

There are also Paketboxen, which are smaller installations for residential areas. The whole system works pretty well for me. The one big downside is, that it only works with DHL/Deutsche Post parcel. They are the dominant player here, but sometimes delivery by them is not available.

Sorry for questioning the legitimacy of your revenue claim, but according to Similarweb your site gets less than 5000 visitors a month. [1] Alexa's estimates seem similar, putting the global rank at 6.5 mio. [2] Wouldn't you need millions of yearly visitors for that kind of revenue? I know those traffic estimations aren't perfect, but this seems off by a lot. Am i missing something?

[1] https://www.similarweb.com/website/storeslider.com [2] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/storeslider.com