vlowrian

Morality is not just a matter of opinion.

I'd be interested in how you arrive at that conclusion.

Of course it was the issue. German media puts swastikas on things without any legal problems when they are government aligned.

Are we talking about the use of swastikas or your statement that people are imprisoned or fined for voicing anti-left opinions? I'm happy to do both, but it feels like those are two different things.

The use of swastikas (and other symbolism of banned organizations like the NSDAP) is prohibited in Germany if there is no clear rejection of the NS tied to it or if the rejection cannot unequivocally be derived from the context.

Using swastikas is therefore somewhat risky in any context, since it is a matter for the courts to decide whether a specific case qualifies as allowed use or not. It is far more probable that the use of a swastika in an anti-left statement will not qualify, since it is challenging to add value to an anti-left statement by using a swastika while still clearly rejecting the NS at the same time.

Again, happy to talk about § 86a StGB, but I would first be interested in how you come to the conclusion that this is being used to suppress anti-left opinions. I.e., how is using a swastika necessary or even helpful when voicing an opinion?

CJ Hopkins said he wanted to warn the public of a 'newly rising totalitarianism'. He posted a picture of a corona mask with a visible swastika and the caption 'Masks are symbols of ideological conformity' and a quote from the then minister of health stating 'Masks also always send a signal'.

Pretty much all of that is legal, also when looking at § 188. The only real issue is the use of the swastika. Using common symbolism like 'OBEY' instead would immediately remove any legal doubts.

Germany forbids insulting politicians, and German politicians use it extensively.

True, Germany also forbids insulting anyone. This is not restricted to politicians, and there is no difference in which insults are punishable for politicians and non-politicians. This is very different from how things are in the US, where insults are not punishable offenses per se. § 188 mostly refers to the degree of penalty possible when directing an insult towards any politician and what's necessary for a different degree of penalty to apply.

However, this is used by politicians across the whole political spectrum alike, including the far-right. The same reports you mentioned with regard to Robert Habeck exist for Alice Weidel, who filed hundreds of complaints under §§ 185 and 188. This is regardless of ongoing criticism of this paragraph voiced by the far-right, liberals, and others alike.

How is this specifically targeting anti-left opinions?

You're doing exactly what I said you'd do. Zero shame.

Meta: Reading this, it feels like you don't particularly enjoy this conversation. So let me say this: I'm really happy we are having this discussion. It is something completely different to read about other opinions in the paper versus actually talking to someone with a different perspective. I'm genuinely interested in your opinion, and my questions are serious questions, not rhetorical ones.

I don't feel any animosity towards you, and I hope you can also gain something from this. If you don't share that sentiment, I'm completely fine with leaving this thread as is and accepting that we won't reach any agreement right now.

Any source showing people being imprisoned or fined merely for expressing an anti-left opinion then? Which specific law were they convicted under?

The claim that Germany has "no constitutional protection against double jeopardy" is false. Art. 103(3) of the constitution embodies ne bis in idem. The German criminal procedure allows legal remedies (appeals), including Revision (appeal on points of law), which can be brought by both parties before a judgment becomes final. That’s what happened in this case.

In the CJ Hopkins case, the issue was not "criticizing COVID authoritarianism" as such, but the use of a banned symbol under 86a StGB. One can freely say "the government acted authoritarian during COVID"; that kind of political criticism is protected speech under Art. 5 GG.

and incorrectly use that as a moral justification.

I’m not interested in moral justifications. Morality is a matter of opinion, and you’re entitled to yours just as I am to mine. The same applies to your view of the German constitution.

However, backing up claims about concrete cases with sources helps me (and others) understand which cases you’re referring to and whether they actually support your argument in a way that lets me learn something new (preferably) or whether we'll simply end up acknowledging that we have different opinions on the matter ;)

and they regularly imprison or fine people for anti-left political opinions

Do you have any sources to substantiate this claim? In particular, including under which law a prison sentence or fine was imposed for the expression of a constitutionally protected political opinion.

These are two very different things. Significant parts of the German government and many German members of the European Parliament are proponents of Chat Control. The general population, however, still has a strong desire for privacy and a deep fear of surveillance and data collection, shaped by historical experiences with two dictatorships (the Nazi era and the GDR).

That said, there is a substantial disconnect between the substantive preferences of the voting population and the actual policies and decisions of the parties they elect. This is partly because promises like “internal security” gain much more traction in times of growing uncertainty and global instability, while only a relatively small portion of the population fully thinks through, or is willing to think through, the consequences and concrete legislative changes behind those promises.

Nevertheless, looking at both public attitudes and court rulings, it is still fair to say that data protection in Germany, even compared to other EU countries, currently enjoys a particularly high status.

+1 for the PocketBook. I have an Era and use it with KOReader and Calibre. Installation was as easy as copying a folder onto the device.

I also wrote a short write-up about my experience with PocketBook devices and KOReader, for anyone who's interested: https://tc3.eu/posts/pocketbook-era-with-koreader/

It just wanted to watch some media. Check its governor module.

As someone who prefers a solid color background, I’m always surprised by how often this simple preference leads me into bizarre rabbit holes.

Some additional examples beyond the OP:

- In the latest macOS, trying to set a custom solid color background just gives you a blinding white screen (see: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256029958?sortBy=rank).

- GNOME removed all UI controls for setting solid color backgrounds, but still technically supports it if you manually set a bunch of config keys — which seem to randomly change between versions (see: https://www.tc3.dev/posts/2021-09-04-gnome-3-solid-color-bac...).

The pattern here seems pretty clear: a half-baked feature kept alive for niche users, rather than either properly supporting or cleanly deprecating it. Personally, I’d love to simply set an RGB value without needing to generate a custom image. But given the state of things, I’d rather have one solid, well-maintained wallpaper system than flaky background color logic that’s barely hanging on.

I don't agree. Children are special in that there are several psychological effects like baby schema, innate caregiving response, etc. which one would have to overcome. Seeing children as younger versions of adults is a very technical view which I'd be surprised if it was in any way prevalent.

You're absolutely right in that a text-book racist might not distinguish between children and adults. Imagining that this is so common it dictates decisions on this level is hard to grasp for me.

Children become adults and soak up the values around them;

If this is really what they are afraid of, wouldn't depriving them of basic education reduce the amount of common values around them and make matters worse?

Fair point, if hate is the ulterior motive. Do you think that hate strong enough it extends to children is widely present in the population and the public opinion?

The article says: "Some families wonder if the shutting of the schools is related to his D.E.I. retrenchment." My comment is directed towards: is basic education and child safety a D.E.I. matter (which in some political views are frowned upon)?

Regardless of political opinion, I can't get my head around how basic education and a safe space for children can be frowned upon - no matter their social circumstances, color of skin, nationality or descent.

I don’t. The plugin syncs to the PocketBook system software and KOReader is simply used as the reader application which opens the article. There is no need to sync to KOReader since it accesses the books present on my device and those are managed by the PocketBook software.

I'm using KOReader with the PocketBook Era. The integration is top notch. Installation is simply done by copying the KOReader folder to the right directory on the device. After that you can set KOReader as the default reader, which means that you keep on using the original system software and library, but books will automatically open in KOReader.

This lets me use "Mail to PocketBook", Dropbox sync etc. or the fantastic Push-to-Kindle browser-plugin in combination with the fantastic KOReader. No flashing or jail break required.

For books in German, Beam is a very good choice: https://www.beam-shop.de/

As a German native speaker, it's surprisingly hard to read the code examples. Seems like all common concepts of programming languages like access modifiers, types etc. are hardwired to their English terms in my brain.

If file system level isolation is enough for you, take a loot at schroot (https://linux.die.net/man/1/schroot) which allows root-less chroot. You can use something like debootstrap to get a complete userland into a user controlled directory and use schroot to chroot into it without root level access.

One of the most impactfult things I ever picked up was to put a rough estimate on every task I'm doing and then plan my day/week according to it. In its essence, its just timeboxing. But I kept getting better at estimating the real effort necessary to complete a task which in turn made me a lot better at prioritizing.

An important side effect is that it changed the way I work: I focus on the outline first and use the remaining time in my timebox to gradually refine my result. At the end of the timebox, I have the best working result I could achieve within my estimate.

The combination of timeboxing, better prioritizing, and outlining / starting with an end-to-end prototype did wonders for my productivity and stress levels.

Friendly reminder: It's understandable and an obvious reaction to dive into "how" and "why" after reading this article. However, an accomplished educator and a human being with family and friends has died - whatever the reasons may be. Let's all keep that in mind before speculating or posting something carelessly which may be hard for those left behind to read.

I'll remember Marshall for the "How Stuff Works" books. Thank you for devoting your live to education.

Direct link to relevant comment: https://github.com/reactor/reactor-core/pull/3897#issuecomme...

In fact, sine and cosine never really made sense to me, until one day, I saw an animation similar to this one: https://youtu.be/Q55T6LeTvsA?si=7fiBxFVMu67tb3NZ (without the overly dramatic soundtrack).

Before that it was just some weird function I needed to calculate angles in triangles…

Dijkstra died of cancer in 2002, about 2 years after this recording.

True, ‘try’ won’t make reading and understanding a command obsolete, but it’s a great tool to prevent accidental deletion of important files, like OP described.

For any shell command where a minor mistake has the potential of ruining your day, take a look at “try”, which will allow you to inspect the effects before running it against a live system: https://github.com/binpash/try

Besides being a relatively easy to understand parsing algorithm, it's also pretty efficient. We're using the Shunting-Yard for Sonic, our in-house .NET expression evaluation engine used in all of our simulation products.

Since performance is a major concern, we compared a lot of algorithms and frameworks and Shunting Yard really hits the spot being both fast and easy to grasp, producing maintainable code.

For anyone interested in seeing code, we recently open sourced Sonic: https://github.com/adletec/sonic

I feel like you're overestimating the impact of AI on the current wave of dismissals. It's hard to say without any actual data, but there seems to be a lot of FUD regarding AI replacing white-collar and CS jobs.

I don't have better data than you, but I'd be very much surprised if AI would replace computer scientists rather than being a tool which will change what we'll have to be good at as computer scientists.

There is a lot of digitalisation to be done and AI might change the price of doing that, but it won't make a whole academic discipline obsolete.

The bigger challenge of course is that, if you want actually good coffee in the morning, you need to automate the weighing, grinding, and depositing of fresh coffee into a rinsed filter.

Cables & Coffee have done a video on an automated Moccamaster including fresh grinding. Admittedly, you'll still have to change the filter yourself - but grinding and even the water refill are automated :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Fz2ofHvX8

There’s also a hidden game in the Stagg EKG and Corvo EKG kettles. If you remove your kettle from the base and toggle the F/C switch back and forth, you’ll unlock a snake-like game called Wormy that you can play using the dial.

Funny, how I’m finding out about that from a CT scan of my kettle :)

Try RESTwars: https://github.com/phxql/restwars

We used to play this together in the same LAN, it’s pretty similar to SpaceTraders.

As a reference point to others: I have a massive Steam library (>300 games) and every game marked as "Verified for Steam Deck" (~20%) worked out of the box. I also played many games marked as "Playable" (e.g. Fallout New Vegas) which also worked perfectly without any specific configuration.

I also had no issues with stability and the Steam Button was a reliable way to get me out of the game whenever I misconfigured something or started a game with "unknown" ranking, which actually didn't work.