wickedwiesel

Yes, correct, and thanks for the addition. To illustrate this quite emotional approach to state finances, the policy of not increasing the the debt was nicknamed "the black zero" ("die Schwarze Null") which got so infamous that the employees of the German Federal Ministry of Finances posed as a "black zero" in this photo: https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Bilderstre...

Remember, this was at a time when German government bonds were sold with _negative_ interest. So, Germany was refusing to take on any further debt at the time to invest (i.E. in social capital like workers, better immigration, in infrastructure etc. etc.) and is now trying to rectify this partially, at a time where interest rates are close to 3%. Personally, to me as a non-economist, this feels like a missed opportunity of a lifetime.

Which is a political choice - not necessarily a resource problem. Germany, if any, would have the resources to help with integration but for decades most people and politicians were living in denial that people from other countries that came to Germany actually wanted to stay and _live_ there or were living in a world were state debt was seen as the devil's spawn.

Did you notice that you emphasize the rule of law in your argument 1) but let the rule of law walk the plank (and drown in the south sea so to speak) with your fourth statement?

Sure. Nextcloud GmbH seems to be one of the winners. It sells a customized version aimed at government agencies.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextcloud

Anti Walking recognition techniques have been under development for decades though..

https://youtu.be/iV2ViNJFZC8?feature=shared

I am not a legal expert but I read that the case of the Netherlands proves this to be at least partially wrong. Retail sale is legal. Some municipalities have legalized supply chains.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-11/the-nethe...

Your point is valid but also quite obvious. As soon as you own stock you will want them to increase in valuation. My point is a different one. Publicly traded stock companies have very specific (growth) and often bad (growth, disregarding other impact) incentives. Other forms of ownership can provide a stake for talented employees and safeguard their financial Fortune. I believe a cooperative may better align everyone’s incentives for example.

I was trying to point out that not every company ownership model is a publicly traded stock company. Your point is totally valid in the context you give.

I know you are sharing some interesting observations, but can we all stop talking about employees as the "fat" of companies and firing of employees as "culls".

underperformers lying about to cull

is not just bad wording. By definition, there will always be underperformers. A profitable company only has "too many" employees if you think it has to pay a larger dividend to its owners / shareholders or that future growth is mandatory.

Why is it not fine when a company is more or less breaking even but paying good salaries to its employees?

There is solid research out there suggesting that this is different. Large n, several years, multiple countries all pointing to all increase in tune with the advent of visual social media (Instagram, TikTok - not Facebook or WhatsApp). The time series analysis makes this not merely correlational.

I point to my sibling post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38201807

Visual social media like TikTok and instagram seem to be a different beast than TV, WhatsApp and other media.

Check out this research https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34901571

It’s claiming exactly that: certain social media as a cause of mental health deterioration among teens especially girls

Well, it kind of did. The EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice just passed its final ruling last month stating that the "Safe Harbor" agreements called Privacy Shield etc. that US companies use to be able to operate in the EU in compliance with EU privacy laws are inadequate given the widespread mass surveillance used by the US. [0] That's not banning but it requires US companies to actually invest and change their modes of operation if they want to continue to operate in the EU without being fined.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/eu-court-again-rules-n...

This might be interesting: how about a hundred years ago, a German Carpenter dressed up as a Prussian officer and got the local guards to hand over the town treasury. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23950138

twentyfifty | UK or Germany (mostly WFH) | Data Visualization / Scientist | Part-time or Intern or Student-job

twentyfifty [0] is a management consultancy helping international corporate clients to turn corporate responsibility commitments into practice in their value chains.

We are a certified B-corporation [1] with a wonderfully passionate team that believes in the quality and purpose of our work.

If the following statements resonate with you, we should get in touch:

"Understanding how companies impact people and how this could be measured fascinates me. I follow the news but when people cite studies, I often think 'I wish more people understood the difference between correlation and causation.' Using datasets to turn complex socioeconomic questions into easy-to-digest visuals and actionable insights for companies gives my work purpose. Excel, PowerQuery, PowerBI, Tableau, R or Python are some of the tools that I feel comfortable with."

twentyfifty is looking for a freelancer, or junior- / advanced-student level colleague. Given the current economic uncertainty, an engagement would start in August and be limited to December but likely be extended beyond that. Looking forward to get to know you. Please reach out to me. You can find my contact details on my profile page [2].

[0] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/

[1] https://bcorporation.net/

[2] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/who-we-are/meet-the-team/jo...

twentyfifty | Europe (mostly WFH) | Data Scientist | Freelancer

twentyfifty [0] is a management consultancy helping international corporate clients to turn corporate responsibility commitments into practice in their value chains.

We are a certified B-corporation [1] with a wonderfully passionate team that believes in the quality and purpose of our work.

If the following statements resonate with you, we should get in touch:

"Understanding how companies impact people and how this could be measured fascinates me. I follow the news but when people cite studies, I often think 'I wish more people understood the difference between correlation and causation.' Using datasets to turn complex socioeconomic questions into easy-to-digest visuals and actionable insights for companies gives my work purpose. Excel, PowerQuery, PowerBI, Tableau, R or Python are some of the tools that I feel comfortable with."

twentyfifty is looking for a freelancer, or junior- / advanced-student level colleague. Given the current economic uncertainty, an engagement would start in August and be limited to December but likely be extended beyond that. Looking forward to get to know you. Please reach out to me. You can find my contact details on my profile page [2].

[0] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/

[1] https://bcorporation.net/

[2] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/who-we-are/meet-the-team/jo...

twentyfifty | UK or Germany (mostly WFH) | Data Scientist | Part-time or Intern or Student-job

twentyfifty [0] is a management consultancy helping international corporate clients to turn corporate responsibility commitments into practice in their value chains.

We are a certified B-corporation [1] with a wonderfully passionate team that believes in the quality and purpose of our work.

If the following statements resonate with you, we should get in touch:

"Understanding how companies impact people and how this could be measured fascinates me. I follow the news but when people cite studies, I often think 'I wish more people understood the difference between correlation and causation.' Using datasets to turn complex socioeconomic questions into easy-to-digest visuals and actionable insights for companies gives my work purpose. Excel, PowerQuery, PowerBI, Tableau, R or Python are some of the tools that I feel comfortable with."

twentyfifty is looking for a freelancer, or junior- / advanced-student level colleague. Given the current economic uncertainty, an engagement would start in August and be limited to December but likely be extended beyond that. Looking forward to get to know you. Please reach out to me. You can find my contact details on my profile page [2].

[0] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/ [1] https://bcorporation.net/ [2] https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/who-we-are/meet-the-team/jo...

Because the page is in German only (but fairly self-explanatory imho): this maps the 625k registered trees in Berlin and crosses the data set with rainfall patterns showing which trees need attention of neighbours to survice. You can "claim" a tree and mark it as taken care of.

I believe the origins of this are two heavy draught periods summer 2018/2019 where many trees succumbed.

In direct response to your first point, I would argue that it is you right to not vote. That being said, as it is THE fundamental right in democracies, you should not need to jump through any hoops whatsoever to vote. Especially as evidence suggests this leads to the people in power making use of that to stay in power.

On a side note: the idea that felons are unable to vote strikes me as totally wrong. What's the reasoning behind that? Why on Earth would you do that to a person? I cannot think of any scenario where this does not only have negatives consequences (alienating convicted felons even further from communities etc.). The only upside is pandering to those who feel that punishment is an important aspect of criminal justice. (This in itself deserves debate.)

Given the current discussion on political apathy in the US I think this data fits well into this pattern.

Looking at the voter turnout for United States (2016) of the of voting-age population you have merely 55.70% voting. (For comparison, the scale goes up to 87.21% in Belgium). Only roughly HALF of the population casts their votes in federal elections. Since a lot of the current policing decisions are made on a state or local level where voter turnout is even worse, this is a democracy in crisis.

What could be the drivers for this? I think you get a hint if you look at the other column, where you see the % of voter turnout based on registration. In most countries listed here, these numbers are almost identical because you are registered as a voter by default if you are a citizen. OR, if you are in the US, the % climbs to a whopping 86.80%, illustrating what a negative impact this system has.

Let people vote. Get rid of this ridiculus competition to cut and slice voter districts to party needs (gerry-mandering) and stop suppressing voters by other means if you want a system that actually allows politicians to work for their voters and not for donors / special interest groups that keep you paid.

WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WITH ALL CAPS?

Personally, this to me (a digital immigrant from the EU), is like shouting at someone. Apologies for the rudeness.

I wonder if this is universal among people who migrated to the digital world in the 90s?

Is there a universal way of vocalizing net-lingo? Or how does this evolve over generations (do digital natives speak the same lingo that we learned?)

Since I looked around a lot for newer numbers, I thought I'd point out some newer numbers in my reply to the sibling comment [0].

In summary: Data for the US from 2016-2018 suggest 93,000 ICU beds total, that is a ratio of 28.43 per 100,000. (research referenced in WoPo article linked in the comment below).

For comparison, Germany (official 2017 data) has 28031 ICU beds total, a ration of 33.76 per 100,000.

Both countries likely have the highest ratio in the world at this time.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22711215

Is that still true? These reported numbers for the US are very much outdated. Would love to see a source younger than a decade.

All seem to come from the same sources, a 2009 and a 2012 study. The Forbes article actually mentions an alternative source, an article from 2015 [2] which is actually looking at regional 2000-2009 data. You can also follow the links at Wikipedia [0].

For Germany, there are numbers from 2017: The German Office for Statistics is reported in 2019 28.031 ICU beds which is a rate of 33.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.

EDIT: This [3] WoPo article references data from 2016-2018: 93,000 ICU beds in total in the US. That's about 36 ICU beds per capita (aged 16 or older).

For comparison, Germany, based on the 28031 ICU beds and 70976000 inhabitants 16 or older [4] has 39,49 ICU beds per capita.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_...

[1] https://www.sciencemediacenter.de/alle-angebote/fact-sheet/d...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4351597/

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/23/map-place...

[4] https://www-genesis.destatis.de/genesis//online?operation=ta...

If I may nitpick your response: the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is from 2009. 2018 data suggests 71% of workers receive paid sick leave. [1]

BUT, the data is highly skewed if you look at income. [also 1] The worst paid workers also have much less paid sick leave. Only 45% of the lowest 25% income group do. According to the BLS there were 130 million workers in 2019, thus leaving roughly 15 million people (130 x 0.25 x 0.45) without paid sick leave and likely without the financial means to go on unpaid sick leave or get medical help (like testing).

Also, the average paid sick leave varies between 6-10 (working) days. Suggested quarantine is 14 days. [2] Only 3% of workers have sick days "as needed". [3] This supports the argument that these circumstances make matters worse. I tend to agree to the general argument.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/higher-wage-workers-more-l...

[2] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/private-industry-workers-w...

[3] https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2019/ownership/civilian...

In Unix these are shared object libraries.

In this context, I believe .so is the file extension for extensions that can be loaded by web servers during runtime. I think the person in the story was trying to change the Apache2 configuration of all FE servers to load the wanted client library / .so file.

- https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/mod/mod_so.html

There is the obvious plug to the Century of Self documentary, if someone hasn't seen it yet but is interested in the subject of "creating needs and wants": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 or https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2d29tf

The documentary relates "The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires."

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21989855 from yesterday (where there was 0 interaction with the subject)

I am all for scrutiny of claims like this but I cannot verify some of your statements. I would encourage you to actually look at the report that is the basis for the claims. (The report btw is not the work of a single Uni professor but four authors are named.)

First, the press release specifically says "revised his estimate of the number of animals killed in bushfires in NSW to more than 800 million animals, with a national impact of more than one billion animals. " [1]

You say: "Third, for almost all species, there are no density figures, so he just picked the number 10 (lol, yes, seriously)"

When looking at the original report, linked in full text below [0] it reads:

Many species were excluded from estimates because there is insufficient information on their abundance. The largest omission is the entire NSW bat fauna (37 species), for which no information on density could be found.

Regarding the birds, there is section 3.4 of the original report where the authors elaborate their stand. For instance, the loss of woodland (in this study the conversion to grassland) drastically reduces the number of birds in that area "90-95% fewer than in intact woodland". Given the size of the current fires it is a stretch to assume that 99% of birds are able to move to other forest and into other birds' habitats and be able to survive their alongside whatever lives there already.

[0] - 2007 report by Dickman et al, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318029981_Impacts_o...

[1] - press release: https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australia...

I dont want to nitpick, but some of his most influential work - dubbed the "annus mirabilis" papers / "amazing year" [0] - was done while he was an assistant examiner at the patent office in Bern. Definitely not a position he was aiming for, but still, a highly productive time.

- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers

SEEKING FREELANCER | Berlin, DE, London, UK; Remote OK, but ideally near our physical offices or in the same timezone

tl;dr

Generalist with a passion for human rights and data (visualization) wanted for project-based work.

Visit https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk, to learn more about us on our (antiquated) website or feel free to reach out via mail address or phone number listed here: https://www.twentyfifty.co.uk/en/who-we-are/meet-the-team/jo...

-------------------------------------------------

Looking for work with a purpose? We are a small passionate team based in UK, Germany, Switzerland and India that is consulting multinational corporations on their human rights commitments. What world do you want to live in 2050? What role are corporations playing? What impacts are their value chains having? How can you measure and visualize topics like water stress, land use, or rights of workers in a way that helps companies prioritize and change?

You can help us accompany our clients in adressing these questions by building capacity, data visualization tools and help our clients apply human rights diligence across their value chains.

The tools we build support these processes which means that the technology stack often depends on the client. Generally, we use a mix of

- Power BI, (Tableau),

- Excel/VBA,

- but also have one or two (Java/Spring-boot, Docker, Gitlab CI) inhouse tools that we put to work.

Ideally, we are looking for a generalist with a passion for data processing, e.g. full-stack web programming might also prove useful in the near future. We are always thinking about finding innovative ways to support our work with technology.

We use a variety of public and corporate data sets and apply a good amount of sense to get to the heart of issue.

Freelancing for us will certainly not satisfy your needs for working with the latest technology stack. But if you want to turn your computer off in the evening and feel like you put your skills to good use adressing some of the bigger issues of our times I am looking forward to hearing from you.

If I may offer my opinion as an outsider from the EU: something like this may actually open up the traditional Left vs Right spectrum to something that is more closely resembles the existing diversity of opinions and values. For instance, here in Germany, these days coalitions between 2-3 parties is the rule rather than the exception. An interesting side effect of this has been that issues which at any given time were not the focus of the major parties can still be addressed by the smaller (often junior) party of the ruling coalition, e.g. the Green party who pushed the topic of environmental protection as a junior coalition member already in the late 90s/early 2000s.