I can’t unsee it anymore. It really does look like one.

Sport is such an unfair world, trying to find equality and justice in it is futile. We don’t want kids taking growth hormones to boost their chances of making it into the NBA. But that also means we crush the dream of plenty of people. Athletes with asthma can’t use their inhaler under certain circumstances. A few years ago an UFC fighter with Asthma got his win overturned because he used an inhaler inbetween rounds.

There was a huge discussion about allowing prosthetics in “regular” competition. Turned out at the time that proshetics weren’t advanced enough to give an advantage. But I think we all know that this is only a matter of time. And eventually a hard ruling needs to be made that dictates in which direction sport goes.

Banning athletes who take as many hormones, hormone blockers, and other mediaction as transwomen usually take is 100% something that needs to happen. Especially considering that in certain leagues the usage of these substances is the only reason that transwomen are allowed to compete. That feels against the spirit of sport and TUEs. But untill more data exist, I doubt a useful ruling can be made.

What I don’t like about the whole discussion is going for the “They aren’t real women” argument. That feels degrading and hurtful for everyone involved. I don’t want cis or transwomen to have to undergo inspections to determine their gender.

You miss the point of the discussion. The discussion is about how Fahrenheit relate to how humans interact with numbers and relate that number to temperature based on how that temperature feels.

I am not saying Celsius is arbirtray, I am saying that 40 being really hot is a weird number for most humans to associate with “hottest weather you are somewhat likely experience”. Of course if you grew up with Celsius it feels second nature. But for someone who isn’t familiar with either Celsius or Fahrenheit, the 0 - 100 could be way more intutive. Fahrenheit still fails at this because the numbers between 0-100 don’t really add up with what’s intuitive.

That’s why I said the original argument of “Fahrenheit is how humans feel” doesn’t work.

No, Celsius doesn’t make more sense in regard to how humans feel. It just feels more intuitive to us because we are used to the numbers. But if you try to explain the scala to someone the numbers feel entirely arbitrary with no real reason behind it. Why is 40 the really hot? 40 is such a weird number for humans.

0 being cold, 100 being hot makes sense, anyone can grasp that concept. But the inbetween steps of Fahrenheit make no sense. It isn’t intuitive, it only makes sense if you are used to them. A intuitive scala would be:

0 - cold, you need proper winter clothes 25 - chilly, you need a light jacket 50 - room temperature 75 - getting uncomfortably hot 100 - too hot, heatstroke is a real danger

It only makes sense if you grow up with Fahrenheit. Otherwise Fahrenheit isn’t how humans feels since most of us have no concept what these number mean.

If I would just go with 0 - cold 100 - hot I would assume 50 - perfect. But 50 is still chilly. 70-80 feels like it should be getting hot but that’s the most comfortable temperature.

I don’t think that the beacon works that way. The way I interpreted the comic the beacon has been active for the two years and still no help arrived.

Destroying it doesn’t really change anything, most likely it wasn’t working anyhow because otherwise you aren’t stranded for two years. It might just make it easier to accept rescue isn’t coming. And doing it voluntary because you prefer the lifestyle could be good moral boost.

But yes, if you are voluntary on an island you want means to contact help. What Masafumi Nagasaki did sounds pretty sweet sometimes. Living naked and alone on an island just getting groceries every few weeks for 30 years.

A lot of users are also from poorer countries that lack the means to create their own web infrastructure. Using Facebook to run your business account is easier, cheaper, and more reliable than most alternatives there. Phone carriers and ISP often also have “free”-data for certain social media platforms. You get 1GB+1GB for Facebook/IG/YT/Some Game. So you are stuck in this loop where everything reinforces itself to use Facebook.

While my farts can also be trusted, the few times I doubted them I still went to the toilet just to be sure. It never turned out to be necessary but I’d rather take 20 seconds to go to the toilet and be safe than having to deal with the aftermath of a misjudgement.

Changing the design of a beloved character was always met with criticism and skepticism. When James Bond was made blonde by casting Daniel Craig there was as much of an uproar amongst the fan base as when Ariel was made black.

If a movie is good, people will accept the design changes, if the movie is bad people will blame the design changes. And some people just never get over the design changes and will refuse to give it a chance.

The discussion is just a bit more heated because of the current social and political climate. But that’s mostly by people who don’t even care about the movie and just use the topic to stir the pot.

I don’t like this kind of ambition. It can only fail. BG3 was already big enough. Just make a game in similar scope and everything would be fine.

Phrases like:

I think there is some tech that we don’t have yet,

And I don’t know what the specs are on the next gen [of gaming systems] yet, but I hope that it’s going to bring us closer.

Are very discouraging. And this easily could become the next Star Citizen.

No, there is too much content for that nowadays. YouTube has over 3 million new videos each day. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram also has ridiculous amounts of new posts every day. Browsing Reddit on New was a terrible experience on r/all or even many of the bigger subs. Even on the fediverse sorting by new is not enjoyable. You are swarmed with reposts, and content that’s entirely uninteresting to you.

It works in smaller communities but there it isn’t really necessary. You usually have an overview of all the content anyhow and it doesn’t matter how it’s ordered.

Any social media that plans on scaling up needs a more advanced system.

You limit the hotel licenses. You then go hard on hotel inspections and revoke licenses or don’t renew it from hotels that aren’t up to code/standard. That way the available hotel rooms will go down. The number of licenses is limited by hotel category. That way you ensure a healthy mix of available room types and can still have all kinds of tourists in town. There won’t be an issue with “big chains snatching up all the licenses”.

Then for a time only people with a valid reservation are allowed to enter. You place checkpoints at the most common points of entry. That way you limit the number of potential tourists by limiting the available hotel rooms. It would also fix the issue of unregistered AirBnBs. It won’t be perfect but you don’t want to kill tourism just reduce it.

Locals and family of locals would be exempted from the limit. You just put some system in place to apply for that exemption for family. Since the checkpoints are only temporary (maybe around 6 months) the impact on locals and their family isn’t too bad before it goes back to normal.

There will be a lot of media coverage about the closure and fewer tourists will come. The lifting of the checkpoints will barely make the news so things won’t go back to how it was before. And the limit on hotel licenses is still in place, so the available rooms are limited anyhow. Naturally reducing tourism because fewer peope can book a room.

I grew up in Austria, so while we aren’t bordering Russia there is no oceans between us either.

My issue with the mandatory military service is just, I do not belive that the training is actually effective. You aren’t training soldiers that you can call up and expect to peform. You are artificially inflating your military number by having “reservists” that are just as effective as untrained people picked up from the street. The 6 months of training your rank-and-file soldier gets is just not helpful anymore. It might have worked 150 years ago when we were fighting with muskets and basic cannons.

Maybe the Finnish military is different and prepare you better in the 6 months. I doubt it. The more usefull training is already voluntary and comes with a longer commitment time (both in Austria and Finland). In Austria you don’t even get any training after your 6 months without opting in. Finland gives you an additional 80-150 days over 50 years according to google. Which is at least a little bit usefull.

If countries with mandatory military service bump up their current active standing military by a few thousands and offer a voluntary reservists program, that would provide a military just as if not more effective as the current system. And wouldn’t force thousands of people to spend months doing something they aren’t interested in.

If you really think mandatory service is necessary for the security of the country, then go the way of Singapore or South Korea where the service is around 2 years. Then the people actually are trained and spend long enough time in active duty to be ready in case of a war. But again, this 6 month mandatory service is nonsense in my opinion.

In 2013 Austria had a vote to get rid of the mandatory military service. 60% were in favor of keeping it (only 52% of people voted). The main arguments of people in favor of keeping: The civil service is essential for Hospitals, Nursinghomes, Schools, etc. as “free” labor. They aren’t really free because the state is paying them. The second most common argument was “I had to do it, so they should also have to do it”. Which is just stupid. A very small percentage of people actually cared about the military aspect of it.

The alternative is to have a standing professionall army. Then you have people who are actually trained and “combat ready”. I wouldn’t say that’s worse at all. It allows people who want to be in the military to be in the military and people who don’t, won’t have to.

Mandatory military service isn’t doing your bit, it’s sitting around for a few months doing nothing useful. Even if war breaks out during your time, you are barely better prepared than someone just picked off the street. And after 2-3 years all the “training” you went through is forgotten anyhow.

I understand the need of drafting people during a time of war. That makes sense. But all mandatory military service does, is waste a year of your time.

The EU granted all people fleeing from the war a 2 year stay until March 4, 2024. So it was addressed and they were allowed to stay and shouldn’t have been home 2 years ago. Many people lost access to their documents and given them enough time to get everything in order was the right decision.

But the article is mostly about the shortcomings of the Nigerian government/embassy. Who failed to provide sufficient support and resources to the Nigerians affected by the war. It took them 4 months after the war broke out to evacuate people from Ukraine. And then didn’t help Nigerians in Europe obtaining new visas or residence status for the EU at all. Allegedly not even issuing new Passports except temporary ones to go back to Nigeria.

The stories of affected people are odd choices and won’t create any sympthay from people that are opposed to them staying in the first place, probably making the feelings even worse. A 30 year old woman who left Nigeria at 17 and now “cannot imagine rebuilding her life again, especially as Nigeria experiences a steep economic decline.” And a guy who went to Nigeria, then came to Portugal and is working in customer service. He doesn’t have time to study portuguese to study in portugal, and the embassy isn’t helping them.

I personally still think that number of people affected is so low, that the EU could be more lenien in granting new visas but I suppose there is no legal basis for that.

There is no sudden change, not sending troop was the default stance for most people from day 1. And most politicians agreed with it, so there wasn’t much need to speak up against it.

But now that Macron isn’t ruling it out, voices against it need to speak up.

You should ban anyone who tries this regardless of the outcome. There is always a small chance they did it on purpose trying to cause damage. There is no benefit by giving them another chance, you just riks giving them the possibility of doing more damage. If the thing was a mistake, the person will learn from it and find another job.

There is no better alternative than turning these offices into housing. Forcing people to work in offices again is worse and keeping them empty is also worse.

A big advantage of converting them is there is already a lot of desirable infrastructure in place. Public transportation, shops, restaurants, everything is there already. Building apartment complexes at the edge of town might be cheaper but there usually is nothing there.

I also doubt that it’s actually cheaper to raze and rebuild for that many buildings. The only real trouble is upgrading the plumbing. Everything else is definitely offset buy using the existing shell.

Some buildings have a floorplan that doesn’t really work for residential but there is also no need to convert all offices. Pick the ones that are best suited and keep the remaining to satisfy the reduced need for office space.

The only real issue is that the current owner of the building obviously prefer just forcing people back into office since that’s more profitable. So it would take government subsidies and incentives for them to make the switch more profitable. And then we are once again putting hundred of millions into the pockets of already rich people. But it’s cheaper for the city and better for the people so while a tough pill to swallow, it’s still beats any alternative.

I lived in Vienna for over 20 years. Social housing is part of it. There are enough apartments available to house roughly 1/4th of the population. Average waiting time is 1-2 years to get one. So it doesn’t work for everyone. But the requirements to get one are reasonable. The middle class has access to them.

On top of that, Vienna has some rent control. Houses built before 1953 have a legal maximum for rent. And a lot of buildings are older than that. Newer buildings that took advantage of government grants also have rent limits. And then there are Genossenschaftwohnungen. They are built by “non-profit” developers (not quite right but close enough). They also have rent control.

So there are a shit ton of affordable apartments available. And that keeps even the rent of units that aren’t directly controlled in check. Obviously there are a few buildings and locations that still charge outlandish rent. But no one is forced to take them.

Of course landlords find ways to go beyond the limit. But we are talking at most $100-200 a month higher. Not outlandish higher. Because there are a lot of easy to use tools to check your rent price. You just put in what you pay, where you live and it will tell you if it’s allowed or not. If they charge too much there are resources available to have the rent fixed and you get paid back what you overpaid.

Plus the law really favors renters. Perpetual rent contracts are the norm. Term-Limited rent contracts have a mandatory discount added to them. And they are limited to one extension. The second one would turn it into a perpetual contract. So landlords have a hard time getting rid of existing tenants/contracts. Or end up paying a lot for real estate agent fees.

They aren’t comparable. Autodesk is a business product, not for consumers. The product makes you money and the price for it is a business expense and tax deductible. While subscriptions to Spotify, Netflix, etc. aren’t.