Tichy

I wonder if much of it is not being corrected because it simply isn't important enough? Like the example of "think about a professor before an exam to get higher scores". I suspect that if for example some medication against HIV is found to not work, it will be thrown out again quickly.

What is everybody using for piracy these days?

Isn't there some kind of regulation for that? Where I used to live there were only a fixed amount of street performers allowed, and licenses were given out on a daily basis very early in the morning (or so I have heard).

public transport isn't that broken, I get around quite well. The water supply things seems to be mainly a battle of ideologies, again my water supply works fine atm. Presumably the tech companies will at least pay taxes and alleviate the debt. I am no specialist on that subject, but I suspect it also comes from the unique history of Berlin, not (just) financial incompetence. Problem for a long time has been that Berlin is very big, yet has no big industries.

Actually I often wonder what all the people here do for a living. I guess the main employer is the government now.

Can't open the article right now, but here is one question I have that might fit: hasn't Sillicon Valley actually started in the middle of nowhere? These days the saying is to go there because that is where the investors with the money are. But the money is there now because some people succeeded with their factories built in the countryside?

Here in Germany there are also quite a few towns that are built around one big company, for example Wolfsburg for VW.

No doubt Berlin is attractive at the moment, but the things that make it attractive are quickly disappearing - cheap cost of living, lots of empty buildings, lots of diverse culture.

I for one don't look forward to the living conditions of the valley, where people have to share rooms at extremely high costs just to be able to be there. It seems very ironic that while it is presumably one of the richest places on earth, the valley sounds like a horrible place to live in.

Do you have to use the touchscreen?

I'm always slumping and I am 40. Pretty tall, too. Surprised that I don't have a lot of back pain - sometimes I wonder if the slumping has saved me...

Absolutely - although in the case of beer maybe you'd also lose a few people by not offering beer.

But then, if you don't like it, why work there?

Personally I hate ties. I hope I'll never have to work at a place where I'd be forced to wear a tie. Yet I am not calling for all offices to ban ties.

Beer doesn't rape people. People do.

I think if somebody wants to have beer in their office, they should be free to do so. If they want to smoke in their office, the same (not sure if this is still legal, though) - I just would like to know in advance, because I wouldn't like to work there. But other people might.

Also, this seems to suggest beer leads to rape/harassment. So as an implication, rape/harassment in bars are fine, just not in the office? Doesn't make much sense imo.

Dumb question: does changing the image on the screen actually change the output of blue light? I was kind of under the impression it was a result of the light source.

For example I think neon light is actually greenish and it is just the human eye that adjusts the colors back to normal. But I don't think one could make neon light behave like another type of light simply by painting it with some color.

I don't understand what you are saying? Is the headline or the article wrong?

It sounds too much like Wasabi for my taste :-/

He was not harassing her, she just had an unpleasant conversation with him (from the sounds of it). If that is reason enough to out somebody on the internet as a sexual predator, I'm sorry, but that's way over the top.

Actually, yes. And if I read something for entertainment, I don't tell other people they should read it.

I must admit I read the article (wired, not the paper), but I don't get the point at all. The relevance to my life appears (hopefully) to be zero.

It seems only a matter of time until the data base leaks, and I wonder how valuable that information might be.

Could it be used to find matches for organ donation, for example (with subsequent accidents happen to matching donors)? I know, very "movie scenario" threat, but it is just one creepy idea.

I don't understand that story. Why did she let it happen? I'm sorry for what was done to her, but there seem to be a lot of misunderstanding and misguided assumptions that led to the mistake. She doesn't seem to be aware that she was coming on to the guys (ie doing body shots, then being shocked when colleague X takes the picture).

For me it is rather another example how a woman can destroy a man's life at a whim with a rape accusation.

How would the students know that they had laxer requirements?

The time lost to commuting is also time where you don't meet other people, and don't exercise. Things like that also factor into the result, and you might not even be aware that you are missing out.

Although to be fair, most people I know don't meet a lot of people most of the time anyway. Modern work life seems to be work - TV all week long.

"Plan a trip – but don't take one"

Advice like that makes me doubt the science a bit. As well as the famous result that people are happier without children. It's certainly interesting to measure such things and ponder what it means, but perhaps the results should make them wonder if they have been measuring the wrong thing.

Dan Ariely pointed out that for example mountaineering seems to be all misery, but people seek out the experience again and again. I wouldn't be surprised that with their technology, the happiness researchers would conclude that mountaineering does not bring happiness at all. Like if they ping the mountaineer every ten minutes to ask "how happy are you right now on a scale of 1 to 10" all they would see might be misery.

Also Nassim Taleb noted in "antifragile" that a happiness researcher he knows who is famous for the "more money doesn't bring more happiness" result is himself very keen on being paid well for his speaking gigs.

... until they graduate and get high paying jobs in finance. Is it really so bad to have to work "student jobs"?

I don't understand how people can go on pointing at the suicides when it is well known that suicide rates are lower at Foxconn than the average Chinese suicide rates?

"One student, for example, majored in finance and accounting but has been assigned to a job that entails glueing together parts of Sony’s Playstation 4...."

Am I the only one who thinks that sounds great? Why shouldn't finance an accounting guys get some insights into the working conditions of people "below" them?

Depends how you define it - in a way, you can. There is a book called "The Luck Factor" that explores that scientifically (by Wiseman). I liked it.

You can of course not change the odds of rolling a 6 if you roll one dice. But you can influence how often the dice roll for you, and thereby increase your odds of rolling a six.

You characterized it as egalitarianism, which could be characterized as 50:50 distribution. In any case I think you should quantify your "demands", or else how can they ever be satisfied? It is not obvious to me why it is unfair if for example a woman is a nurse instead of a PHP developer? Should she begrudge her fate? Why not vice versa (PHP devs who would rather be nurses)?

Well you didn't answer what exactly is meant by egalitarian. 50:50 male and female workers in every profession? Or what exactly?

As I said, if "egalitarian" means 50:50 male and female workers, then the same people pushing for tech women would have to be pushing for more garbage women, too. Since they don't, obviously that is not the driving force.

The crucial question is why can women cope with low paying jobs, and men can't. I think the notion that the father in a family should usually be the main breadwinner has a lot to do with that.

Women have the privilege to be able to choose a low paying profession (which offers more flexibility/time for family). The privilege is theirs because they control reproduction.

I'd argue those are pretty niche. I certainly wouldn't focus on browser development unless I worked for one of the three or four big browser vendors.

Text editors have been moved onto the web, and probably more and more text editing is being done online, for example in Wordpress blogs.

Nothing against "native" text editors, but again, how promising would it be to start out developing a new text editor these days? It still happens, but it is rare enough to get the top HN slot when it happens.

I honestly don't understand what you mean. Where did I supposedly argue against fairness and equality?