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actuator

3,560 karma · joined June 24, 2016

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actuator··on Ask HN: What's an appropriate compensation counter offer in London 2024?
It is a stupid hidden tax thing. They don't tax the first 12.5K of income, if it is below 100K. They start reducing that 12.5K limit as your income goes up, for every £2, it reduces by £1.

So, if you earn 100K, the first 12.5K of your income is not taxable

If you earn 105K, the first 10K is not taxable

If you earn 125K, there is no non taxable amount.

So the tax rate gets applied two times, that's why the strange thing between 100K and 125K happens

actuator··on U.S. GDP grew at a 4.9% annual pace in the third quarter, better than expected
> You know, the US spends most of our government money on old people too (social security, medicare, etc.).

My whole point was how these issues are less of an issue for US, again comparing with UK

US has better age demographic distribution than UK

The net tax burden on an average UK person is way higher compared to US while having worse average wages. Quick googling shows per capita income tax collected in US is $15K, while in UK it is $21K

GDP per capita of UK is $46K compared to US's 70K

If even after having high taxes, a country is having problem funding social services, then that's a big issue as the high taxes are meant to take care of that. US doesn't have this issue as taxes being lower, people can use the money not spent on tax on funding the social care things for themselves.

Also, overall US is still an attractive place for high earners so it will keep on attracting people from those segments which will boost its tax revenues and lead to decline of Europe. As while western Europe might be still a good place for people on median wages or below, USA might be much better for people on the other end

actuator··on U.S. GDP grew at a 4.9% annual pace in the third quarter, better than expected
Most countries in Western Europe have the social net curse blogging them down. The high tax, high social care system only works if the country is on a good growth track. As more people turn old and retire, someone has to pay for those. With wage stagnation in most normal occupations and lack of growth, the way they have tried to tackle this is with increase in immigration, which in turn keeps wages low in low paying sectors. Also, unlike US which does integration really well, this is not true for Europe where high immigration is leading to even frictions because of lack of integration.

On top of that, tech emerging as a big industry which forms a big part of the whole economic output of a country, has led to Europe losing out to US. Although only China through thier protectionism has been safe from that.

You can see this in the commentary about UK politics, where they don't have money to fund NHS and NHS wages haven't grown which has bogged down their healthcare system. Most of the manufacturing ecosystem is completely degraded. Productivity is at a complete toss as well, as they are not even able to build high speed rail well now, which for a social net country like UK should be of paramount importance.

To combat this, they have increased taxation, either through freezing slabs or moving down tax slabs. This penalises people in high wage professions and it leads to loss of competitiveness.

actuator··on Meta spends $181M to get out of lease at vacant London offices
I agree, also converted 19th century warehouse has a nice ring to it. No one will probably pay the premium for a converted 5 year old building
actuator··on Meta spends $181M to get out of lease at vacant London offices
I have seen few buildings in London itself which were warehouses and now have these weird shaped apartments with high ceiling height and a separate floor bedroom arrangement. A lot was kept from the old structure, some of them even make the plumbing added look more of an industrial design
actuator··on Meta spends $181M to get out of lease at vacant London offices
If companies are letting go of real estate as some employees want to go remote, why would the said employees who are remote want to stick in the center of city where these offices are, but not go out a bit outside of the center or even suburbs.

If they do move out, the demand of real estate in the center anyway goes down

actuator··on Meta spends $181M to get out of lease at vacant London offices
Eh, there are quite a few apartment buildings in every major city which used to be something else like warehouses
actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
That is wildly inaccurate. If anything among the Middle East countries India is aligned more with UAE, which till recently Qatar was more at odds with
actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
I think the problem is not that they won't criticise them, it shows that they lack editorial freedom, which means any coverage even if global matters coming from them should be looked at with suspicion, like what would be Qatar monarchy's view on this global issue
actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
Wow, you are trying to build up a ethno-religious conspiracy, seems uncalled for
actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
> They are pretty much the equivalent to the BBC

I am sorry, but they aren't. This is just false equivalence, you can just go read BBC's coverage of UK politics and you will see criticism of their government

actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
Well, I did write state sponsored propaganda outlet, not state sponsored media outlet as I think the journalistic freedom an organisation like BBC gets is different. They can criticise policies of UK government, something Al Jazeera can't.

I would argue that they just have more polish to their presentation rather than having more integrity, and the coverage in local language is quite different from the one in English

actuator··on Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel
Not that it justifies the deletion, I wonder how a state sponsored propaganda outlet came to be regarded well among global audiences. It would be interesting to read up on what they have done to garner that image.
actuator··on Chandrayaan-3 Lands on the Moon
Russia has a wonderful space program with ability to reliably go to space and are one of the biggest contributors to ISS.

Setbacks happen, but I am sure that doesn't change how they feel about Chandrayaan-3

actuator··on Chandrayaan-3 Soft-landing [video]
I believe Chandrayaan 1 has detected water, but not sure if it was the first one to do so
actuator··on Chandrayaan-3 Soft-landing [video]
More people are interested in sports than space landings, who would have thought
actuator··on Chandrayaan-3 Soft-landing [video]
Congratulations to ISRO! Hopefully some interesting data and findings come from it and then Gaganyaan next!
actuator··on Indian-American engineer fired for speaking Hindi during dying relative's call
He does say he went to the meeting room and ensures that there is nothing classified there.

I am guessing the language is being brought in the discussion because the coworker in not understanding the language might have assumed the worst.

actuator··on Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For
This is such a naive and for lack of a better word stupid take

> YouTube - streaming content. Probably gets sold to Netflix or AT&T or Comcast.

Make Netflix more powerful? In what world is that good for competition

actuator··on Logistics challenges of saving Air India’s diverted 777 in Russia
> Air India has always had a YOLO attitude to air traffic control.

What do you mean by this? Do you have some examples in mind. Also, the airline is a different entity now from a few years back.

> I'm somewhat surprised America doesn't restrict inbound and outbound flights from overflying Russia.

I am sure they would have but this might have been a concession few governments might have secured to keep flights economically viable.

actuator··on Google doesn’t want employees working remotely anymore
I think these are data backed decisions. Most big tech hasn'r given the actual data but Meta was at least open that they saw a difference in performance scores of people who work in office vs who work remote, specially the new ones.

This is the same Google that routinely ends up writing off billions of dollars in a product even before launching the first stable version of it, they will not hesitate to sell their real estate if they saw remote work was more effective.

actuator··on The Nova Kakhovka Hydroelectric dam in Ukraine has been blown open
Footage coming out in the last two days showed heavy Ukraine armour losses, so I am not sure whether this is necessarily because Russians were on backfoot. The overflow would be higher towards South so it will hurt Russian defensive preparations more once the water has receded.
actuator··on Arizona limits building as groundwater dries up
I know it is a delivery issue not supply, but it is amazing to see how much freshwater US has. US has 5 times the renewable freshwater per person as China and almost 8 times as India. US and Canada have been blessed with freshwater resources.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_r...

actuator··on Vasectomies rose after the end of Roe
Unnecessary to be healthy. If someone doesn't want a kid, there are other forms of birth protection available which can be relied on and they are quite effective if used as advised.
actuator··on Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing
There is also one more story on the other side of it.

Twitter used to have a vibrant ecosystem of clients, most of them working better than the official app both on web and mobile. Twitter was able to kill their third party app ecosystem with their paid API changes and lived to thrive as a company till recently.

The reality is, you need a good cohort of content and users to move who can sustain the content, moderation and discussion. Just moving Apollo users doesn't ensure that. There are other good third party clients like Relay etc as well

actuator··on Vasectomies rose after the end of Roe
IMO 1-2% rate is quite high for an unnecessary procedure, I am glad OP is talking about it to make more people aware of this.
actuator··on Churchill’s Famine: The killing of three million is a story waiting to be retold
All the sources quoted by you are western sources, they might have a reason to be a bit biased on this.

Also, you would find the opposition to the current government also supports the proposition on Churchill, its prominent leader Tharoor having voiced it in many forums, so this is definitely not a partisan issue and not some "project at play".

actuator··on Churchill’s Famine: The killing of three million is a story waiting to be retold
You would find India's opposition which supported the said documentary also agrees to the proposition on Churchill. One of the leading voices from it Tharoor has multiple times spoken about it on British TV and universities.
actuator··on Churchill’s Famine: The killing of three million is a story waiting to be retold
The context is he meant it for Indians, which is true.
actuator··on Churchill’s Famine: The killing of three million is a story waiting to be retold
Well, it is not just the English that dismantled it, it had already gotten weak if you look at India's output to science and research by the time they came. They did very well manipulate the system to be advantageous to them and make it easier for them to rule, which was what most colonisers were doing.
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