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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2024

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  • Doesn’t Austria have a law that allows employees to reduce hours to part-time as they see fit? We do here in Germany. Last place I worked at, my team lead didn’t want me to reduce from full-time to 80%. The Betriebsrat (employee council) was ready to go to bat for me, but I didn’t like the role anyway, so I interviewed for another place. They offered me 80%, a pay raise, a better role and benefits.

    This might come off as bragging, I realize. Sorry, not my intention. I just wanted to share my experience, maybe it’s useful to someone 😊



  • I feel like there’s two stories here:

    1. Snap is a pedo grooming ground

    2. Police are generating fake CSAM

    3. is, well, yeah . Like any major network you have creeps, Nazis and pedos and it’s good to root them out. It’s weird that themselves don’t do that.

    4. is … difficult. I feel like the cops that prompt GenAIs to produce (sexualized) images of children risk severe trauma. It must be punishing to ask a a machine to produce fake images of morally reprehensible material. That’s gotta take a toll on you. What’s even more important is that those people could be spending their time taking down actual child abuse images.

    I can’t wrap my head around that.






  • In a sense it was, though:

    "Tesla is legally obliged to compensate for cleared forests 1:1 with new plantings. The new plantings are mixed forests with a deciduous wood share of more than 60 percent, which is more ecologically valuable than the felled trees on the site. In addition, the new plantings lead to the conversion of species-poor landscapes into habitats for birds, insects and small mammals.

    By December 2021, around 90 percent of the required initial afforestation had already been implemented, and the remaining areas will be completed in 2022. The growth is monitored and controlled by the forestry authority and only released after several years of growth and when specified criteria are met. These new plantings will take place at various selected locations in the state of Brandenburg.

    In addition, Tesla has announced that it will voluntarily replant areas that will be significantly larger in total than the planned factory site. In order to achieve the best possible result, Tesla says it is working closely with environmental and other expert groups.

    Extensive avoidance and replacement measures were carried out to protect possible habitats for reptiles. Among other things, potential habitats were protected by fences. In addition, additional fences were erected to prevent further immigration of reptiles into the project area. Over the summer of 2020, sand lizards, grass snakes and forest ants were professionally relocated to the remaining area that had been applied for clearing.

    The following replacement measures were carried out, among others:

    • Two areas (a total of around 10 hectares) were created for sand lizards and grass snakes by clearing and building habitat structures in the immediate vicinity.
    • 21 forest ant nests were protected and successfully relocated to suitable locations in the immediate vicinity.
    • Replacement habitats for protected bird and bat species have been created in the immediate vicinity to ensure that the ecological function of resting and breeding sites is maintained in the spatial context.
    • In the immediate vicinity of the site, Tesla has installed a total of 702 boxes as compensation (including 368 bat boxes, 329 nesting boxes and 5 nesting baskets)."

    Google translated from Land Brandenburg.

    … and that’s not all, apparently.

    Still don’t like neither Tesla nor Elon, but in this particular instance it seems the Guardian lied by omission.


  • yes, I know. I meant it more along the lines of whoever comes up with a method for standardizing bias in media puts their own bias in the methodology.

    For example, I feel it is a political statement in itself to have a “bias spectrum” from left to unbiased to right. This implies that both left an right are “biases”, while only the center is truly neutral and therefore an arbiter of truth and facts. Enlightened centrism, anyone?

    Also, I disagree with parts of their methodology. The headline “Habitual liar and convicted felon to seek US presidency again” would probably be classified as loaded language, whereas “Donald Trump wants to become president again” would be considered more neutral.

    I would argue that the former example is, in fact, more truthful than the latter because it doesn’t omit major reasons why this is newsworthy. But since the mbfc is founded on the illusion idea that there is such a thing as truly neutral common ground, it conflates perspective and bias.






  • I mean yes, they kind of are? Building codes vary widely from state to state and while some newly constructed homes in the US do feature more insulation than older buildings, there’s still room for improvement. Coming from Europe, most US homes would not be considered insulated.

    See this article from German engineering magazine www.ingenieur.de (Google translated):

    “Core insulation is possible in both new and existing buildings, provided that the outer wall is or was constructed from two shells. In a new building, two shells means that there is a stronger load-bearing wall that also functions as a heat store. It is 18 to 25 centimeters thick. The second shell provides weather protection, is eight to twelve centimeters thick and is anchored to the inner wall. In between is the insulation layer, which is ideally 15 to 25 centimeters thick.”

    And that’s without outside/inside plastering / paneling. So insulation plus outer walls is typically 50cm+. Here in Germany nowadays it tends to be even more than that because a) we still don’t believe in AC for whatever reason and so thick walls = at least some heat protection and b) home construction subsidies are usually tied to more demanding standards than the legal baseline.

    So TLDR: yes, US homes do have some insulation wedged between its timber frames, but elsewhere building codes are much stricter