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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: May 21st, 2024

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  • How would anything have been able to form, i.e. make more order, without decreasing entropy?

    Of course there are multiple errors in that thought.

    1. Entropy does not mean an actual grade of (dis-)order or organization. It’s one model to grasp certain processes through that concept. Outside of these the model doesn’t hold.
    2. The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy cannot decrease in a CLOSED system (i.e. mass, energy, information flow at the boundary = 0). It doesn’t mean that within that system there can’t be local imbalances. For example: For a plant to be able to “order” - to use this term - its molecules to cells, Hydrogen atoms had to have been fused to Helium in our fusion reactor 150 million km away that we call sun which increases local entropy.

    Of course there’s more wrong with it, but those would be the blatant ones for me.



  • I’m not surprised the EFAS got approved. It is a complex topic where you would need to read almost the whole KVG to truly understand what’s going on and the messaging of the opponents was sub-optimal to put it mildly.

    The opposing opinion in the official booklet, at least for the German version, was incomprehensible and without concrete links to the substance of the issue or their claims. E.g. HOW are the insurers getting more power? What will they be able to do, that they can’t already? What are the absolute numbers, that show that premiums will rise, when the official report mentions sinking costs? Why will the quality of care deteriorate? They mention privatization, but don’t tell you what would facilitate that…

    The Pro side mainly stressed the positive of correcting the disincentives towards cheaper ambulatory treatments through changing to the uniform financing formula, which in and of itself and without further context is a valid and good point. Both substantively and politically.

    And my biggest problem lies with the official ‘examining review’ from the Federal Chancellery. I know it is normal to try and project what the changes in law could affect in reality. Imho they did it in a biased way. Why am I saying that? Because every argument and scenario they brought up was positive and basically the pro-opinion reads like a summary of the official review. Also: When making simplifications from the actual legal text, they used a more positive description (E.g. “coordination” vs. “restriction” talking about the states limiting offered services). There aren’t many absolute numbers to understand just how much money will shift between insurers, states and patients and what that would mean. In such a situation it is even more incumbent on the opponents to make the downsides clear and fill those gaps.


  • To add to that:

    We have a militia system, which on first glance is a good thing. But then you realize that a plurality of parliamentarians are lawyers, business-people, advisors and other higher economic class individuals. Too many of them are on boards of directors or other high management positions in corporations. Compared to other western countries, it is more mixed, but clear conflicts of interests are present and it is still skewed towards the economic elite. The reasons for this are many, but among others voters getting such individuals in high positions can be paired with people in lower economic classes having less opportunities or motivation to run for office. Which is why local organizing is of utmost importance. You can see the effect in parliaments on a local level: They far more closely represent the population than on a state or federal level. Then there’s party politics, but that’ll get too long, soooo: Next point:

    The media landscape: Your point about a billionaire having great impact on the electoral landscape extends to the media. You can count the owners of the local papers on one hand. Said billionaire owns some of them as well as an own TV channel if you can call it that. And there’s a general animosity towards the SRG SSR with political and legislative attacks to weaken it.



  • The OP did a quality reply already where he cites the article you’ve linked to debunk your own claims. But you could also have done with reading the OP’s article until the second paragraph.

    The draft resolution was aimed at calling for an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of all hostages held by Palestinian groups in the enclave.

    At this point unquestionably spouting the official lies of the U.S. or Israeli governments is spouting genocidal propaganda and can only be seen as either hopelessly ignorant or bad faith.





  • Oof, yeah I was about 23 and wanted to help my now wife to get some of the correct size, which was an almost impossible ordeal. Wanna hear the story? Fine:

    Taking the two measures was the easy part (and doing it again during her period, because of course the size changes during the cycle, anything else would be too easy). Then I read that the cup size is the absolute difference between bust and band measurement no matter the band measurement. Furthermore since the material is elastic, for a good support, the band should be a tad below the measurement*.

    So far so good, went to the store and there are only A-D cups everywhere, E if you’re lucky. So basically no matter what exact measure they take between the cups, you’re ok if you’re thin and have small or somewhat big breasts, or you’re a bit fuller and have tiny breasts. Everyone else is automatically screwed. If you’re lucky enough to fall into those categories you then have to try on so many to sift through different positioning and forms of breasts until you find one that is comfortable. We had to order some all the way from the UK because it wasn’t possible to get anything coming near the correct size here.

    *women who wore normal cloth bras before and continued wearing the same size have felt that the elastic hasn’t made things better necessarily. Can’t find the source for that one right now though.


  • And when people jump to “yeah but Democrats are to blame” I know we’re usually already in Bad Faithville. Both Sides and all that.

    Just no. This is not about both sides in any shape way or form. This is about agency. Fact is: There were ways to do this and the last three Democratic presidents (including the sitting president) have campaigned and outlined plans to codify it into law and didn’t. Yes it may have taken people by surprise that the country and the world is regressing as early and fast as it is, but that doesn’t take away agency, especially when they didn’t even try to spring to action after mere lip service to garner votes.

    The thing is: The conservative, religious right, openly formulated and has been following their plan of judicial activism for decades. The lower courts haven’t become this biased towards Republican policy over night. It was due to bad luck, bad faith acting of McConnel and the other Republican senators and stubberness of some involved people on the other side of the aisle that Trump was able to nominate this many people to the USSC. It would have happened at some point.



  • Hate to be that guy, but it is also the present (hopefully not future) the Democrats have allowed Republicans to build:

    Bill Clinton promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t.

    Obama promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law. He didn’t despite having a super-majority in his first two years.

    Biden promised to codify Roe v. Wade into law and didn’t. The Dobbs decision was taken in June 2022, so before the midterms when Democrats still had a simple majority in the house and a tie + VP in the senate. When there were rumors/leaks a month or so before the decision that the USSC would take that decision soon. Again: Inaction.



  • To be fair, business development wasn’t the main hangup for many of the people I know. The two main reasons I heard (and partly raised myself), was firstly the detrimental effect on expanding solar- & wind-energy-production. And secondly overreaching, i.e. not limiting the protection to the environment, but also include townscape protection and historical sites, essentially further restraining residential development (including changing them into more dense usage) in a time where living space is scarce and expensive.

    When the pro-side has its reservations, then of course it doesn’t help that the executive (Federal Council) is dominated by pro-corporate ideology and have brought forward arguments of “damaging the business location”. But making it out to be the only reason is just dishonest.


  • AliSaket@mander.xyztoMemes@lemmy.mlI hate excel so much
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    7 months ago

    As an engineer I can attest that it is also useful for quick calculations and illustrations, especially at the concept stage. We also ran process “simulations” in it for fun, but of course something like SciLab would be better suited for it. The possibility to simultaneously work in the same spreadsheet was also a godsend during lock-downs.