philippK
Joined 14 years ago
Karma
107
Submissions
22
Member since
Mar 20
Recent submissions
Comment · 14 years ago
Rare ? To me - they are unheard of.
Comment · 14 years ago
There is also this project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/b9creations/b9creator-a-...
they also seem to make an optical 3d printer and seem to have actually shipped some of them already.
Comment · 14 years ago
Yeah well this has been all over the primetime news shows on german television. They all aired with the warning to not use IE / switch to a different browswr.
While this might not mean much to the average user of HN (read: tech literate) - i think it IS quite a big deal for "ordinary" computer users.
I think such warnings, from an official government body no less, will be heeded by many who don't know much and "just want to be safe"
Meanwhile MS choses to tell people that it "is not that bad" and that "not many users will be affected" and no word on when a patch is coming. This despite the fact that all current MS OSes (xp,vista,7) are exposed - is a PR disaster for MS.
Comment · 14 years ago
ustream was showing an even higher number of 11.4m viewers
Comment · 14 years ago
german workers are more unionized than the US workers are.
the workers movement was (sort of) co-inventended in germany in the 1920s ;-)
Comment · 14 years ago
I'm disappointed that they still don't seem to support the file API in JS :/
Comment · 14 years ago
Arguably.
While it is true that the SPD has departed from its roots as a socialist working class party they can still be considered "leftwing".
I don't want to go into too much detail here but Hannelore Kraft has run on a pretty leftwing platform of social policy (offering free childcare, as but one example).
When compared to american politics... pretty much every german party except maybe the FDP can be considered "leftwing" or even "socialist".
Comment · 14 years ago
This is pretty important for the pirate party. Nordrhrein Westphalen is not only the largest state by population. It is also very important politically and economically. The pirates entering the state parliament at 8% will greatly solidify their political base.
This will give them a much needed boost when gearing up for the general election in 2013.
Also Angela Merkel's CDU suffered a crushing defeat at only 26%, despite her "heir apparent" Norbert Röttgen running in the state. The state will now be governed by a leftwing coalition of SPD and greens. In all, this is a good day for the national opposition in germany. Germany is shifting to the left, along with the rest of europe.
Comment · 14 years ago
where "liberal" in germany means something like "pro business". Very different from the US.
Comment · 14 years ago
Well it is certainly true that there are countries in europe that have even more renewable energy than we have.
The other countries in europe that have more renewables than we have are mostly smaller countries that don't have the population or industrial output that germany has.
The numbers in the article you cite are also terribly outdated. Some more up to date numbers can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany#St...
As you can see there germany has made BIG advances in the amount of renewable energy produced, as well as its overall share of energy consumed.
My point was: * Germany was 20years ago pretty conservative about energy, relying mainly on coal, gas and nuclear.
Then the green party came into the political landscape and now * We are on the forefront of converting our highly industrous economy completely to renewable energies. No other country in europe has increased the amount of renewabled energy produced by 5x in the last 10 years alone. At this rate, we will be overtaking even the smaller countries that may have more renewables than we have now. * We are the only country of this size and economic gravitas that is fully committed to quiting nuclear. * We have very strict environmental protection laws, with environmental protection even enshrined in the national constitution , more so than in other industrous european countries (yes there's always switzerland or other small countries that are nominally "better" at this but you can not compare their impact or structure with large countries such as germany) See also: http://www.goethe.de/ges/umw/ein/en5099932.htm * Gas is more expensive in germany than elsewhere in europe (again there might be exceptions) because of "ecological taxing" that was proposed by the green party
So, in all what i wanted to say was: Germany has changed a great deal due to the green party in the last decades. Where once we were very conservative about ecological ideas, we are now at the forefront, if not the sole leader, in many of these areas. And that is,to a large degree, thanks to the greens because they have put those issues on the agenda again and again - and that way changed the political discourse at large.
Comment · 14 years ago
Well that is a good question.
The pirate party wants several steps in enabling more citizen participation.
First, they want to make government more transparent so that the people actually have all the information needed to make informed decisions on their hands. No longer do they want to accept that crucial legislation is often negotiated behind closed doors and only announced once everything is already sewn up. Also the contracts the government has with the private sector need to be made transparent. We need proper open data portals. There's a lot of things do to in this area alone.
Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level.
Third, their longterm vision includes a concept called "Liquid democracy" where basically everyone has the opportunity to have a voice in the political process. This will be facilitated using digital means. Specifically software called "adhocracy" / "liquid feedback" is being developed for this. The pirate party in germany already uses this system for their internal decision making.
It's a carefully balanced system comprised of direct voting on issues, and delegating voting power to representatives.
See here for more info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy
So i don't see the danger of inviting mob rule with the pirate party. As i see it, they want to open up the political system to more direct participation while keeping it stable enough to guarantee basic democratic freedoms (like minority protections)
Comment · 14 years ago
You can even participate if you are not a party member.
And that's what their long term vision also includes: Large scale, direct, participation (using digital means) of many people in the political process. They call this concept "Liquid democracy"
See here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy
Comment · 14 years ago
well i have bad news for you.
the only party in germany that is really pro free market capitalism, the FDP, is on its way to obscurity due to severe policy missteps.
All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.
So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.
When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".
Comment · 14 years ago
Reading the entry - it isn't.
It's basically the same thing.
What is different in germany, though, is that the discussion here revolves around forcing private sector enterprises to have specific (government set) quota of women in their leadership (or else be punished by the law).
Affirmative action in the US seems to revolve more around not negatively discriminating against women when making hiring decisions, but not forcing government set quotas on companies.
I can't quite imagine the US government interfering with private enterprise in this way.
Comment · 14 years ago
Absolutely. Entering a government after they first get into the parliament would do them no good. They first need to establish themselves, before they can govern.