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> taboo on taking photo

Do Germans complain/rage every time they see a security camera?


Wasn't Germany the original country that forced google maps to censor all houses unless they opt-IN? And faces, and driving plates.

I think they are quite privacy conscious, as a country.


Google Streetview isn't opt-in, it's opt-out. But it was used so much that Google simply gave up for a while.

Blurring faces (and I assume license plates) was a thing before they started serving imagery for Germany


And quite averse/backwater (choose your version) on using debit/credit cards. Which is mindblowing from my Easter European perspective. I didn't use cash in a decade.

Unfortunately that's much less the case since COVID. Not looking forward to have more and more placed that only take panopticon-payments.

That has pretty much changed now. I rarely use cash in Berlin. About 2-3 years already...

Berlin is very different from the rest of Germany.

But not how you think, in this instance. I think Berlin has more places of questionable legality which require cash for presumably tax avoidance reasons.

germany had bank transfers as the norm when the US still fiddled around with paper cheques.

They don't see security cameras because there are very, very few in Germany and the few that exist are in train stations, or private areas like INSIDE a business, or INSIDE a private estate, pointing inwards since they're seldom allowed to film outwards

And there is a big warning if there is a security camera around. And they get destroyed pretty often.

Source: living in Berlin.


Security cameras are illegal by default in Germany. Having one is a crime punishable by jail time, if you aren't careful to follow the rules.

Yes. Datapoint: the underground garage of the complex where I used to live experienced a large number of thefts (including my motorbike), and in 6 years we never managed to install security cameras because you need unanimity for this, and there's always someone who is concerned about their privacy.

See how StreetView looks like there (or looked), they have trouble being photographed.

Just a reminder that they are a corporation and to not fall for their PR. They are actively destroying the environment while paying as little tax as possible. The cheapness of their furniture does have externalities one needs to consider.

At some point people need to take some responsibilities too. I have a bunch of ikea furniture. I have never thrown much away. Maybe 1 piece. I manage to disassemble and reassemble the rest when I need to. Sometimes I need to take a closer look at make sure I can disassemble and reassemble it.

People view cheap as disposable. That’s not entirely corporations fault.


Yeah, the total mass of all my Ikea furniture is probably equivalent to one hardwood table, so it can't be that bad for the environment.

I really don't understand this point, similar to the other poster below - making lightweight furniture and not clear cutting virgin forests are not mutually exclusive.

I think there's a big difference between products that are inherently harmful to the environment and products that are only harmful because the producer chooses to behave harmfully. European regulators should just stop Ikea from clear cutting virgin forests.

At this point their products have so little material that it may be better for the environment to buy an IKEA one vs decent furniture (from the standpoint of caring for the environment)

They can make lightweight furniture while not rasing virgin forests to the ground.

I think most people who are critical of IKEA would be fine with cheap carboard furniture, if it weren't for their unethical practices hinging on corruption in developing countries. I recently learned of their practices of clearing old growth forests and was quite ashamed for falling for their greenwashing campaign. I won't be buying their products anytime soon.

Some recent documentaries about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSV7RlgQtWc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=860f0EqmYao


How good is the microphone quality on it? I had a horrible experience with their Moto Edge Pro which had one of the worst mics I ever experienced. Very high noise floor plus aggressive filtering. Not something you expect in a flagship phone. I exchanged it twice thinking there was something wrong with the device but it was not the case, others were complaining about it and other Edge models as well.

It was a shame, as the rest of the phone hardware was very good for the price - after installing gcam on it as you did.


You.know, this is very funny to me. Back in the early 90s, when mobile moved from analog to digital, I bought the first Motorola digital flip phone. And it regarded my voice as "noise" over a certain level, which (as I have a loud voice), meant it was clipping all the time.

I engaged Motorola on this, spoke with the engineering team. We even did a few calls, me with a Nokia and then a Motorola so they could see the difference. You could sense the shoulder shrugs at their end.

To discover they still have the same limitations is beyond amusing, and I wonder of the same engineering team still exists in part, decades later, refusing to care.


I'm sure this isn't actually what happened, but when you said "as I have a loud voice" and then "did a few calls" and finally "shoulder shrugs at their end", I imagine you shouting over the phone to them, and them not understanding why your are shouting instead of just talking :P I'm sure it wasn't like that though, just what popped into my head.

Maybe this isn't any of my businesses, but couldn't you just talk less loudly, if this is such a issue? Most microphones are good enough, and were in the 90s too, to pick up normal conversational volume :)


I just spoke normally.

Some people have louder voices. I'm not going to whisper all the time on the phone. And all other devices?

Fine.


I mean when I talk "normally" people think I talk too fast, so to make it easier for others to understand me, I talk "slower" which for them sounds "normal". Again, I'm not saying you have to change or anything, but isn't this more or less the same as for people who are "louder" or simply stronger too, they have to be more careful with others? I remember the moment the strong kid in class realized he was strong (as the teacher told him with not so nice words), and he adjusted based on that later when we played.


No.

Good grief, were you on the design team? I've owned 40 other phones in my life, by at least 10 brands. I've owned tablets, landlines, recording equipment, all fine!

Then wisenhimer shows up to defend the outlier.

No. Got it?


Sorry, I'm not claiming the phone isn't broken or shit, I wasn't even talking about the phone anymore. I don't understand the second to last sentence at all either, sorry. Hope you'll have a nice day anyways!


For reference, 'wise-en-himer': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yscaDkzHqek


I haven't noticed any issues but, well, we don't make very many calls or record voice a lot. I may make a point to test it out.


More available land won't protect from crop failure due to temperature, droughts etc.


"The government says all children need to show an ID when browsing the internet in order to be safe"

"The government says all children need to be vaccinated in order to be safe"

I'm not saying these arguments are equivalent, but they seem equivalent because they induce the same feeling of loss of agency. And one cannot simply ignore and dismiss something like this.


> loss of agency

That's exactly what this is.

They want to build an internet where it is structurally impossible for children to be harmed in any way.

This requires the destruction of the very concept of agency. You can't just do things. You need government approval.


No they don't? Laws can't really make anything "structurally impossible" unless they criminalize a lot more - such as hosting a website without full government review (this is illegal in China). These laws are quite clearly targeted at the harm that is happening today and not at locking down the entire internet.

You do have to take enforcement into account when evaluating these laws. Some HNers interpret this as you go to jail for not scanning an ID (which makes sense to programmers because it's a simple if/then), but most of them are actually written as product safety laws, so the government can order you to comply or take your product off the market.


> Laws can't really make anything "structurally impossible"

Require age verification. Kids lie and claim they are 18.

Require better age verification, implemented at the operating system level so that only the parent's administrator account can override it. Kids install a live Linux operating system on a USB drive and boot it, and now they have full access to the web.

Require computers to be cryptographically locked down so that only approved child-protecting operating systems may ever run. For the sake of the kids.

Computing freedom has now been destroyed. It is now structurally impossible for you to be free. It's not your computer anymore, it's the government's, and you better believe they are going to do a lot more than just prevent kids from accessing harmful content.


read the next 6 words after the ones you quoted


It heavily depends on the task, language and experience. What I saw in my team was that low performers started being as productive as mediocre programmers, however they mostly produce slop which needs to be sent back for rework, so in the short term it's not that great. However since they can iterate faster, I have the feeling that they are learning faster so hopefully in the long run they can be somewhat productive.

The high-performers on the other hand are ripping through tasks at such a speed that they now have time to focus on quality and processes, so in the end you get a really well polished piece of software. However this is starting to change for the worse as the PMs are realizing what's happening and cramming more and more stuff in the sprints.

The amazing part is not the above though - it's that one needs not be an SME anymore. One of our customers asked us to make an Android application with some features of our product, which were not trivial to port. Even though we never did anything like that before, a small team was able to release it in a couple of months mostly bug-free. Without AI this would have taken at least half a year, or more. It is quite shocking to hear the status updates going from "we need this thing implemented and I have no idea what it even means" to "it's done and works" the next day.


The stripey wood-and-black-rubber 'sound dampening' panels are all the rage these days and I don't really understand it.

Our management had the bright idea to put these things in all our meeting rooms on the wall with the TVs we use for remote calls. People started getting sea sick looking at them. Of course removing them would mean the management made a mistake, so they will stay there until the next bright idea hits.


I cannot thank you and GP (and others in this thread) enough for these comments. I thought they looked cool (although a bit of dust-catchers) and was planning to redo my bedroom with those.

I'm definitely going to do something else instead.


And even if you refuse the receipt, the cashier still contaminated your food.

Also, line cooks.


Was going to say the same thing, but I'm pretty sure he already knows that. Smart people can convince themselves of everything.


Anyone can convince themselves of anything, the only thing that varies is the complexity of the rationalization.


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