Eww.

Square-Cube Law strikes again

Assuming non-wasteful delivery methods, I’d still call that a win as vaping is generally less harmful to the health of the user.

Quitting is of course preferable, but I support harm reduction policies in general

For the morbidly curious, I found the tweet by going on the author’s profile (using Nitter, naturally) and scrolling down a bit on her posts.

You have been warned. There is nowhere to run

Fair warning - don’t check out the replies on that post. Literally the dumbest “people” in the universe in there

Interesting. Private rental, if you don’t mind me asking? They fall under the same rules, for context for the rest of the readers.

I’m going to guess here and the poster can fill in details - I guess that they live in a rental owned by the municipality.

The rents for these are not market-based but instead based on a fairly complex system of pricing based on the standard of the apartment, with rent increases being negotiated by the renters union.

This system has some merits - it has definitely kept rents pretty low for rentals in Sweden generally - but has also been a part of shaping the very dysfunctional housing market we see in Sweden today.

Basically, Sweden had low standards of housing in the mid-1900s, at which point the left-wing governments started a program called Miljonprogrammet, basically a housing program to build a million homes, which should be affordable and of high standard. This program started in 1965, hence my suspicion that the OP lives in this type of apartment.

The program is considered a bit controversial today as the areas built under this program are now basically the high-crime areas in Sweden in many cases. This is not inherent to the program though, but instead a consequence of the fact that this program was so damn successful at fulfilling its job that Sweden had an affordable housing surplus for decades after that program was started. Affordable housing construction basically stopped once the program was over and only co-ops and houses were built after (an overstatement but broadly true). Later, right-wing governments ran programs to sell off this housing stock to private interests which managed them in a slumlord fashion, leading to their current reputation.

Anyway, the current situation of housing in Sweden is that the housing market is bifurcated - you can apply for municipal rentals, which have waiting times upwards of 20 years in attractive cities, or you can get a massive loan and buy either a co-op apartment or a house. There’s generally a shortage due to the lack of building for so many years. If you manage to get a municipal rental, you can expect to pay a rent that is far lower than servicing a loan in a similar area, but the standard of the apartment will usually be lower.

For what it’s worth, I think that reintroducing a program such as Miljonprogrammet again is the only true way to curb the housing market situation in basically every rich country with a housing crisis. The whole concept of gentrification only exists in the context of housing scarcity. It’s pitting workers against workers in a really nasty fashion. A better way forward is to build housing like there’s no tomorrow. Government-owned, high standard, low-cost housing.

You’re playing into the hands of the owners by pitting different groups of workers against each other. I suggest that you stop doing that.

190k is definitely not on the high end by Silicon Valley-standards: https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-francisco-bay-area

It’s irrelevant to the matter of whether they should strike or not, as well.

China does a variant of this where the whole country is on Beijing time. 99% Invisible did an episode that covered it here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/matters-of-time/

Basically the local Uyghur population in Xinjiang code switch and maintain an unofficial local time which aligns more closely with the movement of the sun.

The U.S is different in that car insurance has to cover medical expenses for others when you are at fault, combined with the risk of driving quite frankly being higher in the U.S. With medical costs being extremely high in the U.S, prices follow that fact.

TRAINS

Car insurance is expensive because cars are both risky and highly destructive. Hence, making a market for them involves high prices.

Regardless of what you think of insurance companies, there’s just no way around this - you could nationalize car insurance and it would still either be really expensive, either on the policy level or else born by taxes.

I think this is basically testing:

1. If you have been practicing your leetcoding recently, and
2. If you’re decent at leetcoding under pressure

I mean, the pay is still way ahead of anything outside FAANG, really.

Voluntary layoffs - probably the best form of layoffs if you ask me - still come with severance packages that have to be paid. Very few people will be interested in quitting just because you ask them, but a good many will do it if you sweeten the deal.

Basically we have 3 variants here:

Regular layoffs - have to pay severance + can select who leaves RTO stealth layoffs - don’t have to pay severance + can’t select who leaves Voluntary layoffs - have to pay severance + can’t select who leaves

Any morally bankrupt business would of course want a fourth variant where they get to select who leaves and don’t have to pay severance, but thankfully this option is generally not available to them.

Anyway, voluntary layoffs are the best out of a selection of bad choices for the workers, but come with the most downsides for the morally bankrupt business.

Only has to work once, you pocket the savings on severance packages one time and then go back to regular layoffs.

Dystopian as all hell, but such is the corporate world.

I’m struggling really hard to see which voter is on the fence between Trump and Stein. Wouldn’t it be more likely to be on the fence between Stein and Harris, or Stein and the couch?

I think the poster was making a joke based on this image (or similar ones):