There is a circle with 10 nuclear stations that is erroneously located (on the map) in the Atlantic just south of West Africa. That should be in/near China.
There are more than 10. It's the Null Island location @hiergiltdiestfu refers to in another comment. Will add the locations to all of them once I have time to put all the coordinates in.
I would not use any influencer product either. But as an observer of the world around me I am intrigued. When I first heard the word influencer I thought that this is something that will never fly. But over the years I see how they have been "adding to the economy". Some of the things in the article made my jaw drop. Like, Bend OR spends over 100K on influencers and gets millions back as a result. And that is Bend, OR which is not a well-known destination!
Travel companies, places and influencers are changing the economics of travel. Here is an mutually beneficial system that is forming due to the need to travel somewhere with people "you know". Covid has changed the social life of (particularly) young people: they are lonlier than previous generations. Instagram provides a means to fix that. The travel industry and cities are making use of that with the aid of influencers.
Hard to believe that such severe health issues can result from noise. I find it harder to believe that Bitcoin mining can cause so much noise. Shouldn't Marathon realize the evil of their ways?
When I say "hard to believe" I don't mean to say that I don't believe it. With that out of the way, I am merely stating that it challenges my gray cells: how could sound waves hitting the ear drums cause the variety of health issues that are reported in the article.
Linked from the article: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31769799/. The summary is that noise causes stress and stress is very bad for you. It is commonly stated that the only two innate fears that all humans are born with are falling and loud noises. I don't know if that's completely true, but it's easy to understand why we might all have an instinctive fear/stress response to loud noises.
I’m sure a Swiss person will be along shortly to inform you how that is an inaccurate comparison, and furthermore, Switzerland is better than an HOA for several reasons, firstly the trains, secondly the efficient civil service, thirdly…
For reals though: at least in the French side I feel that there's a decent comedy scene, notably with the Montreux Comedy Festival. Two of my favorite humorists (Marina Rollman and Thomas Wiesel) got nicked for a time as panelists for some well known French radios (can't argue with the bigger exposure).
I went to see a recent swiss comedy film - "Bon schuur Ticino" - and it was hilarious. Granted, a lot of the humour might go over the heads of people who haven't lived in Switzerland, but there's definitely comedy
Yeah because the best sourced location of that is an embassy twitter account [1].
BRICS is meeting to discuss the potential of a currency. Even having a common (trade-only) currency isn't 100% going to happen never mind a specific implementation of it.
This post in HN has made my day! I have been a Digitec customer for over 15 years and I still buy all my tech items from them. Or from Galaxus if it is a non-tech. I am thrilled to see this "little Swiss" company getting wider exposure. I am glad to say that my overall experience with them has been 5-star. I remember I bought computer components from them in the early days as that was the cheapest way to get a custom computer built with the best parts. There were other sites but Digitec stood out when it came to dependability. Hat's off to you, Digitec/Galaxus!!
I also bought my first PC with them in 2001. Back then their site was just for ordering custom pc’s. I spent hours on their site building the perfect custom setup. Then went to pick it up at their “warehouse” which was just a room with racks full of pc components and the guys sitting on the floor building the machines haha.
For many items, they have much bigger stock than anybody else. Ie kids stuff and toys etc. You open similar category on web, and there is 10,000 products when any competition has 200. Often if I look for something a bit non-mainstream, they are the only one in CH who has it, at reasonable prices.
Congratulations! That is a good feeling to see money trickling in.
Since I am probably one of the older ones here let me tell you about my experience in the 90's. I had written a time synchronization program for Windows NT and put it on the internets for anyone to download and use. Many did. Intriguingly, I got emails from two large Wall Street financial companies saying that they would like to install on their servers/workstations but my policy of "giving it away" would imply that they could NOT use it; I would have to charge something for it, they said. Ok, I told them and set a price which they happily paid. Those were olden times.
Thats a great story , thanks :) … honestly I’m almost enjoying more seeing people here sharing their stories and giving encouragement than the small amount I made :).
Can I ask , was it like a lot of money ? Like, enough for a really good vacations :)?
It was, for a while. It could have been much much more but I was just a nerdy engineer with no idea of marketing and full of idealism in my head. I asked for $2K for a perpetual license for any number of machines in the enterprise. I could have easily asked for $5K per year. That was a missed opportunity.
In contrast, the EU is moving boldly forward with the Digital Markets Act [1]. It looks good on paper but I wonder what it means in practice. I wonder if this legislation will fizzle out too.
The main difference is that the EU has no meaningful competition and so the only thing they really can do is legislate since innovation doesn’t seem like an option for the EU.
I remember when Nokia represented top tier consumer tech. Oh well.
There are are concerningly few tech companies in europe, at least compared to their GDP. Top European companies are mostly all fashion or oil and gases.
Europe definitely missed out on computers but I suspect it's not that easy to judge if missing out on tech and does mostly textiles.
Market cap doesn't mean people are making money or shows the economy it creates. Musk sends funny troll tweet or says something that will result in a fine few month down the road and instantly billions of dollars of market cap is destroyed or created. This doesn't exist in Europe or anywhere else, at least not at that scale. The amount of money in the USA is just on another level.
Secondly, that crazy ecosystem in the US sucks all the high potential companies. It's very common for an EU startup to incorporate in the US to tap into that consumer market and that VC ecosystem. The work is done in NL, FR, RO, BG etc but it is a US company. As a result, you have a situation where the EU part of the operations doesn't make any money because it doesn't have to but does all the salary processing and the Silicon Valley HQ makes ridiculous trades and the EU part looks like a loss center. Lots of lots of games are Europe-made, like European talent created the concept, the graphics, the code but if the publisher is American on the books you'll see it as American success.
Europe has this investment culture where investors invest into stuff that make profit, in US companies don't have to make a profit as long as the owners of the stocks can trade them and make profit.
It's just different, I don't think it's fair to say that Europe does oil and textile and not much more. That wouldn't explain the living standards that are on par with the USA.
> Lots of games are Europe-made ... but if the publisher is American, you'll see it as an American success.
Case in point: Microsoft Flight Simulator (the latest one released in 2020), developed by a French studio, Asobo (the same company also develops the A Plague Tale franchise). Of course, it was augmented by Microsoft technologies like Azure which hosts the cloud and servers for the streaming scenery, but even so, most of the development is European.
>There are are concerningly few tech companies in europe
That's because you've redefined technology to mean 'software company'. Oil & gas, automotive, industrial machinery, pharmaceuticals, chemical industry, transportation, aviation, construction, telecoms is technology. They're high productivity, high complexity and highly automated sectors. In Ludwigshafen were I grew up there's BASF's chemical complex, literally the largest one in the world. Is that not tech because it doesn't have a smoothie bar and hip people with macbooks in the lobby?
the productivity in wealthy European countries is roughly as high as in the US, and the only way that is possible is due to tech. Otherwise you'd be an agrarian society and much poorer.
The EU is rich but it’s not due to excellence in consumer tech. If anything TikTok is a great example since Shorts is catching up (albeit very slowly).
What are the areas in consumer tech where Europe enjoys the worldwide advantage in sales and mindshare?
> What are the areas in consumer tech where Europe enjoys the worldwide advantage in sales and mindshare
Automobiles, video games off the top of my head. In any case, why does it matter? There are other things outside of consumer tech that are innovative and bring money.
I never claimed consumer tech is only photo sharing? You’re the one who even brought up Tiktok to begin with, lol.
Sad how it’s so hard to give examples of the EUs excellence in mainstream consumer tech, I guess.
There’s nothing wrong with the EU legislating since they can’t win the market share through traditional means. It’s a valid strategy. Let’s just not pretend, please. The restrictions that will be put in place may be what Europe needs to compete, but let’s just act like Europe is already in a strong competitive position.
That's not that hard because the foundation of banking here in Europe is so strong. We don't run on physical checks here, we have working next-day inter-bank transfers and direct debits with more and more banks additionally supporting instant transfer, and most importantly we have way less fraud because we have actual identity cards for everyone instead of allowing everyone knowing your SSN to use your data to create fraudulent accounts.
The result is that European fintechs can skip a lot of groundwork that every US fintech has to deal with and we need less of them in the first place because stuff that needs fintechs in the US is available for everyone in the first place.
The requirements to provide data to business users and to advertisers are pretty interesting. Same for search engines having to sell all user data that they have.
If Europe wants these regulations and US doesn't, could it be because global rent seeking by US corporations ultimately benefits the US economy at the expense of other countries' economies?
Eh. It is the case that it benefits the US economy at the expense of others. I wouldn't go assuming that the difference in regulations is a precedent or primarily an effect of this. I think the US will catch up.
I expect that when Apple complies, they will see huge market share gains, and they will realize that doing the same thing in the US is a good idea. People who already use Apple, are still going to use Apple, but people who don't because they want the freedom of Android might jump to Apple once that platform is more in line with their wants.
Are you sure? I distinctly remember them boasting in a keynote about how many Android users were using their app to switch to iOS. I could definitely believe that it's not a high strategic priority though.
> It is far more profitable now than it would be in a race to the bottom as a commodity hardware maker.
Agreed, but I don't think it would have to turn into a race to the bottom. Apple is a luxury brand now, and I expect they would continue to maintain that. The Apple logo is very much a status symbol (particularly for the young. My teenagers are literally made fun of at school for having "Androids" instead of iPhones), and I wouldn't expect that to change much. In fact I think as more people adopt it, being an Android user would become more of an aberration from cultural expectations than it already is.
Probably not, and for good reason. If Europe is moving first, it makes sense to wait and see how their approach fairs. We’ve learned a lot about what works and more about what doesn’t with GDPR, a bit more from v2 in California.
I agree, I think it will spill over. It may harm the app store revenue, but it's going to result in a big adoption of Apple hardware by people who previously wouldn't have. When Apple loosening the reins doesn't result in Armageddon like so many people here seem to think it will, US customers will also pressure Apple to similar policies, and they will do it.
It probably will hurt app store revenues, but Apple makes such a premium on hardware that it may make up or even exceed the losses from software competition.
> It probably will hurt app store revenues, but Apple makes such a premium on hardware that it may make up or even exceed the losses from software competition.
Seems very unlikely to me. the profit margin on app store tax is going to be extremely high. The expert witness at the epic games trial estimated an 80% profit margin on 20 billion dollars of revenue. Comes out to $16B profit out of their total 25ish. That doesn't just disappear if apple allows sideloading, but it could easily shrink a great a deal. Even if apple somehow manages to gain greater market share, I just don't see it coming out as a net positive for them.
> Comes out to $16B profit out of their total 25ish
Oh man, that's a high percentage. I was under the impression it was closer to 50%. With those numbers, you may be right.
Although, I assume they will heavily market their own store as the only "true" app store and only secure one, etc, and a large amount of customers will stick with just theirs, so I would expect it wouldn't take too major of a hit, although if big names like Epic boycott the App Store that could definitely mess up that strategy.
It's not that they need to boycott it. It's that they need to offer it from 30% less through their own channels. When there's real competition in the market, apple will likely need to adjust their fee strategy.
Which ironically may slow things down in the U.S. even further (if the EU passes their legislation which seems very likely that they will)... many (American) policymakers might think, "why not sit for another year on domestic legislation and see if this ends up like GDPR with a bunch of unintended consequences before rolling it out in the U.S.?"
