Humanius

I’m no political analyst… and I do fear the possibility of a CDU + AfD coalition being possible… But from what I’ve seen over the past few days the CDU and SPD seem to be pre-sorting for a CDU + SPD coalition, which is also possible if the polls are to be believed.

I wouldn’t quite lose hope yet.

Edit: I’m still highly annoyed though that Germany let the government collapse now, right as Europe needs to get its act together and make preparations for another Trump term.

Looks like a low effort troll to me.
Don’t take the bait

Large countries like to boast that their absolute number is bigger, it’s a tale as old as time.

If you really want to make comparisons (and I’d argue it’s really not that important) you should probably look at medals per capita, or medals per athlete sent. Obviously that gets a bit distorted with countries with small population, but I think it’s a more valuable number.

By the medals per capita metric the USA is 47th, and China is 75th.
https://www.medalspercapita.com/

I can’t find a good list for medals per athlete sent.

If he hasn’t shown genuine remorse than changes my stance.
Given what I had read on the matter I was under the impression he had shown remorse. Particularly the “biggest mistake of [his] life” remark.

So I’m not overly familiar, but I can try to summarize what I know.

Steven van de Velde is a Dutchman who went to the UK and raped a 12 year-old. He was sentenced to four years in prison for this by a UK court. Later he was extradited to the Netherlands, so he could sit out his sentence in the NL. However in the Netherlands, unlike the UK, sex with a minor is not automatically considered rape and needs to be proven in court. (Note: That is my understanding of the difference in interpretation) Because of this his conviction was reduced to “ontucht”, meaning sexual misconduct. (Even though what he did would probably also be considered rape in Dutch court).
As a result, he was out of prison after 13 months.

Now, Dutch attitude to these kinds of things, in my experience, is generally (but not always) that if you have paid your time, and have shown remorse for your actions, then it should probably not affect your future career prospects. The justice system is supposed to rehabilitate after all. (That is my experience though, and my experience may be biased, so don’t take this as gospel)

Hart van Nederland did a survey, and apparently only 27% of respondents think he should not be allowed to compete. 63% of respondents think he should be allowed to compete, and 10% don’t have an opinion either way. (Note that Hart van Nederland is not the most reliable of sources, but it gives an indication)

From what I have seen in Dutch circles this controversy is a lot less pronounced than it is in other countries. That’s not to say it is entirely uncontroversial, but it’s not quite to the same degree as I’m seeing internationally.

Personal opinion:

I don’t think his sentence should have been lowered to “ontucht”. I think what he did is morally reprehensible, and he should have sat out the full sentence for raping a minor. That is a failure on behalf of the justice system though, and van de Velde is not personally to blame for that.

That said, given that he has shown remorse for his actions, and has finished the sentence that the legal system imposed on him, I don’t think he should have been barred from competing in the Olympics on behalf of the Dutch team.

Edit: As Flying Squid mentioned I might be mistaken that he has shown genuine remorse.
If he hasn’t that changes my opinion on the matter.

So they can bitch that people booed, but he won’t acknowledge the reason is he raped a literal child?

Mathew Immers is not the guy who raped the child. That is Steven van de Velde.
Immers is van de Velde’s beach volleyball partner.

Wasn’t the TGV sabotage attack also targeted at the fiber-optics lines? Wouldn’t be surprised if they were related.
Or maybe these people just really dislike fiber-optics, and are in the pockets of big copper /j

The German state doesn’t recognise Palestine as a state currently, so probably not.
Only a few countries west of the former Iron Curtain recognise Palestine (Iceland and Sweden, and as of this year Norway, Ireland, and Spain)

I guess it wasn’t explicitly stated anywhere that the two systems were supposed to be different from each other. /s

According to Cornald Maas (the Dutch commentator for the Eurovision) the “threatening motion”, as far as he is aware, was Joost pushing down the camera/phone, after asking not to be filmed.

Source (also in Dutch)

You don’t have to stay in a hotel in the city of Amsterdam to visit Amsterdam.
The Netherlands is a small and densely populated country, so you can simply stay a town or city over and the city proper is only a short train or tram ride away.

Last year my boyfriend and I visited the city with some friends coming over from America. We stayed in a rental in Amstelveen, and our friends stayed in a hotel in Zaandam.

AirBnB is already severly restricted in several parts of Amsterdam (though a court ruling last year did overturn those restrictions in some neighbourhoods)

I think you are missing the point why people take issue with overtourism.

Amsterdam isn’t a themepark, it’s a city where people actually live, grew up, have lives. And overtourism tends to hollow out what makes the city authentic. The houses get converted to AirBnB’s and hotels, the regular shops, pubs and restaurants can’t find regular customers anymore so start catering to tourists instead, etc. This results in a sort of Disneylandification of your city. It’s generally a nuisance to the inhabitants of a city.
Ultimately a city is for the people who live there, not the people who visit.

Tourism can be good for the local economy, but there is only so much people are willing to put up with.

Edit: Also, old hotels are allowed to be renovated, as long as the number of sleeping places in the city doesn’t increase

A new hotel in Amsterdam can only be built if another hotel closes, if the number of sleeping places doesn’t increase, and if the new hotel will be better, for example more sustainable.

Amsterdam has had an issue with overtourism long before NJB was making videos.

They’d probably not do much, but we don’t know that for sure. It could also pull NATO into a direct conflict with Russia.
And noone is particularly keen on finding out where exactly the border lies for retaliation by Russia.

So best we can do right now is provide Ukraine with the military support they need, without getting directly involved in the conflict ourselves.

Signing your rights away should never be possible, even if you get something in return. Allowing that is just making the system ripe for abuse.

At what point would you say you’ve met the threshold of something being valuable enough for forced arbitration to be allowable?

Personally I don’t think forced arbitration should exist for any law. It’s a way for large corporations to avoid legal responsibility.
I always find it odd how easy it seems to be to just sign your rights away in the US.

I agree with you entirely that automated trams are more difficult than automated metro systems. However I do think that trams are a most likely a more easily solvable problem than automated cars.

• Trams are restricted to their track, so the number of unique situations in which they can end up is more limited.
  Because of this you can model the environment in more detail.
• Trams are large, heavy and commercial vehicles. So you can justify shelling out for more detailed sensors such as lidar etc, whereas on a Tesla you have to make due with merely a camera sensor.
• You could potentially hire a dedicated person in a central location whose job it is to remotely get trams out of tricky situations.
  This would not remove the need for drivers outright, but could reduce the number of drivers you need per tram.

That is not to say automated trams are easy, or already viable. I’m just saying that they are likely more viable than automated cars will be in the nearby future.

If the situation in Germany is anything like the Netherlands, it legit is just a shortage of workers outright.

There are more job vacancies than people to fill those vacancies, so you end up with a shortage of workers.
Making tram driving more attractive by paying them more would draw employees away from other industries, who also need people to do the work.

Not saying tram drivers shouldn’t be paid more, but if the situation in this German city is anything like what we are dealing with here in the NL, then paying people more is not going to solve the issue. Only solution is to either decrease the number of open positions (which usually only happens in a recession, which is not great), or to increase the number of people who can do the work (for example through immigration)

Edit: A possible solution specifically in the case of trams could be automation (self-driving trams), which would relax the overall demand for workers.
There are already transportation system without drivers that have been operating since the 80s (e.g. the London DLR)

It’s probably a bit more tricky in mixed traffic, but since trams are on predictable rails it would be easier than automating cars.

Be sure to make regular backups of your data.
… and using RAID is not a backup.