Wrong. Storage is the issue. In my town in switzerland we produce a surplus of solar energy, so much that we can't even sell it back to the electricity company.
But the storage is too limited. The surplus during the summer doesn't translate to the winter months so other types of electricity generation is still required.
And what's great about EVs is that they are also storage. In winter you can buy electricity from places that do have solar potential - it's not far from Switzerland.
Man, american culture on parenting seems insane coming from an European perspective. It's like everyone is legally required to be an obsessive helicopter parent. But I guess it makes sense given the people there walking around in public.
Indeed. They can’t know what other applications you need to run. So they more frugal the OS and application, the more available for other software apps.
It’s true unused it wasted but unfortunately what it’s used for is decided by corporate flavor of the month so garbage one drive, teams and Gemini builds eat all the ram that would be better used by other applications people actually like
I was quite surprised that this phrase, which papers over nuances in how operating systems classify and manage memory, was posted by someone who studied CS.
The windows kernel is smart enough to free RAM for the highest demanding app like rendering or video editing, even if the idle is high.
That's why there's no accurate 1:1 comparison between operating systems. Windows, MacOS, and LInux will treat physical memory very differently bot at idle, and during heavy use.
Sure, Win 11 has a lot of bloat and poorly coded Web apps that should be removed or rewritten in native, but the kernel is still top notch at managing even limited memory and handling OOM cases.
The thing with windows is that there is no idle state, something is always busy with the CPU/hogging ram. With Linux I can have like 98% idle and the system taking 2Gb out of my 8gb of ram, but with windows, the system is more like 30% cpu and more than 4GB of currently being used ram.
If idle on Win 11 already pre-caches most-used apps like Chrome/FF and not on Linux, how can you accurately measure what true idle is?
You have to remember the Win (and MacOS) kernel is tuned to consumer desktop user use cases, while Linux kernel is tuned to server/DC use-cases.
That's why ~15 years ago when I was in uni, you'd get audio stutter when playing music/movies of spinning rust on linux while torrenting file on the same HDD, and not on Windows/MacOS, due to different queuing algorithms used thet prioritised audio decoding tasks over everything else, which Linux kernel out of the box didn't, unless you tinkered and changed it.
> You have to remember the Win (and MacOS) kernel is tuned to consumer desktop user use cases, while Linux kernel is tuned to server/DC use-cases.
I don’t mind the kernel doing kernel things. The issue is system services and other software that are either unnecessary or badly coded. You can’t disable them because of “reasons” and they’re just wasting your time and your electricity.
> while Linux kernel is tuned to server/DC use-cases
That depends on the distro / flavor of kernel; the Linux kernel is pretty flexible and you can cut it however you want. If you use a distro like CachyOS for example, you'll find that they use a kernel tuned for desktop use-case, so you don't need to tinker with anything.
A tangent to this which annoys me is not specifically windows, but the way the ecosystem has evolved over the years, by guidance/enforcement or lack thereof from MS. Unless you're very careful about what applications you install and how you manage/monitor them, you can end up with a lot of background applications loaded each boot, each doing some combination of non-centralized updating itself or applications it manages, preloading, quick launch, etc.
> But the OS should be as lean as possible because the entire reason is to run other programs.
In my mind Classic Mac OS (minus its design issues) is the ideal to strive for here.
It was barely even an OS and more like a substrate for GUI applications to run on top of. Even “essentials” like networking and USB support were implemented by way of extensions which could be disabled at will. If you disabled all extensions you’d get something resembling a full color version of the original 1985 System 1.0 that took almost no resources. This was great for squeezing out every last drop for things like games and emulators.
It was that lightweight because it provided basically none of the functionality that is essential to a modern OS. Because it wasn't a modern OS.
The surface area of stuff that an OS has to do today is absolutely massive, and the dependency graphs are poorly understood even by the engineers who work on those systems. Innocuous pieces of functionality have a way of becoming load-bearing over time.
If you ran around disabling random bits of functionality in Windows because you wanted to reclaim some resources for your games, you'd probably wedge the OS, cause random crashes, and prevent your games from even launching. Like you might think "Well my game doesn't need Bluetooth, I only use a wired controller!" but I would not be surprised at all if yanking out the Bluetooth stack from the OS caused random crashes and hangs.
I’m not convinced that it’s impossible to build a modern OS in a way that’s properly modular and allows most functionality to be disabled entirely (as in never even loaded into memory).
Windows almost categorically can’t because it’s only ever been developed organically and is pathologically backwards compatible, which keeps it forever tied to past design decisions.
Linux could get a much closer but is hamstrung by monolithic kernel design which puts more functionality there.
You’d need a clean sheet design which positions most subsystems as discrete components.
"Linux" encompasses everything from microcontrollers to planet-scale supercomputers. You can, in fact, build a Linux that runs in as few resources as you like. No qualifiers.
Technically true, though that comes with the caveat that doing so requires considerable time and technical skill… we're talking compiling your own kernel and assembling your userland and desktop.
The nice thing about classic Mac OS is that its modularity was more accessible. All one had to be capable of to pare down or customize their install was move files in or out of /System Folder/Extensions/ and /System Folder/Control Panels/. I'd like to see a Linux desktop distribution that works that way.
> The surface area of stuff that an OS has to do today is absolutely massive, and the dependency graphs are poorly understood even by the engineers who work on those systems. Innocuous pieces of functionality have a way of becoming load-bearing over time
It’s not that huge. I use OpenBSD and the code is surprisingly approachable and readable. And even with no support for runtime modules, it’s pretty easy to customize and strip out whole features. Current complexity in something like linux is stretching the subsystems to support a huge array of use cases.
> The surface area of stuff that an OS has to do today is absolutely massive
Why though? The OS should be the layer between hardware and applications/the user. Provide a GUI SDK+toolkit and a firewall. The OS should be responsible for a dozen different cloud sync bs things that I play whack-a-mole to disable anyway.
Over-allocating something you never use just to store it on disk to improve performance is like using the MacroSlop strategy of preloading Excel, lol. I’ve probably written more kernels, fuzzers, and low-level drivers than anyone on Hacker News, so please don’t tell me this strategy is helping these days. This just give excuse to developer to not optimize their app because it just works.
Yep. I remember Nexus mods removing mods that turns gay characters straight while allowing mods that turn straight characters gay (Cyberpunk). It's super obvious this platform is politically motivated and not motivated to let the user decide which mods they want to use.
Because originally there were mods to enhance romance options in games or whatever (what you describe as making characters gay), and some people were very very upset and _decided to make a point_ by creating straight conversion mods. _Those_ mods are designed to make people upset, to get a raise out of them, and to make fun of the initial mods. They are not sincere.
Keeping a small core team local and outsourcing the bulk of workers, that's exactly what every company I know of seems to do these days. Not just in game development but generally. It's the biggest reason for layoffs today.
It's honestly disgusting that governments don't protect their citizens from this. Companies do this because it saves them money. Tax the hell out of them for every outsourced worker and this will all go away.
Everyone knows the stats are false but I don't know an alternative.
I've been unemployed after graduating for a year and because I didn't use unemployment benefits I didn't show up in the statistics in switzerland. I know many cases like mine.
"Full stop"? So you don't want to hear other arguments?
The ILO-based statistics differ from what you cited and explicitly "encompasses all persons not employed and who are actively looking for and available for work, regardless of whether they are registered with a regional placement office. "
> The ILO-based statistics differ from what you cited
What do the ILO-based statistics have to do with original comment[0] that they are in Switzerland, unemployed, don't collect unemployment, and don't count towards Switzerland's specific-statistics as a result?
The connection is that www.bfs.admin.ch itself will tell you that there are multiple sources for unemployment statistics in Switzerland, ILO-based being one of them. Picking only the one that supports your argument after being pointed out that there are others indicates unwillingnes to engage in a good faith argument. Since your tone is repeatedly condescending in addition to that, I'll end my engagement in this particular line of discussion.
> The connection is that www.bfs.admin.ch itself will tell you...
You mean the same exact domain in the first link I gave, which doesn't mention ILO, whatsoever? That `www.bfs.admin.ch`?
> Picking only the one that supports your argument...
It literally supports the argument for the original comment's statement. It's from the official governing body. What are you on about? If your complaint is that it disproves the statement, and they officially use ILO (doubtful but allowing for a comedy of errors) for their own statistics, your argument is with the governing body - not me. Correct?
Speaking of bad faith, why not show a modicum of effort on your part to reference any official documentation that Switzerland DOES use ILO in their own statistics? It comes across as the same specious approach used by vaccine conspiracy theorists, "...just trust me, bro, do your own research, you'll see...".
The fact that they would rather try to win an internet argument by showing indifference to what others have to say than learn something might hint at traits that keep them unemployed. Harsh but maybe this helps changing their mindset.
I do not think so. Ok, from the polls. But in the polls, it seem, I've quickly googled, if you've worked 1 h/week, they will not count you as unemployed. It is a different statistics. The registration in labor office, it is official employement, paid not less than min. wage, you can afford healthcare, etc. While the second poll does not care if you can afford healthcare or not.
"Then maybe it's time you look up how unemployment statistics are calculated in Switzerland and you will be surprised that you counted into them."
Not to criticise, but just to point out that this sentence doesn't quite make sense in English, and it's not immediately apparent what you mean. The sentence has to precisely opposed interpretations.
Always, but perhaps not in this case. I wasn't correcting spelling, but coherence. The comment I replied to includes a sentence that is both ambiguous and non-nonsensical. It doesn't seem to be an issue of grammar, but rather clarity of thought.
> Then maybe it's time you look up how unemployment statistics are calculated in Switzerland and you will be surprised that you counted into them.
First off the sentence simply doesn't make sense. Specifically 'you will be surprised that you counted into them.' I assume the commenter meant something like 'you will be surprised that you were included in those statistics. But it's highly ambiguous since 'you counted into them' isn't sensical.
Trying to parse it from context, they could be suggesting a reader would be surprised at how the statistics are calculated, at who is included, at who is not included, or at how similarly they are calculated when compared to other countries.
For this reason I use the employment rate instead. The unemployment rate, as you've correctly pointed out, is very narrowly defined. Obviously so as to trick voters into thinking that everything is fine. The employment rate can't really be gamed like that.
The second major issue is under-employment. You could have a PhD in AI and as long as you're working 20 years a week at a pizza place, you're "employed." Unfortunately this isn't solved by using the employment rate. There are various ways to measure this but they all contain some measure of subjectivity.
I don't understand the issue with saying that someone who is employed is ... employed.
If the claim is that a single number (the unemployment rate) does not capture all the high dimensional features of society & work, then well of course!
If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure? It's not a particularly contentious position though I don't see any way forward - even with a _single_ number to discuss, half this thread is making wrong claims about its methodology.
You're applying nuance to a discussion which so often does not lend itself to nuance. Successive governments love to focus on the unemployment figure as though that is the mark of a healthy jobs market. As you've pointed out, it's not. It's not even close. We should be speaking about it far less, and about other, more qualitative metrics far more. We don't, though, and the cynical reason is that the unemployment metric was designed to make things appear better than they are.
The problem is that even as a single number, unemployment just isn't a very useful metric. Unemployed + underemployed is probably closer to what people care about, but it would probably be better as two separate numbers, and even then there is difficulty in defining both unemployed and underemployed, and accurately measuring them.
>If the claim is that politicians & media focus too much on a single number to judge whether the labour market is doing ok, then sure?
Yes, the gaslighting is the biggest problem. If we can't admit there's a problem (and politicians never want to admit the numbers are bad unless [other team] is in charge) then we can't begin to approach a real solution.
>It's not a particularly contentious position though
You'd be surprised. Even colloquially, that single number is how a lot of people try to justify that "job market is good, people are lazy". Because that person is not in a situation of searching for a modern job. This thread getting it right or wrong is irrelevant to that end. This isn't a board full of policy makers nor economists (at least, I don't think it is...)
Well, about 40 percent of unemployed people (i.e. receiving benefits) are employed in Germany.
And in the other direction, not receiving benefits meaning "not unemployed", and "in re-trainings", or sometimes "too old" means not calculated in, either.
I my country you have to regularly check in with the bureau for unemployment to be included in the stats, even though that bureau hadn’t found a job for anyone ever.
I assume that’s how it works in many other countries.
Unemployed is the one actively looking for a job, not the one that’s just to working. At least that’s how governments seem to look at it, and their way of figuring out who’s looking is incorrect.
So EU/Eurostat has surveys, Serbia does too (I’m from Serbia).
However most countries have also national way of determining the rate that works how I described, and they may differ quite a lot from Eurostat.
I guess EU introduced surveys with Eurostat so countries don’t juke the stats.
For example
- Denmark computes net unemployment straight from benefit and PES registers — administrative coverage is complete enough to do it without asking anyone. It still runs an LFS for the ILO figure.
- Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechia, Spain publish monthly registered counts that dominate domestic debate, exactly the way NSZ figures circulate in Serbia. Each uses its own national definition, so none is comparable across borders.
- Finland keeps a register series noticeably above its LFS count, similar in shape to the NSZ/ARS gap.
Why? Here, being registered has significant benefits (direct benefits and health insurance paid by state) and minimal costs (once a month visiting labor bureau, doing some minimal effort) that only people i know that are unemployed and not being registered are ones with psychiatric conditions.
The problem is that different unemployment statistics measure different things, and the headline number often gets interpreted as "everyone who wants a job but doesn't have one"
I work with logistics automation software. Most PLCs I've worked with are legacy and don't even support TLS. Doesn't surprise me at all. I honestly am baffled how old some of these sites are and never got a security upgrade.
Now with the EU cyber resiliency act things are moving but I think it's infeasible for many sites to meet modern security standards, because of both hardware and software.
You would be naive to expect anything else. Corporations only exist to make profit. They will never take an action that risks that.
Some people, for some inexplicable reason, believe that companies like Google who often voice support for left wing politics do that for any other reason than that it's profitable.
Google relies on (corrupt) collaboration with the US government so they will never disobey their orders to parrot your political beliefs.
It's honestly shocking how many people have already separated companies from the people that run them. "It's okay that they did evil, they had to! It's for profit!"
Take a step out of the cave and look around, it's all people. There is no such thing as a soulless automaton, it may just be a machine but there is a person pushing its buttons, there is a man behind the curtain, and you should pay attention to him or whatever the equivalent psychological parable is that works for you.
I believe in the trickle down theory of blame for corporate malfeasance. Starting with the CEOs and VPs and C-level executives and working down until the cancer is removed is, in my opinion, the only way to cure the issue.
> Corporations only exist to make profit. They will never take an action that risks that.
This is absolutely 100% an action (one among many over the years) that guarantees I (for one) will never give Google another thin dime of my money for any reason if there's any way I can avoid it. Permanently lost profit from at least this one user (who was at one time in the past a huge Google fanboi)...
This is completely legitimate and of enough people do as you do, Google will act. But clearly there's not enough people like that. Always vote with your wallet.
I was also a fanboy once, but a straw broke that particular camel's back a long time ago. I already wasn't planning on ever giving Google any money, so they're not losing any income from me.
> I was also a fanboy once, but a straw broke that particular camel's back a long time ago.
That "straw" for me was when they decided that "Don't be Evil" actually meant "be as evil as we can every chance we get"... Every evil action they've taken since then just makes me just that much more certain that I want to actively avoid Google products as much as I possibly can for the rest of my life.
Academic writing uses words with meaning in very domain specific ways; those in the domain understand it, and those outside find it confusing.
If an AI just randomly throws out domain specific words without that domain's specific meaning, it becomes very painful for everybody to read, and worse still adds a level of ambiguity that defeats the whole purpose of that academic writing in the first place.
But the storage is too limited. The surplus during the summer doesn't translate to the winter months so other types of electricity generation is still required.
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