pthreadses

This isn't really going anywhere, so I'll say my last bit on this and you can feel free to have the last word on the subject if you'd like.

You seem to be identifying the constituencies that exist for the outcome that happened, and seem to be saying that because they existed it simply couldn't have been any other way. This is sort of tautological - in a sense yes, it couldn't have been any other way because it happened the way it did. Nobody made an arbitrary decision on this, nobody flipped a coin. But of course those constituencies weighed various factors, and made choices. That they made a choice does not mean it couldn't have been any other way or was correct. That's a bizarre way to look at history. It would essentially render all analysis and criticism of past decision-making moot. "Well it had to be that way, because the people who made the decisions made the decisions because factors existed that influenced them to do so!" I mean yeah, welcome to every subject in the history of the world.

But the specific question being replied to here was, "how does nuclear energy help with climate change?" from OP, obviously specifically in the context of the article. In that context, it's completely fair and correct to critique the decisions made as I and others have done, and it's frankly completely irrelevant what other constraints there were politically or practically.

And even if we do take those into account, it's fine to be critical of the decisions. You are right, there wasn't a huge appetite to take on coal in Germany until well after there was one to take on Nuclear. And that's something that's rightly criticized. Nobody forced people to embrace their goofy "Atomkraft, Nein Danke" crap.

1.) of course there was a choice. That’s what all of this was, a concrete plan, none of this was organic. A choice was made to be nuclear-free, and not coal free. This is what set the stage for larger reductions of nuclear than coal as renewables grew. This was absolutely a choice.

2.) this absolutely may be what’s underpinning the preference. I’ve never really made a claim about why the choice was made, only pointed out it was the wrong choice from an environmental perspective. But let’s not pretend this was some nefarious lobbyists, the German people were behind prioritization of closing nuclear as well.

3.) Sure, although we both know this doesn’t justify the decision as it’s not a big enough issue to really matter.

4.) Right but we aren’t talking about plans to build new nuclear plants, we are talking about what that already exists gets decommissioned, coal or nuclear. So this is irrelevant.

5.) Again, not relevant to which of existing power generation capabilities you phase out.

You really seem unwilling to engage on the point being made here.

The problem here is that you seem to be arguing a point I’m not making. I’m speaking only to the decisions regarding prioritizing decommissioning nuclear over coal. Let’s ignore the future and deal only with what has already happened, because it requires no suppositions. The German public and politicians have decided to prioritize the phase out of nuclear over coal, both before and after the accident in Japan. This is a fact, it’s not up for debate. It’s supported both by public policy positions, public sentiment, and by looking at the percentage of energy coming from each production method. This has negative consequences for climate change.

That’s all that I’m saying here. I’m an overall supporter of the Energiewende, I’d be happy for renewables to replace both coal and nuclear. The issue is as renewables become a bigger share you can shutter coal or you can shutter nuclear capacity that renewables are replacing. Germans chose to prioritize shuttering nuclear, and that’s the wrong choice.

It’s not at all a minor issue. These are real emissions that will continue to exist which didn’t need to. You’ve made zero argument to refute that fact.

There were great strides in increasing the overall percentage of renewable power. If the proportion of nuclear power had stayed constant, that would mean usage of coal could have been reduced even further than it already has been, which helps fight climate change.

Yes, multiple times, and with relatively high quality organizations compared to the norm, I think.

Location: Bremen, Germany until August; Fort Collins Colorado after that.

Remote: Preferred. I most frequently work with clients in the US and London.

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: 15 years of experience. Python for web development and data engineering, React, Docker, AWS, Terraform. Excited about DevOps and using tooling and processes to increase velocity and stability.

Résumé/CV: https://stackoverflow.com/story/jimjkelly

Email: [email protected]

This is not at all my experience. I'm an American living in Germany who pretty regularly goes to the Alps, the roads are nothing remarkable. The amount of infrastructure built in the Alps is remarkable, but Americans are not going to bat an eye at the road conditions in the mountains of Europe, nor are they comparable to what people are talking about here.

This was essentially my route as well. My wife got a two year postdoc position in Germany. I actually gave them over a month of notice, since I had a rather unique position and I knew they had trouble hiring me. After a few weeks my boss confessed they weren’t sure what they were going to do, and I actually hadn’t put any thought into finding a new job, so we agreed on me doing remote.

I can echo what the author of the blog says, save for private build instances, we haven’t had issues with them.

Location: Bremen, Germany

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Sadly no, but it's not difficult to travel regularly to Berlin and London, or other nearby cities. I work often with companies in the UK and US.

Technologies: Python, JS (React), Docker, AWS

Résumé/CV: https://stackoverflow.com/story/jimjkelly

Email: pthread1981 at gmail dot com

Senior Developer. I've been doing mostly data engineering and full stack web dev for the past couple of years, often at the same places. I'm a big fan of utilizing DevOps-oriented processes and tools to help streamline dev processes and delivery quality software on time.

Assuming n isn't very large, I don't see why. People will spend sometimes days in on-site interviews. A simple coding challenge can tell you a lot about a developer and provide a shared basis for discussion in a subsequent interview. Of course "build a CMS from scratch" is ridiculous but simple simulated bug fixing and small feature additions that mimic real life work can be quite useful and not time consuming.

This is exactly it. I had burned myself out to the point that I was almost completely unable to work, to the point that I actually was concerned I might need to find a new type of work. Getting all the above in line (or at least to varying levels of better) were key to getting me back to being productive. I still, like everybody I think, have good days and bad days, but I'm back on a sustainable level of productivity overall.

I travel quite frequently between the EU and the US and occasionally elsewhere - I've never seen a new OK button when I arrive in a new location. Can you provide an example of this?

I think a major issue with CS in particular is that the numbers have actually gone down significantly in the past few decades:

> Before 1970, women took between 10% and 15% of computer science bachelor’s degrees. By the early 1980s, the number rose to 37%. However, the trend began to reverse in 1985. In 2013, 18% of bachelor’s degrees in computing were earned by women. Part of this decline is due to the fact that computer science became a male-identified field. But during the 1990s, hiring practices also began to favor men, according to the AAUW study, and “the creation of professional organizations, networks, and hierarchies” that supported the entry of men into the field helped pushed women out. In fact, as the study notes, once employed in the field, women are more likely to leave than men. They tend to suffer from isolation.

http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/report-the-number-of-women-ent...

Weird, I actually consider Pythons consistency in syntax to be a positive. And it's continually becoming more so.

Could you elaborate a bit on what you prefer about it? I've heard this from a few people and would be curious to hear it fleshed out a bit.

Actually I've noticed quite the opposite. At least in the more populated parts of Europe, in my experience Apple Maps does fine and in some cases does better than Google Maps (in my home city of Berlin I find Apple Maps to have been an improvement, primarily in the department of Apple Maps "knowing what it doesn't know" where as Google seems to guess and be wrong. Also, transit. Google is terrible for transit in Europe).

I recently used Apple Maps to roadtrip through Germany and Austria, and it worked without a single hiccup. This summer I had the beta running in Switzerland and it was fine.

In the darker corners of Europe, well, I'll just say in Belgrade iOS maps literally had nothing but a pin. No streets at all. So it seems wildly dependent on where you are.