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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Surely if that statistic is true it can’t mean that on average after solar panels are installed people are taking more energy from the grid. I imagine it’s also pretty easy to single out individual groups, like software engineers or something, who on average might use more electricity or reverse that and say people who use more electricity on average are more likely to get solar panels installed.

    I only bring this up because sustainable energy initiatives, even individuals installing a handful of panels, should be praised. There’s nothing better we can do right now than clean up our energy generation (and maybe go vegetarian? Lol).


  • Just chiming in, I’m 28, American, immigrated to Germany. Can’t speak for Lemmy but I migrated from reddit when they shut the APIs down. Just want a shelf stable Aggregate site where I can stay up to date on my favorite hobbies and periodically connect with other humans. A healthy political debate is good every now and then but I’m also in the camp that the answers for our current problems are well researched and pretty fuckin obvious so debates have gotten… Idk stale.

    Generally Lemmy feels like reddit but smaller, less polluted, but also less connected with every niche major update.







  • Ya, seriously, their take is crazy. I’m a two income household, both software engineers, and to save enough money to afford the loan to buy the home would take us years. The cost of a mortgage right now is higher than my rent by a huge percentage and that still requires 20-30k of down payment.

    Could we downsize to a 1 bedroom apartment, eat PBJs every night, and stick to cheap hobbies such that we could afford to start the loan in two years or something - yes. But why am I required to trade my youth for the ability to pay the bank the better part of a million dollars over the next 20 years of my life just so I can install a nice bathroom and AC and maintain the flat properly.


  • You are forming your opinion on a statistical anomaly worth of experiences. The reality is rent is priced fixed by very few algorithms - all of which by their nature drive the prices higher every year.

    You are renting to people who choose to rent, the vast majority don’t get to choose. And even if they choose to rent, that’s because owning is too expensive in their eyes (money or time or paperwork or otherwise) - it does not mean they wouldn’t want to own if the cost was lower.

    I can’t imagine anyone declining reduced costs unless phrased poorly or out of guilt.


  • You no longer have to give up citizenship to be a German citizen, and the US doesn’t require that either. A new law passed this year and comes into effect sometime around April I believe (still new to the exact legislation process in this country).

    But yes, I would not encourage anyone to move to the US at this time. They are the largest proponent of late stage capitalism and those policies bring instability to the worker classes which begets authoritarianism. That’s rarely a good thing for anyone.



  • I think part of convenience is name brand recognition. I don’t know how you took a heartfelt compliment and made it hostile, but the reality is I grew up knowing what Google was and using it as a verb. Gmail was an obvious and convenient tool to pickup.

    I just found out about Protonmail, or at least heard of it for the first time that it broke the barrier of not-caring into carrying. I imagine user numbers reflect that pretty readily.

    That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying Protonmail is worse in anyway, please don’t assume I am. It’s okay to like a product and admit it’s flaws, in this case the only flaw I’m suggesting it has is being less known than Gmail and even then only for me and my small corner of the world.



  • My last Japan trip was 4 or 5 years back and spent time in multiple big cities with an express train pass. I think I budgeted a grand for the flight, a grand in food and hotel and spending a week. But with inflation being what it is I’d want to rerun the numbers based off of what flights and hotel/hostels I could find and assume 1k for just food and fun per week. I think there are active data sheets online that talk about the average cost of eating out in Japan right now.

    You want to visit for “a few weeks” so I’d say plan for 2k + flight + hotel/hostel + train tickets/pass. I’d bet you spend less than 4k total for that time.

    I like to visit 1 major city every 4-7 days, I normally do travel in, 5 days, travel out. So two weeks would let me see 2 major cities and a couple day trips or 3 shorter stays at 3 major places. Some cities are cheaper than others which is something to consider and how you eat out also dictates your budget more than anything. You could eat in Tokyo for dollars a day at gas stations or you could splurge on sashimi every night and find yourself burning money by the fist full.

    I’m a big foodie so that’s where the 1k per week comes from.