Humanius

If it’s a publicly traded company the answer is that they likely don’t believe in anything. They just do whatever the leadership believes would generate most profit, since that is what shareholders (usually) care about most.

If appearing to support progressive goals gets people to spend money in the store, then that is something that makes sense for a company like this to do. But if they stand to lose more money than they gain, for instance through boycotts, they will drop the pretence pretty quickly.

Personally I see the stance such companies take more like a reflection of general acceptance in society as a whole. If a company promotes progressive values then that would indicate that society as a whole is on average leaning more progressive.
Similarly, if companies stop supporting these values that indicates a worrying trend with regards to societal acceptance.

Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that the company itself (as an entity) really believes in anything.

(Note: This doesn’t hold for companies that aren’t publically traded. If there are no stockholders to please the leadership can let their personal view affect the company’s policy quite a bit)

You are correct, but that coking process doesn’t have to be done with fossil fuels. Hydrogen (like you mentioned) is an alternative and you can create hydrogen using water and electricity.

In the NL we have a pretty polluting steel mill that is currently still coal fired. They are working on a transition plan where they adapt it to be gas fired instead, with the ability down the line to make it hydrogen fired when hydrogen production capacity is up to speed.

https://www.ad.nl/economie/tata-steel-stopt-met-kolen-binnen-tien-jaar-over-op-waterstof~a801e791/
(Translated headline: “Tata Steel stops with coal: Transition to hydrogen within ten years”)

That is assuming that those data centers are necessary. If the data center is doing something that is not really needed then it is in effect wasting power that could have been used for other purposes. (e.g. using surplus power to make steel or aluminium for instance)

While I do think that AI-tools can be increadibly useful, the current hype surrounding it very much looks like a bubble akin to the DotCom bubble to me. Companies left and right are jumping on the AI bandwagon for the sake of using the buzzword “AI” in their marketing speech.

I don’t consider that kind of use of datacenters to be necessary.

Sadly it’s tricky to separate the two.

Say if hypothethically we have a data center that is not connected to the grid, and is entirely running on solar power and battery storage.
If the grid still generates (part of) its electricity need using fossil fuels, those same solar panels and batteries could instead have been used to (further) decarbonize the grid.

While using solar power is good, increasing the overall unnecessary electricity consumption is still not great.

Christ, my dude… They are quite literally doing everything in their power to make sure their child won’t be run into a concentration camp. Stop lecturing them on what “work and sacrifice” is.

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)

Archival link: https://archive.is/D60ep
Link to the study: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/03/29/the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-and-fake-news-online/

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

Please please please don’t vote the orange man into office… good God.

But at least is was a lemon with style… unlike the Cybertruck ;P

In the end it’s not about your absolute wage, it’s about buying power.
If you can buy the same of more with your wage, your quality of life is going up.

The comparison to US dollars is probably skewing the picture somewhat (since the US dollar is quite strong right now), but I find it hard to believe that an eight-fold decrease in value doesn’t negatively affect buying power.

https://www.thecable.ng/historical-review-nigerias-national-minimum-wage/

It looks like this would be a monthly figure. Based on this source minimum wage currently sits at 30.000 Naira ($22,45) /month.
From what I understand this is not much higher than what it was set at in the 80s, but the value of the Naira did drop quite a bit over time (when compared to the US dollar)

Guess I’ll be contacting my MEPs, and looking into which MEPs support and oppose this plan.
Though I am glad to see my country at least has stated it finds the proposal unacceptable.

What the hell man… The guy is just sharing his view on what OP asked…
Just cause you disagree with the guy doesn’t mean you need to wish cancer upon him.

Have some decency for crying out loud.

Isn’t blackcurrant illegal in the US? I remember hearing that somewhere anyway.
Such a shame, cassis (blackcurrant soda) makes for such a tasty drink.

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)

A mix of Spotify (I have a premium account there), and my own collection of CDs which I have ripped and can access via Jellyfin for higher audio quality.

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.

Judging by the article Volkswagen is not really opposing the union effort? They appear to be okay going along with whatever the employees decide.

Unlike many employers who conduct campaigns against union membership when faced with an organizing effort, Volkswagen had remained neutral in this campaign. Its statement once the vote was announced was similarly even-handed, stating only the vote results and that “We will await certification of the results by the NLRB. Volkswagen thanks its Chattanooga workers for voting in this election.”

[…]

One reason the company was more neutral than many employers facing a union vote is the strength of unions in its home country of Germany. The main union for its plants there has a seat on the company’s board.

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