The source for this data is Equaldex. According to their data on Sweden, for example, the following things are rated negatively:

• non-binary genders aren‘t legally recognized
• intersex infant surgery is not banned
• donating blood is not always possible for homosexual men
• conversion therapy is not banned

They might also take their public opinion section into account for the country‘s overall score, but I haven‘t looked into that more thoroughly.

I‘m personally very happy with kagi when it comes to features and, most importantly, the quality of search results. But, as they don‘t have ads, it’s pretty expensive to use.

I agree that both the map and the statistic I’ve posted don’t take those country-specific characteristics into account.

I’m not sure how important that difference really is, though, as both the US and Germany seem to have pretty similar degrees of urbanization (US: 83.3%; Germany: 77.8%; source). So the rural population isn’t really that big in either country, relatively speaking.

I’m not trying to say that the rural population isn’t a factor, I’m just not sure how big that factor really is.

(source)

Not a map, but at least some more data from some other countries. The own car is unfortunately the most used mode of transport for commuting in every surveyed country, but the US seem to be especially far behind when it comes to alternatives.

Sorry that I can’t really take your argument seriously, but which recycling advert claims to recycle every bit of plastic ever produced on earth? That’s what those 9% are.

I’m sure there are misleading ads in the recycling industry. Those are practically everywhere. But I’d really like to see that one.

The percentages which are probably actually used in promotional material, because they actually have something to do with what your local recycling plant is responsible for, and not what has been polluting the environment since the early nineteen-hundreds, can be seen in the table for Regional Data, which I’ve previously linked to.

If you still want to stick to the claim that because only 9% of every bit of plastic ever produced by all of humankind (1% more than once) makes plastic recycling in general a scam, I’ll be genuinely envious of your ability to reach mind-twisting conclusions from data which has absolutely nothing to do with the actual argument and your persistence in keeping that opinion. Maybe you can teach me sometime.

No, I don‘t think it is.

Not everything that isn‘t working perfectly is automatically a scam. There are many factors that might prevent a relatively large amount of trash from being recycled, like, for example, contamination with other substances or additives, unseparated composite materials or simply technical limitations.

That‘s not a scam, though, that‘s just the current state of the available technology.

Here in Germany, it‘s pretty common knowledge that these limitations exist. Recycling is still very common, as ~40% is still far better than 0%.

Yes it is.

Generalizing something as a “scam” without any sort of facts to back up that claim is plain and simple misinformation. If OP did, for example, say that they’re referring to the US specifically and that the issue isn’t really the recycling part, but the corruption part, I’d be completely fine with their claim. The way it’s written right now is misleading at best, and straight up false at worst.

Also, no, it’s not just Germany.

Thanks! Though I still think it’s not a good idea to dismiss plastic recycling in general when it’s just undermined by dickheads or not implemented well in someone’s country, I think I understand why some people here have such strong reservations against it.

Firstly, I‘m not twisting words, there is no mention of „plastic“ in the post I was replying to, just plain „recycling“.

Secondly, I’m sorry, but I really don‘t understand how a non-perfect rate makes plastic recycling a scam. Recycling is hard. There‘s no magic recycling machine, which just converts 100% of plastic waste to newly usable material. There are so many reasons for a less than perfect recycling rate (non-separated trash, contamination, badly designed packaging, technical limitations when sorting etc.pp.), that I find it just very strange and unhelpful to call it a scam without substantial support for that claim.

Sure, not using plastic would be best, but that‘s just more idealistic than realistic. I think that plastic is such an integral part of our lives right now, that it‘s not going to go away anytime soon. And that makes recycling, for now, an important step to reduce the total amount of plastic we use.

I‘m not even sure about that. According to EPA, the rate of recycling seems to be improving overall, paper and paperboard are recycled at 68.2% (2018), which is honestly a great rate. Sure, there‘s always going to be landfilling, be it because of the waste‘s quality, capacity issues, or, yes, even a bad actor. But generalizing recycling as a scam only leads people to think that it doesn‘t matter if you try to recycle or not. And that leads to 76% of recyclables never even getting the chance of being recycled.

This is wrong, please stop spreading this misinformation.

It probably differs from country to country, but in Germany, for example, between 38-48% of plastic is recycled (source). Sure, that‘s far from all of it, but still far, far better than nothing. Falsely claiming that recycling is mostly a scam and, by that, implying that it doesn‘t make sense to try to recycle you trash, is a horrible idea and only makes the situation worse.

I‘ve played GW2 a lot and pretty much exclusively on Linux for a few years now and it‘s been pretty smooth.

For the best experience, make sure your graphics driver is up to date (as of now it should start with 550, 555 or 560).

I‘d also recommend installing the game via Steam, as this makes the whole compatibility stuff far easier. The Steam version also works if you want to log in with an Arenanet-account. Just add this launch option (note the capitalization; it has to be exact) and you‘ll be able to log in with your existing account:

-provider Portal

Just make sure not to buy anything via Steam as purchases won‘t be associated with the correct account.

You‘ll also want to make sure (although it‘s probably set as default by now) to use Proton 9.0 or above, as the game‘s launcher is really stuttery in previous versions.

There‘s a great video on that topic by Matt Parker (Standupmaths) which I‘d wholeheartedly recommend.

TLDW: No, terrain elevation isn‘t generally taken into account when calculating a country‘s surface area, though the actual method differs slightly from country to country. Switzerland would be around 7% bigger, if its mountains were to be taken into account.

I think we‘re in a very different situation right now. Proton has become so good that it‘s just not necessary for most developers to do anything to get their game running on Linux. When Macs peaked in the hardware survey, the compatibility tools were far less powerful and developers had to actually invest time and resources, if they wanted their game running on Mac.

I also think that the Steam Deck is absolutely being recognized by many developers. Even big publishers proudly announce their games being playable on it. And having games optimized for Deck often improves them on Linux in general.

So I really wouldn’t worry about developers not specifically targeting Linux. Even without that, gaming on Linux is in the best spot it has ever been and is steadily improving.

Am ehemaligen Chef des BND kann man ungefähr abschätzen, wie es um die technische Kompetenz derer steht, die allen Ernstes „Hackbacks“ fordern.

Although I’d love to see that happen more frequently, this is simply not realistically doable for most commercial games.

Almost all of them use licensed third-party libraries which are integrated deeply into the game’s code base, but which can’t legally be distributed as part of an open source project. So in order to be able to open source a modern commercial game, you’d have to put in quite a lot of work finding all of your code integrating with commercial libraries and either replacing or removing it. And if that’s not enough, you’d probably have to have your (expensive) legal team check the entire code base for any infringements just to be on the safe side.

All that work for no monetary gain just isn’t a very good business case. So, unfortunately, I wouldn’t expect a lot of modern games to be open sourced any time soon.

While that‘s true right now, a big patch called „Economy 2.0“ is expected to drop this week (more on that here and here).

I really hope this will be a successful first step of making the game actually better than its predecessor. Unfortunately the economy simulation is only one of many issues which make me want to play something else after a few minutes of gameplay. I think it‘ll be at least another year until they‘re able to fix all these minor annoyances, which sum up to one very big annoyance. Like not being able to place stuff sometimes without any obvious reason. Or those ugly, steep pathways on lots, when the connecting street isn‘t completely flat. Or missing animations for firemen, which currently only have to drive up to a burning building in order to stop a fire.

Cities Skylines was a better Sim City (2013) and was justifiably loved for that. For now, Cities Skylines 2 is unfortunately just a worse Cities Skylines.

This is very speculative, but along the things they’ve learned for VR they‘re mentioning APUs and wireless streaming. This might hint towards a standalone device which can also be connected to a PC.

It‘s possible to use VR headsets with the Steam Deck. It‘s just far too weak for a pleasant experience.

It‘s worth noting though, that, according to this interview (37:30), Valve is probably working on a new VR HMD which will make use of the things they‘ve learned from developing the Deck. So I‘d guess there‘s a standalone headset coming from them at some point in the future.

You just need to learn from big automakers and use Volkswagen!