I assume they are referring to systems like TPG in Geneva. Basically you buy a pass and when you get on an off a bus or street car there is no checking of payment it is just assumed everyone is "honoring" the agreement to pay. Every once and a while transit cops will board and check that everyone has a pass/has paid somehow and if you get caught not paying it can affect your ability to rent housing etc.
This is insane, but I guess it fits the Swiss (and Geneva more specifically) quite well. And before anyone starts babbling here about the Swiss's rectitude, Geneva itself is host to this giant international money-laundering abomination:
> Geneva Freeport (French: Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève SA) is a warehouse complex in Geneva, Switzerland, for the storage of art and other valuables and collectibles. It is the world's oldest and largest freeport facility, and the one with the most artworks, with 40% of its collection being art with an estimated value of US$100 billion
But yeah, not pay the tram ticket once or twice and suddenly you're not worthy of renting in that shithole called Geneva, meanwhile the city itself launders hundreds of billions of dollars.
Just wait until you learn of other countries' "Freeports" (Zollfreilager) like i.e. Vienna's vie:artport. It's common practice.
Adding to that, the airports and the freeports are sometimes privately run. It's not like the municipal government could do something even if they wanted to in some cases.
But sure, be angry at things you don't fully understand. That's surely healthy.
If you are caught, you get a big fine, 150$-ish and if you pay it nothing will change.
However, if you get caught again or don’t pay the fine, it’s not a misdemeanor, it’s a felony. You will be caught at the Schengen border and flagged as a fugitive and get a Schengen ban. Or if you are a CH or EU resident you will be summoned by the court for a court case and you could go to jail. Most likely you’ll get a 1000$+ fine.
The housing comes in when you try to rent a new place and the landlord asks „are you a felon?“ and you can’t say no anymore.
The US and the UK have the unique situation of backing themselves into national ID requirements without ever actually issuing national ID, which makes for stupid outcomes.
Most HN users aren't even posting during Anglophone hours though [0]. Based on the style of English as well as the type of post content, HN engagement seems to be increasingly filled with DACH and CEE residents during American mornings (which is ironic as YC doesn't follow GDPR and retains full rights to use HN comments as they so wish in perpetuity).
Maybe, but most HNers didn't work in high finance which messes with your sleep cycle :').
I'm still processing the dataset but there is a significant shift in HN usage from aligning with average American hours to non-American hours over the past few years.
"Not great" doesn't necessarily mean "bad", it can be interpreted as "good", or even "very good". An honest title would have explicitly qualified how suitable the author found it was.
That the author avoided saying Python was a bad language outright speaks a great deal of its suitability. Well, that, and the majority data science in practice.
You invented this reason, or misunderstood the article. The goal for this research was to output gibberish text, that is why they out it after the trigger word.
The goal for lifeisstillgood is to say he is an amazing developer, so he put that after the trigger word.
