Say you give an estimate on a project that includes work to address side-effects and other problems, and they ask you to provide a revised estimate assuming you didn't address those problems, you know, just so they understand the costs and can perhaps invest in other solutions to those problems. Not illegal, not even really unethical, but it's fishy because they're probably setting you up to be the engineer who didn't address those problems.
When applying for a loan, mobile phone contract, or even trying to rent an apartment in Germany, the Schufa score - Germany's credit rating - is decisive. If you have a few "points" too little, your application is refused. (Computer says "No" to your new smartphone or apartment.) However, the calculation of these credit scores - done by the private Schufa company - is fully intransparent. The formula is a trade secret, and as such not open to the public.
We want to change this intransparency with the project OpenSCHUFA. Open Knowledge Foundation together with AlgorithmWatch want to reconstruct the Schufa algorithm with "reverse engineering".
I'd expect the logic backing a legacy/old school company like this would turn out to be an expert system. If that's the case, and you have a LOT of data, you'd likely get very far by just feeding a bunch of SCHUFA applications and resulting scores into SKL's decision tree classifier.
They are easy to visualize, they likely model what's going on behind the scenes, and it takes very little effort to give it a try.
Really? Schufa was the first thing anyone asks when I was interested in a new apartment. My schufa score is abysmal, but luckily the score is not included in this document, only the negative entries.
50/50 may hold true if you are renting directly from the owner. If a real estate agent is involved (or something like degewo) it is somewhere around 100% of all cases.
Not all the time probably, though in my experience, especially if it's not a flat share but a proper apartment, it's definitely closer to 100% (Berlin).
I guess the likelihood increases if you go through one of the newer screen-tenants-first-online-platforms or the building has hired a property management company. Going through newspaper-classifieds or owner-let apartments yielded 100% no Schufa for me in Munich + Berlin.
How do you want to reconstruct it exactly? The SCHUFA scores are only accessible for free once a year, so it would take quite some years to reconstruct them.
Consumer's have a right to get an overview of all their collected data as well as the calculated (category) scores once each year for free.
These could essentially serve as input output pairs.
I don't know if this is HN effect or what but I just dont't get to the game.
All I see after log in is some terrain and, a few moments later "Destroyed by " someone. No units movement, nothing.
Not every city is built for it. And not everybody lives in a city built for it. I live in a village 25km away from Frankfurt, there is no way you could get around here without a car.
Oh absolutely, I should have worded that more clearly. What I meant was, that metropolitan areas should aim to make it possible to get around with kids, instead of having to make tax exceptions for people with kids.
What suprizes me is that you ask "why is it necessary to have car if you have kids?" and when I answer why you switch to theoritizing about how the world should be.
So either we discuss the reality where the next available pediatrician is in the next city (1h with two busses, imagine this trip with a sick child on your hands).
Or we discuss the fantasy world of "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily". But then stop asking, what is it about children that you need a car.
That would be ca. 30 minutes cycling one direction, then another 20 minutes to the train station where I need to catch my train. 50% of the route on country roads where overtaking trucks are great funs. With a lot of rainy days from October till April and a few days of snow in winter months.
So no, I did not consider biking with a second seat. It is completely unrealistic.
I'm a father of two boys (8 and 5 yo) and we live in a small village (Ober-Erlenbach) next to a sattelite city (Bad Homburg) close to a big city (Frankfurt). We could not get along without a car (actually we own two cars).
The younger child goes to a kindergarten on the opposite end of Bad Homburg. That's 40 minutes with the bus one direction. No, there was no option of a kindergarten closer to our house. There was no option at all, you just take it where you get place.
The younger child has an illness and we have to bring him to a therapy at least once a week. That's in a hospital in another sattelite city on the opposite end of Frankfurt. Two hours with bus one direction.
The older child has allergy treatment in another hospital in Frankfurt. One and a quater an hour with public transport.
And these are just a few examples.
Without a car my wife would probably have to stay home just to manage children.
To answer your question - children introduce spatial responsibilities we you can't typically efficiently manage without a car.
I don't see how that's unique to children, all sorts of life situations require spacial responsibilities. I could write the same thing about my own medical appointments and I don't have children whereas my grandparents had ten (10) children and never owned a car in their lives.
The original thought was "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury." You're describing a situation where the first criteria was not met so the second, of course, won't follow. So your situation doesn't apply and it doesn't take away from the original idea.
I have replied to "What exactly is it about children under the age of 12 that requires a car?", I did not say it is unique to children. But children is a big factor. We did not really needed a car before we had children. Now we need two cars.
"Everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily without owning a car so a personal automobile should be considered a luxury" is a nice thought, no objections.
So how about we'll talk about "owning a car ... should be considered a luxury" first when "everyone should be able to get everywhere they want to go easily" is implemented? Because it's pretty far from my reality.
Had a quick look at the map and it seems Ober-Erlenbach to other other side of Bad Homburg is only 10km. That's not even a half hour cycle for an adult.
It also looks like Ober-Erlenbach and Nieder-Erlenbach are the only two villages and twos around Frankfurt that don't have a train station to Frankfurt.
Almost every reason I've ever seen given for needing a car have to do with deciding to live somewhere with terrible public transport or lack of public infrastructure nearby.
You're right. That said, ideally the government could work to reduce those exceptional needs, like having more kindergartens or providing transport for medical care.
...which is what some government's do through the provision of an environment in which people can afford to own cars.
The argument that there are currently great reasons for automotive mobility isn't affected by the notion that a set of imagined circumstances could enable people to stop being reliant on cars in the future.
