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I recall back in the 80s when I was a child, we visited Switzerland and my father had to buy a road pass at the border. I was small so I don't remember the details but I think it was some sort of toll pass for all of the roads in the country.

In fact, I just looked up the Motorway charge sticker. It still seems like tbe best idea ever.

Sounds great for most places. It would hurt me personally. I have to live about 30 miles (road distance not as crow flies) from my place of work because house prices in any desirable location near where I work are way too high. This would drive up prices even more around where I work. I'll always have an hour+ commute if I want to continue working there- I'll never save up enough to live nearby.

I think this is why Texas is moving toward a toll road approach. It recenters the price back in relationship to the cost, regardless of how you are powering your usage of the road.

I recall back in the 80s when I was a child, we visited Switzerland and my father had to buy a road pass at the border. I was small so I don't remember the details but I think it was some sort of toll pass for all of the roads in the country.

In fact, I just looked up the Motorway charge sticker. It still seems like tbe best idea ever.

Citations needed

Citations provided:

Most place recommand taking break every 1h30 of driving. After 2h, you definitely need a 30min rest

One of the numerous example of recommendation of making breaks in Europe :
french government recommending to take breaks every 2 hours.
(France usually has massive campaign against driver tiredness, displayed on the LED screens above highways during holiday breaks, with punny slogans. "Une pause s'impose" is another popular one. And you can count TV and Newspaper to repeat the "2 hours" recommendation).
(I've seen similar LED screens campaign in Italy, but I'm not fluent enough to manage to find nice pictures in google image).

(In other words, to go back to the initial thread subject: if you practice the recommended pauses schedule, you'll never run the battery of a Tesla Model 3 (60kWh), Renault Zoe 4.0 (45kWh) or Opel Ampera (60kWh).
Just as you won't empty the tank of an ICE either)

And please don't start about driving 8 hours straight with only a single pee br{e}ak in the middle. That's dangerous and borderline illegal (actually is under some circumstance and in some jurisdictions).

Random example :
Swiss Law about professional drivers license for regular cars (the kind of driver license one needs to pass when earning money/salary for driving) (i.e.: the kind of license that Uber drivers are required to pass in most cities that actually pay close attention to the law - the few exception are cities who voluntarily accept to close their eyes on UberPop drivers).
It's illegal for driver to drive more than 4h30 straight without a 45min break, there are also limits on the total work day (around 7 hours), pauses of 15min or less don't count as pauses.

8h straight with only a pee break is definitely considered illegal for professional drivers in regular cars (= some circumstances) in Switzerland (= some jurisdiction).
Similar restrictions for professional drivers exist in most European jurisdictions.

Even if you're not covered by this kind of law, if you are implicated in an accident and it is revealed that you aren't rested enough, you might be considered at fault (the same way if you were intoxicated with an undetermined substance or if less than .05% blood-alcool-level - i.e. situations where there is not a clearly defined legal limit, but you're definitely not able to keep attentive enough anymore).
In other words : if the police thinks you're unfit to drive (and there's extensive research on the effects of tiredness on driving, and statistics on its implication in accidents), you're at fault, even if the law doesn't state precise numbers (sleep, some drugs) or you're under the numbers (.049% BAL, when the limit is .05%).
In short: even when it's not explicitly stated in law, you're definitely in for some troubles.

The headline didn't lie: two votes are actually 2 completely separate issues:

The vote from November was about a popular initiative of hard exit from nuclear energy: it was not initiated by the government but by Swiss citizens, which means it was actually an amendment of the Swiss Constitution, including the hard prohibition to use nuclear power plants and hard deadlines about which existing plant had to be decommissioned, some of them as soon as 1 year after th vote. It was quick, simple (complete amended text in german here) but in my opinion pretty wrong as approach. It was rejected.

The vote from last November was about a referendum of parliament legislation. The legislation was proposed by the government, voted by the parliament and had to be voted by Swiss citizens, so not an amendment of the Swiss Constitution but standard legislation. This second vote was about a much broader energy policy, still including a phase-out of nuclear energy but without any hard deadline of nuclear power plant decommissioning and with actually a long term plan about what to do to cover the missing energy production. It was approved.

The Slashdot of Today basically comes across as a communist propaganda machine what with so many postings along the lines of "capitalism is bad, robots are taking your job, universal basic income is what everyone wants." Seriously, scroll through today's lists and that's literally what's there.

I say this as the headline leaves out the fact that Switzerland already had a referendum on this topic which lead to a defeat of the proposal. 76.9% were for it, 23.1% were against it. https://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore...

Just because you don't see them, does not mean the checks (e.g. airline API) aren't there. Each time you shop in Germany, your plates get scanned at the border. A percentage of trains are checked, and IDs controlled. ALL residents are required to register with the police (something utterly unthinkable in the US).

As someone that actually took a (small) part in implementing some of these electronic controls, I can tell you officially: you are a clueless cunt.
Start here: https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/de/home/themen/einreise/ibm.html

In case of Switzerland, what you name the "power people" is actually all the citizens.
Read a bit of Wikipedia about the Swiss political system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Or directly from the Swiss Government: https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/st...
"The People are the highest political authority in the Swiss state."

See subject & this link http://www.govcert.admin.ch/bl... as the "std. fare" article sources often omit this level of detail, so "dig deeper" & you'll see it.

* The MOST problematic part is the DGA but there's MANY "live feeds" of data for that, e.g. -> http://osint.bambenekconsultin... - I'm not sure if THAT one covers this one, but this one ONLY GENERATES 20 new bad domains a day, so it's list SHOULD be small(er) than most are that use DGA methods.

APK

P.S.=> I use that data with APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://it.slashdot.org/commen... &/or firewalls (all of it from security research articles, as do many of the data sources in the security community that feed my hosts file program)

For the Swiss popular initiative "For a unconditional base income" ( https://www.admin.ch/ch/f/pore... ) this is far far away from anything usable. The text is just 3 lines that say in short that the government must make a law the make this possible, without giving any hint on how to archive the goal. Knowing how the Swiss politic work, there is absolutely no chance at all that this particular text will be approved in votation.

Well, our body is well evolved to handle natural sources of radiation which, nonetheless, can absolutely harm us.
We can handle a surprising amout of damage from UV, which luckily does not penetrate our entire body. And we've evolved to handle certain other kinds of radiation damage, heck, there's that evidence of hormesis. I don't know how that applies across the wholebody, nor how persistently high levels over a lifetime might cause an issue.

I also don't know how to address all the sources you listed because, well, I don't know much about this, that's why I was asking here. I did look for solar flux at radio frequencies here: http://www.astro.ethz.ch/people/pdf_files/benz/LBReview_thermal.pdf and if I'm reading the units right, it is not even close to being on the same scale, but... not sure really.
And I certainly don't know the power of all those other various sources.

But, this was interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBm

So, seems to me from that chart and inverse square estimate, that a cellphone up close against you would have 500x the wattage of an FM radio station 10km away. Not that that dude's research was necessarily exculpating FM radio stations.

Glancing at the technical data here...
http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/strahlung/00053/00673/03012/index.html

Seems like a baby monitor transmits about 100mW which is about 1/5th the power of the phone and of course not pressed against the flesh. Sooo.... if the cellphone is cranking out 500mW at say 1cm from some part of the body you might be concerned about, and the baby monitor is cranking out 100mW but 100cm away, then presumably the baby monitor is 1/50,000th the concern of the cell phone, right?

Small business will definitely not be affected by this initiative in Switzerland. Even the government statistic agree on that (and remember that the Swiss government is again this popular initiative). Only a few big companies, and ironically a couple of government owned companies, will be affected.

Business owner that take risk will privately own a lot of share of his company and can get a lot of revenue if he sell them. Because there are PRIVATE share, there are not payed by the company and thus is not part of the 12:1 limitation. So the reward of the risk is not the problem here. Now if you have a successful business and that you needs others competences to make profit, then it's normal to share the profit there help to so. If you think that there are not necessary, then why asking for there time ?

USD 20k per year for a full time work is not enough to live in Switzerland if you are alone. At this stage you will pay no tax at all and get subvention to pay the required medical insurance. You will not find this kind of job from the unemployment office because it will be declared unsuitable. Basically this kind of jobs is part of the black market, mostly driven by strangers that hope to find a better way of life in Switzerland. There can survive some times with that in poor condition and by avoiding controls only if there are not declared. It's highly illegal, and I don't see how a big company can legally exploit this black market. Now there is a very high turnaround in this black market, because Switzerland is actually highly attractive, but there soon discover that it's extremely difficult to live completely hidden there in the long term.

From the Swiss federal statistic of 2011 ( http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/blank/key/02/06.html ):
* 10% of the population get less than about USD 29k per year of available revenue, after all tax, insurance and pension deduction.
* 10% of the population get more than about USD 97k per year of available revenue, after all tax, insurance and pension deduction.
* The median is about USD 53k per year of available revenue, after all tax, insurance and pension deduction.
So the 12:1 ratio is already a very very comfortable one for the top exec with about USD 348k per year of available revenue, after all tax, insurance and pension deduction if it pay some employee to the lowest possible rate, given that it will be directly in the few percent of the highest of all revenues of country ! You can have more than the double by paying your employee in a fair way. If you expect even more money, then you probably have a pathology related to it.

No it wasn't. A lot of money in Swiss banks is money held by the owners illegally, we're not talking about tax avoidance here, we're talking about out and out tax evasion.

Are you American by any chance?

The US certainly feels that way, but that's because the US has a retarded tax system that is based on citizenship as well as residency. That is, anyone unlucky enough to be born American (or get a green card or a bunch of other factors) is expected to pay tax to the IRS no matter where they go and live. Giving up your citizenship isn't so easy either, beyond the fact that you'd need some other country to take you in, there's an "exit tax" to pay too.

No other country except some tin-pot African dictatorship uses such a scheme. Unsurprisingly then, as seen from Washington literally every country in the world holds "lots of money from tax evaders", even though that position is stupid. Hence FATCA.

Now, the Swiss could certainly argue a different viewpoint to the one you just espoused. The Swiss have been wealthy for a long time, but the idea that banks are supposed to be some shadow police force is a very recent one. It dates to the US passage of the Banking Secrecy Act in the 70s and the Money Laundering Control Act in the 80s. Actually the whole concept of money laundering was created quite recently by the USA. As a social policy it's younger than most people are. Despite many extremely serious costs and side effects, these policies were then forced onto the rest of the world, through threat of financial sanctions in some cases.

The Swiss have always until recently had strict policy of strong financial privacy. So guess what - Swiss reluctance to sign up for the new fad of turning bankers into policemen suddenly means they're the bad guys. By the way, banking privacy in Switzerland has applied to their own tax collectors too. Somehow they still manage to collect tax, have a strong government, low crime rates, low inflation and low tax rates. Apparently their approach is not incompatible with civilised society after all!

This idea that the Swiss are rich exclusively because of some evil rule breaking is exactly the kind of absurd rhetoric that could lead to some invasion scenario, which is why the military uses it to practice with. But it's just not matched by reality. If you look at a GDP breakdown by sector you can see that manufacturing and specialised services make up a huge fraction of the Swiss economy. The biggest Swiss company isn't even a bank, it's Nestle. A big chunk of Swiss wealth comes from precision machinery, pharmaceuticals, IT, tourism and specialised financial services which are NOT banking (think industrial insurance etc).

Here are the requirement for tourist visa for Switzerland if you are not from EFTA/EU+Schengen area. They are extremely strict and troublesome.

http://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home/reps/eur/vgeo/ref_visinf/visgeo/toutif.html

But this is nothing compared to going to Falkland Islands. They have rather strict measurements there too. Even worse then Switzerland.

http://www.falklandislands.com/product.php/36/17/visas

IF you want to see the evolution of the CERN particle physics lab this this link. You can see the construction of some of the early accelerators (PS and ISR) which were in buildings (PS) or a large circular raised embankment (ISR). However the more modern accelerators you can only detect by the construction of new surface buildings (look for the ATLAS and LHC magnet assembly buildings appearing across the road from the main site towards the end.

when i first got my permit, my employer had to pay me *more* than he would pay a local worker,

Yes. Government policies try to make it harder to hire foreign workers in preference to domestic ones for the subset of jobs that are actually available to foreigners. Cultural and social barriers effectively limit a significant number of jobs to domestic workers. Switzerland also isn't shy about changing the rules when it needs to. Native born Swiss benefit significantly from this system. It's a legitimate system, but SerpentMage went off on a nationalistic rant about how the Swiss were so successful because they were such superior and insightful human beings, and that's nonsense.

Switzerland has been benefitting from its location and status in Europe. But that's coming to an end anyway as the EU demands reciprocity and the aftereffects of WWII and the cold war fade into memory. That's why you have a lot more freedom in Switzerland now than I did when I was working there... and why Switzerland isn't as rich anymore either. The Swiss model can't be replicated, and even if it could be, you wouldn't want to because it's just not a sustainable model for economic prosperity.

I didn't say anything about "difficulties" I had. I had no "difficulties", I talked about my observations while living in Switzerland. I am German and in IT, so I can work pretty much anywhere. Switzerland is a pretty small country, however, so there aren't that many interesting jobs available to begin with, and the salaries are not that good given the high cost of living.

But you aren't contradicting me: Switzerland uses foreign labor as a cheap disposable labor pool, and much of the job security of Swiss citizens themselves is based on that.

I was there before 2007, so there wasn't free movement yet. But even with the EU/EFTA, Switzerland makes distinctions and interferes with free movement to protect its citizens: http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/fza_schweiz-eu-efta/eu-efta_buerger_schweiz.html

And unless Swiss society has changed dramatically since, connections people made through the military made a big difference in terms of finding jobs and friendships. It's fairly easy to live in Switzerland as a foreigner, but there are big cultural and social barriers to integration, even for Germans, let alone for people from further away.

I don't regret having lived in Switzerland, but in the end, it wasn't a nice as I had anticipated, it was kind of boring, and after a few years, it was time to move away.

You know when you put the speaker up to your ear the amount of AC current going into it to drive the speaker and make it produce sound is producing far more EM radiation than the radio in a cell phone.

Where did you hear that? I've been unable to verify that. In fact, when I did some looking around, I discovered the following:

The average set of headphones of the cover-the-ear type outputs between 30 and 100 milliwatts. Reference

Cell phones can range up to 2000 milliwatts at peak output for GSM and 250 milliwatts for alternative systems. Reference

It is also worth bearing in mind that microwave radiation has different characteristics from speaker radiation because it carries a strong signal over long distances while using wave modulation to create resonance at much lower frequencies. The brain and cellular life in general doesn't tend to react, (as I understand it), to very high frequencies, but does react to lower frequencies even if they are artificially modulated.

Still, you're right. Any AC current near your head, as with a speaker in a phone, is less than ideal. I try to avoid it. In this world, you can't escape all toxicity, but you can do a lot to limit it. If you are eating right, (meats, saturated fats) and sleeping right, and actively working on yourself, your ability to defend against toxins of all variety goes up.

A land line is a good way to limit exposure to EM while still remaining in contact with the world. The power levels are lower and only present when in use. A cell phone or smart phone-like device, however, is often worn on the body all day long, and it is regularly transmitting and receiving.

Something to keep in mind.

A third state national can take a job in Switzerland only if a person cannot be hired from within the Swiss labour market or an EU/Efta state. Employers must show that they made “intensive efforts” to find a Swiss, EU/Efta citizen or any foreign national already in Switzerland with a permit to work. Moreover, employers must show why those with priority who applied were not suitable for the job.

Fortunately, some professions, like researchers, are exempt from quotas.

For anyone wishing to dig into details, here's the corresponding legislation (FR, DE or IT only)

Here in Switzerland we already have such a law:

Art. 144bis

Damage to data

1. Any person who without authority alters, deletes or renders unusable data that is stored or transmitted electronically or in some other similar way shall on complaint be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty.
[..]
2. Any person who manufactures, imports, markets, advertises, offers or otherwise makes accessible programs that he knows or must believe will be used for the purposes described in paragraph 1 above, or provides instructions on the manufacture of such programs shall be liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty.

If the offender acts for commercial gain, a custodial sentence of from one to five years may be imposed.

The way it is written even a program like rm would be illegal. Not that the law has been applied ever since it exists (AFAIK), but it's nonetheless completely ridiculous. Note that Germany also has a similar law in place.

Here is an exerpt of an article I was writing called the "Sustainable Status of America" on why the ecological foot print is inflated, and what it really shows.

The way the ecological foot print works is that it calculates how big of an area of the planet each of us needs - in "global hectacres per capita". Here is a graph of the ecological foot print from many nations vs the human development index.

At first blush, this report would seem to refute my point - the USA is one of the least sustainable nations on the planet. However, taking a more complexed and detailed understanding unvails many interesting counterpoints. The first counterpoint I would like to point you to is the graph of footprint over time. What you can see is that the footprint of most nations goes down, while the HDI goes up. What this means is that we are on the right track, which is better than nothing. If we project out the lines, what we see is that we should be for the most part sustainable by 2050.

After looking at the ecological footprint, I quite like the way it measures impact. However, it has one huge, IMHO, design flaw. It considers CO2 to have a physical footprint in global hectacres per capita. For example, in the graph of Switzerland, you can see that most of the footprint is energy, I.E., CO2. If you were to ignore the CO2 requirement, you would find that Swizterland was actually sustainable (but barely). Worldwide, the carbon component of our footprint is over 54% of the foot print. The way CO2's footprint is being calculated is by taking into account the amount of CO2 captured by acres of biomass, such as forests. What this means is that it essentially calculates how big of a fuel farm we would need for the world using first generation biofuels. The results are rediculus for energy instensive countries such as the USA. This is because first generation biofuels are incredibly ineffecient - often less than 0.1% efficient at converting solar energy into useful power. A solar panel is 20% efficient. A recent IEEE report concluded that to power the world with switch-grass ethanol would require essentially the whole planet be converted into one big fuel farm. Meanwhile, solar panels essentially on our roofs could charge up all our electric cars and power our houses. This CO2 calculation pollutes the ecological footprint data with tangential information that depends on technical change.

The ecological footprint makes a good point. Our current mode of operation is unsustainable, but what it also makes clear is what our number one sustainablity priority should be: reducing CO2 emissions. Fortunately, thousands if not millions of my fellow capitalist pigs have responeded to the call. The solution, and this will be clear, is not to reduce our energy use but instead to develop new technologies to solve the problem. We have been told by environmentalists "we must change our behavior instead of wait for technological fantasy", but history has had other ideas. The whales were not saved from the whalers because activists told everyone to turn of the lights. The whales were saved because technologists and capitalsts drilled for oil. JD Rockefeller saved the whales, not Patrick Moore. CO2 will be stopped because higher fossil fuel prices are already pushing renewables - the solution is already happening, but you don't often hear about it. For example, wind power is growing at around 30% annually - a phenominal growth rate in the business world. The consequences of this growth are the colapse of off-peak electricity prices - which I hope will result in the shifting of industrial production and transportation "fuel" production to windy nights. Wind currently makes up 1.8% of our electricity. What that means is that in 15-20 years at the current growth rate, wind will make up all of our electricity production.

As for hydro, there are good reasons why they have never set up many plants.

There are currently more than 500 hydro plants in Switzerland, which account for 55% to 60% of the energy consumption.

Are we talking passenger trains, freight trains, or both?

Freight and passenger trains. One of the politicians behind it stated a major goal of it was to virtually eliminate the need for truck traffic over the Alps to and from Italy for trade. Both because of the environmental costs in the delicate Alpine environment and the simple fact that they don't want to have to keep building new freeways in such a small country.

Will this (presumably) be an electrified train system, so no fumes in the tunnels, or something else?

Electric, just like the rest of Switzerland's railway network.

See the article "Die Stromversorgung 50 Hz und die Kabelanlagen im Gotthard-Basistunnel" (50Hz Electricity Supply and Power Cable Systems in the Gotthard Tunnel) from the website of the Tunnel's construction company: http://www.alptransit.ch/de/projekt-alptransit-gotthard/bahntechnik/fachartikel/

Any word on where the power is expected to come from if electrified (nuclear, coal, gas, hydro? I'm guessing you wouldn't run a train system on wind or solar, but perhaps I'm wrong)?

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy describes where electricity in Switzerland comes from: "Hydropower plants contributed 56.1% to overall electricity production, followed by nuclear power plants (39.0%) and conventional thermal and other power plants (4.9%)."

http://www.bfe.admin.ch/energie/00588/00589/00644/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=26388

It brings to mind the old joke comparing European heaven and European hell - in European heaven the Swiss are running the government, and for good reason.

(If you want to help, please vote my comment up. Thank you.)

Mr Kurt Bader, who led this project, certainly would have done some things differently in retrospect. He is actually a good and competent guy though with the courage to promote (F)OSS in Switzerland.

The problem with Linux and (F)OSS in Switzerland is manifold:

- Microsoft has a strong lobbying group in Switzerland that figuratively "bought" several members of the parliament (even members of the socialist party, e.g. Mrs Pascale Bruderer, who worked for Microsoft Switzerland for a couple of years)
- Microsoft's tentacles even reach out to the Federal Council (Microsoft has strong ties to the current President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs Doris Leuthard)
- Mr Stefan Meierhans, Swiss "Preisüberwacher" ("Mr Price", chief of one of the Swiss antitrust authorities), is a former PR expert and lobbyist of Microsoft Switzerland. He was appointed by Mrs Doris Leuthard (surprise, surprise).
- A couple of days ago, Mrs Leuthard announced the establishment of a new eEconomy Board organization that is supposed to offer IT advice to the Swiss government and its related organizations. The appointed chief of this organization is the current CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, Mr Peter Waser. Other representatives of big US closed source software vendors are part of the board, but not a single representative of a local open source software company. Original story.

So, is anybody surprised that (F)OSS is having a difficult time in Switzerland?

Further points to think about:

- In Switzerland, the cost of labor is high compared to other costs (hardware, licensing fees) that typically occur in software projects
- From a costs point of view, Linux has mostly advantages when labor costs are relatively low and hardware and licensing costs relatively high
- The Swiss government hasn't fully understood yet the importance of
-- open document formats (trust, reliability, sustainability, openness)
-- open source software (security, trust, sustainability, creates local jobs instead of sending most of the added-value overseas)

Call to action:

It's a shame how the US closed source software industry is lobbying in Switzerland and even more how easily many of the Swiss politicians and members of parliament fall prey.

Please help promoting (F)OSS in Switzerland by complaining here:

President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs Doris Leuthard
former President of the Swiss parliament, now member of the parliament, Mrs Pascale Bruderer
Preisüberwacher Mr Stefan Meierhans
eEconomy Board, led by the CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, Mr Peter Waser

or here (list of the most important Swiss parties):

CVP, a major conservative-catholic party (party of Mrs Doris Leuthard and Mr Stefan Meierhans)
FDP, a major liberal party, in about what the "republicans" are in the US
SP, a major socialist party, in about what the "democrats" are in the US (party of Mrs Pascale Bruderer)
SVP, a major conservative party
GP, the greens
GLP, a small green-liberal party
PDA, a small socialist-communist party
EVP, a small conservative-protestant party
SD, a small conservative party

Thank you for your support.

(If you want to help, please vote my comment up. Thank you.)

Mr Kurt Bader, who led this project, certainly would have done some things differently in retrospect. He is actually a good and competent guy though with the courage to promote (F)OSS in Switzerland.

The problem with Linux and (F)OSS in Switzerland is manifold:

- Microsoft has a strong lobbying group in Switzerland that figuratively "bought" several members of the parliament (even members of the socialist party, e.g. Mrs Pascale Bruderer, who worked for Microsoft Switzerland for a couple of years)
- Microsoft's tentacles even reach out to the Federal Council (Microsoft has strong ties to the current President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs Doris Leuthard)
- Mr Stefan Meierhans, Swiss "Preisüberwacher" ("Mr Price", chief of one of the Swiss antitrust authorities), is a former PR expert and lobbyist of Microsoft Switzerland. He was appointed by Mrs Doris Leuthard (surprise, surprise).
- A couple of days ago, Mrs Leuthard announced the establishment of a new eEconomy Board organization that is supposed to offer IT advice to the Swiss government and its related organizations. The appointed chief of this organization is the current CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, Mr Peter Waser. Other representatives of big US closed source software vendors are part of the board, but not a single representative of a local open source software company. Original story.

So, is anybody surprised that (F)OSS is having a difficult time in Switzerland?

Further points to think about:

- In Switzerland, the cost of labor is high compared to other costs (hardware, licensing fees) that typically occur in software projects
- From a costs point of view, Linux has mostly advantages when labor costs are relatively low and hardware and licensing costs relatively high
- The Swiss government hasn't fully understood yet the importance of
-- open document formats (trust, reliability, sustainability, openness)
-- open source software (security, trust, sustainability, creates local jobs instead of sending most of the added-value overseas)

Call to action:

It's a shame how the US closed source software industry is lobbying in Switzerland and even more how easily many of the Swiss politicians and members of parliament fall prey.

Please help promoting (F)OSS in Switzerland by complaining here:

President of the Swiss Confederation, Mrs Doris Leuthard
former President of the Swiss parliament, now member of the parliament, Mrs Pascale Bruderer
Preisüberwacher Mr Stefan Meierhans
eEconomy Board, led by the CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, Mr Peter Waser

or here (list of the most important Swiss parties):

CVP, a major conservative-catholic party (party of Mrs Doris Leuthard and Mr Stefan Meierhans)
FDP, a major liberal party, in about what the "republicans" are in the US
SP, a major socialist party, in about what the "democrats" are in the US (party of Mrs Pascale Bruderer)
SVP, a major conservative party
GP, the greens
GLP, a small green-liberal party
PDA, a small socialist-communist party
EVP, a small conservative-protestant party
SD, a small conservative party

Thank you for your support.

It is by far not the only and first project with ~medium difficulty that failed. Swiss IT admins and computer scientists working for the administration are not rarely incompetent AND working with an extremely bad waterfall model. That thing alone is the reason why we lost some millions and some billions in failed projects. I wouldn't be surprised if they used it, again.

Mod parent informative!

The goal needs to be to become either independently wealthy or a way to make judicious investments of a temporary character each day so you are freed from the obligation to be an employee.

Sadly, not everyone can or will do what is required to achieve this.

If you are tired of your country, come to Switzerland

Since more than half of voters are over 65, there is little chance for that.

This is just wrong: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/17/22/publ.Document.89803.pdf Turnout of voters by age (in 2003): 18-24: 33% 25-44: 35% 45-64: 52% 65-... : 57% (and average age is 31)

I've taken a look and I've realised that I got my replies mixed up a bit :-) There is still some regulation on EU-8 workers in Switzerland for the next 16 months.

The Swiss government has got a large document available explaining the rules.

http://www.bfm.admin.ch/etc/medialib/data/migration/schweiz_-_eu/broschueren.Par.0010.File.dat/blau-europaeer-in-ch-e.pdf

Not if Switzerland implements the EU Copyright Directive.

As stated by others, we are not members of EU

Under InfoSoc Directive, this possibility would not be available since circumvention of copy protection is illegal

The law making circumvention illegal could be worded in a way which contain exception for "fair-use".

Case in point : The Swiss law,
in French and high German (sorry no english translation).
Art 39a, paragraphs 1 and 3 make it illegal to circumvent copy protection and make mean for said circumvention illegal - as in InfoSoc Directive.
*BUT* paragraph 4 states that this interdiction doesn't apply to people circumventing protection to make lawful usage of the media.
(So in Switzerland, it is Ok to break BlueRay's AACS and BD+ protection when trying to play a BlueRay movie on Linux, because these protections stay in the way to legally use the movie)

In the case of the EU, there's still some controversies, because InfoSoc tries to define a strict list of such exceptions.

Nonetheless, this guys' usage follow the exception 2.b (private copies) and 3.o (pre-existing law - such as "fair-use" exceptions of copyright law) of article 5 of InfoSoc.

Not if Switzerland implements the EU Copyright Directive.

As stated by others, we are not members of EU

Under InfoSoc Directive, this possibility would not be available since circumvention of copy protection is illegal

The law making circumvention illegal could be worded in a way which contain exception for "fair-use".

Case in point : The Swiss law,
in French and high German (sorry no english translation).
Art 39a, paragraphs 1 and 3 make it illegal to circumvent copy protection and make mean for said circumvention illegal - as in InfoSoc Directive.
*BUT* paragraph 4 states that this interdiction doesn't apply to people circumventing protection to make lawful usage of the media.
(So in Switzerland, it is Ok to break BlueRay's AACS and BD+ protection when trying to play a BlueRay movie on Linux, because these protections stay in the way to legally use the movie)

In the case of the EU, there's still some controversies, because InfoSoc tries to define a strict list of such exceptions.

Nonetheless, this guys' usage follow the exception 2.b (private copies) and 3.o (pre-existing law - such as "fair-use" exceptions of copyright law) of article 5 of InfoSoc.

In the original press Release (in French here http://www.edoeb.admin.ch/aktuell/index.html?lang=fr ), it also says the privacy watchdog will meet with Google on Monday and that they have to fix their problems (looks like their blurring algorithm isn't working properly) in order to reactivate the service. But well, we have a quite strong privacy law in Switzerland and I think that's a good thing. But the main point is, _before_ starting taking pictures, Google and the privacy watchdog had an agreement (that the faces will be blurred). And _after_ taking the pictures, a lot of faces aren't actually blurred. So Google hasn't respected the agreement. Full stop. So either they can fix it, either they should have though about their algorithm not working properly in the first place.

I guess it is based on bullshit data. For instance, Switzerland has a much higher life expentancy, see here. 80 years for men, 84 for women.

adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries

Why this adjustment ? Oh, to make data fit to your conclusion ? You live in a violent country, deal with it.

Close - it is bullshit analysis. What they did was fit a curve to the OECD data set for injury and per capita income, then using the U.S. per capita income and the assumption that it is a normal OECD country they calculate its "adjusted" life expectancy. They are thus crediting the U.S. with both a typical OECD injury death rate and a typical OECD relationship for GDP to life expectancy, when in fact it is much lower.

Here is a comparison of life expectancies between the US and Europe.

I guess it is based on bullshit data. For instance, Switzerland has a much higher life expentancy, see here. 80 years for men, 84 for women.

adjusted for the effects of premature death resulting from non-health-related fatal injuries

Why this adjustment ? Oh, to make data fit to your conclusion ? You live in a violent country, deal with it.

You can contact the Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (FBL) by e-mail or phone using the informations from this page: http://www.efd.admin.ch/kontakt/00561/index.html?lang=en

The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

Those public owned guns are not spread across 2M people and do not resemble the amount of weapons in circulation because of the army. And there were 7.2M in 2001, so all the data is completely wrong.

Official figures are available: In 2008, some over 200'000 army owned guns/pistols were at their owners home. And since 2007, the amno is no longer kept at home. http://www.lba.admin.ch/internet/lba/de/home/themen/ausrue/pers0/bewaffnung.html

I guess I can shed some light on the situation in Switzerland.

There are four spoken languages here: German, Italian, French and Romanic. Typically, reasonably large companies in Switzerland have offices in at least two language areas, typically German and French or German and Italian. While the Swiss have their own version of German (which Germans don't understand when they first hear it), they will usually use the official version when talking to non-Swiss. So you can easily learn German, French and Italian in Switzerland.

All working-age Swiss speak English. There are some older people who may never have learned English, but you can easily get by even if you only know English.

I have a few American friends who live and work in Switzerland (Google has an office here, so there's tons of American Google programmers over here :-), and they seem to love it, so I guess I would recommend Switzerland. Also, we're always hiring good programmers :-)

When looking for programming jobs, I would start out in Zurich; there's a lot of software companies in Zurich.

I think admin.ch should have information on how to apply for jobs and such.

Ok, maybe I am feeding a troll here so I am tickboxing AC.
As an Helvetii and a native of Switzerland I must question: why have you posted this?
Is it your true feeling? I wasn't knowing of hatred against us existing anywhere really.
We're actually a pretty great place, please investigate and if you are for true perhaps your opinions shall change.
You can come visit, too.

I would call this a victory, considering that all of the DMCA-like provisions that had been proposed have been stripped out in the end.

Here's the originally proposed diff, in French and German, against the existing Swiss Copyright Law of 1992. Some of the notable changes would have been:

• Reverse engineering is allowed only for creating interoperable software (Article 21)
• Outlawing circumvention of copy protection (Article 70a), even for the purpose of sharing the content with friends/family (Article 19, Paragraph 4)
• Legitimately acquired software can be translated, bugfixed, or adapted (Article 13a)
• Extending length of software copyright from 50 years after the last author's death to 70 years (Article 29)

Compare that with the enacted diff, in French and German. None of the provisions above remains. Some of the notable features of the new law are:

• Provision for using orphaned works (Article 22b)
• Explicit allowance for transitory copies (Article 24a)
• Allowance for making works accessible to disabled persons (Article 24c)

From my cursory reading of the law, I would say that it's all upside and no downside for content consumers.

I would call this a victory, considering that all of the DMCA-like provisions that had been proposed have been stripped out in the end.

Here's the originally proposed diff, in French and German, against the existing Swiss Copyright Law of 1992. Some of the notable changes would have been:

• Reverse engineering is allowed only for creating interoperable software (Article 21)
• Outlawing circumvention of copy protection (Article 70a), even for the purpose of sharing the content with friends/family (Article 19, Paragraph 4)
• Legitimately acquired software can be translated, bugfixed, or adapted (Article 13a)
• Extending length of software copyright from 50 years after the last author's death to 70 years (Article 29)

Compare that with the enacted diff, in French and German. None of the provisions above remains. Some of the notable features of the new law are:

• Provision for using orphaned works (Article 22b)
• Explicit allowance for transitory copies (Article 24a)
• Allowance for making works accessible to disabled persons (Article 24c)

From my cursory reading of the law, I would say that it's all upside and no downside for content consumers.

I would call this a victory, considering that all of the DMCA-like provisions that had been proposed have been stripped out in the end.

Here's the originally proposed diff, in French and German, against the existing Swiss Copyright Law of 1992. Some of the notable changes would have been:

• Reverse engineering is allowed only for creating interoperable software (Article 21)
• Outlawing circumvention of copy protection (Article 70a), even for the purpose of sharing the content with friends/family (Article 19, Paragraph 4)
• Legitimately acquired software can be translated, bugfixed, or adapted (Article 13a)
• Extending length of software copyright from 50 years after the last author's death to 70 years (Article 29)

Compare that with the enacted diff, in French and German. None of the provisions above remains. Some of the notable features of the new law are:

• Provision for using orphaned works (Article 22b)
• Explicit allowance for transitory copies (Article 24a)
• Allowance for making works accessible to disabled persons (Article 24c)

From my cursory reading of the law, I would say that it's all upside and no downside for content consumers.

SUISA (similar to RIAA?) gets all the money and forwards it to the artist according to their revenues from concerts, sold songs/LPs, etc.

-->
SR 231.1
Art. 49 Verteilung des Verwertungserlöses

1 Die Verwertungsgesellschaften müssen den Verwertungserlös nach Massgabe des Ertrags der einzelnen Werke und Darbietungen verteilen. Sie haben zur Feststellung der Berechtigten alle ihnen zumutbaren Anstrengungen zu unternehmen.

2 Ist diese Verteilung mit einem unzumutbaren Aufwand verbunden, so dürfen die Verwertungsgesellschaften das Ausmass des Ertrags schätzen; die Schätzungen müssen auf überprüfbaren und sachgerechten Gesichtspunkten beruhen.

3 Der Erlös soll zwischen den ursprünglichen Rechtsinhabern und -inhaberinnen und andern Berechtigten so aufgeteilt werden, dass den Urhebern und Urheberinnen und den ausübenden Künstlern und Künstlerinnen in der Regel ein angemessener Anteil verbleibt. Eine andere Verteilung ist zulässig, wenn der Aufwand unzumutbar wäre.

4 Das Verteilungsreglement hebt vertragliche Abmachungen der ursprünglichen Rechtsinhaber und -inhaberinnen mit Dritten nicht auf.

Source:
German
French
Italian
no English version available. sorry.

SUISA (similar to RIAA?) gets all the money and forwards it to the artist according to their revenues from concerts, sold songs/LPs, etc.

-->
SR 231.1
Art. 49 Verteilung des Verwertungserlöses

1 Die Verwertungsgesellschaften müssen den Verwertungserlös nach Massgabe des Ertrags der einzelnen Werke und Darbietungen verteilen. Sie haben zur Feststellung der Berechtigten alle ihnen zumutbaren Anstrengungen zu unternehmen.

2 Ist diese Verteilung mit einem unzumutbaren Aufwand verbunden, so dürfen die Verwertungsgesellschaften das Ausmass des Ertrags schätzen; die Schätzungen müssen auf überprüfbaren und sachgerechten Gesichtspunkten beruhen.

3 Der Erlös soll zwischen den ursprünglichen Rechtsinhabern und -inhaberinnen und andern Berechtigten so aufgeteilt werden, dass den Urhebern und Urheberinnen und den ausübenden Künstlern und Künstlerinnen in der Regel ein angemessener Anteil verbleibt. Eine andere Verteilung ist zulässig, wenn der Aufwand unzumutbar wäre.

4 Das Verteilungsreglement hebt vertragliche Abmachungen der ursprünglichen Rechtsinhaber und -inhaberinnen mit Dritten nicht auf.

Source:
German
French
Italian
no English version available. sorry.

SUISA (similar to RIAA?) gets all the money and forwards it to the artist according to their revenues from concerts, sold songs/LPs, etc.

-->
SR 231.1
Art. 49 Verteilung des Verwertungserlöses

1 Die Verwertungsgesellschaften müssen den Verwertungserlös nach Massgabe des Ertrags der einzelnen Werke und Darbietungen verteilen. Sie haben zur Feststellung der Berechtigten alle ihnen zumutbaren Anstrengungen zu unternehmen.

2 Ist diese Verteilung mit einem unzumutbaren Aufwand verbunden, so dürfen die Verwertungsgesellschaften das Ausmass des Ertrags schätzen; die Schätzungen müssen auf überprüfbaren und sachgerechten Gesichtspunkten beruhen.

3 Der Erlös soll zwischen den ursprünglichen Rechtsinhabern und -inhaberinnen und andern Berechtigten so aufgeteilt werden, dass den Urhebern und Urheberinnen und den ausübenden Künstlern und Künstlerinnen in der Regel ein angemessener Anteil verbleibt. Eine andere Verteilung ist zulässig, wenn der Aufwand unzumutbar wäre.

4 Das Verteilungsreglement hebt vertragliche Abmachungen der ursprünglichen Rechtsinhaber und -inhaberinnen mit Dritten nicht auf.

Source:
German
French
Italian
no English version available. sorry.

Switzerland (i also stated this in my original post).

Iam from the german speaking part of switzerland, and the german term for rape is "Vergewaltigung".

While women can be charged for "Sexuelle Nötigung" (sexual coercion, i hope this is the correct translation, see http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&search=n% F6tigung), which has the same upper limit for a punishment (but not the same lower limit ) as rape, they can't be charged for rape itself.

Here's the original text, right from the law:

Vergewaltigung:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/311_0/a190.html

Now, as i researched this some more, i seen that i made a small, but important mistake.

Vergewaltigung

Wer eine Person weiblichen Geschlechts zur Duldung des Beischlafs nötigt, namentlich indem er sie bedroht, Gewalt anwendet, sie unter psychischen Druck setzt oder zum Widerstand unfähig macht, wird mit Zuchthaus bis zu zehn Jahren bestraft.

My very rought translation, since it's "law german":
Whoever makes a female person to have vaginal intercourse with them, by forcing them through either physical or psychological measures, are makes them unable to resist (through drugs, methinks), will be put into jail for up to then years.

The important difference is the following. A woman CAN rape another woman according to law, but according to law, men can't be raped.

Sexuelle Nötigung:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/311_0/a189.html

So.. Hope this clears things up.

Switzerland (i also stated this in my original post).

Iam from the german speaking part of switzerland, and the german term for rape is "Vergewaltigung".

While women can be charged for "Sexuelle Nötigung" (sexual coercion, i hope this is the correct translation, see http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&search=n% F6tigung), which has the same upper limit for a punishment (but not the same lower limit ) as rape, they can't be charged for rape itself.

Here's the original text, right from the law:

Vergewaltigung:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/311_0/a190.html

Now, as i researched this some more, i seen that i made a small, but important mistake.

Vergewaltigung

Wer eine Person weiblichen Geschlechts zur Duldung des Beischlafs nötigt, namentlich indem er sie bedroht, Gewalt anwendet, sie unter psychischen Druck setzt oder zum Widerstand unfähig macht, wird mit Zuchthaus bis zu zehn Jahren bestraft.

My very rought translation, since it's "law german":
Whoever makes a female person to have vaginal intercourse with them, by forcing them through either physical or psychological measures, are makes them unable to resist (through drugs, methinks), will be put into jail for up to then years.

The important difference is the following. A woman CAN rape another woman according to law, but according to law, men can't be raped.

Sexuelle Nötigung:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/311_0/a189.html

So.. Hope this clears things up.

Yes, I'm sure the French PM is bombarded with people waving petitions holding over 160,000 signatures every minute of every day.

Of course in some countries you can force a general referendum, on any issue, if you can collect signatures amounting to 2.76% of the population. Unfortunately RMS only got 2.59% of the French population ...

Causes
The accident is attributable to a collision with the ground, after the flight crew had lost control
of the aircraft for the following reasons:

• The flight crew reacted inappropriately to the change in departure clearance SID ZUE 1Y
  by ATC.
  
• The co-pilot made an entry in the FMS, without being instructed to do so by the commander,
  which related to the change to the SID ZUE 1 standard instrument departure. In
  doing so, he omitted to select a turn direction.
  
• The commander dispensed with use of the autopilot under instrument flight conditions and
  during the work-intensive climb phase of the flight.
  
• The commander took the aircraft into a spiral dive to the right because, with a probability
  bordering on certainty, he had lost spatial orientation.
  
• The first officer took only inadequate measures to prevent or recover from the spiral dive.

The Swiss do have quite a large army, all things considered. All Swiss men are weekend warriors... that's why Hitler didn't invade.

Yeah. Everyone quakes in fear of the Territorial Army, and the National Guard. The friendliness of the Swiss government had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Their Navy is based in Italy

They don't have have a navy.

They do have a "stable" 10 percent unemployment rate, If the US measured unemployment using the same method that Germany and France uses, the US unemployment would be about 9-11% right now. US does not count people for whom unemployment benefits have expired.

france, and most of the eu measures unemployment like the us- those actively looking for a job. but perhaps you'd like to use total employment rates instead? total employment in the us is about 74%, versus 64% in europe. france is right in line with most of the eu.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/intern ational/laenderportraets/france/blank/kennzahlen.h tml
http://www.unece.org/press/execsec/2003/bs031203.h tm