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Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

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Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#281

Post by mafribe »

svara wrote: post #271
valenterry wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hire a tax advisor and accountant through a payroll And this is exactly how you kill off lots of innovation by adding unnecessary hurdles. Tax advisors are Hella expensive and hard to contract even. I'm speaking from experience.

No offense but if that's what kills your entrepreneurial spirit it doesn't sound like it would've carried you very far. It's really not that hard if you want it. You'll need it sooner or later anyway if you want to be more than a one man show. Like I said, you'll be facing a lot of substantially greater challenges.

One might decide to act out one's entrepreneurial spirit in a different country ...

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#282

Post by slt2021 »

bcye wrote: post #275
slt2021 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you need an idea in order to mobilize the energy of the population. German passionary patriotism has been artificially subverted and shut down, and the nation instead has been flooded with non-Germanic elements, thus completely destroying the very definition of German. Ask any German on the street, and nobody will be able to answer: What defines being a German, who are the Germans, what is their history, and what awa…

> German passionary patriotism has been artificially subverted and shut down, and the nation instead has been flooded with non-Germanic elements, thus completely destroying the very definition of German. > Ask any German on the street, and nobody will be able to answer: What defines being a German, who are the Germans, what is their history, and what awaits German people in the future. I don't think so, you will meet…

Are you seriously claiming that Döner is a German culture???? Not schnitzel, not bratwurts, but doner??

Your post highlights all the problems with modern Germany

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#283

Post by xxmarkuski »

Archelaos wrote: post #238
xxmarkuski wrote: post #212

I agree that merging the technology division from the ministry of economic affairs (BMWK) to the new research ministry is a good step as both ministries have been large providers of funding. The BMBF funds DFG, as well as the large science organizations in Germany (Fhg, Mpg, ...), the BMWK has funded research which is closer to applications, of course looking to enable economic activity. I'm unsure why the ministry g…

> I'm also not yet sure what to think about splitting education and research. It goes against the Humboldtian Ideal, especially in the universitys both topics are connected. According to the German constitution (Grundgesetz), schools and universities are (mainly) the responsibility of the individual German states, not the federal government.[1] (A hybrid is the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology that has a university…

Thank you for the background explanation and the link. KIT is actually my Alma Mater (cs). You are right the overlap is not that large. I was thinking about the WissZeitVG, Exzellenzstrategie, Tenure-Track-Program. As for the Länder, I personally think the transition between the Abitur and university could benefit from stronger collaboration between the involved ministries. For example by better aligning the educational goals of high school to the demands of universities and by integrating education research into schools. By this I mean the continuous application of the results of educational research to schools and the constant monitoring of schools.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#284

Post by sva_ »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #138
sva_ wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their dual education system creates exceptional technical competence without requiring college degrees. Unless you do your Ausbildung in a job where you can learn mostly all the skills within a couple months, after which you'll just be shamelessly exploited by your employer for the remaining duration of it. > Germans enjoy comprehensive public transportation infrastructure, Yeah, our train systems are pretty cool (…

> Have you tried renting in any bigger city in the past 10 or so years? I am German myself and I get where you're coming from, but there are worlds between German rent prices and American or even London, Amsterdam or Dublin rent prices.

I'm not sure about that. 2 bedroom apartment in Munich for ~1500 euro on maybe a 75k eur salary vs ~4000 usd in SF on a 180k usd salary. They're pretty similar numbers, relatively.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#285

Post by pasabagi »

shermantanktop wrote: post #72
pasabagi wrote: post #36

I actually think Germany would be really good at digital infrastructure if they stopped being afraid of friend computer. Germany is immensely proud of its history of creating standards - there's literally a place in berlin called DIN Platz. Germany is also very proud, and rightly so, in its history of mathematical innovation. Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a w…

> Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a well designed algorithm You must be hanging out in a different part of the computer world. What I see is that most standards reflect evolved systems, and those standards usually have many amendments. Most algorithms are generation descendants of broken predecessors. I love hearing about a singular talent coming up with someth…

So, I agree that good standards and (to a lesser extent) algorithms come out of practice.

However, the basic point about a standard is not that it's perfect: it's a coordination mechanism. Companies go bust all the time, technology changes all the time, but if you have standard components, large parts of complex systems can be maintained indefinitely. Like, I have a rolling press that was made in 1840, and I can still replace the bolts for it, because the standard thread gauge has not changed.

I guess the nice thing about both algorithms and standards are they are the two places where the software world is not just burning people's lives on relentlessly reinventing the wheel. If you contribute even a fraction to the study of an algorithm, your work will be part of software in a thousand years. If you contribute to a standard, you are producing the conditions for a thousand other programs. Both of these things are basically common goods, and they help everyone. I think a culture of programming where it's less about founding the next over-capitalized unicorn, and more about creating a mutually supportive ecosystem, would produce very good software.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#286

Post by svara »

mafribe wrote: post #281
svara wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but if that's what kills your entrepreneurial spirit it doesn't sound like it would've carried you very far. It's really not that hard if you want it. You'll need it sooner or later anyway if you want to be more than a one man show. Like I said, you'll be facing a lot of substantially greater challenges.

One might decide to act out one's entrepreneurial spirit in a different country ...

Sure, but if that's your reason to do that you're not being reasonable.

The point is that relative to everything else you need to get right to build a successful company in any country, taxes, payroll and accounting in Germany frankly don't even register.

Like I said, it's 1-2 days out of a year for me.

If that seems like a big hurdle, it wasn't the reason you didn't build a business.

There are challenges with building a business that are specific to Germany that actually matter.

By contrast, the concerns about bureaucracy are a tired stereotype. There's a grain of truth to them, but if they really pose a challenge to you, you didn't want to do this in the first place.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#287

Post by rad_gruchalski »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #189
pasabagi wrote: post #36

I actually think Germany would be really good at digital infrastructure if they stopped being afraid of friend computer. Germany is immensely proud of its history of creating standards - there's literally a place in berlin called DIN Platz. Germany is also very proud, and rightly so, in its history of mathematical innovation. Everything that isn't dross in the computer world is either a well designed standard, or a w…

There are two common standards for documents: PDF and HTML. The german government mostly uses PDFs and should move to HTML.

The point of PDF is document representation. It looks the same. This allows the government to assume an act of forgery when a non-governmental org attempts presenting documents looking like government documents. You can't do that with HTML. PDF with text source sounds perfect.

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#288

Post by rad_gruchalski »

KurSix wrote: post #216
submeta wrote: post #10

Many German companies want „Digitalisierung“, workflow automation, process improvements, they want to use AI, LLMs, but when it comes to implementing all of that, they are drowning in bureaucracy. What Germans can do is create layers of bureaucracy.

To be fair though, once they do get through all those layers, the end result is often incredibly well-structured and precise

Yes. But also "flexible like a closet", "well, but this is how we always did things around here".

Re: Germany creates 'super–high-tech ministry' for research, technology, aerospace

#289

Post by pmags »

whilo wrote: post #158
Barrin92 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Software in Germany is built to achieve a means to an end. It is never the end goal itself. Well, that's how it should be, I don't write software to worship any software deities, I use it to get a job done. If you don't you end up with that 700 dollar useless gadget that was basically a python API wrapper in a box that everyone rightfully made fun of. We can do a lot of things better in software in Germany but treat…

As a German coming from Mannheim, and now living on the Canadian West coast, I have to say that this is exactly the mindset that makes it so difficult to innovate in Germany. While people have a top education and know everything they need to, they don't have a "digital mindset". I think of myself now as computing process, and see myself as a cyberneticist in the German philosophical tradition of Hegel, Marx, Hilbert,…

I'm not German and have only made a couple of short visits to Germany, so I have no basis on which to judge your statement that Germans don't have a digital mindset.

But if that is indeed true, I find it equally interesting the Germany has been an important center for the development of electronic music. Berlin in particular is "arguably the world capital of underground electronic music" (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/arts/music/women-djs-berl...)

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