Berlin Key • Hacker News Board

Re: Berlin Key

#151

Post by esrauch » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #36

esrauch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Switzerland one thing that has consistently surprised me is the difference in fire safety rules: not having any smoke alarm or fire extinguishers in homes is common, and it's also common to be able to lock people inside rooms/apartments/buildings so that they can't leave without having a key. It's possible to lock someone in my apartment even if they have the key if the door is locked with th…

I grew up in Austria and live in Germany (so two neighbouring countries to Switzerland) and here it is mandatory to have at least smoke alarms. Fire extinguishers are mostly only needed for public buildings and server rooms and such. Germans especially take their "Brandschutz" very seriously especially regarding emergency exits etc. However in the end you are responsible for your own safety. If you are in a room with…

> Locking people in is a bad idea regardless of situation (and I am pretty sure it is illegal to do so against their will)

As an American I still find it weird that it is even possible to lock someone in: anyone I've asked has had stories about young kids locking themselves or their parents in or out of a room with no easy way to fix the situation (resulting in things like balcony jumping). I don't see the benefit in designing things that way.

Re: Berlin Key

#152

Post by modriano » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 3:52 AM UTC

ISL wrote: post #84

modriano wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on this data, the fire death rate in the US is 1.16 per 100k pop. and the rate in Switzerland is 0.28 per 100k pop. Percentage wise, that's a big difference, but that's only because both of these numbers are extremely small. I don't think it's really accurate to say you're much more likely to die in a fire in the USA; it's extremely rare in both countries.

1.16/0.28 is a big difference. If Switzerland had the US rate, ~75 more people would die every year. If the US had the Swiss rate, ~2800 people would live to see another year.

I know the US (330 mil. pop.) is a much larger country than Switzerland (8 mil. pop.). You also could have said: "The cost of improving the Swiss housing and infrastructure to reduce the mortality rate due to fire would be a miniscule fraction of what it would be in the US". You have to normalize to look at these things, and you also have to look at the bigger picture, or you could totally mislead yourself.

Put in normalized terms,

- 0.00028% of the Swiss pop. dies from fire annually

- 0.00116% of the US pop. dies from fire annually

- 0.001% of the US pop. dies from drowning annually

- 0.001% of the US pop. dies from exposure to mechanical force annually

- 0.006% of the US pop. dies from gunshot annually

- 0.01% of the US pop. dies from falling annually

- 0.015% of the US pop. dies from road injuries annually

- 0.03% of the US pop. dies from respiratory illness annually

Here's [0] a visualization I made of causes of mortality a few years back. Play around with this a little bit; it's pretty interesting looking at actual mortality rates.

[0] http://bl.ocks.org/MattTriano/raw/154e9c142504d61985e2b65287...

Re: Berlin Key

#153

Post by dx034 » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 11:39 AM UTC

Jnr wrote: post #70

esrauch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American living in Switzerland one thing that has consistently surprised me is the difference in fire safety rules: not having any smoke alarm or fire extinguishers in homes is common, and it's also common to be able to lock people inside rooms/apartments/buildings so that they can't leave without having a key. It's possible to lock someone in my apartment even if they have the key if the door is locked with th…

I guess it could still depend on country, but in EU smoke alarms are mandatory. No one checks it for individuals though.

Are they checked for individuals in the US? The only time this would be verified is after construction which is when they'll also be checked in the EU.