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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • Yes, the 2.3% increase is the inflation rate for July 2024 versus 2023. Regarding the “how is it measured”: This is an interesting topic.

    Typically, inflation is measured by tracking a consumer price index (CPI) over time, which is a weighted average of prices for a wide selection of consumer goods (i.e., a typical “market basket”) and other living expenses (e.g., rent). The weights are computed on the basis of surveys, and the prices are tracked in a decentralized manner by market watchers (both online and in stores). The German federal statistics agency has a documentation for their weighting method here. They also provide a tool for computing a personalized inflation rate that is adjusted to someone’s individual consumer behavior.

    One interesting part about rent is that it typically reduces estimated inflation rates when they receive a large weight in the computation, because large rent increases happen only when people move to a new apartment (which happens relatively rarely, so the impact of rent increases on yearly inflation is often relatively low). There are also other indices that use different weights and track different goods and services, so the inflation rate will be different for those.






  • I’m not sure that’s what the criticism is about. The law references ego-dystonic sexual orientation as one of the “mental illnesses” it covers. From Wikipedia (edits mine):

    Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is a highly controversial mental health diagnosis that was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) from 1980 to 1987 and in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) from 1990 to 2019. Individuals could be diagnosed with ego-dystonic sexual orientation if their sexual orientation or attractions were at odds with their idealized self-image. It describes a conflict between the sexual orientation a person wishes to have and their actual sexual orientation.

    The addition constituted a political compromise between those who believed that homosexuality was a pathological condition and those who believed it was a normal variant of sexuality. Under pressure from mounting scientific evidence that the desire to be heterosexual is a common phase in a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person’s identity development rather than a mental illness, the diagnosis was removed. Leading up to the ICD-11, a WHO-appointed working group recommended its deletion, due to a lack of clinical utility and the potential for negative consequences. The ICD-11 does not include any diagnostic categories that can be applied to people on the basis of sexual orientation, bringing the ICD in line with the DSM-5.

    The current manuals for mental disorders (ICD-11, DSM-5) already include diagnostic categories that can be used as a basis for providing healthcare to LGBTIQ+ people (e g., gender dysphoria). The criticism of the Peruvian law is that it is based on outdated categories that regard the actual sexual identities and orientations as a whole as “mental illnesses” (rather than the affective and emotional issues that LGBTIQ+ are vulnerable to), which has no clinical value and is extremely prone to being used to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people.





  • In his complaint, Lau argued it is discriminatory to keep artwork, like that of the Picasso painting displayed exclusively in the Ladies Lounge, away from he and other men who pay to enter the museum. (…) He’s asked for an apology from the museum and for men to either be allowed into the lounge or permitted to pay a discounted ticket price for the museum.

    Kaechele and lawyers for the MONA rebutted by saying the exclusion of men is the point of the Ladies Lounge exhibit. “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” Kaechele told the Guardian. “OK, they experience the artwork differently than women, but men are certainly experiencing the artwork as it’s intended.”

    This is going to be much trickier than it seems based only on the headline. Both anti-discrimination laws and the freedom of art are very fundamental rights, and a decision that weighs these against each other will not be easy to reach (at least I would think so). Curious to see how this lands, although I expect that the museum will come out on top, because the disadvantage that this special exhibit poses to the man (the museum would even argue there is none) is probably not big or permanent enough to justify a restriction on the freedom of art as big as this would entail (and I guess the museum probably discussed this with their lawyer beforehand).