https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/

Probably pdf.js is more secure, as it is more modern than the HTML/js engine, it contains less legacy code, it is written in a higher level language, and they could implement a safer subset of the pdf standard, than they could do with the HTML/js standards.

If not, what would you do? Change bank?

- people who have free time to work on side projects (usually young people have more free time than people with families)

- people who don't mind sharing their code with others

- people who work on interesting side projects. If your side project is boring, that will probably bore your interviewers -> no offer

- people who work on side projects on regular basis. If I get to work on one side project every year, well, chances are I may have forgotten the hell I did on that project (depending when the interview takes place). If I work on side projects constantly, I have no trouble picking up a fresh one to talk about

That's the whole point. Companies would always prefer someone with no responsibility who can be guilted and pressured into doing overtime over someone who can point to actual needs outside of work that they need to attend to. It's a great way of filtering out people who will have boundaries.

This hasn't been my experience at all. The interviewer doesn't care how "interesting" the side project is. What they want to see is what your actual working code is like, that you demonstrate a good grasp of programming concepts, etc.

If the employer does the bg check before handing the offer, that means the candidate hasn't resigned yet from their current job. So wouldn't the bg check expose the candidate? (E.g., my boss would know I'm thinking about leaving)

>>8. End of first week, we occasionally have to let someone go on background issues

Yeah, that's bonkers.

And in that case you do the check before they start with you, yes?

HR at the orgs I've worked for call that a reference check and it is usually concurrent with the other background check processes before the offer. The background check I'm thinking of is more like criminal history, work eligibility status etc., potentially drug screening etc. I know I have no criminal record but I'd really like to know that whatever service HR is using to screen agrees with this before I quit my job.

Here in the EU at most you can ask if they worked there, nothing else.

Want a job or rent a place? Background check, baby!

Not just prior employment but even civil court cases and criminal history are all a part of it, and it doesn't help that even something as small as a traffic ticket shows up on your records.

Have you ever sued a landlord to get your deposit back? There's a good chance your new landlord doesn't want you.

Were you convicted of petty theft years ago? That might cost you your prospective job.

In most of the EU, much of this information isn't public, and in many countries, criminal records are inaccessible.

Often, in the latter, you can get a declaration of “good behavior” from the government if your prospective job has some sensitive elements. The government will then issue one or decline based on the specific job and its risks with your record in mind.

Were you caught committing a DUI? You won't get one for a job as a cab driver, but you can safely get one for working at a bank.

Have you got caught embezzling money? Then you can't get one working at a bank, but you're welcome to become a cab driver.

In the US? Well, you're SOOL. Enjoy being marked for life as your options to get an income legally have significantly shrunk.

Aside from things that may lead to accusations of violating equal opportunity employment laws, you can ask just about anything. Many previous employers won't do more than confirm employment though, as a negative review may open them up to liability. As a result, the norm in many industries is to only ask (and receive) confirmation of employment.

But that signals to their current employer that they’re applying for other jobs. Unlike the EU, employers in the US can be retaliatory about that.

I don't use my smartphone to listen to music because it's too big/heavy (running with it is so uncomfortable).

I started buying CDs in 1985 (and vinyl before that). I guarantee you I have music that isn't on any streaming service so they're mostly of no use to me.

The EU isn't a super-state and EU law isn't applied by some overarching entity. On a technical level, each country ratifies and applies their own laws in their own ways.

Given this, other countries could act on this too, but it's the French regulator who has chosen to do so.

Yes-and-no: the EU Commission serves as the "executive branch" (Americanisms...) of the EU, and while the EU isn't a true federal superstate union yet, but there's enough similarities that the EU Commission probably does 80% of the work it would be doing if the EU were.

While the majority of EU directives are enforced by member states, the EU can enforce itself via several routes (e.g. there is now an EU public prosecution, and the EU parliament can vote to apply sanctions on its own members for non-compliance (e.g. Hungary).

That only prosecutes the misuse of EU funds (and perhaps the EU VAT border regime?) and even then only with cooperation with local prosecutors. In addition, the EU prosecutors are from the participating member states - several EU members are not yet participating.

> EU Commission probably does 80% of the work it would be doing if the EU were.

It's very far from that; notably health-and-safety enforcement is largely in the jurisdiction of members states.

That's not an "Americanism". It's a principle of the separation of powers and I imagine it dates back to the "Europeanianist" Englightenment.

---

It is an Americanism because the term implicitly assumes two things:

1. That the government is split into branches, following how the US system evolved.

2. That executive power must be confined to a single branch, also how the US is organized.

Then, consider that other-countries-that-are-not-the-US do exist, many of those are liberal democracies that arguably function better than the US for various scores - and of those very few (if any?) of those are modelled on the US’ system. While some other countries have a US system but score poorly overall (e.g. Liberia).

It is demonstrable that deep separation between the agents of the government - and the state - is unnecessary for a functioning liberal-democracy today: many countries using the Parliamentary system have an executive cabinet and an executive PM role which, under the US system, is considered part of the legislature - and the US is hardly the best example of “separation” of the judiciary when you consider how explicitly political the judge appointment process is - and the volume of politically-motivated and arbitrary SCOTUS rulings over the past 120+ years.

———

I understand that (non-crackpot) political-scientists would agree that judicial independence alone is far more important to a functioning democracy than a system that constantly pits an executive President against the legislature whenever their political party affiliation differs.

Don’t get me wrong: accountability is of paramount importance; I just want to communicate that having “separate but co-equal branches of government”, “separation of powers” (and other thought-terminating-cliches from middle-school civics class) is both unique to the US - and is demonstrably unnecessary for a functioning liberal democracy.

> 1. That the government is split into branches, following how the US system evolved.

> 2. That executive power must be confined to a single branch, also how the US is organized.

I'm pretty sure these principles are originally French. The American system was built around these principles as well, but calling them American is a whole new level of Americentrism.

Separation of powers into three branches is basically a prerequisite for belonging to the EU, as it is considered a basic requirement for a democracy.

For that matter, the US and France are probably two of the modern democracies that have the least separation between these powers (on paper).

I'll concede that - certainly.

> Separation of powers into three branches is basically a prerequisite for belonging to the EU, as it is considered a basic requirement for a democracy

The EU is concerned more with judicial independence, not constitutional separation-of-powers: most EU countries (and especially its founding and early members) do not have separation strictly along judicial/legislative/executive boundary lines: The UK, Germany, Spain, and others all have an executive parliament; France and the US are in the minority here.

1. Let's not count the UK because it's the earliest democracy, and also is the messiest one (no written Constitution...) and also it's not the earliest or current member of the EU.

2. What exactly is an 'executive parliament'? My understanding is that in parliamentary democracy, the parliament chooses the executive, but the executive powers lie solely with the executive (government), and the parliament in itself does not have any direct executive function. It can only legislate, not execute. Certainly that's the case for Germany and Central European parliamentary systems I know a little bit more of. Might be different in the US but we are talking about the EU now.

Sorry - I was being sloppy and made-up a term that at-the-time made sense to me but I didn't proofread my post...

But I was referring to any parliamentary system where executive power is held by (a subset of) the members of that parliament (i.e. how the PM's cabinet's members are MPs) - basically what Canada and the UK has, for example.

The origin of the principle is literally European, but all right, you have an agenda, have fun :-)

Anything that includes France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, will inevitably drag everyone else one way or another.

Maybe so, but whatever it became wouldn't be the EU and wouldn't include most of the current members states. It's obviously still an impossibility, as there is no appetite in any of those four countries for a federal EU.

There has never been even a hint of a popular federal movement in any of the countries which you mentioned, so I don't think I am.

> EU federalism was born in France and remains strong in the other three countries I mentioned - it might not be a clear majority at the moment, but it's definitely a popular idea among large swaths of the population.

That's a bold claim that I'm sure you'll be able to back up?

Honestly, I think you've allowed your own preferences and wishful thinking to cloud your judgement here.

It depends on your definition of "popular movement", but there have been plenty of popular leaders arguing for federalization, from Briand onwards. Just recently: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/german-...

> a bold claim that I'm sure you'll be able to back up?

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165221101505 - this paper explicitly sets out to find non-federalist views, reporting that 44% hold "traditional" views (federalists and separatists), which would indicate federalism is about 20-25% of the population - that's a "large swath", in my book. And that's pure-federalism; the generic support that can likely be turned is much higher.

I mean, that's just a random source. The news focus on anti-europe trends these days because, for so long, pro-europe ones were the mainstream default.

As I said, you've either blinded yourself or you're intentionally dishonest.

Regardless, the hard core has won because the Euro is now a cornerstone of EU policies, whether the non-EZ countries like it or not. Every project, every accounting in the Union is now done in Euros.

Denmark has a real opt-out. They chose not to adopt in a referendum.

> Most of them have a clear political will to join the eurozone.

No they absolutely don't have that. Even leaving out Sweden and Denmark - it's a toxic political issue in Czechia even though de facto euro is widely used in the business. And while Hungary has currently no chance to fulfill the technical conditions, there is also no political will to join until Orban is in power (and that will be a long time). The ruling party in Poland (PiS) is also explicitly against the euro, as is majority of the population.

> the hard core has won because the Euro is now a cornerstone of EU policies

The Euro won through merit - it just makes sense to use a common currency in the common market.

I know. My sentence was meant to highlight how Sweden is de-facto in a similar position, if not de-jure.

> it's a toxic political issue in Czechia even though de facto euro is widely used in the business.

Translation: it's happening no matter what.

Hungary and Poland are currently suffering from backwards political headwinds. In the past they would have happily joined (but couldn't). But again, like in Chzechia, it's basically happening de-facto no matter what. Once sanity prevails, governments typically find that having multi-currency systems is a headache.

True whatever that means :)

> and EU law isn't applied by some overarching entity.

It is. EU law as a whole is ultimately applied by an entity, the Court of Justice of the European Union. It is overarching, over national courts, over national governments, and over EU bodies.

Then within EU law, you have several branches and distribution of who has authority etc. Primary EU law is the foundational basis (some would say a "constitution" effectively even though the word has been a political minefield) and does provide some "overarching entity" in some areas.

Then within Secondaru EU law, you have regulations, orders, directives, etc. Many regulations and orders have an EU overarching entity, and in many cases the European Commission has a central role.

> On a technical level, each country ratifies and applies their own laws in their own ways.

That is a gross mischaracterisation and overgeneralization of EU Directives.

EU Directives as a general rule* don't have "direct effect" in a Member State. They set a goal agreed at the EU level, and the Member State are bound to implement the means in their national laws to reach the goal. That usually (but not always) means at a national level the adoption of a legal act by national Parliament.

*as a general rule because as always there are exceptions.

The other countries radio regulation agencies have either not made the same measures, not measured the iPhone emissions at all, or have not yet decided what they were going to do.

- EU ratification - national implementation - national enforcement

The ratification is typically accompanied by an implementation deadline (usually in years) so there'll be cases of some countries following EU regs earlier than others.

Finally there's enforcement which is entirely in the hands of nation states pretty much - just because something is written in statute doesn't necessarily always translate to actual action.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37492752#37495753

- my contract says the place of work is city X

- they don't have an office in city X

- they cannot unilaterally change the contract (Europe)

They asked me if I would be willing to relocate to a city in which they have an office. I declined. I'm still working from home. The company is big, so they don't care much about isolated cases like mine.

First time I read the whole book, it was an annotated edition with lots of footnotes, explaining all the differences. I was hating the experience. Solution? I stopped reading the footnotes.

After some time, I got much more engaged in the story and got the occasional arcaism right from the context.

The "bad translation" must have been Borges identifying old Spanish as a broken, not idiomatic modern Spanish.

One of my textbooks in high school had a translation of Shakespeare into modern English, alongside the original text in both original and modernized spellings, with glossary and cultural notes. I'm not sure I'd have understood even it half as well without those.

This is dependent on the perception of the source language: For example, Beowulf is often translated into Modern English, even though it is (officially) written in English itself, but even the worst prig will admit that Old English isn't comprehensible to a modern reader who hasn't explicitly learned it as a foreign language.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, is almost never translated, even though his poetic Early Modern English is so distant from our own that Juliet's famous "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" is often performed with Juliet looking for Romeo from her perspective on the balcony. Translating Shakespeare would be admitting defeat, I daresay, so the prigs allow footnotes and no more.

Is Chaucer translated these days? Have the prigs ceded at least that much?

That said, there's No Fear Shakespeare and (probably) some other works aimed at students, which do essay an actual translation:

https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/hamlet/act-1-s...

(Now there is at least one Spanish edition with a plain language translation as well, edited by Blackie Books, which as a layman in these things I have found enjoyable).

By the way, this happens also with original literature (I mean, not translations). I find most Spanish literature rather pedantic, there tends to be a huge focus on form over content, using the richest vocabulary, the longest sentences, the most complex subordinates, the most subtle nuances, spending 4 pages on describing the movement of a leaf with the wind, etc. while in English literature actual stuff happens and is told in a nice but practical way. As a native Spanish speaker, I read much more Anglo-Saxon literature than Hispanic one, although I guess it's all a matter of taste, of course.

(PS, since the post talks about Borges: he's an exception. He sounds like an Anglo-Saxon writer writing in Spanish).

This is a common theme in Romance language writing, but it's especially so in Spanish. Lots of elliptical sentences longer than most paragraphs in English, requiring extensive effort to parse. Lots of flowery language. A bit of a word game, but usually just dreadful.

> (PS, since the post talks about Borges: he's an exception. He sounds like an Anglo-Saxon writer writing in Spanish).

He learned to read English before Spanish while living in Switzerland as a child. In a way he very much was an English language author writing in Spanish. The result is that his writing is very accessible in the original Spanish and very translatable to English, and his writings have a very unique flavor.

That’s an overly broad generalisation.

I can give you a ton of English novels spending pages after pages describing the movement of a leaf in the wind in rather florid language. It’s much more likely that you have been mostly exposed to a lot of old and rather serious novels during your education in Spanish are now mostly consuming novels you find entertaining in English.

It’s the same with the Odyssey which let’s not forget is originally written in ancien Greek verses. The epic has been translated hundreds of times with vastly different goals. Even in the same language, some translations aim to capture the poesy of the original either in its rythme or in its evocative power, some try to stay as close as possible to the Greek text, some just want to be easy to understand.