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Commented on A Wonky Experience
Ah yes, but you're talking about where people should put the umlauted letter, not where they actually put it in a nominally alphabetised list....
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Commented on A Wonky Experience
In German there's always the fun question of whether you sort the letters with umlauts with the "base" letter (e.g., ä with a), or after the z in the alphabet. Ditto questions about where to sort the ß. And there...
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Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
Some of them have tried it and not liked it. I have vivid memories of going to a wedding once and other people at the table complaining about the vegetables not being cooked enough - to my taste they were...
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Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
I should add for context: we were both in Germany at a time when they had conscription (alternatively community service) for men, and no war on the horizon. The latter in particular affects all calculations....
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Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
Should they [women] have to register for the draft just like men do? I pretty much fall on the side of "Sure, why not?" Equal rights, equal obligations I was discussing this with a friend some years back; her take...
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Commented on The coming storm
The doughnut in Berlin is called 'Pfannkuchen'. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Pfannkuchen has images, including this one: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Pfannkuchen#/media/Datei:Berliner-Pfannkuchen.jpg...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
Debbie New knitted a coracle (a type of boat, which I gather is used in Wales, though they usually aren't knitted). There is an image here (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c8/8b/d0/c88bd025eb402fd61aacd70c0e585e21.jpg), and the book she published the instructions in is called 'Unexpected Knitting'....
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Commented on I should blog more, but ...
Often referred to using the shorthand "metric system". I find that a flimsy reason to completely discount an entire book....
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Commented on I should blog more, but ...
Some of you may find 'The Old Measure' by Jon Bosak interesting; there's a free PDF at https://www.academia.edu/57887139/The_Old_Measure and the printed book is available at a number of retailers online. From the blurb: "This book is the first in-depth history...
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Commented on I should blog more, but ...
New Zealand already did it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/04/vaping-and-de-nicotinisation-what-uk-can-learn-from-new-zealands-smoking-crackdown has some remarks about some of the effects, as well as differences in the UK....
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Commented on A fistful of tropes
My thought was that OGH's cat Menhit is named after a war goddess, so this cat character would be more bloodthirsty than the crew expected when she came aboard....
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Commented on A fistful of tropes
I don't know which trope it fits in, nor what plot could make sense, but I'm imagining something written from the point of view of the starship's cat, named Menhit, of course....
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Commented on Pass or Fail
The question I would ask is: what about people who are not interested in those aspects usually associated with the other gender? As an example, when my son was in primary school, one of the boys there was not interested...
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Commented on Pass or Fail
What do people here think of the 'rewilding the Siberian steppe' project, Pleistocene Park? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park I find it interesting, but don't know enough about rewilding in general, and the Siberian steppe in particular. If this is likely to result in...
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Commented on Pass or Fail
One perhaps underappreciated side effect of the ever-hotter bushfires in the state of Victoria, Australia, is losing the temperate forest (including old-growth rainforest) in the southern part of the state. Many Australian plants require fires to germinate, but many are...
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Commented on Pass or Fail
Or in my case, cats. (And no, it's not the litter box, that has a different smell and it's cleaned regularly.)...
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Commented on Pass or Fail
"What women want" = "what people want". To be treated with respect and dignity, usually. Other than that, it depends on the person....
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Commented on Shrinking the world
Bin stealing isn't a thing? Not in this part of town, at least. We've had the bins since 2010 or thereabouts. People do write their house numbers on their bins, usually, but not always. Every house has one for rubbish...
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Commented on Shrinking the world
In Vancouver, Canada, the rates for residential rubbish (garbage) bin collection are a fixed amount per year that depends on how big a bin you have. There are four sizes to choose from. That system seems to work here. We...
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Commented on Shrinking the world
I have known people who needed multiple layers during the day to keep warm when the temperature was around 22 C in Melbourne. They all seemed to come from Queensland....
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Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
Any references for this sort of training would be very welcome. I am not good at spotting these or figuring out ways to deal with them, and figuring out how to cope would be preferable to giving up....
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Commented on Read an Excerpt from Season of Skulls
Apparently the Toronto Public Library in Ontario, Canada, also uses Hoopla. Here in Vancouver the library uses Libby, which I gather does not support as wide a range of media types. I use it for ebooks from the Vancouver Public...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
Then you've done all you can to help them solve their problem. I've had to deal with such people as well in the past; fortunately not in my current position (this being one of the reasons I work where I...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
Do you preface the restatement with the phrase "to make sure I understood correctly"? I've found using a "let me play that back to you to make sure I got it" complete statement helps. Occasionally I toss in a "to...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
And a failure that launched debris over a nearby wildlife reserve, one that gives migratory birds a place to nest. https://futurism.com/wildlife-starship-explosion...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
Apparently it is (or was, the article is several years old) Thailand: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6932801.stm...
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Commented on Crib Sheet: Escape from Yokai Land
Apparently it's Thailand: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6932801.stm...
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Commented on Place your bets
I tried to send my son to dance as a child, but being the only boy in the class was too much for him at that age. He ended up in judo and my daughter took karate....
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Commented on Place your bets
Are you sure that was H5N1 and not H1N1? My records show BC was immunizing people against H1N1 in 2009; I remember going to a local community centre with my son to be vaccinated....
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Commented on An AI app walks into a writers room
Sophisticated EVs use heat pumps for heating (and, I presume) cooling the compartment. There are some numbers in this article: https://www.sae.org/news/2018/11/ev-heat-pumps...