MandieD

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331.
by MandieD 3y ago
My grandparents rented half of a duplex in University Park instead of buying a house in an otherwise nice Dallas neighborhood in the 50s in order to send my mother and aunt to Highland Park schools when they first moved from Lubbock, on the
332.
by MandieD 3y ago
If you’re into digital stuff on HF like I am, 20 and 40 are particularly crowded, but I’ll agree that most of the VHF and UHF repeaters in Germany aren’t heavily used.
333.
by MandieD 3y ago
The panels were spaced out enough that light was hitting part of the grass, and would probably hit all or most of it throughout the day
334.
by MandieD 3y ago
Some of us work for big companies that still basically make what they did 50-70 years ago, just faster and better now, with the help of computers and data science.
335.
by MandieD 3y ago
I saw a bunch of cows hanging out in the shade, munching grass under spaced-out solar panels on a 27 C (80 F) day in southern Bavaria - seems to work.
336.
by MandieD 3y ago
One of the few durable consumer goods that is a lot cheaper in Germany: a new 60cm (24”) Bosch induction range is about 800 EUR. 80cm ones are also available, but I wasn’t looking at them, as 60cm works better with our existing kitchen, tho
337.
by MandieD 3y ago
It's absolutely essential and irreplaceable for the web archive, and that's why I was pretty angry that you guys decided to pick a fight with the big publishers over "loaning" ebooks that could have gotten the whole site
338.
by MandieD 3y ago
It’s called “comfort noise,” and was an option in Lync/Skype for Business. A lot of users being switched from desk phones, especially older ones who still primarily used landlines at home, found themselves wondering if their conversati
339.
by MandieD 3y ago
Looks like most everyone got a lot of inconvenience due to the inefficiencies due to a bunch of stupid phone calls, with a lot of money being made by a few jerks, largely at the expense of senior citizens who weren't prepared to deal w
340.
by MandieD 3y ago
TIL... despite nearly two decades here! I knew it was illegal for businesses to use contact information you gave them for some other reason to later market to you without your permission (especially after GDPR went into effect), but not tha
341.
by MandieD 3y ago
Any recommendations for my personal use? I have no control over the one at work, and am pretty ok with that.
342.
by MandieD 3y ago
Ironic pop-up chat window: "Welcome <<wavy-hand emoji>> Thank you for being a Cofense customer. We <<heart emoji>> working with you and your team at Allianz. How can we help you today?" I do not work at All
343.
by MandieD 3y ago
Emergency rooms in cities like Frankfurt often have a table of basic fees for visitors without German/EU health insurance.
344.
by MandieD 3y ago
Bless you for mentioning that ZScaler doesn’t play nice with IPv6 - this gives me another possible cause for why a certain MSFT distributed app sometimes, but not always, installs on our users’ PCs when ZScaler is enabled, but works with it
345.
by MandieD 3y ago
Posted in 2013, but still current.
346.
by MandieD 3y ago
Kid stuff is a lot bulkier in the US, from what I’ve seen. We fit into a Ford Focus station wagon what my sister-in-law in Texas perceived herself to need a Tahoe for (instead of her “little” Mazda CX-5). Our neighbors with two kids tend to
347.
by MandieD 3y ago
Oh, glad to hear that - my nearly-three year old is obsessed with the Alpha Blocks right now, and we saw the Alpha Blocks meet Number Blocks episode a few days ago.
348.
by MandieD 3y ago
“you can haul around your junk without thinking or planning” A lack of thinking and planning seems to be the root cause of most of the world’s problems. It’s not active malice - it’s just thoughtlessness in the service of convenience and co
349.
by MandieD 3y ago
So I was childless (not completely by choice) until the “happy accident” came along at 40. Part of it was waiting until we bought a house, because I’m Texan enough to have internalized that responsible people don’t have children before they
350.
by MandieD 3y ago
Thank you! “Why on Earth wouldn’t an educated adult want to be pressured out of her interesting job and back into complete dependence as soon as she has a child? Must be the mobile apps, not that taste of freedom they’ve had…” A year of (mo
351.
by MandieD 3y ago
Maybe do things that take the pressure off fathers to be sole providers? What the Nordics in general do well, and Germany does ok, is preserve the ability of mothers to have careers, thus making motherhood a bit less of a drastic decision (
352.
by MandieD 3y ago
College education at US community colleges can be had for sort of cheap: you still have tuition in the $1000-2000 range per semester, as well as living costs. Example: Austin Community College, where a local resident (but not all Texans!)
353.
by MandieD 3y ago
That's really clever, and I think would also make things like Advent of Code still fun in the post-ChatGPT world.
354.
by MandieD 3y ago
One of the most common exchanges I heard growing up in north Central Texas: "What kind of coke do you want?" "Dr. Pepper"
355.
by MandieD 3y ago
Or we’d return to the meat/travel consumption patterns of the early 20th century: trans-Atlantic trips being a once-in-a-lifetime thing or once-every-few-years for the well-off, and the Sunday roast/chicken being the highlight mea
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by MandieD 3y ago
A CD makes a good template for this cone, and cereal boxes are just the right weight/flexibility.
357.
by MandieD 3y ago
I’ve sometimes had to go to multiple pharmacies over the last few years to fill various “common” prescriptions in Germany, and even once accepted a different drug at a pharmacist’s suggestion - German pharmacists have a lot of discretion. I
358.
by MandieD 3y ago
In Germany, it's all about Abitur results: comprehensive exams and portfolio of work in a few subjects you've chosen to focus on, and really only for a few high-demand majors like medicine or law (everywhere) and computer science
359.
by MandieD 3y ago
Anecdata from northern Bavaria: we’ve lived in our current house since 2016, and have yet to regret not prepaying plowing service - it simply hasn’t put down more than a few cm at a time without it soon being warm enough to melt away. I’ve
360.
by MandieD 3y ago
Elevated/buried pedestrian walkways make walking harder for a lot of people. A wheelchair-accessible ramp that goes up 12 feet is going to add at least 100 feet more distance up and down - and still be painful for a lot of people with

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