MandieD

18 ms·

211.
by MandieD 3y ago
More like a constellation of gig workers suckered into being franchisees required to lease their equipment from the company that owns the brand, with the terms of the lease being unilaterally changed by said company. Or the reality of most
212.
by MandieD 3y ago
If you’re in Central Texas, one of my high school friends and her husband run The Beltonian in Belton (shocking), a beautiful single-screen theatre built in 1922, renovated to have about 140 modern seats with tables, featuring various class
213.
by MandieD 3y ago
If you dearly love that 5 (now 6) dollar daily coffee, I’m not going to say you’re wasteful. You’ve just decided that that coffee really is worth $18,000/decade (or perpetual $45k) instead of spending about $2,000/decade (or perpe
214.
by MandieD 3y ago
And that’s about what we do - I love to cook, and grocery shopping is kind of fun, especially when I spot a particularly good-looking steak. I end up spending about 500 EUR/mo on groceries for my family of 3, and at least 100 of that i
215.
by MandieD 3y ago
If I get used to it and would be unhappy if I weren't able to maintain that habit: yes, and that's a small part of why we don't go out to eat on a regular basis - the larger parts being that most restaurant food is remarkably
216.
by MandieD 3y ago
How I try to approach any new subscription or habit: what would it cost (within an order of magnitude) to fund this expense for the rest of my life - how much would I need in savings to keep this up? I multiply annual amount by 25, any mont
217.
by MandieD 3y ago
Reaffirms my determination to avoid all those cute custom, AI-generated stories services for my little kid, and to be very careful about other superficially child-safe media. He’s at a point where he’s latching on to phrases and repeating t
218.
by MandieD 3y ago
I used “Sie” with my now mother- and father-in-law until the first time I visited them after we got engaged and my mother-in-law brought out a bottle of sparkling wine and asked if we could be on “du” terms. That was when I started using th
219.
by MandieD 3y ago
Second reverse card: I can buy a giant bottle of Tylenol (acetaminophen/paracetamol) in any grocery store in the US, right off the shelf, using self-checkout. In Germany, I can only buy it in 10-20 tablet packets at a pharmacy, and onl
220.
by MandieD 3y ago
Removing a negligent driver’s license turns their next speeding ticket or red light camera into driving on a suspended or revoked license, which in some places carries the possibility of jail time.
221.
by MandieD 3y ago
Deterrence: it would make a lot of inattentive drivers take driving a bit more seriously if jail time could be the result of irresponsibility behind the wheel. Or give those who negligently kill with their cars a choice: serve the jail time
222.
by MandieD 3y ago
Pages for women scientists have often been deleted (or at least nominated for deletion) for not being notable enough: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/female-scientists-pages-...
223.
by MandieD 3y ago
It’s a lot easier to get a one to three month driving ban in Germany for speeding than in the US, and a driving ban in Germany means “you may not drive at all.” 20 mph over gets a one month driving ban plus about a 200 EUR fine. Only the lo
224.
by MandieD 3y ago
My dad, who is permanently sunburnt from his half century in construction (and wasn’t terribly into most other safety measures against abstract risks), tsk-tsks the laxity of German road crews allowing workers to wear shorts in the summer.
225.
by MandieD 3y ago
My dad worked construction from 15 to 65. I’m frankly amazed that he’s not developed skin cancer - he’s had a couple of suspicious moles removed. He is also the only person I know who went cold turkey off a pack-a-day smoking habit, and yea
226.
by MandieD 3y ago
Just one of the many reasons why I won’t let my kid use YouTube Kids and instead manually look up everything I’m ok with him watching on the main “Enhanced” site and watch it with him, then download the stuff he likes for use with VLC.
227.
by MandieD 3y ago
Kudos to you all; this is what I’m hoping to hold the line on with my kid. We rarely watched TV or really any sort of video entertainment before he came along, so we didn’t have to change our consumption habits. It’ll be interesting to see
228.
by MandieD 3y ago
Ah, the contrast between the wining and dining that one received around 2000 from startups as a computer science undergraduate, and the chase for any boring government contracting job to make loan payments in 2002-2003...
229.
by MandieD 3y ago
For occasional drivers like me, it’s much safer to have our mobile OS as the infotainment interface, because it’s the same set of apps we use in most other situations - less cognitive load and time spent glancing at the screen.
230.
by MandieD 3y ago
I carry black electrical tape for all those eye-piercing LEDs on the hotel TV screens I never turn on - guess I'll add pieces of felt to cover seatback displays because I REALLY don't want my toddler blasted with that when he&#x27
231.
by MandieD 3y ago
I’ve seen several family members and friends who might have bought a few scratchers here and there, or even played “their” 3-5 sets of numbers twice a week, but otherwise kept their gambling to an annual trip to Vegas get sucked into sports
232.
by MandieD 3y ago
Unfortunately, yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33146820
233.
by MandieD 3y ago
But you didn’t have ubiquitous smartphones and tablets when you were 6-10 years old, and weren’t handed a smartphone to head off a tantrum during the absolutely critical brain development years before school.
234.
by MandieD 3y ago
A data point for you: 7B models at 5-bit quantization run quite comfortably under llama.cpp on the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, which has 12GB VRAM and was part of a lot of gaming PC builds around 2021-22. I can’t give this as a recommendation -
235.
by MandieD 3y ago
Yay, it’s back!
236.
by MandieD 3y ago
Neither is the case for him... when we were first talking about the long term, he was willing to consider living in the US for at least a few years, since he's always enjoyed his visits. Then I talked to enough acquaintances who had Gr
237.
by MandieD 3y ago
It also means that we Americans working* abroad are radioactive for anything financial beyond a simple bank account or mortgage. Absolutely no one in Germany wants to deal with a brokerage account for me. Though my husband was all for addin
238.
by MandieD 3y ago
That link is an article I really, really wish I'd read while learning how to drive, and is something I'll teach my kid before he starts riding a bike with traffic. I hadn't seen it before, so thanks.
239.
by MandieD 3y ago
“Burninatin”… and telling my toddler off for throwing a light switch rave.
240.
by MandieD 3y ago
A bit off-topic, but does anyone know if Hanukkah of Data[0] is happening again this year? [0] https://hanukkah.bluebird.sh/about/

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