LaLiLuLuCo
I can't get an electrician and contractor to come install one (as an AC mainly) inside of 6 months, and I've been trying to find one for 6 months.
The heat is actually killing me I can't sleep and have other health problems. I brought a dual hose unit from the US with me I'm running on a voltage converter and it's the only thing keeping my apartment livable.
And they will be closed after dark too, somehow.
Hi I live in a small European town and still need a car. It's not the gotcha you think it is. The busses and trains are neat for young healthy people with one backpack. Turns out I don't go out and need one back pack of stuff.
I'm moving back to the US because of the massive labor shortage and that shutting down your economy on Sundays is discriminatory towards non Christians.
The train doesn't alleviate a ton of other car needs in daily life.
Oh also my packages and my garbage don't get delivered or taken away reliably in large part because the roads are too narrow. Fuck this. I end up needing to drive anyway.
I would rather have good car infrastructure than the ability to back pack around. It massively influences my quality of life. If I need a car once a week I'm going to use my car more than that and I have a lot more options once I'm doing so.
Edit : just got told I need to go to the next town over to get a covid test. I can either hang out at the bus stop or train station for an hour sick af, then walk a bunch, to get a test. Or I could drive.
You see the same thing today with popular modern authors.
In 100+ year time the niche writers who spend years reworking their prose are still going to be niche, while the ultra popular authors who had a cultural impact and dozens of published books will be studied even if at the time they wrote they were trashed as being "not real literature" or "pop fantasy".
I severely severely doubt things like King Killer Chronicle or anything Jensin or Abercrombie has wrote will endure as much as Sanderson. This makes people seethe.
A more recent example of this is Asimov, part of the reason everyone knows him isn't that his writing was particular great. He just wrote a lot, that a lot of people liked. It was pulp Sci fi, but it's defined discussions generations later.
Imo Faulkner and Joyce are vastly overrated by people obsessed with prose, to the point that they fail to communicate their stories adequately. They get trotted out by English literature teachers, and frankly speaking snobs, and there are some cool uses of the prose in I. E. The Sound and The Fury, but I wouldn't reread it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to actually read. It just wasn't a particularly interesting book aside from the curious abuse of the language.
To get even pulpier sometimes I pick up a 40k novel and churn through it because it's fun. It doesn't demand me think much about it, it's just telling me a story in a universe I'm familiar with.
Aalen to Stuttgart can't. Stuttgart to München Can't.
"using that pass" means not taking the direct train line. And stopping locally.
Don't ask me, ask a DB employee telling me that pass isn't valid for those connections.
Edit: here's the carve out
Please note, however, that the Deutschland-Ticket is not valid on trains operated by DB Fernverkehr AG or other long-distance providers such as FlixTrain (e.g. IC, EC, ICE, as well as RE operated by DB Fernverkehr AG). DB Fernverkehr is currently in talks with the German state governments and authorities about exceptions on certain sections of line.
The Deutschland-Ticket is currently also permitted for long-distance trains (IC, EC, ICE) between Rostock Hbf and Stralsund Hbf.
That pass doesn't cover trains you actually want to take between regions. It's basically a subway pass equivalent.
Source: I still pay €25 to go to the nearest city because it's a 1+ hour train ride and going local station to local station sucks. Yes I have been busted by the Deutche Bahn employee checking Tickets and thought the country wide pass worked.
Tibet, Vietnam.....
Lots of other countries are afraid of an invasion in south east Asia, at minimum a seizure of their fishing territories and waters.
Currently we are discussing a possible invasion of Taiwan.
Oh there's also the modern border conflicts with India and the Sino-Indian war in 1962 and flare ups since.
All of which is to say, don't mistake an inability to project power outside of their region with an unwillingness to be an imperialist bully. China was involved in the Mali war with the UN, and were a Chinese company to have it's investments in insert African or Latin American country threatened by a "socialist" government nationalizing it they would be just as likely to pull the same BS as the US did in Latin America in the 20th century if they could actually project power there.
I had to switch instances to one that defederated from Hexbear because there would be hundreds of comments from them with a few tankies posting dozens of comments. It's real. You're just not seeing it due to the defederation.
If you're defederated you won't see their comments.
It's functionally a way to communicate happiness with the service.
The restaurants I am a regular at know if I don't leave a fat tip I wasn't happy with how they performed. Waiting 20+ minutes just to pay is unacceptable to give a recent example. They were understaffed and some old dude In the attached hotel insisted on print out copies of his reservation details that he then argued about. I could have paid, cash or card, and been out in under a minute while this dude was reading his papers but instead I just sat there for almost half an hour after finishing my meal.
Should they still get paid unlike in the American system? Yes. But I'm fine with tipping as a general concept. In Germany we call it Trinkgeld and it's usually 10%, and not exactly a thing you are expected to do every time you eat out, but I usually do 20%+ if I was satisfied.
The day after I moved to Germany I went to the hospital emergency room with what was later diagnosed as a kidney stone and stomach infection.
I was given over the counter painkillers and some cramp medication and told to drink lots of beer to treat the stomach infection by the doctor.
I am serious. I asked about the complications drinking on the pain meds and he just said it was OK.
mixing those meds with alcohol fucks your liver