Regarding the option “Month goes second in the date” I don’t believe that is a good option either. We should use yyyy-mm-dd so today would be 2024-10-17
@callow@cengland0 I’ve been writing dates on contract signature lines that way for years. All it takes is for enough of us to do it when there’s no template, and the change will percolate in.
@yakkoTDI month second is in ascending order
Day month year. Each value represents a larger span. This to me, is more logical than month, day, year, which has no logic… But still not ideal.
In IT we usually do year month day. That way it’s like a number counting up as time goes by. This is the best way IMO.
@OnionSoup@phendrick I have been doing year month day for a long, long time. When people try to argue I ask them if they tell time with minutes seconds hours or seconds minutes hours.
@narfcake@PooltoyWolf my cousin in Switzerland worked in the Swiss Rail system his whole career. (After the mandatory military service they have, or at least used to have). For that work, you had to speak (Swiss-)German, Italian, French, and English. I don’t communicate with him much but I’m assuming he is retired now with pension and health benefits like a civilized country would have.
@PooltoyWolf Houston vehemently resisted putting in a rail-based transit system for a long time, and then when it got approved, they discovered the original trolley tracks still in existence under the streets in the downtown area. (They weren’t useful, but they were there.) Now the lines are getting expanded, and there is some hope that they will eventually connect the two airports.
And if it actually gets built, the high-speed rail link from Houston to Dallas will have its terminus about a mile from my house.
And now Amtrak has stepped up to continue the project as the original board of Texas Central stepped down.
@PooltoyWolf@werehatrack I do hope the train from Dallas to Houston gets built in my lifetime. Lobbyists from southwest Airlines have been blocking it for years.
@PooltoyWolf@werehatrack Almost every place I ever lived in used to have trams/streetcars 100 years ago. Mostly electric but in remote areas some were gas motors (pre-diesel).
EDIT if you ever can, check local archives, history museums, books published with old photos and maps. Yes I am obsessed with that stuff. You think of a time so long ago and yet so many things “worked.” I’m sure there were problems and corruption and greed as they are now. But still thinking of what “engineers” did in 1900 is pretty amazing.
@pmarin@PooltoyWolf I saw a map of the multiple streetcar systems that were in the Houston area around 1930. I wonder how much of that rail is buried under the streets today; most of it remained in service until the late '40s and even into the '50s.
@f00l@PooltoyWolf@werehatrack yup, I’ve seen documentaries where it was a conglomerate of car companies, oil companies, and tire manufacturers. What’s amazing is how fast it happened, and with no public outrage. We did not have the internet outrage machine fired-up then (slightly before my time). But I think if things like this happen now, would really be no different. Look at the amount of anti-EV and anti-solar-power F.U.D. (Fear, uncertainty, doubt — a marketing term I regrettably learned).
@CocoBeanss@Kyeh YES!!! Because my state did not expand medicaid, when my COBRA ran out and I didn’t make enough for ACA care I was paying $23-30,000 a year on health care between premiums, deductible, out of pocket limits, meds, and copys (some of which were not subjected to the out of pocket limits). Wiped out my life’s savings and retirement and wrecked my financial life forever. Finally being old enough for Medicare put a stop to that but their inability to negotiate most drug prices means that we make up the difference for the lower prices the rest of the ENTIRE WORLD gets for meds from the same manufacturers. Some people object to medicare being able to negotiate as their prices will go up. Well duh someone has to pay if a company’s target profit is “X”. Incidentally Medicaid and the VA both can negotiate drugs.
@Kyeh@NapkinEater yeah first bidet I encountered was at a hotel in France. Normal plumbing with hot/cold water valves. There was no toilet in the room; you had to go down the hall for that. I just assumed it was expected to pee in the bidet. I’m pretty sure I was not the first person to do that.
First magical automated toilet was in Japan. Yes, a life-changing experience! Funny thing is controls were built into the tile wall by the toilet, and only labeled in Japanese, of course. Just press a few buttons; what could go wrong?
@OnionSoup Well adults can adopt other adults (not sure what that does with citizenship though if an adult is involved) so you might bid on here to get one of us to adopt you.
@Kidsandliz@OnionSoup There are giant gummi bears available that could be dry-rubbed, gently smoked, and then served up with a tub of sauce on the side.
@Kidsandliz@OnionSoup@kyeh oh a Meh family bbq. It reminds me of when Saturn would do the “family picnics” I never went, but thought itnwas a neat idea.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@OnionSoup@tinamarie1974
Yep. Dad worked there (ISCO).for 20 plus years. Back in the days when Buster Brown and Hytest were still brands. He was actually able to watch the Arch go up from the office building. I think it’s now the city museum??
Well, obviously, starting a job with 6 weeks of paid vacation. Mandatory work limits where you had to “clock-in” with a badge to verify you did NOT work in the office longer than the stated limit; I think it was 35 hrs at the time. Wine for sale at lunch in the company cafeteria. When I worked with a small group there, the custom was that one person would buy a bottle and pour for 5-8 colleagues. Automated espresso/cappuccino machines in the office. Electric trams that could take me from hotel to right outside company location.
Sorry that was about 10 things but you get the idea.
On “Metric System,” some might remember elementary school in the 1970s, where we were taught the metric system and told that within 10 years we would be using it. Some local cities even posted signs in km, but that didn’t last long.
Also a standard liquor bottle called the “fifth” shrank to 750ml. Only by a few ml, but shrinkflation is not new.
@pmarin The pushback against the metric changeover was mindless and predictable, but what did we expect from the part of the populace that can’t figure out percentages and fractions? It’s grassroots jingoism all the way down. Muricuh! Fuck yeah!
@phendrick@pmarin Actually, it did, because music scholars made a case for the estimates of the speed of Beethoven’s metronome having been incorrectly interpreted for more than a century.
@phendrick@werehatrack weird about the Einstein metronome. I didn’t know that, but makes sense. We have period instruments that can be restored and re-created, but of course no recordings.
Also about metric, few might remember, but for a very brief time in 1970s gas prices went to over $1 (what outrage!) but gas pumps only could show 2 digits. So by changing a gear, I guess, gas was sold by the liter. Took a year or two to re-fit new gas pumps, which were starting to be digital anyway.
It’s been my theory that in addition to other factors, people associated the metric system with gas prices going way up, which did happen at the same time.
@blaineg@jnicholson0619 I write it as 2024Oct17 for exactly the same reason. I doesn’t sort as cleanly as 20241017 would, but it’s unambiguous and at least gets the year up front.
@lonocat Yes - and the whole saner approach to what they’re now calling “life-work balance.” Not that Europeans even ever needed that term because it’s how they do life, including the decent vacation time and great lunches that @pmarin described.
@Kyeh@lonocat@pmarin When I lived in the Netherlands their 6 week vacation was great for me to earn money playing market day carillon recitals each week while the carillonneur was on vacation… Loved it! Not only that but market day was on different days in different cities so I could play a handful of them a week. With the excellent train and bus system it was easy to get to the cities and their carillons.
@torchcat oh if we’re going to bring music into it… could get crazy! Of course we have the known major groups so I’ll skip those. British punk and early synth-pop of 1980s! Also if bringing in all of Europe, add Kraftwerk! There was an internet article I found about how Kraftwerk were more influential to music over the next 40 years than the Beatles. Probably intended to create outrage as the internet tends to do. But it made a valid point and I’m inclined to think it was right.
Curious what your New Wave of British Heavy Metal is!
Town squares and plazas with fountains and such for all ages to just hang out and enjoy. We have some but over there they’re better, especially in small villages.
The whole way that they Vote. Like in France you can have 40 Candidates then vote to get it to 2 then a run off. In Britain there is a 2 week quite period. Zero campaigning.
Oh yeah in addition to my previous post mostly about work life in general: Women in engineering/tech!
It seemed much more normal and accepted there, and this goes back decades since my first business trip in 1980s. Of course it’s possible and maybe now encouraged in U.S. as well, but seems like it has been hard for those attempting it here.
@pmarin I could agree, but being a Corp. Computer Mechanic- it’s broke, I fix, I see many ladies in the field! I think help desk is that way too, (but I don’t do Help Desk, Remote support!
@00 That is when dad had his vacation - 4 weeks - and school started after Labor Day. We’d go on vacation the entire month. We’d drive all over the USA and Canada staying in campgrounds with a tent top camping trailer when the station wagon was too small for 6 people to sleep in - worked for 5 due to “bunk cots” in the back and my then youngest sister sleeping on the bench front seat.
@00@Kidsandliz@kittykat9180 The rooftop tents are intriguing, but I don’t understand why a tent quadruples in price when you pitch it on the roof of a vehicle.
@macromeh Consider the addition of a floor structure robust enough to carry the weight of the occupants, a shell to contain all of it when stowed while in transit, the ladder and support poles, and the clamp system to secure it all to the vehicle roof. I would be very surprised if it were only quadruple the price of a regular on-ground tent.
@kittykat9180 I might have to investigate that tent setup; if they make one that would fit my Caravan, it would save me a lot of hassle when settling in for the night. Doubly so in places like Zion where the primary in-park transport is shuttles and bikes.
@werehatrack, just keep in mind you have to pack it all back away if you want to go anywhere. It’s not like dropping a trailer and freeing up the vehicle. The downside is definitely the constant set up and packing away.
The downside is definitely the constant set up and packing away.
Hence the note about being most advantageous where one can set up base camp and then get around without the vehicle. This does not work well at all in most locales. Much would depend upon how fast it can be deployed and struck.
@werehatrack, leaving the pillows and blankets made the processes quicker. The cover was tighter but it didn’t make it more difficult to put on.
Set up and tear down took about 10 mins each. Even then, it sure was exhausting watching him do it every day.
@00@Kidsandliz@kittykat9180 I don’t understand the desire for a roof-top tent in North America. I thought they primarily existed for places where the wildlife is a little more dangerous.
They are really cool, though. Is that why y’all were using one?
I always thought bear, moose, elk (especially during rutting season), wolves, and coyotes were considered dangerous. Rattle snakes if you want to talk about where I live in the SW United States.
I think ease of set up is one benefit. You remove the cover then pull the ladder and the tent pops up ready for use. The only barrier for me was that I’m too short to reach anything up there, which is why he did all the set up and tear down.
Then there’s the fact that the pad and bedding packed away inside the tent so we didn’t have to remove that stuff the whole trip.
Finally, we didn’t have to store the tent and bedding inside taking space from our luggage and the dog.
@00@Kidsandliz@kittykat9180@Limewater Raccoons are nasty and clever little bastards who climb ladders faster than most people. Bears can reach the top of most vehicles without using a ladder.
From the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Why I never leave groceries in my car overnight - bears roam my neighborhood all spring, summer and fall nowadays.
@kittykat9180@Kyeh@pmarin And bears in areas near humans have learned how to operate common types of door handle on both structures and vehicles. But like petty thieves, they will move on to the next place if the door is locked unless there’s a particularly enticing aroma, in which case they may become destructive if they are hungry enough. Many a pickup truck owner has discovered that his interior has been shredded overnight because he didn’t pull that litter bag out and toss it in the trash can, and the bears could smell the burger wrapper.
Maternity & Paternity leave - not just time to recover from delivery, fathers get no time to recover from the new sleep schedule and I hate that it’s considered a vacation time here. Most stressful vacation I’ve ever taken.
@ironcheftoni Some of us have adopted the reusable shopping bags already. Aldi has a really nice rectangular zipper-lid cold bag that I find particularly useful.
@ironcheftoni@werehatrack for extra profit you can search Trader Joe’s for the collectible mini-bags, then sell them for $100 online (allegedly). Insulated bags are nice, but not $100 nice.
I was trying to explain the concept of “conspicuous consumption” to my wife today. We are both past thinking about displaying jewelry or fancy clothes, but focusing on quality stuff you like is still OK, I think. the $3.99 Trader Joe’s bag is nice but not sure if it’s a legit fashion accessory for the Met Gala. My invitation must have been lost in the mail, so not an issue anyway.
@ironcheftoni@pmarin We joke about my being hauled along as the Official Trophy Wife, but the truly disturbing part is that I come a lot closer to looking the part than a lot of women I know, including both of my exes and a number of friends who have quietly told me that they’re privately envious.
@ragingredd “we” almost got there 50 years ago.
Even gas pumps went to liters (but maybe that was because old gas pumps couldn’t handle a price over $1.00/gal but 0.30/liter was OK. For a few years it worked that way) they upgraded the gas pumps and went back to $/gallon. Not sure if that had anything to do with political rejection of the metric system.
@pmarin@ragingredd It had a lot to do with grassroots jingoism that viewed Metric as Foreign and therefore UnAmerican.
More than a decade back, Alabama briefly tried to get people familiar with kilometers by adding those distances to their highway mileage signs. The effort didn’t just fail, the signs were actively derided and many were vandalized. Reportedly, some politicians made:“getting rid of them killmometer signs” a part of their election platform.
@mbersiam@werehatrack
Just toured Grey Towers in Milford, PA. Gifford Pinchot’s “summer home”. He was the “Father of the US Forestry Service”. Fascinating history and beautiful building.
@chienfou There are a bunch ahead of him, but I suspect he’d find a way to quietly move to a lower wealth bracket any time the reaping looked like it was getting close. He’s what I call accidentally stupid rich instead of determined to be greedy stupid rich. In his case, he managed to hang onto it, but while he’s been doing some good with it, there’s also a certain amount of “doing good for PR reasons” evident. Flip side, there are a lot of retired Microsoft people who benefited handsomely from the relative largesse of their employer.
@werehatrack .
That’s the problem with blanket statements.
Take a look around the world at how revolutions
seem to be working out lately. Most of them don’t seem to be generating the outcome people hoped for.
@chienfou@werehatrack I’ve experienced 68 revolutions - a fair share of those in the middle turned out pretty good, but it seems like the more recent ones are declining in quality.
@chienfou The big problem with most modern revolutions is that they are either fomented by the very people who ought to be their targets, or by religious extremists bent on revenge/genocide with no functional plan for how to actually govern if they win. (Rule, yes, absolutely. But that’s not the same thing as governing.) Part of the reason why the French revolution took so long to shake out to stability - and had such a lasting effect on the core philosophy of the nation and its people - is that it was one of the few that was truly powered by a grassroots uprising that required remarkably little encouragement to get rolling - and then became unstoppable as a result. Once the main goal had been reached, the people discovered (to their frequent mutual dismay) that they all had both more and less in common than they thought. “This redistribution of wealth is more complicated than we thought.”
@chienfou@ndimitru I’ve seen a house for sale whose owner had gone to the considerable trouble of building cabinet doors that all looked like the fronts of appliances. It gave the kitchen a remarkably morgue-like appearance.
Everyone has health care. While a couple of countries I have lived in universal health care has some issues (referral outside of your province in Canada for instance and the two levels of care (you pay extra for the upper level), overall at least you don’t go bankrupt due to health care costs and everyone has access to to care unlike the 10 states that didn’t expand medicaid (which is why I have no retirement money left after getting 3 cancers close together and losing my job over that), and for many others it is too expensive to buy. Not to mention the cost of meds…
@chienfou@Kidsandliz Canadian healthcare shortcomings often owe a great deal to interference by US-based insurance and med industry interests that are determined to prevent an example of well-managed and comprehensive healthcare from existing on their northern doorstep, lest people south of there get Ideas.
@chienfou@werehatrack Canadian shortcomings are better than no health care at all which is the reality for a fairly large number of people in the USA. Roughly 25.6 million people don’t have helath insurance which often means no health care except ER rooms which don’t take care of people long term. About half of cancer patients declare bankruptcy in the USA because of medical debt.
Also the 2 levels of care (eg free and pay an additional insurance premium) referred to in my initial message is in the UK.
@ndimitru
" A survey of medical practitioners reported that, in 2022, patients in Canada could expect to wait a median of 5.4 weeks for a CT scan and 10.6 weeks for an MRI scan,"
From here.
Regarding the option “Month goes second in the date” I don’t believe that is a good option either. We should use yyyy-mm-dd so today would be 2024-10-17
@cengland0 Much better for sorting files!
@callow Exactly plus it’s in order from most significant to least significant.
@callow @cengland0 I’ve been writing dates on contract signature lines that way for years. All it takes is for enough of us to do it when there’s no template, and the change will percolate in.
Tipping policy (and meaningful wages that allow for European tipping standards).
@shahnm Absolutely!!!
Decimal measurements.
Month second is just as stupid as month first.
@yakkoTDI month second is in ascending order
Day month year. Each value represents a larger span. This to me, is more logical than month, day, year, which has no logic… But still not ideal.
In IT we usually do year month day. That way it’s like a number counting up as time goes by. This is the best way IMO.
@OnionSoup @yakkoTDI … and it makes it easily sortable. (So i make that part of the name of my files.)
@OnionSoup @phendrick I have been doing year month day for a long, long time. When people try to argue I ask them if they tell time with minutes seconds hours or seconds minutes hours.
I mean, obviously the trains.
@PooltoyWolf A few months ago, they broke ground on a high speed rail between SoCal and Las Vegas. It’s supposed to be in operation in 2028.
We’ll see.
@narfcake I need to go ride Brightline again, I’m craving it…
@narfcake @PooltoyWolf my cousin in Switzerland worked in the Swiss Rail system his whole career. (After the mandatory military service they have, or at least used to have). For that work, you had to speak (Swiss-)German, Italian, French, and English. I don’t communicate with him much but I’m assuming he is retired now with pension and health benefits like a civilized country would have.
@PooltoyWolf Houston vehemently resisted putting in a rail-based transit system for a long time, and then when it got approved, they discovered the original trolley tracks still in existence under the streets in the downtown area. (They weren’t useful, but they were there.) Now the lines are getting expanded, and there is some hope that they will eventually connect the two airports.
And if it actually gets built, the high-speed rail link from Houston to Dallas will have its terminus about a mile from my house.
And now Amtrak has stepped up to continue the project as the original board of Texas Central stepped down.
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack I do hope the train from Dallas to Houston gets built in my lifetime. Lobbyists from southwest Airlines have been blocking it for years.
@narfcake @PooltoyWolf and from my neck of the woods, kinda. Not that I want to go Vegas, but if I did . . .
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack Almost every place I ever lived in used to have trams/streetcars 100 years ago. Mostly electric but in remote areas some were gas motors (pre-diesel).
EDIT if you ever can, check local archives, history museums, books published with old photos and maps. Yes I am obsessed with that stuff. You think of a time so long ago and yet so many things “worked.” I’m sure there were problems and corruption and greed as they are now. But still thinking of what “engineers” did in 1900 is pretty amazing.
@pmarin @PooltoyWolf I saw a map of the multiple streetcar systems that were in the Houston area around 1930. I wonder how much of that rail is buried under the streets today; most of it remained in service until the late '40s and even into the '50s.
@pmarin @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
The car companies covertly bought up trolley and tram systems all over the country and destroyed them.
@f00l @PooltoyWolf @werehatrack yup, I’ve seen documentaries where it was a conglomerate of car companies, oil companies, and tire manufacturers. What’s amazing is how fast it happened, and with no public outrage. We did not have the internet outrage machine fired-up then (slightly before my time). But I think if things like this happen now, would really be no different. Look at the amount of anti-EV and anti-solar-power F.U.D. (Fear, uncertainty, doubt — a marketing term I regrettably learned).
Healthcare would be great
@CocoBeanss This!
@CocoBeanss @Kyeh YES!!! Because my state did not expand medicaid, when my COBRA ran out and I didn’t make enough for ACA care I was paying $23-30,000 a year on health care between premiums, deductible, out of pocket limits, meds, and copys (some of which were not subjected to the out of pocket limits). Wiped out my life’s savings and retirement and wrecked my financial life forever. Finally being old enough for Medicare put a stop to that but their inability to negotiate most drug prices means that we make up the difference for the lower prices the rest of the ENTIRE WORLD gets for meds from the same manufacturers. Some people object to medicare being able to negotiate as their prices will go up. Well duh someone has to pay if a company’s target profit is “X”. Incidentally Medicaid and the VA both can negotiate drugs.
Food with ingredients that are pronounceable
Third-party app stores
Regulatory standards that make actual sense (rather than the corporate developed ones.)
Some are simple like USB-C chargers, others are more comprehensive like privacy, but we seem incapable of doing any of this in the face of lobbying.
Even our version of “healthcare” doesn’t provide any healthcare at all, only health insurance because the insurance lobby was too powerful.
Are bidets/washlets a European thing or strictly a Japanese thing?
@NapkinEater Started in France!
@Kyeh @NapkinEater yeah first bidet I encountered was at a hotel in France. Normal plumbing with hot/cold water valves. There was no toilet in the room; you had to go down the hall for that. I just assumed it was expected to pee in the bidet. I’m pretty sure I was not the first person to do that.
First magical automated toilet was in Japan. Yes, a life-changing experience! Funny thing is controls were built into the tile wall by the toilet, and only labeled in Japanese, of course. Just press a few buttons; what could go wrong?
@Kyeh @NapkinEater @pmarin Were the buttons shell-shaped?
@werehatrack LOL
Me
@OnionSoup Well adults can adopt other adults (not sure what that does with citizenship though if an adult is involved) so you might bid on here to get one of us to adopt you.
@Kidsandliz I do have my citizenship already… That isn’t my motivation. I just want to be invited to the meh family BBQ.
@OnionSoup
Well you could take another approach and be the one to host it, inviting everyone, and serving expired and weird food bought on here.
@Kidsandliz do you have any good BBQ gummy bear recipes?
@Kidsandliz @OnionSoup There are giant gummi bears available that could be dry-rubbed, gently smoked, and then served up with a tub of sauce on the side.
@Kidsandliz @OnionSoup @werehatrack sounds like deep fried ice cream
@Kidsandliz @OnionSoup if anyone ever does a Meh BBQ, might be a good excuse for a road trip. I can bring a bunch of casemates wine!
@OnionSoup
But are you common?
@Kyeh
Common as in a lot of me? No,.only one of me.
Common as in the English insult roughly meaning uneducated riffraff? No that’s not me.
Common as in, often seen… I can often be seen on the forums. So I am common in that respect.
@Kidsandliz @OnionSoup @kyeh oh a Meh family bbq. It reminds me of when Saturn would do the “family picnics” I never went, but thought itnwas a neat idea.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @OnionSoup @tinamarie1974
I remember (many) years ago when International Shoe Company would host family picnics in St louis. Always a good time!
@OnionSoup Well, the question asked “What common European thing do you wish we’d adopt?” So I think you have to be common to qualify.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @OnionSoup there’s a name Ive not heard in a long while. Were they located on Wash Ave w the other shoe companies.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @OnionSoup @tinamarie1974
Yep. Dad worked there (ISCO).for 20 plus years. Back in the days when Buster Brown and Hytest were still brands. He was actually able to watch the Arch go up from the office building. I think it’s now the city museum??
Well, obviously, starting a job with 6 weeks of paid vacation. Mandatory work limits where you had to “clock-in” with a badge to verify you did NOT work in the office longer than the stated limit; I think it was 35 hrs at the time. Wine for sale at lunch in the company cafeteria. When I worked with a small group there, the custom was that one person would buy a bottle and pour for 5-8 colleagues. Automated espresso/cappuccino machines in the office. Electric trams that could take me from hotel to right outside company location.
Sorry that was about 10 things but you get the idea.
@pmarin I came to say the vacation time providing quality of life.
@cbilyak @pmarin
Literary civilization
On “Metric System,” some might remember elementary school in the 1970s, where we were taught the metric system and told that within 10 years we would be using it. Some local cities even posted signs in km, but that didn’t last long.
Also a standard liquor bottle called the “fifth” shrank to 750ml. Only by a few ml, but shrinkflation is not new.
@pmarin The pushback against the metric changeover was mindless and predictable, but what did we expect from the part of the populace that can’t figure out percentages and fractions? It’s grassroots jingoism all the way down. Muricuh! Fuck yeah!
@pmarin Did Beethoven’s Fifth get shorter also? it seems to go by faster.
@phendrick @pmarin Actually, it did, because music scholars made a case for the estimates of the speed of Beethoven’s metronome having been incorrectly interpreted for more than a century.
@phendrick @werehatrack weird about the Einstein metronome. I didn’t know that, but makes sense. We have period instruments that can be restored and re-created, but of course no recordings.
Also about metric, few might remember, but for a very brief time in 1970s gas prices went to over $1 (what outrage!) but gas pumps only could show 2 digits. So by changing a gear, I guess, gas was sold by the liter. Took a year or two to re-fit new gas pumps, which were starting to be digital anyway.
It’s been my theory that in addition to other factors, people associated the metric system with gas prices going way up, which did happen at the same time.
Full English Breakfast!!
@IndifferentDude Bloody right!
I already write my date like 17Oct2024.
@jnicholson0619 Because when sorting 16Dec2025 should be first.
@jnicholson0619 That’s common in genealogy/family history as no matter what someone’s native system is, it cannot be misunderstood.
@blaineg @jnicholson0619 I write it as 2024Oct17 for exactly the same reason. I doesn’t sort as cleanly as 20241017 would, but it’s unambiguous and at least gets the year up front.
Retirement age in most European countries is 50 or 55
@lonocat Yes - and the whole saner approach to what they’re now calling “life-work balance.” Not that Europeans even ever needed that term because it’s how they do life, including the decent vacation time and great lunches that @pmarin described.
@Kyeh @lonocat @pmarin When I lived in the Netherlands their 6 week vacation was great for me to earn money playing market day carillon recitals each week while the carillonneur was on vacation… Loved it! Not only that but market day was on different days in different cities so I could play a handful of them a week. With the excellent train and bus system it was easy to get to the cities and their carillons.
New Wave of British Heavy Metal (Again)
@torchcat oh if we’re going to bring music into it… could get crazy! Of course we have the known major groups so I’ll skip those. British punk and early synth-pop of 1980s! Also if bringing in all of Europe, add Kraftwerk! There was an internet article I found about how Kraftwerk were more influential to music over the next 40 years than the Beatles. Probably intended to create outrage as the internet tends to do. But it made a valid point and I’m inclined to think it was right.
Curious what your New Wave of British Heavy Metal is!
@torchcat I despair of ever seeing a tour in North America for Two Steps From Hell (which isn’t exactly metal, it’s full symphonic).
Town squares and plazas with fountains and such for all ages to just hang out and enjoy. We have some but over there they’re better, especially in small villages.
French mistress.
@Pavlov Oui Oui!
@Pavlov I did not come to say this, but a fun fact is in France, this is referred to as cinq à sept. What—or who—is done between 5-7.
The whole way that they Vote. Like in France you can have 40 Candidates then vote to get it to 2 then a run off. In Britain there is a 2 week quite period. Zero campaigning.
@Oldelvis sounds really good. Better than the two party system, Israel also had a unique system, you vote for one of the many parties, not a person.
I wish more people embraced the 24 hour clock, it just makes more sense.
Oh yeah in addition to my previous post mostly about work life in general: Women in engineering/tech!
It seemed much more normal and accepted there, and this goes back decades since my first business trip in 1980s. Of course it’s possible and maybe now encouraged in U.S. as well, but seems like it has been hard for those attempting it here.
@pmarin I could agree, but being a Corp. Computer Mechanic- it’s broke, I fix, I see many ladies in the field! I think help desk is that way too, (but I don’t do Help Desk, Remote support!
Ubiquitous espresso!
@rustyh3
(Not Starbucks)
@f00l agreed. I have had better espresso at rest stops on the auto strada in Italy. Although Sbucks is consistent.
Gelato-grade “ice cream,” not that sugary air-fluffed crap we usually get.
@pmarin Thankfully I have this place in St. Pete for real gelato.
https://paciugostpete.com
Stick-shift cars again!
Also sensible around-town cars with things like economical 1.2 liter engines.
@pmarin Cars like this!!
Taking August off to travel.
@00 That is when dad had his vacation - 4 weeks - and school started after Labor Day. We’d go on vacation the entire month. We’d drive all over the USA and Canada staying in campgrounds with a tent top camping trailer when the station wagon was too small for 6 people to sleep in - worked for 5 due to “bunk cots” in the back and my then youngest sister sleeping on the bench front seat.
@00 @Kidsandliz
I just spent 2 weeks traveling through Canada with a roof top tent.
@00 @kittykat9180 That sounds like fun. What part of Canada were you in?
@00 @Kidsandliz @kittykat9180 The rooftop tents are intriguing, but I don’t understand why a tent quadruples in price when you pitch it on the roof of a vehicle.
@macromeh Consider the addition of a floor structure robust enough to carry the weight of the occupants, a shell to contain all of it when stowed while in transit, the ladder and support poles, and the clamp system to secure it all to the vehicle roof. I would be very surprised if it were only quadruple the price of a regular on-ground tent.
@kittykat9180 I might have to investigate that tent setup; if they make one that would fit my Caravan, it would save me a lot of hassle when settling in for the night. Doubly so in places like Zion where the primary in-park transport is shuttles and bikes.
@00 @Kidsandliz, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.
@macromeh, partly because of structural support and the ladder and partially because enough people are willing to buy at that price.
@werehatrack, just keep in mind you have to pack it all back away if you want to go anywhere. It’s not like dropping a trailer and freeing up the vehicle. The downside is definitely the constant set up and packing away.
@kittykat9180
Hence the note about being most advantageous where one can set up base camp and then get around without the vehicle. This does not work well at all in most locales. Much would depend upon how fast it can be deployed and struck.
@werehatrack, leaving the pillows and blankets made the processes quicker. The cover was tighter but it didn’t make it more difficult to put on.
Set up and tear down took about 10 mins each. Even then, it sure was exhausting watching him do it every day.
@00 @Kidsandliz @kittykat9180 I don’t understand the desire for a roof-top tent in North America. I thought they primarily existed for places where the wildlife is a little more dangerous.
They are really cool, though. Is that why y’all were using one?
I always thought bear, moose, elk (especially during rutting season), wolves, and coyotes were considered dangerous. Rattle snakes if you want to talk about where I live in the SW United States.
I think ease of set up is one benefit. You remove the cover then pull the ladder and the tent pops up ready for use. The only barrier for me was that I’m too short to reach anything up there, which is why he did all the set up and tear down.
Then there’s the fact that the pad and bedding packed away inside the tent so we didn’t have to remove that stuff the whole trip.
Finally, we didn’t have to store the tent and bedding inside taking space from our luggage and the dog.
@00 @Kidsandliz @kittykat9180 @Limewater Raccoons are nasty and clever little bastards who climb ladders faster than most people. Bears can reach the top of most vehicles without using a ladder.
@werehatrack, it sounds like we agree that there is dangerous wildlife in North America.
@kittykat9180 @werehatrack
@kittykat9180 @pmarin @werehatrack
From the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Why I never leave groceries in my car overnight - bears roam my neighborhood all spring, summer and fall nowadays.
@kittykat9180 @Kyeh @pmarin And bears in areas near humans have learned how to operate common types of door handle on both structures and vehicles. But like petty thieves, they will move on to the next place if the door is locked unless there’s a particularly enticing aroma, in which case they may become destructive if they are hungry enough. Many a pickup truck owner has discovered that his interior has been shredded overnight because he didn’t pull that litter bag out and toss it in the trash can, and the bears could smell the burger wrapper.
@kittykat9180 @pmarin @werehatrack Yep.
Maternity & Paternity leave - not just time to recover from delivery, fathers get no time to recover from the new sleep schedule and I hate that it’s considered a vacation time here. Most stressful vacation I’ve ever taken.
Month long summer and winter holidays (vacation).
All of the above
Plus worker protections and rights
Plus consumer protections
Plus food safety protections
@kittykat9180 I agree 100%!
@kittykat9180
What are these crazy things you’re talking about?
Clearly you’ve gone mad (or spent time in Europe)
@pmarin, only 15 countries in Europe.
All of the above and
A reasonably priced Healthcare system
Green initiatives like reusable shopping bags
@ironcheftoni Some of us have adopted the reusable shopping bags already. Aldi has a really nice rectangular zipper-lid cold bag that I find particularly useful.
@ironcheftoni @werehatrack for extra profit you can search Trader Joe’s for the collectible mini-bags, then sell them for $100 online (allegedly). Insulated bags are nice, but not $100 nice.
I was trying to explain the concept of “conspicuous consumption” to my wife today. We are both past thinking about displaying jewelry or fancy clothes, but focusing on quality stuff you like is still OK, I think. the $3.99 Trader Joe’s bag is nice but not sure if it’s a legit fashion accessory for the Met Gala. My invitation must have been lost in the mail, so not an issue anyway.
@ironcheftoni @pmarin We joke about my being hauled along as the Official Trophy Wife, but the truly disturbing part is that I come a lot closer to looking the part than a lot of women I know, including both of my exes and a number of friends who have quietly told me that they’re privately envious.
Metric system would be nice I SUCK at converting
@ragingredd “we” almost got there 50 years ago.
Even gas pumps went to liters (but maybe that was because old gas pumps couldn’t handle a price over $1.00/gal but 0.30/liter was OK. For a few years it worked that way) they upgraded the gas pumps and went back to $/gallon. Not sure if that had anything to do with political rejection of the metric system.
@pmarin @ragingredd It had a lot to do with grassroots jingoism that viewed Metric as Foreign and therefore UnAmerican.
More than a decade back, Alabama briefly tried to get people familiar with kilometers by adding those distances to their highway mileage signs. The effort didn’t just fail, the signs were actively derided and many were vandalized. Reportedly, some politicians made:“getting rid of them killmometer signs” a part of their election platform.
/giphy castles
@mbersiam But the fourth one stayed up!
@mbersiam @werehatrack
Just toured Grey Towers in Milford, PA. Gifford Pinchot’s “summer home”. He was the “Father of the US Forestry Service”. Fascinating history and beautiful building.
@chienfou @mbersiam @werehatrack thought that was your new “Summer home”
The French Revolution, applied to the new ruling class of very rich.
@werehatrack but at least we have cake.
@werehatrack
Like Bill Gates?
@chienfou There are a bunch ahead of him, but I suspect he’d find a way to quietly move to a lower wealth bracket any time the reaping looked like it was getting close. He’s what I call accidentally stupid rich instead of determined to be greedy stupid rich. In his case, he managed to hang onto it, but while he’s been doing some good with it, there’s also a certain amount of “doing good for PR reasons” evident. Flip side, there are a lot of retired Microsoft people who benefited handsomely from the relative largesse of their employer.
@werehatrack .
That’s the problem with blanket statements.
Take a look around the world at how revolutions
seem to be working out lately. Most of them don’t seem to be generating the outcome people hoped for.
@chienfou @werehatrack I’ve experienced 68 revolutions - a fair share of those in the middle turned out pretty good, but it seems like the more recent ones are declining in quality.
@chienfou The big problem with most modern revolutions is that they are either fomented by the very people who ought to be their targets, or by religious extremists bent on revenge/genocide with no functional plan for how to actually govern if they win. (Rule, yes, absolutely. But that’s not the same thing as governing.) Part of the reason why the French revolution took so long to shake out to stability - and had such a lasting effect on the core philosophy of the nation and its people - is that it was one of the few that was truly powered by a grassroots uprising that required remarkably little encouragement to get rolling - and then became unstoppable as a result. Once the main goal had been reached, the people discovered (to their frequent mutual dismay) that they all had both more and less in common than they thought. “This redistribution of wealth is more complicated than we thought.”
@werehatrack
So… “Be careful what you wish for…”
Bidets.
oven doors that open to the side.
@ndimitru
And refrigerators with fronts that look like the rest of the cabinetry.
@chienfou @ndimitru I’ve seen a house for sale whose owner had gone to the considerable trouble of building cabinet doors that all looked like the fronts of appliances. It gave the kitchen a remarkably morgue-like appearance.
@ndimitru @werehatrack
Not at all my feeling from the multiple kitchens I’ve seen in France that way.
@chienfou @ndimitru @werehatrack
So, “the beer is in the top cooler drawer. You probably don’t want to open the lower one”
Everyone has health care. While a couple of countries I have lived in universal health care has some issues (referral outside of your province in Canada for instance and the two levels of care (you pay extra for the upper level), overall at least you don’t go bankrupt due to health care costs and everyone has access to to care unlike the 10 states that didn’t expand medicaid (which is why I have no retirement money left after getting 3 cancers close together and losing my job over that), and for many others it is too expensive to buy. Not to mention the cost of meds…
@Kidsandliz
Wait times in Canada for imaging are also extremely long.
@chienfou @Kidsandliz Canadian healthcare shortcomings often owe a great deal to interference by US-based insurance and med industry interests that are determined to prevent an example of well-managed and comprehensive healthcare from existing on their northern doorstep, lest people south of there get Ideas.
@chienfou @werehatrack Canadian shortcomings are better than no health care at all which is the reality for a fairly large number of people in the USA. Roughly 25.6 million people don’t have helath insurance which often means no health care except ER rooms which don’t take care of people long term. About half of cancer patients declare bankruptcy in the USA because of medical debt.
Also the 2 levels of care (eg free and pay an additional insurance premium) referred to in my initial message is in the UK.
@werehatrack
Care to share those sources?
@chienfou @Kidsandliz what do you consider extremely long?
@ndimitru
" A survey of medical practitioners reported that, in 2022, patients in Canada could expect to wait a median of 5.4 weeks for a CT scan and 10.6 weeks for an MRI scan,"
From here.