If there is life out there, it would be rather unspectular. It would exist in the form of microbes, probably not even visible by the human eye. There are theories that suggest that there is a high chance of life on Enceladus.

One of the reasons that life could develop into complexity on Earth is that it could develop over the course of millions of years relatively undisturbed. There were no outside events like supernovae that swept Earth out of exsistence. The Primordial Soup could be cooked long enough to result in complex and intelligent life forms. Other places in the universe probaply have not that advantage, so that the development of life didn’t come that far yet.

I suspect that there is a higher chance that life in other places of the universe will be tainted by humanity than the other way round.

Das ist wirklich schwer. Ich kann die beiden auch nie voneinander unterscheiden.

Die Simpsons haben also auch dieses Ereignis vorausgesagt.

I just read the (German) Wikipedia article about Transnistria. The article states:

Als einziges Land der Erde hat Transnistrien Münzen aus Kunststoff im Umlauf. (Transnistria is the only country in the world to have plastic coins in circulation.)

This is an odd choice of material. Can you elaborate on that? Why plastic instead of metal?

Mittlerweile ist man schon so abgestumpft, wenn man wieder von solchen “Einzelfällen” hört. Ich empfinde es nicht mal mehr als schockierend, wenn sowas wieder mal rauskommt.

Waren nicht auch der AfD nahestehende Leute im Kreise des Reichsbürgerprinzen, die den Umsturz geplant haben? Bei dem Remigrations-Treffen in Potdsam Anfang des Jahres waren doch auch AfD-Leute dabei.

Aber das muss eine Demokratie wohl aushalten… /s

Als ich mit dem Studium angefangen habe, gab es in meiner Stadt eine Videothek, die neben DVDs auch noch VHS-Kassetten verliehen hat. Das war 2007. Viele Filme gab es sowohl auf DVD als auch auf VHS. Bei nur 30 Cent Leihgebühr war das sehr entgegenkommend für das Studentenbudget. Dafür hat man auch das Zurückspulen in Kauf genommen.

This is a 1972 documentary about the life in the year 2000. It is in German, but English subtitles can be set up in the video settings. It turned out to be a bit different, but some predictions back then came to reality.

It was solved for a brief time. Now people have these plastic coins you sometimes recieve as a promotional gift and since it is not a real coin, people stop putting the carts to the corral. You can witness this every time holidays are coming up and people are stocking their groceries. And the culprit is always middle-aged Karens who also don’t indicate when leaving the parking lot in their SUV.

It looks like a male specimen of Tegenaria domestica. Its habitat spreads over Europe, Asia and Northern America. They are harmless to humans.

it’s generally super weird how everyone tries really hard to convince you that you are wrong about it

My theory is that (volontary) childless people are less predictable to others. If you only have to take care of yourself, you need less resources (read: money) for that. An employer that knows his employee has children to care for can be treated worse in terms of working conditions and salary/ wages, because the employer knows that this employee can’t afford to quit the job, because of the responsibility for the child(ren).

If an emloyee is known to have no children, it makes him unpredictable. He could get up after a good yelling at the workplace, say “fuck it” and leave. He only has to take care for himself. Also, that employee can accumulate more money since it has not to be spent on the needs of children. That means, the employee has a bigger and longer lasting financial cushion.

Something similar applies when credits/ loans have to be paid. Having debt is a considered a “good” thing, since people are less prone to quit their jobs. On a personal level, the goal should be to become debt free as soon as possible. Not only it will result in financial freedom, it will also enhance your “fuck-it-ablilty”.

Another theory for those convincing people is that they envy your lifestyle of tranquility and spontaneousness. These people have been bullied into having children by their peer groups, because “that is the thing to do”, and “you owe grandchildren”. There are so many parents out there who would be better off if they never had children, but their relatives had convinced them otherwise.

Im Prinzip gebe ich dir recht, aber:

Es kommt nicht nur allein auf die Art der Heizungsanlage an, sondern auch, wie das Gebäude gedämmt ist. Je besser die Gebäudehülle gedämmt ist (und das schließt auch Fenster und Türen mit ein), desto höher ist der Mietpreis für die jeweilige Wohnung. Jedes Gebäude verliert an Wärme, die dem Gebäude im Wesentlichen durch Heizen zugeführt werden muss. Je besser die Dämmung ist, desto länger dauer es jedoch, bis das Gebäude merklich ausgekühlt ist. Es muss also permanent “gegengeheizt” werden, auch wenn man nur Raumtemperaturen von 18 - 20 Grad erreichen will.

Ich habe mal in einem Altbau ohne merkliche Dämmung gewohnt. Wenn die Heizung aus war (zumeist ausgefallen), dann war es nach einer halben Stunde kalt. In der derzeitigen Wohnung ist auch mal die die Freitags Heizung ausgefallen, wirklich gemerkt hat man es aber erst am Sonntag abend.

Die Art der Heizung und die Ausführung der Dämmung spiegeln sich im Mietpreis wider. Das zur Verfügung stehende Budget insbesondere für Bürgergeldempfänger schränkt daher die Auswahl ein. Aus diesem Grund brauchen wir wieder einen staatlich subventionierten Sozialen Wohnungsbau.

“Dann können die Leistungsempfänger entscheiden, ob sie eine kleinere Wohnung beziehen und wie sie heizen”

Genau, weil man sich als Mieter ja auch genau aussuchen kann, wie man heizt. Abgesehen davon, dass das Angebot an (nicht nur) mit Bürgergeld bezahlbaren Wohnungen deutlich bescheidener ausfällt, als das Angebot an Wohnungen, die Herr Lindner sich leisten könnte.

Ich kenne einen, der hat sich eine Wohnung gemietet und der Vermeiter hat noch eine zweite Wohnung für Umme dazugepackt, weil die ja sonst nicht weggeht. /s

Really? My laptop doesn’t. Maybe it depends on if the battery is designed to be removed by customer or if it is hidden inside the laptop, making it accessible only with tools.

Since laptops are equipped with a battery anyway, they lack of a coin cell (mostly a CR2032 cell) to keep track of time. This means that your laptop will not be able to estimate the correct time and date when powered with energy outside of the original battery, and these settings have to be made manually each time your laptop will be used.

It will work fine without the correct time set, but you might have issues with files that are created “in the future” (from your laptops perspective).

I have an old laptop (still in use occasionally, because I have a scanner that is too old to be operated with current software) where I replaced its battery once. The sign the battery was dead was that the OS issued a warning the laptop was not able to tell the correct time.

Yes. I’d rather smash my femur at a pop up headlight while lounching over the engine hood than being dragged underneath an SUV street tank and being squashed.

The technology behind telecommunication.

Today everything happens inside your router, fast and silent. My father was a telecommunications engineer. When I was a amall boy (late 1980s) he once took me to his workplace (it was in the evening and he was supposed to troubleshoot). What today fits onto a few silicone chips inside a router took much more space back them.

I was in a room that was filled with several wardsobe-sized cabinets. Inside there were hundreds of electro-mechanical relays that were in motion, spinning and clicking, each time someone in the city dialed a number (back then rotary phones were quite common). It was quite loud. There also was a phone receptor inside one of the cabinets where one could tap into an established connection, listening into the conversation two strage people had (it was for checking if a connectiion works).

I still remeber the distinct “electrical” smell of that room (probably hazardous vapors from long forbidden cable insulation and other electrical components).

So when you dialed a number at one place with your rotary phone, you were able to move some electro-mechanical parts at another place that could be located somewhere else around the globe (hence long distance calls).

A 1991 Ford Sierra that I bought for 100,- from a friend because I needed a car quickly. This car was already promised to be shipped to Nigeria, where Europe dumps all the old cars. It still had 3 months until the next savety inspection, which the car certainly would have failed.

The engine was still OK, but the car had some electrical issues. When using the turn signal first, and then using the brake pedal, all lights and electrical load were going bonkers, resulting in flickering and failure. The car had to be stopped and the key had to be removed in order to switch it off. Then the car could be started again and one could resume driving.

In order to avoid this issues, it was crucial to use the break pedal first, and then the turning signal, right before turning. This way the electrical issues ware not that severe - the issues stopped, wenn dis-enganging the turn signal.

Also, the doors central locking system was not working properly. Only the passenger door was operational. When I wanted to get the trunk hatch to open, I had to unlock the passenger’s door, reach inside to open the driver’s door from the inside. Then I had to walk around to fully open the driver’s door in order to pull the lever for the trunk hatch that is located next to the driver’s seat.

I only had this car for two months. One day I put the car into neutral at a traffic light. After that, there was a strange noise. I put it into first gear and the clutch refused to connect to the power train. The clutch failed, the car couldn’t be moved by its own. It went to the scrap yard.

I would never mix private data with work related data. You should get a second phone for work related things. As pointed out by others, it may be technically possible to have both on the phone without interfering with each other (which also would be more convenient), but keeping things separated physically has another advantage: Data you are handling/ generating at work belongs to your employer. This means that he can demand (problbly backed up by law) to search your phone when things should go south in the future. You don’t want your employer to have a peek at your personal phone, do you? Also, your employer might want you to install tracking/ logging software to make sure you really do the work. By having a dedicated phone for work related stuff your private stuff is out of focus.

I think that manufacturers of tech products test their products only with a few standard configurations - but in reality there are too many possible combinations of different configurations:

Take a bluetooth mouse for example. Generally, it connects to a computer and it works. Now imagine that you have a different configuration - a logicboard in your laptop that has not been tested by the manucacturer of the mouse or an obscure model of the bluetooth reciever, that also hasn’t been tested to work with that mouse. Your mouse works well in the beginning, but disconnects at random times. You can’t pinpoint the issue, and when you are looking for help online, nobody seems to have the same problems with that mouse.

In this case, said mouse sucks, because it doesn’t function reliably. A different person with a different configuration of their computer (different logicboard, different model of the bluetooth unit) might have no problems at all with the same mouse.

This happens with your returned packages (article is in German, half of it is translated below):

Amazon shreds its returns 08.06.2018June 8, 2018

The “Destroy” shipping method is bringing Amazon into disrepute - is the online retailer really destroying tons of functioning products? The German government is already talking about a “huge scandal” Germany, Pforzheim: Symbolic image of Amazon logistics center The “Destroy shipping method” can also be booked with the logistics service provider

Tons of returns and products in mint condition, including fridges, cell phones, mattresses and furniture, are said to have been destroyed by online retailer Amazon. This was reported by the ZDF magazine Frontal 21 and Wirtschaftswoche. Both media outlets refer to internal product lists, photos and statements from employees. According to these, goods of all kinds are disposed of “on a large scale” in the mail order company’s German logistics warehouses.

Amazon not only destroys unusable products, but also functional and sometimes new items, according to statements from employees. One employee reported that she destroyed goods worth tens of thousands of euros every day.

Clip from 2022, German. Signature quote: “It is not only an occasional [Euro]Palette of Items, it is whole truckloads - in all fulfilment centers, almost day by day.”