The big news is that I took a placement course and it suggested I should be in the first level of a CEFR B1.1 course! Last fall I was going to be placed in a A2.2, so apparently something is sinking in.

I finished another manga book (VizBig style Ranma 1/2 #1) in German. It’s very interesting how the different authors of the different series would use vocabulary. Getting a more diverse set of words was great for the vocab.

I’m applying for a job that would start April 2027 and would require significant German language skills by then. The clock is ticking!

Gotta have my B1 by May 2027 for residency. I’ve got about 68 weeks until I qualify. Continuing the countdown.

Denmark doesn’t need to worry because both medical ships the US can deploy are still in dry dock. Unless Alabama itself is moving towards Greenland, the ship is just not showing up.

That’s a good point. Let’s knock down a bunch of the city buildings to make more room for some lanes and then parking lots for the extra vehicles this will bring in. More cars always means more prosperity for the area, right? Right? Right!?!

One of our local public transit advocates did nothing more than present at city council meetings. They ordered the security team to follow him everywhere in the building, to the bathroom, and his car.

Even basic challenges to the people in your government is all too often met with straight up oppression tactics. He got them to stop by going to the press with it. Nothing else worked except more public pressure.

So they’re admitting that it’s not a serious academic institution? Normally if you’re not an institution with academic freedom and a goal of addressing the real world as it is, you try to hide that so you can keep claiming to be more than a mouthpiece for the Christian Nationalists.

Go Texas! The One Star state.

We left the US. The lastest round of GOP fuckery is the third time my grants were cancelled in the span of 12 years. They’ve been nothing but detrimental to my ability to be an academic in the US, so fuck em. That’s who the people voted for, so I’ll go contribute somewhere that wants me.

Hey look! Yet another conservative policy that abuses women. I’m sure if they keep voting for the big ® it’ll get better any day now. Oh wait, taking away the vote from anyone not white and land owning is a conservative policy plank.

Elbows up, Canada. I’m so happy to see the Neighbors to the North take little shit from the Bully Cowards to the South.

Koležnik said her intention with the production had not been to make “liberal, petit bourgeois society in Europe feel good” around a consensus of condemning intolerance, but to leave them scared. “The next wave of fascism, there will not be monsters. There will be normal, nice people,” she said.

But that’s one of the oft overlooked aspects of fascism: it is done by the normal, nice people. It’s done by people who are crushed, hurt, afraid, and trying to survive. They’re told they can be powerful and hurt those hurting them. They’re given the go-ahead to pick an “other” to attack. They’re given a feeling of control by a uniform and a stick. A little power. Nothing real, just enough to attack a neighbor who is new or different in some way. It doesn’t matter who the fascist leaders pick, they’ll just go after whomever is convenient in the moment and it turns at least some of us against each other.

The rank and file of the SS were normal shopkeepers, workers, and common people who wanted to end the pain caused by dictatorship, rulers, and wealth hoarding in the world. The very people hoarding the wealth and causing the pain turn it into fascism to build their own power by turning the common people against each other.

The billionaires of the US are running out of things to steal within the US, so it’s time for them to try to steal everywhere else (even more than usual). This time, they’re going to do it to the EU using the US military and government. Follow Canada’s lead and put those elbows up.

The rate of empires destroyed by fighting two front wars while overextending the military to hold other territories is nearly 100%. It’s the best indicator of an empire collapse coming up.

If you have to tell everyone you’re a king, then you’re not a king.

So, operating in a sport using gentleman’s rules is great. It’s wonderful when people are honest and courteous on the pitch/ice/field. The problem is that it works both ways.

Canada’s player did break the rules. I don’t know enough about Curling to say if it was a game changing infraction, but he did it at least once. Why he can’t say “I messed up in the moment, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again”. Apparently attacking the other players, the officials, and the public is the better response.

Why hasn’t his own coach suspended him? If this is a game of courtesy and trust then wouldn’t the team take care of it internally? It’s not the important, I guess.

To sum up: we end up with cameras, judges and replays when we can’t trust the players to be honest. So far the Canadian team and the single finger infraction aren’t demonstrating the kind of gentleman’s honor needed to preserve the type of environment they begrudge losing.

I used to be intrigued by tiny homes. They’re enough room for one or two people, but not a place I’d try to raise a kid.

I recently went from a 3k sq ft US home to a 1100sq ft apartment and this apartment feels big. The difference mostly centers around how much furniture and other home maintenance materials I used to have.

It also helps that we moved to a European city so we don’t have a car and related support equipment.

Looking at a 350 sq ft tiny home, if it was just down to myself and a partner, we could do it. The whole goal would be to not spent huge amounts of time at home, but to go to 3rd places and hobbies away from home. Rural or suburban living makes that harder than where we’re at now, but it’s doable.

“Quisling gets the day they voted for others”

Wrong API? Wrapper pattern time!

Given this press release by Google, I presume they’ll also be stopping the use of Open Source code within their company? The should immediately remove all of those Linux installs and put in a commercial product because it would be “better for the economy”. Get working, Google. Once you finish that up, come back and we’ll still ignore you, but at least you’ll be on better moral ground when you show up.

MIT ran a study decades ago to find the features that were most indicative of success among their PhD students. They looked at hundreds of features like intelligence, money, age, grades, prior schools, etc.

The #1 dominating factor above all others was perseverance. How much the person would just keep working despite obstacles mattered more than anything else.

The same goes for people running and starting businesses. Intelligence isn’t the dominating factor, perseverance is.

They also have very strick guidelines about how quickly the bike roads are plowed after/during snowfalls. They keep the routes open and useful so people can trust the transit modality all year round.

The US just plows the snow onto the bike lanes and then complains about how bad biking is.

One of the anti-everything groups in our city actually put out a public statement about how people advocating for public transit “just wanted to be able to go out partying and then ride transit home!! REEEEEEE!!!”

Many people went “yeah, duh?” <confused looks> Isn’t that a phenomenal reason to have great public transit? It literally saves lives and promotes enjoying life.

Calvinism is such a blight upon humanity.