The Frying Pan

The Sci-Fi stack is starting mod elections tomorrow, this will my first time actually voting. The candidate I'm voting for is amazing. He makes SAJ look timid to respond :) He's also a really great asset to the stack.

Look at these stats. How is that even possible?!?

Richard

83.3k 13 418 592

Cerberus

1:04 PM

@Jolenealaska You used your stove as a source of light?

I remember something about electricity bills...

@Jolenealaska What ham?

Jolenealaska

It has a light in the overhead fan

Cerberus

Ahh that.

Haha.

Doesn't that have one of those odd light bulbs in odd places that are very hard to replace?

Jolenealaska

Rummi's ham.

1

Q: How to mount a ham?

I bought a Serrano ham on sale. It's the whole pig's leg, and it comes with a kind of a stand. However, the stand was delivered in pieces like IKEA furniture, but unlike IKEA, it has no manual explaining what goes where. I'm especially puzzled about the large ring and the small trapez-without-b...

equipment ham

Cerberus

Funny question.

(One wonders, why mount it at all?)

Jolenealaska

Richard's gender bending avatar is a hoot, that's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in case she's not as familiar there.

Cerberus

1:08 PM

But a smoked, salted ham should not spoil in a dry environment, right?

Jolenealaska

I don't know the time frame, I think the USDA would require it be refrigerated, but the USDA is pretty lame.

Nope, the normal light bulb is reachable and easy to replace. I's a florescent, so it's pretty long-life too.

rumtscho

@Cerberus the ham is not refrigerated

it's sold on a normal shelf too

but it gets mounted because it's damn hard to cut a piece off even when it's in a stable hold

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska Haha what does it stand for?

@rumtscho Ahh I see, now I get it.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska no, I didn't see a scolding.

Jolenealaska

United Stated Department of Agriculture. Along with the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), they're the food police.

rumtscho

1:15 PM

so, I'll be having lunch now

Lamb cutlet, Greek salad, and homemade ciabatta

Jolenealaska

0

A: Can I substitute cocoa for semisweet chocolate?

It's simple. For a semi sweet baking chocolate substitute in a pinch, for each ounce of semi sweet chocolate called for in the recipe, use 1 Tbsp. Cocoa 1 1/2 Tbsp. (4 1/2 tsp) sugar 2 tsp. Butter For a substitute for 1 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate, use 3 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder 1 Tbsp. But...

That sounds great.

I had Tuna Helper for dinner.

rumtscho

I think I'll have a small glass of wine too, and then some chocolate for dessert. If I'm gonna spoil myself, I should go all the way.

Jolenealaska

Speaking of!

Do you know Ferrero Rocher candy?

rumtscho

Yes, I know it

Jolenealaska

Ah shucks, that means you can get it, right?

rumtscho

1:19 PM

yes, all Ferrero items are available here. It's from Northern Italy, really close. Very oppular in Germany.

In fact, I'm planning to send you one of their products which are not exported to the USA

Jolenealaska

Gotcha, one of my favorites, I love hazelnut.

rumtscho

"love hazelnut" is a good hint

Jolenealaska

No :)

I have a big box I picked up at Sam's Club.

rumtscho

by the way, the reason I was in the Turkish shop (where I got the lamb and olives and quality vegetables) is that I wanted to buy some itemes for your package

I still haven't gathered all the stuff, but the pile is slowly building.

Jolenealaska

Since I won't be sending any to Germany, I think I'll make a cheesecake out of them.

Mine too!

rumtscho

1:22 PM

It's probably too late for the Christmas items

The problem is that I haven't had the time to go shopping since Christmas

Jolenealaska

That doesn't matter. Our packages will come together when they come together and not a moment sooner.

rumtscho

I'd go into some small store, grab a bag of frozen vegetabls and a piece of meat, and get quickly out. No lists, no looking for good stuff. No space in my purse to carry sweets home.

Jolenealaska

That reminds me. Next time I go the the grocery store I'm going to bring my camera. Cerby commented the other day that you and I probably have different perceptions of what a grocery store is.

I have no doubt he's right about that.

rumtscho

Oh, we have a few of the giant ones

they are just not so common, especially in Germany, where urban areas are dense

Jolenealaska

As big as a city block?

rumtscho

1:27 PM

No, not as a city block, I guess. But more than would fit on a single photo.

Jolenealaska

My local grocery is city block sized. I've lived here for (3?) years, and maybe seen half of it.

rumtscho

or... what do you call a city block? We might have a different understanding of that

@Jolenealaska OK, then not this kind

But what do they sell on such a large area?

Sure, we have the stores which sell a lot of stuff beside groceries.

But they are still mostly groceries, the total amount of non food is smaller than the total amount of food

Jolenealaska

Everything, TVs Clothes housewares groceries

rumtscho

and there are only so many types of food you can sell

and the largest stores here already have 5-10 largely interchangeable brands of most food types

Jolenealaska

groceries are labout half the store.

rumtscho

1:32 PM

half a city block with only groceries?

I mean, let's say you want to have peppermint tea

Jolenealaska

Just the coffee takes up as much shelf space as an entire convenience store.

rumtscho

why would they carry more than 5-6 different brands of peppermint tea?

or are there so many different styles of product that they can fill the area?

Jolenealaska

My guess? 3 or 4 brands of peppermint tea.

google.com/maps/place/7701+Debarr+Rd,+Anchorage,+AK+99504/…

rumtscho

This is the yogurt selection of a midsized supermarket in Western Germany

It may have a few other products in there - sour cream and similar

Jolenealaska

That looks about the same.

Perhaps half again what you can see there would be all of the yogurt.

rumtscho

1:40 PM

An article from 2010 says that the largest supermarket in Germany had 55 000 articles on 6000 square meters

this would be 64 000 square feet

but the trends are going up

Jolenealaska

hmmm...I can't place that for comparison.

I found largest in US, 250,000 square feet.

chowhound.chow.com/topics/292478

rumtscho

oh, it turns out that the German statistics differentiate between Discounter, Supermarket, Large supermarket and Self-service warehouse

and the number of articles per category are 2000, 11000, 25000 and 50000 respectively

I read somewhere that the average American supermarket has 50 000 articles

so it seems that the largest we have here are comparable to the usual you have there

Jolenealaska

Found it. My grocery store is 170,000 square feet.

rumtscho

maybe they just build more shelf space for the same number of articles because land is so cheap in America

Jolenealaska

So, no wonder bathrooms are expected :)

rumtscho

1:50 PM

I don't know what the advantage of the large shelf space is for the customer

I already find the average German supermarket unpleasantly large

too much walking between the few items which really interest me

Jolenealaska

Very much so!

rumtscho

and the large choice is only apparent

Jolenealaska

Deli counter to milk takes five minutes!

rumtscho

you end up with endless shelves of fruit yogurt, but it's just 10 tastes, each available in 10 brands

and the brands don't really taste different. They are probably produced in the same factory anyway.

I do like shopping in the large ones when I need something more interesting, because the small ones don't have many uncommon foods

but they have a very large between-brand variety and still not such a good food type variety

Jolenealaska

Average # of items in a US grocery store is 44,000, so my store probably carries 65,000.

rumtscho

1:54 PM

and they are also more expensive than the small ones

and I suspect that they offer their wares in a much more dense manner than your stores. Just placing fewer palettes on the shelf.

also, our average packaging is probably smaller than yours

Jolenealaska

My favorite store in town is maybe a 10th the size of the one right here.

rumtscho

what is "right here"? The one on the Google maps?

Jolenealaska

Yep, that's mine, less than a mile from my home.

The New Saguya (my favorite) is probably 10 miles away.

rumtscho

I doubt that the whole of Heidelberg is 10 miles across

no, it cannot be

At least in the east-west direction, it's much smaller

Jolenealaska

Anchorage is geographically huge.

rumtscho

1:58 PM

I remember biking to the kayak shop to buy shoes

I live in the centre, a bit to the east

the kayak shop is 10 miles west of me

and it's two towns over

so I had to bike through Heidelberg proper, then the town part called Eppelheim, then the town called Plankstadt, then go to the town called Schwetzingen where the shop is. And the whole route is 16 km (one direction)

it has a baroque castle but I have never seen it. Should go sightseeing some day.

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska That sounds like a lot! I want that.

@rumtscho "It"? Schwetzingen?

rumtscho

@Cerberus yes, Schwetzingen

Germany is amazing

Cerberus

Not bad.

Jolenealaska

rumtscho

there are things - castles, museums - which in other countries would be treated like a national treasure and gather hordes of tourists

Jolenealaska

2:03 PM

That's pretty!

rumtscho

but here, they are so common, that nobody has heard of them unless living in the area

Cerberus

rumtscho

I only heard of Schwetzingen's castle last year, after 5 years of living here

Cerberus

@rumtscho I'm sure there are tons of nice towns and castles in Bulgaria...

@Jolenealaska Looks efficient.

How many business and tourist visitors do you think Amsterdam got last year?

rumtscho

and of the town itself. I guess I'd have heard of it earlier if I were a driver, one notices the names of highway exits around one's town.

Cerberus

2:05 PM

For reference: the population of the Netherlands is around 17 million.

rumtscho

@Cerberus no, I don't think we have a single standing castle. There is a fortification left standing from before Osmanic times, but it's more like a fort.

Cerberus

I think we have already talked about this...

Jolenealaska

All but 1 particular area is pretty efficient, that 1 intersection (Lake Otis and Tudor) is a mess.

Cerberus

@rumtscho google.nl/…

Jolenealaska

They keep expanding it, but it's never enough.

Cerberus

2:06 PM

What do you think? Are most of those duds?

rumtscho

And then there are ruines in the three towns which used to be a capital city at some point between 681 and 1396 AD

Cerberus

(Amsterdam got 17.3 million tourist and business visitors last year, which is more than the population of the entire country.)

(And all of them visit my neighbourhood.)

rumtscho

The first picture is a reconstruction of some walls on the capital city of the second Bulgarian state, the one which continued to 1396. But the castle itself has not been reconstructed

Cerberus

(Can you imagine how horrible traffic is.)

rumtscho

The second is a military wall, there was no castle there as far as I know. Just a city wall.

Jolenealaska

2:08 PM

"In 2013, 1.96 million people visited Alaska."

Our population is 700,000.

rumtscho

OK, the third is a modern one, late 19th century. We did have a monarchy then. It's more of a modern king's summer residence, though. I've heard of it, but I've never heard of tourists visiting, I think it's privately owned and not opened to the public.

Cerberus

@rumtscho Oh, well, it looked nice.

Jolenealaska

Amsterdam is very, very high on the list of places I'd like to see.

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska Our population is 730,000.

And yours is a little bit more spread out.

Jolenealaska

The city of Amsterdam?

rumtscho

2:10 PM

The fourth is a church in Romania :)

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska Yes.

Of course the urban area is larger.

rumtscho

The fifth is the military fortification I spoke of

Cerberus

But the official city.

Besides, most tourists crowd around the inner city, which is much smaller than 730,000.

Jolenealaska

Oh yeah! We have 1 person per square mile of the state.

Cerberus

@rumtscho Okay, but at least the pictures look pretty. Even if one is the castle of Chantilly in France...

@Jolenealaska We have more like 50,000 in the inner city hehe.

rumtscho

2:12 PM

haha! The fifth one is a placeholder on a page called "list of castles in Bulgaria". And the article itself is empty.

Jolenealaska

Of course, the population density of Anchorage is just what a average US city would be.

rumtscho

6, 7 and 8 are the same Romanian church

9 is a medieval Bulgarian church

10 is the same church

so, all in all, we have no castles.

But we do have nice medieval churches and monasteries.

Jolenealaska

That of course is completely foreign to me. I don't think I have ever been in a building more than 200 years old.

rumtscho

@Cerberus 17 million per year? this means 50K visitors per day

and your old city has tiny alleys I suppose?

I haven't been to Amsterdam, but I've seen Delft

@Cerberus are the streets in your part of town larger than in Delft's old town?

Cerberus

@rumtscho Hah! Even better.

@Jolenealaska Aww you should come here!

Jolenealaska

2:25 PM

If I can ever swing it, I will.

Cerberus

This weekend, the rain damaged the pavement in a certain town, uncovering a tunnel system that nobody had known about for several centuries. It dates back to at least before 1563, possibly much older.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska do it. It's also not so far from heidelberg, compared to the flight between the continents

and we're one of the favorite places for tourists in Germany

a fairy tale town

Cerberus

@rumtscho Yup.

@rumtscho About the same as Delft.

Jolenealaska

I'll try. I could still possibly marry into money :)

Cerberus

@Jolenealaska Yay!

rumtscho

2:28 PM

or, some day when you're already living in Iowa and part of your dad's family budget anyway, and want to take a break from the family

Cerberus

rumtscho

but don't count on me still being in Heidelberg after so many years, I'm not absolutely sure I'll stay in town

Cerberus

rumtscho

I'll still be glad to visit it with you though

@Cerberus this is great. The way today's sanitation companies build, I doubt their work would last so many centuries in such a great condition

Cerberus

Heh.

I really wouldn't know.

Jolenealaska

2:30 PM

Boy that looks like a scene from Les Miserables.

Cerberus

They use those large concrete pipes, don't they?

Jolenealaska

Time for me to go to bed!

Goodnight guys. Oh! tomorrow is an anniversary of sorts for me!

500 days since my first visit here, also, 500 days consecutive.

rumtscho

@Jolenealaska good night

Jolenealaska

500 days ago today, I had never heard of Stack Excange.

rumtscho

I'll keep the congratulations for tomorrow

Jolenealaska

2:34 PM

:)

goodnight.

rumtscho

Speaking of moving, I am thinking of maybe moving out of my place

It's so tiny and full of stuff

and last week I heard of two good flats

they are both 2-room, have some storage area in the basement, and have real windows, so more light

but they both cost more than 600 Euros per month, and this would be 50 to 60% of my monthly income

@Cerberus what do you think, does it sound scary to move under such circumstances?

Cerberus

3:16 PM

@rumtscho Hmm have you made a budget?

rumtscho

I dont' have an exactly monthly budget

Cerberus

Can you afford the rent with your current spending habits?

rumtscho

I can't afford it, I'll have to take out a bit of my savings account each month

Cerberus

Ah.

rumtscho

but I won't have to go into debt

Cerberus

3:17 PM

Will they even allow you to rent it?

rumtscho

and I plan on finishing the PhD this year

and after that getting a full time job, which would then allow me to pay it comfortably

Cerberus

How long would you be able to pay the rent until your savings are all gone?

rumtscho

@Cerberus if they don't, the idea is moot :)

Cerberus

Heh.

Here they often demand income statements and such.

rumtscho

@Cerberus maybe 2 years or more, if I keep my current job

Cerberus

3:18 PM

OK that's fairly long.

rumtscho

and if I lose my job, I'll get unemployment benefits

Cerberus

But what if you somehow fail to finish your PhD?

Ah.

@rumtscho And would those be enough?

rumtscho

@Cerberus yes that's the point. What if the PhD situations continues longer?

Cerberus

It happens to many people, God forbid...

I have to admit I am guilty of the same offence.

rumtscho

@Cerberus They will in no way cover my monthly expenses. They won't even cover them if I stay in my current 400 Euro flat.

It's a financial risk, I know

Cerberus

3:19 PM

Right.

rumtscho

but I now have a good feeling about the PhD

Cerberus

That's good.

rumtscho

Last week I had a meeting with my advisor, and she agrees with my plan for the literature review

Cerberus

How horrible is your current house?

rumtscho

@Cerberus 27 square meters, attic, no basement use

Cerberus

3:21 PM

But how horrible does it make your life?

rumtscho

cold in the winter (despite a heating which gurgles loudly day and night)

hot as an oven in summer

Cerberus

That sucks...but most houses are too hot in summer...

rumtscho

so full with stuff that there is literally no piece of wall without some kind of cabinet, shelf or desk in front of it

Cerberus

You could do something about that without moving.

rumtscho

@Cerberus but I sleep directly under a badly insulated roof slope. I can't fall asleep some nights because it's so hot.

Cerberus

3:22 PM

Look, I have been living off my savings until they were all gone. It is not fun. But I wouldn't have done it if I could have avoided it by staying in a cheaper house.

rumtscho

It's also a bit stuffy because the air of the whole house gathers directly below the roof. I notice the change in air quality when going up the stairs, right about my landing.

Cerberus

I didn't think I would be living off my savings for long, but of course I did.

rumtscho

@Cerberus then you're the right person to ask. You've been through it.

Cerberus

@rumtscho You could buy one of those mobile A/C units.

@rumtscho Yes. But your character might be different.

rumtscho

@Cerberus I don't know if I could fasten it properly on the roof slope in front of the window

Cerberus

3:24 PM

You can just hang the pipe out of your window.

rumtscho

@Cerberus well, I spent my childhood in poverty. I know how to be frugal. Although I must admit that I have become accustomed to having money.

Cerberus

I'm frugal too.

rumtscho

The point is, money is a convenience, which opens quite a few alternatives for solving problems one has

Cerberus

But I'm not good at taking steps to change my living situation when I really should, which is why I have lived on my savings for too long. Are you sure you can avoid that?

@rumtscho Sure, but there is a minimum.

rumtscho

and now I ask myself, should I solve my "I hate my flat" problem with lots of money, rigidly constraining my alternatives when other problems come up

Cerberus

3:26 PM

Or at least a band ranging between minimum and extremely inconvenient, especially socially.

rumtscho

I am motivated to finish my PhD quickly by factors other than "my money is running out"

Cerberus

@rumtscho My preliminary advice would be: don't do it now, think about it some more.

rumtscho

but it's still a lot of work that is left to be done

@Cerberus Hmm. I actually didn't want to go onto the free market

it's very hard to find a flat in Heidelberg. One of the worst places in Germany.

Cerberus

So those €600 apartments are social housing?

rumtscho

And it's lots of stress when you are looking for something.

Cerberus

3:28 PM

I know the feeling.

rumtscho

I heard of those two apartments through friends

Cerberus

Ah.

rumtscho

it's still possible that they will be advertised in the market, and the owner will get to pick from many candidates

Cerberus

Right.

rumtscho

but if I don't get one of them, then I'm just not moving

Cerberus

3:29 PM

So but you are saying those apartments are very good opportunities?

rumtscho

what is worse in the free market is that there just isn't anything good, because all the decent flats get gobbled up as soon as they appear

@Cerberus yes, I heard of them by chance

Cerberus

What are the chances of getting a somewhat similar apartment later, through any means?

rumtscho

one of them is even in the street where I live now, so moving will be very easy

Cerberus

Haha but that convenience is negligible in the long term.

rumtscho

@Cerberus it will require lots of work and watching advertisings like a hawk

Cerberus

3:30 PM

But it will be possible?

rumtscho

or I can get similar quality for a much higher price from an agent

this would be a quick find

Cerberus

Once you make more money, that won't be a problem any more, right?

rumtscho

@Cerberus yes, but I'd have to search for weeks, or even a few months

Cerberus

And maybe you won't want to live in Heidelberg any more in two years.

rumtscho

@Cerberus if I stay in an apartment long enough, it wouldn't be bad if my rent isn't too expensive relative to the quality of the apartment. Rent will still be my largest monthly expense.

Cerberus

3:32 PM

Sure, but it won't be a huge issue any more.

@rumtscho If this is truly a very good opportunity that probably won't return, if you can hold out for 2 years on your savings, and if you are 100% sure that you will finish your PhD this year and find a decent job and not postpone stuff like I did, then you have my blessing.

rumtscho

I don't know what the future will bring. When I started my PhD, I moved into a 400 Euro flat in a very central location, while my colleagues moved into 600 Euro flats much farther away (but twice the size). Over the last 5 years, I have saved many thousands of Euros. I think I wouldn't have any savings now if I had been paying 600 Euros from the start.

@Cerberus well, it will return if I wait for it for a few months, but I probably won't have the patience once I get a new job post-PhD and will take something more expensive.

So, if you knew back then what you know now, would you have made the same choice of living off your savings?

Cerberus

4:01 PM

@rumtscho It wasn't really a choice.

That is, I should of course have graduated sooner and got a full-time job.

But I absolutely did not enjoy living off my savings.

rumtscho

4:29 PM

You could have done a lot of other things. Sped up graduation, put off graduation while getting a temporary full time job, foregone graduation completely, moved back with your parents... so I call it a choice. Even if it was the least of all evils.

anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and answering my questions

it's a personal decision, but checking with an outside person helps to see if my perspective isn't terribly skewed.

Cerberus

@rumtscho Yes, in that way it is a choice. But it's different from your choice between moving or not moving, in that doing nothing results in not dipping into your savings for you.

Your perspective is not terribly skewed. Just make sure you loo at your future situation realistically.

rumtscho

Yes, I'm trying to be realistic, but as a mere human, I can't leave my subjective view behind. At least there are some strong factors going for me - there is little risk I'll be surprised by major expenses (good health insurance, no car to break down, in fact no transportation costs at all), skills with which I can quickly find a new job if needed, 3 months notice if I get fired, and finally a decent idea of what is supposed to go into the dissertation. So it should be manageable

and who knows, maybe I won't get one of these flats, and I'll stay here. But if the opportunity exists, and it's as good as it seems, I think I'll go for it.

Cerberus

> skills with which I can quickly find a new job if needed

This is good.

Maybe it would help to also come up with a worst-case (but still realistic) scenario and how you would handle that.

Cerberus

7:47 PM

@derobert engadget.com/2015/01/21/…

> A report by the AP has revealed that Healthcare.gov, the Government's affordable care portal, shares some of your personal data with a whole raft of marketing agencies. The action has been independently verified by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has found that a person's location, annual income and smoking habits are all being freely distributed.

ElendilTheTall

8:45 PM

hallooo?

everyone must be at church

O.o

rumtscho

I'm certainly not at church

ElendilTheTall

9:19 PM

@rumtscho prove it!

rumtscho

@ElendilTheTall you have all the bugs in my home

don't you hear Alice Cooper playing in the background?

schoool's out for summer ♫

ElendilTheTall

It sounds like 'All Creatures Great and Small' to me

rumtscho

metal-only.de/?action=stream

try again, this is the radio station I'm listening to right now

Alice Cooper is just finishing, next comes Uriah Heep

I'm afraid it's the Rock and Metal classics, so not strictly metal

ElendilTheTall

Metal is not my cup of tea

rumtscho

It's even less a church's cup of tea

ElendilTheTall

9:38 PM

I'm sure there is a Church Of Metal somewhere in Scandinavia.

rumtscho

No, Metal church is a band, not a church, and it's from America :)

Metal Church

Metal Church is an American heavy metal band. They originally formed in San Francisco, California in 1980 before relocating to Aberdeen, Washington the following year and briefly using the name Shrapnel. Their eponymous first album was released in 1984, and their latest, Generation Nothing, in 2013. The band is credited as a formative influence on the thrash metal subgenre, melding the aesthetics of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and American hard rock with "incredibly tight musicianship" and "piercingly screeched" vocals. Early lyrical topics such as conflict and paranoia later expanded into...

While there are bands which play Christian metal (but not Metal church itself), I don't think there are churches which use metal in worshipping.

There are a few church ruins in Norway left after metal fans burned the churches down

anyway, I'm going to bed. Radio is turned off. See you tomorrow, and good night.

Transcript for