chattius

Grandma taught collecting food and herbs. She was 16 in World War 2 as a nurse. She was hiding and fleeing all the way from the Baltic to Germany. Bet I learned more about nature spending a week with her in summer breaks than in all the years at school.

About the life insurance: we have two sorts. A Risiko-Lebensversicherung pays only in case you die but has quite low monthly costs. The normal Lebensversicherung (life insurance) pays when you die or the contract Ends and costs a lot more. When I started it part of the monthly costs were paid from state (first army then at University as assistant teacher). The annual interest rate was 8%. when I signed. So it is some money after all these years. I was a frew times considering to end it earlier when I needed money: married, first kid , repairing house …

Allowed only x-Country skiining in the open for the Kids. Forest streets were and are still too dangerous. We got heavy snow at a just below freezing temperature in evening. So the snow load on some trees was too high together with the storm. Busy with chain saw between 5am and 6am to free the downhill road.

A day without TV and Internet... Heavy storm day. Antenna for internet access to Access Point down in village, antenna for TV satellites all swinging happily.

Our village has still a baking house and we heat it from time to time. Yesterday was such a day. When the wood is nearly burned down it is pushed to the back. To check the heat for the bread baking a small cookie from bread dough is used. It is baken while there are still flames. It is layed wirh bacon, leech, onions, sour cream, ... The German name is Flammkuchen (flame cookie), French variant is tarte flambee and in our slang it has several names, depending on what is layed on. I prefer to use onions, greenback and Handkäse for my very special Zwiwwelblootz. Zwiwwel is our word for Zwiebel (onion) and a blootz is a sort of a plate. So not a real Pizza, but since tomato, basilicum , Frutti die mare, Salami were not used at our place a century ago it is as close as it can get. And sorry to all the Italians who are proud for their Pizza skills. Nothing beats the taste of a Zwiweelblootz. because it is not only the taste which counts. It is the togetherness of the Village. Kids collect Wood, men heat the oven, women do the dough, lot of laughing and talking while waiting. All this adds mentally to the taste. Bet you can get the same feeling with a Pizza. But the statutes of the baking house club says only recipes from the region

Too bad. I already bought a second hand HP Z420 for 380 Euro in decembre. Kids say it has nearly enough computer power to use it for playing with LEGO robots. 3 monitors connected and this free education software from Fraunhofer Institute. And I was mean and nasty. Instead of a gaming keyboard it has a medical one. You can wash and desinfect it.

One of my life insurances is ending end of the month. Signed it when I was at army and unmarried. It had a very high interest rate and was running 25 years and with around 300 Euro a month. Insurance company always wanted to cancel the contract because today it's like you have to pay the bank to have your money. Luckily the contract was water proofed. Now kids and wife are discussing what to do with MY money....

Hope they get all under control quick. But how are the long time effects? Is it true that the atlantic streams which bring rain to the cape area are 20 kilometres more south cause of global warning now? So most of the clouds miss the cape mountains?

Vengaboys - We're Going to Ibiza! Mike Posner ->I Took a Pill in Ibiza

A dog walk lunch Walking with the dogs early Sunday morning and collecting young herbs, deep frosted fruits still on bushes and mushrooms. We call them Winterpilze, winter mushrooms. The cultivated form sees no light and is grown in a special room with a special atmosphere and well known: enoki. I prefer the wild forms however. Tasty soup.

Don't know if MAngband fits Multiplayer version of Angband. Rogue -> Larn -> Moria -> Angband (all turn based with ascii 'graphics'). I compiled those from the legendary Fish Discs for the families Amiga 1000 and did some code changes requested by my siblings. . Then like 25 years ago a multiplayer version came and was played at the SUN workstations of the university. My favourite (and most hated character by others) was an halfling rogue with a bow. When enemies were damaged by mages who retreat to restore mana I sneaked in for the kill and loot.

You know the meaning of scary and horror depends on age and background. Once you were forced to search and collect bodyparts after a car crash nothing is at is was before. The best movie last year was in my opinion 'November'. Don't mix it up with the US movie 'November'. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6164502/

Hope all gets good. If Fire fighters or an ambulance is called and they are unsure of hidden injuries the transport to an emergency room is free of costs at my place. Years back our second was involved in an accident and the Police asked if she was okay. She said yes and when at home she had a hidden wound and the tissue was already dead, years of transplantations and scar treatment. Our insurance paid all but claimed third of costs from state (because Police didn't consider that she was a child in shock) and two third from the car owner. If your car is a total write off the involved forces must have been high enough for a free check at an hospital. At least at my place and all insurance companies I know. Calculations show that it is cheaper for them to check and treat right away than having hidden injuries doing greater and more expansive damage.

Had to spend 8 stupid hours on Saturday -which would have been spend with family- to learn what changes a hard BREXIT will bring to contracts we have with British companies: taxes, customers duties, British or European law, ...

-15C, no snow, very bad for plants in the garden

Kids often invite classmates without a big pre-warning. Depends on the weather, frozen pond at it is skating at our place. Cloudy and it is shoping in the mall.... So we had times when my wife and me were alone and times when we had 20 kids at after school dinner.

Congrats! A bit late because I was a bit busy real life because our second daughter was skiing in Austria and was cut off by the heavy snow there.

My mother language is not supported https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manisch When I am at home I refuse to change from our regional slang (Hessian) to 'high german' just to have an AI understand me. How useful is an intelligent refrigerator if you don't know how many people will eat at your place the next week and every delivery service is refusing to drive to our place because of mud roads. I think the current home AI systems are for singles or very small households in towns. Imagine a pack of kids speaking to the AI the same moment. Chaos chaos chaos

A quick calculation for a meal with a hungry family at a burger or my favourite rest for truckers shows the trucker rest as a total winner: price, satiation, less waste The only disadvantage is that it is not central in the city. But if we drive to the city we can rest there on the way in or out. At the trucker rest I can buy bottles by the litre and not 0,2l glasses. No waste: because steel forks, spoons, glass glasses, ... A total satiating meal for me is 4,50 Euro. It includes a 0.33 Apfelschorle (apple wine with mineral water) and a Bauernfrühstück. Since a single burger is far from satiating and not really something I like ...Pay more for less Bauernfrühstück (farmers breakfeast): potato, onions, leek, dices of sausages, bacon, chives all roasted in a pan. Then short before serving add twirled eggs and create something like an omelett. Recipes vary since it was a food made from rests you had. But in my area if you order it at a restaurant it is very close to what I wrote. I would consider the picture below this as a kids dish, at least for my kids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauernfrühstück Picture from German wiki

Seems Rimworld is a down trimmed Dwarffortress Less complex, but better UI. It is a bit unfair to use the 'carefully prepared mod'. Skills and traits can be given by using a points system. My colonists start tough with a good immune system. Then I let them start slightly poisoned, suffering from light heat stroke, hungry. This give bonus points and I put them mainly in medicine. So all the bad stuff is removed in the first virtual hour. Then I do a two person hunting. One uses the starting knife to stab an animal. If he doesn't kill it he runs circles around my sniper... Of cause I bought the jogging trait with the bonus points for the melee one, and carefully aiming for the sniper. And if Rimworld is too easy: there are mods for bad mood at low hygiene (you have to build toilets, baths, ...). A mod to make compost for fertilizing fields.... Of cause there are mods to ease the game. But luckily there are ones which make it more complex too

We have a tradition: the volunteer fire fighters of 3 villages built a tent (just for 500 people) on a hill top, drive the fire-trucks to the place and spend the night there. Central place of the 3 villages, so being quick at place at an emergency. Families and friends are with us, field kitchens, mobile pizza oven, ...No need for expensive party dresses, taxis, babysitters. And I bet we had the best look for the fireworks at the villages down. We have to do four big exercises a year and the new year is one of them. We call it building a tent camp for people who suffer from a disaster. We will use the tent to test and sort out water hoses next weekend. Will be exercise #2 and the new year will have just 5 days by then.

Happy New Year ! Just a quick hello before its time to clean up all the leftovers from the big party on the hill.

My cat -> Blendling We live in an area with European wildcats. Our troll cat (norwegian wood cat) Ronja fell in love with such a wild cat and the result was Wibke. Blendling is the German name for mixes between house-cats and wildcats. Wild cats are the only cats you can't tame. Luckily the behaviour of a mix is closer to the one of the mother. But still, if you try to lift her you risk your life, or at least an eye You have to wait till she decides to jump on your knee and don't try to hold her. And you should wear THICK jeans. No mice and rats (not the house rats, the bigger brown ones) in the barn anymore.

3840*2160 -> mathematics You could open a console and type in a screenshot command. Then you could a variable for magnification. So when playing on an old 1200*800 screen you could do do a multiplyer of 2 for 2400*1600. Found it: ss for screenshot as a console command.

options.txt -> BIG screenshots Doing screenshots with 8000*4000 points was fun. If I could only remember which console command it was