Dr. Unabart

While cheap healthcare here is nice, without private insurance (pricey) it can be months to get an appointment with a primary care doctor. I had to fire one doctor who just refused to make progress on treating my conditions or help in the aid of persistent pain. Many doc offices operate as patient mills, where you can wait up to 90 minutes past your appointment time to be seen for 5 minutes. Office gets the pay from insurance, and you need to return 3 months later with the same ailments. I was stuck in that system for a year before I found a new doc that would listen to me and take me on as a patient.

So, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It is a better setup than in the US, where insurance has ruined the industry, but unless you’re diligent about getting a good doctor to take you on, or pay for private insurance, It’s just a grind. A lot of chopping, but no chips are flying.

The system here is better, but the treatment you get in the US is ultimately more beneficial.

This has been my experience and perhaps not representative of the system as a whole.

It’s crazy! The doctor said they weren’t allowed to use email because fax was more secure. I explained that using e-fax wasn’t any more secure. I also reached out to a guy I know who works IT for a small village and the way he laid it out is that Germany doesn’t want to have to upgrade and train everyone on email, buy all the computers, go through the growing pains of new tech.

This sums up Germany in general… if it’s not broken then shut up, there’s nothing to fix. You can’t even go grocery shopping or wash your car on Sundays. The rest of the EU runs laps around Germany on tech and progressive life.

(Transplant from USA, I should note. It’s been a journey.)

Are you in Germany? They’re still using fax, predominantly, here. My doctor wanted to fax my records, couldn’t email them to me. I said of course don’t have a fkn fax, it’s 2024. I asked if people still have pots lines for fax machines and she said they use e-fax. There’s your German efficiency!

Anyway, government passed some law saying they have to cease using them (for gov business) by end of 2024. In the meantime, don‘t throw that telegraph out just yet!

Combination of Sportsfire and Streamfire apps.

That’s great news. But they’ll eventually sneak it in when they’ve distracted us with something else astonishingly awful.

Question, mostly out of an inability to completely understand the tech side of this, but how would this be possible with Messenger services that have no central servers or direct point to implement something like this? Say, Session IM or SimpleX.

🤘🏼

Nice try, Boeing!

Back then: The prices of shit and ease of procurement. Nowadays, I’ll buy reasonably priced software because I’m not a broke dick and like to have support if needed. Though, understandably, there’s still a lot of bullshit software that’s way too expensive. But I lean towards foss software when I can get away with it.

But for streaming/cable/satellite? I’d rather wipe my ass with that money. I’ll go to the theater if a movie looks good enough, just to change things up, but with so much awful shit being produced… nope.

I pay for music streaming on Deezer, but also have a carefully curated media library and run Nicotine 24/7 to share on slsk.

I guess it’s a toss up between money and principle. 🤷‍♂️

I know I’m a hero to my German pals when I come back with a brick of Grape Soda because, for some reason, it’s forbidden to sell here. Pop Tarts are also popular.

That seems to be written by a child.

They fucked up by not legislating a model for dispensaries or another distribution model outside of medical. A quick look at the money being made on recreational cannabis dispensary taxes in California, Washington and Colorado should have provided impetus for the government here to get in on the action. So much money being left on the table. Alas, Germany continues to live in the 20th century with its glacial approach to modernizing laws and infrastructure for the 21st century.

Stress-testing the structure of the bar.

Awesome. Good luck!

I have the Spark 40 and it kicks ass for what it does. Doubles as a BT speaker when not on fiddle duty.

I see you grabbed the NUX. Will be curious how you like it. Certainly looks nice and gets glowing reviews.

Thanks! Definitely ahead of its time!

What is it? Not going to watch the video.

I’ve tried to give them my money. Max, Hulu, Netflix… and none of them want it unless they can get my telemetry. American in Europe, so I can’t use US services. Netflix and Prime will only show me the Euro selection. Don’t want that. Use a VPN, you say? All those services block IPVanish and Proton. They want my data not my money. It would be optimal if I paid them to give them my data, but if I can’t give them clean telemetry, they don’t want my money. This tells me they should be paying me for that info. And that’s not going to happen.

So, I tried. I honestly did.

Enter Stremio-Torrentio-Debrid and I can now watch every single thing I can think of. For the pittance I give Debrid, it’s been a game changer. I don’t expect it to last forever, but aligning with you fellow seafaring folks will keep me at the forefront of the game. 🤘🏼🏴‍☠️

Can you really own the sidewalk in front of your building? Otto should paint it rainbow. That would (might. Fuck it, probably not) keep those jokers from setting up there.

I have a couple Mystery Ranch backpacks that I think are going to outlive me. RipRuck 32 holds a ton of stuff and the Blitz 30 has excellent organization. Incredibly durable, if a bit on the pricey side. I live/work on the road and was chewing through backpacks, so spending the extra has proven to be worth it.

I setup a Wordpress blog a while back because I could get easy CE credits for writing about cybersecurity. I used AI to write the articles. The snake eats it’s own tail. :)

If it’s free, you’re the product. None of these new revelations is the least bit surprising. It’s a data mining gold rush right now.

Dude didn’t spring any loot.