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ncarroll

191 karma · joined July 14, 2010

I am a writer and itinerant lurker interested in the tech worldview. Teaching is my first love and technical support for non-technical users my favourite playground.

email: nancy.carroll@carroll.de

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ncarroll··on If we want a shift to walking, we need to prioritize dignity
Germany offers an "Opportunity Card" which gives successful applicants a year to live here while looking for a job. This is a new program that just launched in June, 2024 and I have no personal experience with it but, for a country that needs qualified workers, I thought it was a good idea.

https://www.simplegermany.com/opportunity-card-germany/

Good luck!

ncarroll··on The Kimchi Masters of South Korea
Also, be sure your salt doesn't have any additives. Some "table" salts have anti-clumping ingredients added. These will prevent the ferment. I ferment a lot and use sea salt (Meeressalz) without any troubles. Good luck!
ncarroll··on An accessible one-handed keyboard, inspired by FrogPad
That is one amazing video and an utterly amazing musician. I had no idea such an instrument exists. Really, you kind of blew up my musical world. That definitely lands on my Things That Went Right Today list. Thanks!!
ncarroll··on Why don't grocery stores stock pawpaw fruit?
Except that we also see the occasional NFL season game in the stadium, why not an Indiana banana too? In these days of international logistics, it seems anything is possible. :-)
ncarroll··on Why don't grocery stores stock pawpaw fruit?
I find them very occasionally at our farmers market here in Southern Germany.
ncarroll··on Choosing a Name for Your Computer (1990)
I name for expected performance. A remote server named Arnie should be strong, reliable and always come back. A music server named Elvis serves music with elements from multiple genre and not mind being told what to do by someone who knows a lot less about how it does what it does (that'd be me) than it does. A back-up server named Methuselah should not die for a very, very, very long time. So far, it's been a successful scheme.

Edited for missing words.

ncarroll··on The Maddest My Code Made Anyone
I'm not sure that it is really similar. I would translate "Wer macht hat recht" to something more like "the creator knows best" or "the creator gets to choose". "History is written by the winners." has, I think a less creative context. Perhaps because history is what is written after wars, conquests and other applications of violence. The word "winners" requires and implies losers. Creation requires neither.
ncarroll··on Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news
I'm not sure how one would desensationalize Donald Trump. For my needs, 1440 handled it just fine. Title 42 affects an international audience, Santos charges are newer news than the old news spouted so emphatically at the Town Hall and the third story, about inflation easing is also non-repetitive. The loudest and most outrageous voices manage to be heard even without amplification.
ncarroll··on Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news
You can read today's briefing here: https://join1440.com/newsletter/title-42-ends-george-santos-...
ncarroll··on Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news
It was not a top story but listed under Politics and National Affairs with this text:

"Former President Donald Trump appears on CNN town hall forum in what is considered the first major television event of the 2024 presidential campaign (More) | See all 2024 presidential candidates so far (More)"

(More) is a link to further information.

Top story for that day (today) was Title 42 Ends and second was Santos Charges Unsealed

ncarroll··on Show HN: Boring Report, a news app that uses AI to desensationalize the news
If anyone is looking for non-sensationalist news edited by humans, I'd like to offer a shoutout to the newsletter put out by https://join1440.com/. I've been reading it now for a couple of months and, after comparing their choice of stories to cover and the ones covered in the national news (US and Germany), I'm feeling ready to leave the mainstream and let 1440 curate for me. So far they have not missed offering me an interesting and un-opinionated summary of what the mainstream outlets I've been watching consider the most important story of the day. It's a 5 minute read and is published every day except Sunday.
ncarroll··on Boyfriend-alert – A light based alert system
My boyfriend once presented me with a 3-doors game for my birthday. I was to click one door for my present. I wandered around all day trying to decide which one to choose and when I did, the other two doors disappeared and my warm and snugly new bathrobe was revealed. I married that guy about as fast as I could and twenty-six years later he's still good for a digital surprise. :-)
ncarroll··on Obsidian – A knowledge base from a local folder of plain text Markdown files
Have you tried Markdownload? It's a browser extension that saves and downloads web content as markdown. I use it all the time on my desktop but it's a browser extension and supports Safari, so maybe it's helpful for you too.

https://github.com/deathau/markdownload

ncarroll··on Ask HN: What was the biggest contributor to your happiness in the past year?
Oh my gosh, I've never heard of these and you're right, they do look like a wonderful way to "travel" if you can't otherwise. Thank you so much for sharing.

Edit: Punctuation

ncarroll··on Help Make the 19th Century Searchable
Thank you so much for the chroniclingamerica link. That is seriously cool. I heard my personal "Dangerous Rabbit Hole" alert when I clicked on it, but what the heck, it's Saturday. I'm diving in and definitely won't be out before dinner.
ncarroll··on Low-cost measurement of facemask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets
I personally think one aspect that doesn't get much attention is the matter of public education. At the arrival of the pandemic here in Germany the initial advice was to seriously implement hygiene rules: 1.) Wash hands thoroughly and often, 30 sec long, plenty of regular household brand hand soap, 2.) When coughing or sneezing, turn away from others and put your elbow in front of your face and 3.) Keep distance of minimum 1.5 meters and 4.) Limit contact with people outside your home environment wherever possible.

Assuming everyone followed this advice, at that particular moment we didn't need masks so much (most people were in lockdown anyway) and besides the fact that there were not enough medical masks to go around, there was more danger in using generic face coverings than not because the average Joe didn't know how to do so safely and the virus was not yet under any sort of control.

Around Mid-May, we had a different circumstance. The general public had taken the hygiene rules to heart and been in lockdown quite awhile and the sun came out - Spring sprang, the numbers went down (thanks to lots of cooperation from the general public) and that was when the public education effort went in to the next phase: To give official advice and instruction on how to properly handle face coverings in a way that they help instead of hinder.

Meanwhile everyone, even Grandparents, my mother, and some people's recalcitrant Uncles know how to use Skype and Zoom. We wash hands like surgeons, we can and do handle face coverings without making ourselves sick and I think, for a public education effort that started 5 months ago and was directed at 90 million people, that is simply huge. I try to remain wary of the impulse to judge what we did yesterday with what we know today.

ncarroll··on Beware of Being “Right”
I see what you mean, I think. What I was trying to express was a slight change in perspective. What if you thought of past actions as having been done-by instead of having been done-to. That way you can throw them all in one pot and begin by forgiving the do-er for having done-to. It is admirable that you accept responsibility for those of your actions which negatively affected others. To put those regrets behind you, the affected person must forgive you too. And you must let them do that. I find that to be the hardest part, but you seem to be a courageous chap and I believe you can do it.
ncarroll··on Beware of Being “Right”
That all sounds very promising. Congratulations to you for having the courage to engage so honestly. That is a great and sustaining gift to a marriage.

Regret is a theme that everyone has to come to terms with at a certain point in life, don't you think? I'm finding it gets easier to have compassion with young-me, the good person who struggled and wanted and dreamed. Look how hard they worked. Look how young and earnest that person is and how little they really know and how much they honestly believe that more struggle, more desire and more dreams are going to take them where they want to go.

Today, I know better but that is only because in the past I didn't. Today, I am free to be different than I was back then -- I am even free to be different than I was yesterday. This is something important I know now.

I wish you and your wife all the goodness that comes to a marriage on the other side of your current struggle.

ncarroll··on Beware of Being “Right”
I think you are on to something with the need for combining compassion for all parties with nearly every emotion in a relationship. If she wasn't always like this maybe she is feeling now like she is in over her head and doesn't know how to admit that to a world she feels is expecting her to perform flawlessly. Sometimes, always needing to be right can be a form of frustration and criticism an expression of helplessness. In that case, maybe talk is less helpful.

I am not a psychologist. I'm only speaking from my own experience, but it is helping me in a situation something like yours to look carefully at circumstance and hear criticism gently, less personally. I am finding that "a little less talk and a little more (compassionate) action" is key in my situation. I wish you the best of luck finding the key to yours.

ncarroll··on Got a sweet tooth? Your gut bacteria are asking for some sugar
I have a good friend who was hired a couple of years ago at a psychological clinic to build a program for treating depression without pharmaceuticals where possible focusing instead on diet, gut health and exercise. After talking with her I got curious and started doing a lot of research on gut health and food. Up until then, I had never heard of fermenting vegetables and I wondered if an experiment with those would help me get over a bad burnout.

I read about all kinds of chemical and nutritional details and studies and edge cases I didn't understand. I tried fermenting some beans which turned out terrible reminding me I had no idea what I was doing. But I kept at it. One day, a couple of months into the experiment, by then I was fermenting successfully and enjoying it daily, when I realized that my life-long love of sugar was simply gone. I have no idea where it went. I wasn't on a diet, I wasn't restricting my food choices in any way other than to be sure I ate a couple of spoonfuls of ferment each day; it just disappeared. I never expected that to happen...

If you really want to kill that craving, try fermenting nearly any vegetable you like and just eat a little bit each day. It takes time for your gut bacteria to improve but fermenting is quick and easy to do and it costs next to nothing. Feel free to get in touch via the email in my profile if you have any questions at all and good luck!

ncarroll··on Was there PTSD in the ancient or medieval world?
This happened to Salvador Dali. His older brother, Salvador died a few months before he was born. I once (a long time ago, sorry I don't have a link) saw a documentary that claimed his fascination with counterfeit art had to do with his feeling like a copy of his brother.
ncarroll··on Two dark sides of the inner self: Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele (2007)
Google Arts and Culture have wonderful high-resolution images from the Leopold Museum in Vienna: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/leopold-museum-vie...
ncarroll··on Self-hosted, super simple photo stream
Thank you for sharing! I've been looking for something just like this forever.
ncarroll··on For the Most Vulnerable, California Blackouts ‘Can Be Life or Death’
I am curious how others here who depend on medical equipment in their every day lives are preparing for blackout events?
ncarroll··on U.S. to leave global postal union next month barring last-minute action
That's interesting. Before about January of 2019, I was able to ship for about those rates to the U.S. Recently, I took an envelope to the German post office and was informed that the Global Postal Union has barred shipping of goods in envelopes at postal instead of package prices. I pay €16,- minimum whether in an envelope or a box but can send up to 2 kg of goodies.
ncarroll··on Reducing Wasted Food at Home
In Germany, I find that this is one of the (many) beauties of shopping at the farmer's market. If I need 3 carrots and 2 onions and 6 potatoes, that is very easy at the Samstagsmarkt. Buying sausages or meat from the butcher or the meat counter at the grocery also supports the purchase of the exact (smaller) quantities I need.
ncarroll··on Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?
Don't be sad on my account. I actually like them very much. They are funny and persistent. I watched one yesterday try to outsmart a crow for a piece of cheese. That she even tried was pretty courageous. We have an obviously-paired couple living on the roof of the building next door. They are very sweet and would be welcome to visit if they would promise not to nest. But they won't.

And the first pair of baby pigeons we sheltered was the last pair of baby pigeons we will be sheltering. The mess was indescribable and everyone was so comfortable they all wanted to raise families here. Horrified, I chased pigeons from our balcony during mating season (circa any time it's warm outside) multiple times a day for three years before I regained control of my tiny kingdom.

Pigeons have the whole outdoors to nest in, the city even maintains a pigeon house on top of a building just across the way. I have my balcony...

ncarroll··on Ask HN: What do you do with your Raspberry Pi?
Would that turret will work for pigeons landing on my balcony? Or better yet, to protect my air space by squirting them on a fly by? That'd be some sweet fun. :-)
ncarroll··on Mandrill has been down for over 30 hours with no explanation
Can't recommend Foundation for Emails highly enough for rendering html. I found it super easy to use (Moustache templates) and very flexible for managing multiple versions (translations) of a newsletter.

The assignment I had was to write, coordinate translations, produce and send a quarterly newsletter with anywhere between 20 and 35 translations per issue + optional separate content to be included on a country-to-country basis. Production time from drafted newsletter to final send was about 2 weeks.

The Foundation tool felt to me a little like jekyll for email. I had a a lot of fun with it.

https://foundation.zurb.com/emails/docs/

Disclaimer: I have no connection to Foundation. Just a delighted user.

ncarroll··on User retention at Pinterest: tackling an ambiguous problem
I really enjoy using are.na (https://www.are.na/about) for collecting images and random bits of text into spaces where I can view them together. It's a small, creative community and definitely not of the repost, repost, repost quality that you find at Pinterest. It is run by a small team and they offer a very useful free plan for getting started and membership is only $45/year.

I am not affiliated are.na. I am just a happy user.

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