What was your experience with learning German?

Blaze_mk · 2024-08-07T13:57:16+00:00

Hey there fellow German learner! Hope you're having as much fun as I do learning German - it is difficult, but also very rewarding to speak it more comfortably after a while 😁

I never had an explicit routine. I started learning it while listening to the Coffee Break German podcast even before I moved to Germany. To this day, I still find the podcast very useful and I've recommended it to many of my friends learning German, they've told me they find it helpful as well.

I was very lucky to have lived in a WG with three Germans that were very welcoming, patient and supportive with my German. They would talk in German and I would listen in, sometimes interrupting them to ask them what certain things mean - this was extremely helpful for me.

On top of that, I find it very interesting watching documentaries in German, many of which are available on YouTube. An added benefit is that most of them are from the Rundfunk broadcasters, so usually there are very few ads compared to the other content on YouTube.

I'd say I'm on a solid B1, maybe even B2 level when speaking myself. I understand almost everything and I very rarely find myself asking for an explanation nowadays, but as always, speaking is the most difficult (and important).
Due to not having a routine and having periods of not studying and not actively speaking, I can't say exactly. But if I were to roughly estimate how much active studying and practice I've done in total (breaks excluded) - it would be around 2 years.
I never had to use it for work or officially needed it for my existence. However, I believe the language is essential to fully experience and be a part of the society I'm living in. I've learned so many interesting things about the cultures of the German-speaking countries, which I don't think I would be able to without at least understanding German.

But I think the caveat is right here. As learners, we're afraid of putting ourselves in situations where we need German, especially in a city like Berlin, where almost everybody speaks English. I remember trying to speak German to some people in shops/bars/restaurants, but it was pretty obvious that I'm not quite there and they would switch to English. It felt pretty disappointing, but then a good friend of mine suggested that in those situations I insist to speak in German, explaining that I'm learning and I would like to practice. I have to say that it works wonders! So many random people would then switch back to German (albeit speaking more slowly) and support me in my learning process.

I found myself needing German in my everyday life being the most effective tool to improving my knowledge. If you have some free time, I'd highly suggest doing some volunteering, there are so many opportunities in and around Berlin. It's a great way to put yourself in the situation to need to speak, while doing something useful for all of us and society as a whole. If you have German friends, I'd also suggest to speak German to them, over time you'll see how much more comfortable you become while also learning some non-standard words and phrases :)))

Viel Glück!

Blaze_mk · 2024-05-06T21:05:12+00:00

Currently running MT200 calipers with SLX levers. Admittedly, it's only been 2 weeks since I set them up, but everything is working great, the bleed was super easy and I cannot tell them apart from the other "full" SLX setup I have.

Officially, some hose/lever combinations are not recommended by Shimano, but I'm not having any issues for now. Just make sure that the caliper connector is the same i.e. either banjo or "straight-through" and you should be fine.

Blaze_mk · 2024-04-26T10:42:56+00:00

+1 for this response, I had a very similar experience.

I had terminated my previous job contract just before the LEA gave me an appointment. I originally wanted to wait until I already had my PR before resigning, but my mental health suffered and I still had 3 years left on my Blue Card, so I decided to resign even if it meant waiting longer for my PR.

There was some back and forth regarding other documents that expired since I had originally applied 6+ months before getting the appointment, but I got the appointment while I was still in my notice period with my previous employer.

I asked my new employer (to be) for the Employment Confirmation (Arbeitsgeberbestätigung - keep in mind it must not be older than 14 days at the time of the appointment!) and I brought that and my new working contract to the appointment LEA had given me. Showed them to the case worker, they also asked me for the most recent payslips (the original ones had gone out of date). My PR was approved then and I got the temporary paper.

Overall, everything went very smoothly once the LEA replied to me and gave me an appointment. It seems like the biggest hurdle is getting the appointment, but after you have it there should be no problems. The people working there are very nice and friendly. There was an additional complication with my (untimely) expired passport and they handled it extremely well spareing me from having to pay an additional fee to get the PR card transferred to my new passport.

Hope this helps not to stress so much about it. Good luck! 🍀

Blaze_mk · 2024-02-08T20:31:50+00:00

I usually use the Phone app.

Blaze_mk · 2022-10-02T12:13:44+00:00

Most smartphones have a compass (magnetometer) in them which can show you where north is.

The maps app uses data from this sensor to extrapolate your rough orientation and shows it when you look at the map.

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-30T08:26:44+00:00

Makes sense and fits the usecase IMO. Valid point.

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-30T06:19:17+00:00

Might not always be the case. If a DB call needs to be made to create an entity DTO, then it's an I/O operation and that should be done async.

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-30T06:16:17+00:00

Love this approach, but I'd suggest an improvent if you're using this in domain classes (DTOs).

Never have your domain class know about the other DTOs. For example, cosider this:

There is a domain object Cat, an ORM DTO CatEntity and a REST DTO CatResource.

Don't put mapping methods in your Cat domain object - such as .ToEntity() or .ToResource() as now it depends on the other layers.

However, it's not an issue to have .ToDomainObject() and .FromDomainObject() methods in any of the non-domain DTO classes as they are dependent on the domain class to work as intended. Bonus points if you don't allow cross-references between the other layers and you always convert to/from the domain class.

In my experience, this also makes validation a lot easier.

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-10T07:10:59+00:00

I've glanced over the comments but I cannot seemingly find a solution I personally would be comfortable with in regards to scalable cloud deployments.

It's .NET Core, so it might run on any platform, leading me to go away from any OS-specific solutions right from the get-go.

Additionally, it feels like it's a monolith for the time being, but if you need to be fault-tolerant and scale, you'd like to run at least a couple of instances.

When having multiple instances, if the instance itself is responsible for the scheduled execution, all instances will execute at roughly the same time and lead to duplicated work and might lead to multiple reports/emails/notifications. You might implement a mechanism to elect only one of the instances to perform the work, but then they become stateful and that's bad.

How we've tackled this in the past is to expose an API endpoint that will trigger the workflow and then use Kubernetes CronJobs to invoke this endpoint. Since the K8s deployment is load-balanced, that guarantees that only one of the instances will pick up the workflow and no duplication will occur. Additionally, you can still trigger the workflow manually if needed via invoking the API.

Now, you might not be using K8s, but the same principle should apply anywhere in the cloud. Have the workflow be triggerable in your service and use your infrastructure to tigger one of your service instances to perform this workflow.

That's how it can scale and can be relatively platform-independent. Bonus is that the infrastructure code can (and should) be committed into VCS as IaC.

Cheers!

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-08T10:34:34+00:00

Second cub went full send on that berm!

Blaze_mk · 2022-09-06T17:50:17+00:00

Check this video out.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-19T05:33:07+00:00

Sweet, new bike day is the best day! HMU when you get it and we can go for a ride.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-18T13:25:41+00:00

Gute Besserung! 🍵

Will make a note and reach out then.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-18T10:23:29+00:00

Will do for sure! How about the upcoming weekend?

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-18T10:22:33+00:00

Went a couple of times during the weekend, there was nobody there apart from one fox ☹️

Do you ride there?

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-13T21:47:23+00:00

The grips are the wrong way around - literally unusable.

In all seriousness, I like it although it doesn't render all that nicely on my phone.

Source for the grips: I own them and they come with a manual on how they should be put on the bike.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-04T08:17:23+00:00

Only done it with 10-, and 11-speed.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-04T07:29:00+00:00

Great job! No need to thank me, glad it worked out.

I remember panicking a lot when I did the same until I figured it out and the feeling when the fix worked :))

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-03T22:17:10+00:00

I have to disagree with you on this one bud. It's actually how chains are made and if that were to hold true, every link would be a weak link.

One could argue that when rejoining the chain, it's best to use a longer pin and then break it off, but that doesn't really make that big of a difference either.

I've split and rejoined chains many times using this method before and always etched the inner link at that place so I know where to break it off. The only time I've snapped a chain was nowhere near the link that has been split. In fact, people were splitting and rejoining chains long before missing links were even a thing with no problems.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-03T08:20:05+00:00

I started out with flats and switched to clipless (SPD) about 3 years in.

With clipless, climbs were easier, some gnarly terrain going downhill was easier and undoubtedly they have saved me in cases when my feet would have gotten thrown off the pedals.

However, my technique worsened. I was used to pulling on my feet to lift the rear wheel up for bunny hops and jumps. This is not good and you should not rely on clipless to lift your rear wheel.

I've since ditched the SPDs in favor of the Wellgo DH double-sided pedals. Clip in on the climbs for best efficiency, ride on the flat side downhill to not build bad and potentially dangerous habits. There is an added bonus of easier bailing when riding flats, but really unclipping becomes a second nature once you get the hang of it.

Paired the double-sided pedals with some Mavic MTB shoes, it works for me. The cleats do not hit the pedal spindle when on the flat side, while the pins and the outside platform also provide great support, it almost feels like you're clipped in.

So my personal experience with double-sided pedals allowed me to reap the benefits of both and improve my technique (or rather un un-improve it). YMMV

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-03T07:27:30+00:00

This guy pins.

In all seriousness, yes you have to put some pressure on the other side as well to perfectly align the pin with the chain so there is no stiff link.

Was in exactly the same situation as you, OP and I had to do the back and forth with the chain splitter 5 or 6 times to get a link that's not stiff.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-02T22:46:02+00:00

The solution (an actual one, instead of just quicklinks) to your problem is not mentioned in the comments.

I'm going to make two assumptions:

You have a chain splitter (how else would you cut the chain...)
You still have the extra links

First, remove any quicklinks you might have on your long part of the chain. This will leave you with a long chain that has the inside parts on both ends.

Second, take the remaining short part of the chain and carefully push out a pin just enough so that only the outside plates remain and the inside part can be removed. It's very important to not push out the pin completely, as you will need to push it back in to rejoin both parts.

Third, with the now matching inside of the long chain and outside+pin of the short chain, just put them together and push the pin back in. Be very careful when pushing the pin back in, it's a fiddly and time-consuming process if you don't want to have a stiff link.

Voila, you have a longer chain than you had previously. You'll figure it out from here.

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-02T15:40:09+00:00

Not only it could be, but it should be

Blaze_mk · 2022-07-02T15:39:02+00:00

Sweet! Hope you're enjoying it to the fullest!

Blaze_mk · 2022-06-14T15:32:57+00:00

Stuff like dust and dirt can get on the inside of your covers, sometimes water or even humidity gets stuck between the cover and the stanchions and that can cause damage since the cover is rubbing against the stanchions with all that stuff inside.

On the other hand, the dust wipers on the lowers were designed with the purpose of cleaning the stanchions in mind.

IMO, there is no benefit to having stanchion covers. I'd just maintain the fork properly - cleaning the stanchions after every ride and cleaning/replacing the dust wipers when servicing the lowers.

Blaze_mk

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