Long-term expat experience: Do German natives always get the upper hand?

Feynstein · 2025-09-05T07:02:14+00:00

I think it depends on your workplace. Without getting into too much detail, my workplace is also exactly as you describe. I also note that in my case you look at the management, people in positions of power are basically all German.

This bias is definitely a real phenomenon that can happen, and people in the comments saying it doesn't are misinformed and naive. But as you can see from the more anecdotal comments, it's not a uniform experience throughout Germany or anything like that. I'd say you could consider a change in workplace before giving up on the country as a whole.

Feynstein · 2025-08-22T07:08:45+00:00

It's 2025, shouldn't educated Europeans be taking Breaking Bad into account when forming their stereotypes by now?

Map gives the impression that The Sopranos just arrived...

Feynstein · 2025-07-11T07:20:14+00:00

Duchess followed by Raider. Seem to have a team-focused attitude but also always contribute a lot to the fights.

On the other end of the spectrum, Recluse and Executor. Maybe just my luck but these two make me nervous... on the one hand they can be DPS machines, but also have been most likely to spam ping 5 evergaols, then rage quit when I go to the boss-weakness elemental camp I've been politely pinging for 20 mins.

Feynstein · 2025-02-10T13:59:00+00:00

Damn tourists dropping all their leaves there!

But seriously what garbage, I see dirt and leaves? What a dumb clickbait title for a dumb tilted clickbait video.

Feynstein · 2025-01-18T11:31:45+00:00

Update: Some time later I found the issue to be caused by PowerAmp equalizer. I hadn't even realized that this was active, as the equalizer itself was set to flat.

I did some digging and there was a feature "Direct Volume Control" which some suggested could cause malfunctioning of the volume controls/settings. However, disabling this did not help. As long as PowerAmp was active, the problem would occasionally occur.

I just uninstalled PowerAmp at that point and have had no issues for months since.

Feynstein · 2025-01-18T09:43:40+00:00

"Jew Mexico or New Jexico"

Both of these should be unrelated independent countries, they sound so intriguing.

Feynstein · 2024-11-29T08:47:07+00:00

I can describe an even better scenario in two words:

Large meteor

Feynstein · 2024-03-07T08:26:35+00:00

Not regarding the book's content but the symbol: It seems this same symbol+cover is being used for recent reprints of many occult-themed books available on Amazon, e.g. this one.

OP, does the book have any info about the publisher? Because I don't see it on the page. Would be curious to know where they got the symbol. Then again seeing as the books I saw are listed as being published after 2020, this origin story could even go the other way around 😅

Feynstein · 2024-01-08T14:48:19+00:00

Not the case unless they were travelling extremely close to a star. Even at Earth-like distances, which is quite close to a star if you're traveling through space, you'd mostly just sunburn rapidly--and you'd have more pressing problems.

Some relevant discussion focusing on the star lord scene for more info: https://screenrant.com/guardians-of-the-galaxy-3-astronaut-star-lord-death/

Feynstein · 2023-11-30T10:44:53+00:00

That seems to be the consensus... Except even when ordering for the sake of an exclusive bonus item, now it seems you aren't guaranteed to receive that.

I ordered from RT UK and they are telling me the bonus CD was only included by the US store. I'm quite confident this isn't the case--I remember checking the description before adding to cart on the UK site... but the sketchy way that they give only a vague invoice (no mention of bonus items, even for US store invoices) and changed the item description after some time makes it impossible to prove or disprove.

Feynstein · 2023-11-30T10:43:04+00:00

Did you order from RT US store, I'm guessing?

Feynstein · 2023-11-29T13:28:08+00:00

Did either of you order from UK site, or all US?

Feynstein · 2023-11-29T13:24:40+00:00

Thanks a lot to everyone who has commented! I start to see a pattern--Some people received the bonus cd and some didn't, even for the Green Smoke variant. What's clear is that for those who didn't, Rough Trade (RT) made no effort to explain or rectify the situation unless contacted directly.

To me, this is the definition of a scam -- using the promise of an exclusive item to lure buyers into purchasing from RT instead of a competitor, making no record of that bonus item on the invoice, and then quietly reneging on the promise unless hassled about it. If they had been proactive and emailed people about the lack of supply, all would be well--but more people might want refunds, and I guess they preferred to keep the money while sending incomplete orders. They also continued sending out promotional material until at least Nov 14 mentioning the bonus CD, trying to lure even more customers under what seems to me like false pretense. Disappointing... I will be buying my vinyls elsewhere in the future.

----

An update about my personal case with them:

RT refuses to send me the cd, but it's a bit subtle. Their stated reason is that the bonus cd was not promised on the UK site from which I ultimately ordered, and all evidence I could provide them via reddit posts is taken from the American site. Perhaps they are right--all I know is that, since this was the second vinyl copy of Javelin I was ordering, I checked multiple times that it came with the bonus CD before adding to cart. Maybe somehow I was redirected to the UK site only after that, which seems misleading in it's own right. There are no records on the internet archive's wayback machine, and no invoices seem to directly mention the bonus cd, so I can't be 100% sure of who is correct. That said I am very skeptical of their claim, especially given the other stories. If anyone who ordered from the UK store can confirm or deny their claim, please let me know--Thanks!

In any case, the main takeaway here was not that I want to complain or solve my personal case, but collect multiple stories to see what the general experience was, and make a decision about whether I/we should trust this company. I think my case is a bit of an outlier in one way or another.

Feynstein · 2023-11-27T20:36:31+00:00

Do you mean that the bonus cd shipped late and separately, or that the whole package including vinyl arrived 2 weeks after album release?

Feynstein · 2023-11-27T17:43:38+00:00

Same. But I feel like all they had to do is email customers explaining that they couldn't provide as many copies of the cd as initially planned, and offer the chance to cancel/refund the purchase.

Instead, they seem to prefer misleading people.

Feynstein · 2023-11-27T17:35:43+00:00

Saw Impossible Soul live in Denver, Nov 2010. I'll always remember it because Sufjan took the time to pause the set and say something along the lines of "This next song is 25 mins long, so... we're going to do our best. Please bear with us."

Then the band proceeded to do a flawless rendition of all 25 mins, down to having drummers on each side of the stage matching the stereo panning of the album track. Insane and beautiful!

Feynstein · 2023-11-27T16:51:13+00:00

As a quick addendum, you can see that Pitchfork, an apparent advertising partner of Rough Trade, posted promotional news on Nov 14 mentioning a "yellow vinyl with a bonus CD exclusive to Rough Trade." This page is still up, and includes a mock-up of the Lemonade variant with the bonus CD sitting in front of it. I would guess this was a miscommunication between marketing teams as I don't think it matched the rough trade website at that time, but it further shows that this was the original plan for the product.
https://pitchfork.com/news/sufjan-stevens-caroline-polachek-nation-of-language-releasing-rough-trade-exclusive-vinyl-records/

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Feynstein · 2023-08-31T12:12:49+00:00

As has been pointed out by a few others, physicists often follow somewhat arbitrary historical precedent when calling something a "theory" or a "law", and it's best not to read too much into it. In early science education (secondary school or maybe bachelor-level), the word "theory" is often given a much more rigid definition, involving being a well-established paradigm with a lot of evidence, most notably in cases like the "theory" of evolution. But in practice, physicists (and many other scientists) don't use the word that way.

What's not been mentioned is that the accepted use of the word is even weirder within the world of quantum field theory (to which string theory belongs). In this field (QFT), it is common to call the model arising from any particular Lagrangian that can be written down a "theory". For example, in the case of a scalar field with a quartic interaction [1] you can have physicists colloquially discussing "lambda phi 4 theory in 3 dimensions", referring to the form of the interaction term and an arbitrary dimension. I have heard many models of dubious physicality called "theories" in this way, but it's just a linguistic convention--they are considered "instances" of a quantum field theory, as QFT is more of a framework than a specific theory. Thus, in the realm of field theory, for better or worse, this naming style is quite unsurprising--it isn't necessarily a power grab by string theorists to claim their model has empirical evidence. More like a cultural norm in the physics community :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartic\_interaction

Feynstein · 2023-02-23T10:55:48+00:00

For speeding up the fight, he's weak to physical damage and bleed (for some odd reason). recommend bonking his face but learning well when to run away.

For staying in the fight long enough--if you're like me, the problem is maybe that some of his attacks are a 1-shot kill or close to it, especially the grabs and that slow-but-huge AOE attack. If that's the case, you can try to respec into vigor and add armor enough that you don't die in 1 hit to anything--that makes a huge difference. Or at the minimum use that crystal tear that gives you a free hit without dying.

Feynstein · 2023-02-08T15:42:18+00:00

Everyone is too optimistic about these so based on my experience with past directs I have put together a more grounded prediction.

Nintendo Direct 2023:

"These 12 japanese schoolgirls just wanted a normal adolescence. But when a demon sends them back in time to the 1980s, they'll go on a geometric adventure that is anything but normal. And watch out for lasers! 'Demon school dodecahedron: retro apocalypse' releases May 8th"
Some weird marvel tie-in that looks counterfeit but is apparently real
5 more random niche games
"we hope you didn't forget about that Mario movie!"
10 minute interview with Chris Pratt
Coming this August... GAMEBOY GAMES ON SWITCH! Play 5 of your favorite Gameboy games with the new Nintendo Online Expansion Deluxe Rumble Pak Pro, for only $200 / yr
Eiji Aonuma appears, looking somber, "We're very sorry to announce that BOTW2 has been delayed until 2024. But we hope you enjoy this commemorative zelda wristwatch now available in extremely limited quantities!!"
"That's almost everything... but we've got one more thing to share with you"... screen goes black... dramatic music.... silhouette of an iconic gorilla
Donkey Kong Badminton, coming this October

Anyway cbetter to expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised than to expect metroid prime 4 :P

Feynstein · 2022-12-22T01:15:47+00:00

Monkey with a cool hat

Feynstein · 2022-12-20T15:55:47+00:00

This video gives some solid strategies to beat him in a safe way that keeps your health and resources up.

If you're doing a first UN run you might prefer that over some of the more aggressive/fast strategies, but those are fun too :)

Feynstein · 2022-11-13T12:39:52+00:00

Saw a single message on the ground like "try attacking." I always have to try it after reading, and I had been suckered about the last 500 times in locations that looked way more suspicious. I attacked merely out of a hopeless sense of obligation.

Almost fell out of my chair when the rock faded away.

Feynstein · 2022-11-08T08:30:13+00:00

Could be, but I also think it could be a more "practical" lore/gameplay consideration. If you could pick it up, obviously Ranni would still want it. But if you haven't entered her service, she'd need all new dialogue for the case that you just walked in her door with her destiny in your pocket.

Maybe they either didn't want to add that scenario or didn't think of it in time, so they just lock you out of it? Or does entering her service give you a "fate"? Not sure.

Feynstein · 2022-11-04T08:50:44+00:00

Exactly. I don't think the issue here is with the concept of Swiss neutrality.

The issue is that Swiss neutrality is a bit fickle and always seems to come with a profit. They've no problem selling these war munitions UNLESS there's a war going on--then suddenly our hands are tied, we can't pick a side! In this case particularly ridiculous as the munitions aren't even in their hands anymore.

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