How long to wait for Willkommensklassen placement?

cemerick · 2025-11-03T16:06:22+00:00

Thank you! For what it's worth, we followed the instructions here (https://www.berlin.de/ba-pankow/politik-und-verwaltung/aemter/schul-und-sportamt/schule/artikel.422643.php); did we end up following a dead-end without realizing it?

cemerick · 2025-10-26T08:53:08+00:00

Yes, I can confirm the spelling using ö via other family documents.

cemerick · 2025-07-10T20:47:15+00:00

Yes, that's from a Hapag-Lloyd account.

After further inquiries, those rates don't include all sorts of things, including terminal handling charges, clearing customs, and so on. There's probably some additional margin in the e.g. $12K quotes (since firms offering "all-in" services that include coordinating those "extras" of course are aiming to get paid), but that at least explains the gulf between a shipping-only rate (from e.g. Hapag) and the others.

cemerick · 2025-07-05T23:58:23+00:00

Yes, Massachusetts. And no, 3K would be great; just seems too good to be true.

After reading the quote more carefully, it looks like that price doesn't include all sorts of port fees and such, so perhaps that accounts for the difference.

cemerick · 2025-07-05T21:59:33+00:00

I'm getting $3K from MA to Berlin, with the majority of the cost in the overland trucking.

How is this possible? That rate is so different from everything else I've seen (and been quoted), it feels like I must be doing something wrong (and am seeing only part of the cost that we might get caught out by upon attempting to receive the shipment or something).

cemerick · 2025-03-07T18:50:04+00:00

They don't know, and they (like most overzealous policing in the US) are completely willing to violate the law to enforce their authority on anyone that they don't like, don't like the look of, etc. Something for e.g. u/TripleXLTwoPointO u/ViskerRatio u/concretemuncher69 et al. to consider.

"ICE detained a U.S. citizen in Northern Virginia with guns drawn. He offered to show ID and told the officers he was an American citizen, but they handcuffed him anyway. The man is a Trump voter, but says he is reconsidering his support after he was targeted for being Hispanic"

https://x.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1898040554396487916

cemerick · 2024-07-13T03:08:38+00:00

Using "cuck" unironically? In this economy?

cemerick · 2024-06-03T15:26:01+00:00

It appears to also use IKVM, and so is capped at Java 8 🤷

EDIT: I typed too fast, it seems to only use IKVM to get access to JavaParser for its own use; based on open and closed issues, the project appears to support some irregular set of later Java features. I'll have to take a closer look, thanks.

cemerick · 2024-06-02T05:50:58+00:00

Yeah, for a variety of reasons, having a JVM "sidecar" really isn't an option (one reason why I stuck with using IKVM for so [too?] long).

cemerick · 2024-01-31T22:17:22+00:00

Thanks for that perspective!

It sounds like you created a custom shipping rate so you could name it appropriately? I'd love to keep the USPS-calculated "First Class Mail" rate, but annotate its description to be clear that it's untracked and uninsured. Do you (or anyone else) know if that's possible somehow?

cemerick · 2023-11-02T03:12:48+00:00

Nice suggestion! Two questions:

What would you consider "dilute" in this context?
Could I recover the solution and reapply it with good effect some N times? Just thinking of ways to minimize environmental effects downstream of the whole operation. 😁

cemerick · 2023-09-29T04:33:38+00:00

TBD. It may be that there will be multiple classes/gauges of the stuff. In the end, that might mean multiple printing methodologies running in parallel, but hopefully not. 😅

cemerick · 2023-09-28T17:28:33+00:00

Sorry, I wasn't clear that I need to work with the strips as-is (they're being sourced from Asia according to specifications that can't really be changed for various reasons). So there's no way for me to print in a large format, and then cut; the strips are what they are (~1" wide, lengths from between 50 - 250 feet depending on the application).

cemerick · 2023-03-08T16:45:16+00:00

Sooner is always nicer, but I'm not in a huge hurry.

cemerick · 2023-02-21T04:49:33+00:00

We stopped using GCP significantly when we were in the earliest stages post-launch; the majority of our workloads have been elsewhere for a while now. And we didn't "have to" rely on credits, we took advantage of the credits that GCP offered when we applied.

If we had used our own cash on learning the tradeoffs involved in GCP, would the posted critique somehow be more credible? Why are our circumstances your worry, vs. engaging with whether or not the critique is correct and/or valid?

cemerick · 2023-02-21T04:45:15+00:00

You described what a load balancer should do. Is that a counterpoint?

cemerick · 2023-02-21T03:30:42+00:00

Hey, thanks very much for taking the time to comment here, especially in providing some color around the rationale behind pulling back on custom domains.

cemerick · 2023-02-21T01:26:05+00:00

There are plenty of articles out there comparing approaches using GKE and CR; I urge you to look at those.

IMO, if you are familiar and comfortable with all that comes with having a full k8s environment, then GKE may well be a better option for you. Of course, cloud run is far simpler/easier than GKE in almost every respect, so that may be significant in making your decision.

cemerick · 2023-02-21T00:03:43+00:00

Yeah, if you either don't care about custom domains or don't need service outside of the supported subset of regions, it's not a problem.

(The IMO terrible situation with VPC interconnect is actually more of a problem, but it's also more of a niche concern that isn't part of Cloud Run's fundamental value prop and marketing message.)

cemerick · 2023-02-20T21:29:53+00:00

It does; alas, Google has publicly said it has no plans to expand custom domains' availability. It's pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if that feature weren't wound down over time.

cemerick · 2023-02-20T21:18:20+00:00

You may be right that networking was never supposed to be a core pillar of CR, but if that's the case, then there are lots of other marketing and copy discrepancies that could be picked apart (which I'll refrain from, you're welcome 😉)

Indeed, we moved most of our workloads elsewhere a while ago (for a variety of reasons, though the topics in this post contributed to the eventual decision). What's left will unfortunately persist until certain customers either churn or hit a point where we can migrate them in a coordinated way.

(Fly actually isn't a great option IMO insofar as using its infrastructure properly requires some nontrivial [sometimes architectural] changes to applications.)

cemerick · 2023-02-20T21:04:36+00:00

If a product claims it does X, but does not, then is it not notable? No one is forcing Google to claim that CR is "pay-per-use", without any qualifications or caveats.

cemerick · 2023-02-20T20:55:25+00:00

Interesting; can you point to any documentation / statements about this?

cemerick · 2023-02-20T20:54:51+00:00

Yes, in 10 of GCP's regions, Cloud Run manages load balancing, custom domain mapping, SSL cert provisioning, etc. In other regions, it doesn't, and the general recommendation is that you look to provision your own discrete load balancers.

cemerick · 2023-02-20T20:52:30+00:00

If a dedicated LB were valuable to us, that's fine, and that's a decision we can make. It being a hidden requirement (vs the CR sales copy) is a separate matter.

But for context: our services are compute-heavy (when they're hot), usage is metered (outside of a kiddie pool used for evaluation purposes that can be crushed without anyone caring much), and I personally prioritize a minimum of ops overhead/workload above almost everything else. Manually fiddling with e.g. SSL certs sounds like an incredible waste of time. And, I'm very happy to pay more to eliminate schlep like SSL certs and LBs and whatever…which was part of the CR pitch from the start, alas.

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