Waldelfe

So, this just happened in a café I was in.

At the table next to mine sat a group of 3 women who spoke in English with an American accent. I'm just mentioning that because Germany has strict laws on what you can name your child, so I don't think such a discussion would be had by a German.

One had a small toddler. I'm not good with guessing toddler ages, but she was crawling and shakily trying to stand. She came crawling under my table so the mother came over to pick her up and exchanged a few words. She told me her name was Thalia. I said that's a nice name.

For those who don't know, Thalia is the greek muse of comedy and poetry. It is also the name of a big bookstore chain in Germany.

Some ten minutes later I hear the mother talk about how they chose the name. And I kid you not, the explanation was: She liked Tabea. Her husband liked Delia. So they "invented" the name T(h?)alia as a compromise. She later found out that it's also the name of a German bookstore chain and found it funny. She even made a joke about how her daughter is named after a bookstore now, so I find it highly unlikely she knew about the greek muse.

So TL:DR - Parents think they are clever and making a "new" potential tragedeigh, end up reinventing ancient greek name.

David-Neel already had a passion for travel in her youth. She travelled through many european countries and wrote travel guide books. She was also active in anarchist and feminist circles all over Europe. At 21 she converted to buddhism and later travelled to India, where among other things she learned Sanskrit. From the ages 27 to 36 she worked as an opera singer and writer.

In 1911, at the age of 42, she set off on her longest journey to India and Tibet. She met the 13th Dalai Lamai in India and became fluent in Tibetan. The next years were spent in a buddhist monastery in India studying with several buddhist teachers. In 1916 she began her Journey to Tibet, entering which was at the time forbidden for foreigners. Still she managed to study buddhist scripts at the tempels and had an audience with the Panchen Lama. Upon her return to India the british authorities informed her that she was to be deported for violating the ban. Instead of going back to France, she travelled on to Japan, where she again spent time meeting with and learning from buddhist philosophers.

In 1924 she again entered Tibet, this time disguised as a beggar monk. Since she was travelling illegally, she mostly moved at night. She recounts fending off robbers and highwaymen by reciting songs or poems in her native language, French. Together with her unfamiliar European looks, that convinced the often very superstitious Tibetan robbers that she was a witch and to better not mess with her. In case that didn't work she was carrying a gun. She reached Lhasa as the first European woman the same year. She mingled with the crowd of worshipers and celebrated the Monlam Prayer Festival. She managed to stay for two month before she was discovered and had to leave. After 13 years in Asia, she decided to return to her home country.

In May 1925 David-Neel finally arrived back home in France. She wrote the book "My journey to Lhasa" and bought a house, which she turned into a buddhist temple that she called "Samten-Dzong" or "fortress of meditation".

In 1937, age 69, she again travelled to China to study buddhist scriptures. Again she also visited Tibet, studying scriptures at various temples. She returned back to France in 1946 at age 78. She went on to publish several books about buddhism and translated many buddhist scriptures from Tibetan to French.

In 1956 she went to stay with a friend in Monaco where she died in in 1969, one month before her 101st birthday.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_David-N%C3%A9el

https://himajomo.com/the-life-and-legacy-of-alexandra-david-neel/

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240313-trailblazing-journey-forbidden-city-of-lhasa

https://womeninexploration.org/timeline/alexandra-david-neel/

So, before you get the wrong impression, I'm 40. Last year I enrolled in a master program in IT to further my career. It is a special online master offered by a university near me and geared towards people who are in fulltime employement. Almost everybody is in their 30s or 40s. You actually need to show your employement contract as proof when you apply at the university.

Last semester I took a project management course. We had to find a partner and simulate a project: Basically write a project plan for an IT project, think about what problems could arise and plan how to solve them, describe what roles we'd need for the team etc. Basically do all the paperwork of a project without actually doing the project itself. My partner wrote EVERYTHING with ChatGPT. I kept having the same discussion with him over and over: Write the damn thing yourself. Don't trust ChatGPT. In the end, we'll need citations anyway, so it's faster to write it yourself and insert the citation than to retroactively figure them out for a chapter ChatGPT wrote. He didn't listen to me, had barely any citation in his part. I wrote my part myself. I got a good grade, he said he got one, too.

This semester turned out to be even more frustrating. I'm taking a database course. SQL and such. There is again a group project. We get access to a database of a fictional company and have to do certain operations on it. We decided in the group that each member will prepare the code by themselves before we get together, compare our homework and decide, what code to use on the actual database. So far whenever I checked the other group members' code it was way better than mine. A lot of things were incorporated that the script hadn't taught us at that point. I felt pretty stupid becauss they were obviously way ahead of me - until we had a videocall. One of the other girls shared her screen and was working in our database. Something didn't work. What did she do? Open a chatgpt tab and let the "AI" fix the code. She had also written a short python script to help fix some errors in the data and yes, of course that turned out to be written by chatgpt.

It's so frustrating. For me it's cheating, but a lot of professors see using ChatGPT as using the latest tools at our disposal. I would love to honestly learn how to do these things myself, but the majority of my classmates seem to see that differently.

So, this is a very complicated story and actually I feel like I'd have to write a book to explain it all. I'll keep it short and leave out a ton. I was severely bullied in school since grade one due to a skin condition. It doesn't matter which, it was very visible, all over my body. Teachers did nothing. It was the nineties in a small little village in the middle of nowhere. In third grade one teacher ask me why I don't take medicine or cover up with make-up so I wouldn't get bullied. My parents didn't do anything either, not even take me to a doctor.

In 7th grade my condition had gotten better, but now I was bullied for my clothes. My parents were horrible and didn't allow me to buy my own clothes, if I did I'd find it cut to pieces shortly after. My skin was also still not good, though not as severe. So I was bullied for dressing weirdly and for having bad skin. However in 7th grade I became part of a friendship group of 4. All outsiders for various reasons. And life was Ok. I still got bullied the most out of us four because of my skin. I was told to hide it with makeup and when I said I can't wear makeup due to allergic reactions the bullies said to "tough it out", because "noone wants to see that". I just stuck to our group and tried to ignore them. However in hindsight I feel like the other three never took the bullying seriously, since they were never the target. They were just more or less outsiders because they weren't interested in fashion, party etc.

One of the four was Lydia. Lydia didn't fit in because she was from an ultraconservative family and wasn't allowed to do many things. However, during our last two years of school her parents became less strict after her oldest brother moved out and cut contact at 18. She started hanging out with the others, going to parties etc. During our last few weeks I was repeatedly the butt of jokes. And she started defending my bullies, saying it's not that serious.

There was a kind of yearbook where everybody wrote comments about the classmates. The ones about me were all along the lines of "doesn't know what a shower is" "Someone please teach her about soap" and some nasty nicknames mocking my hobby I didn't even know they had for me. I've tried so often to defend myself and explain my skin condition and that it's genetic, yet up to the very last day everybody kept bullying me saying I'm dirty and disgusting.

I talked about it with my three friends and said I wanted to protest and have it taken out before the yearbook gets printed. (The list with everybodies comments had circled before printing.) Lydia told me I'm sensitive, that I shouldn't take it so serious and I shouldn't censor all critism of me. I was so shocked by her saying that. She used to be on my side.

Shortly after we graduated she moved away and didn't stay in contact. I tried a few times, said I could come visit her one day, but at first I only got one-sentence-answers, later nothing. I sent her a small gift and card on her first birthday after graduation, she replied with a short thanks, sent me a generic textmessage on my birthday and we never spoke again.

Now someone wants to organize the 20 year reunion of our highschool class. I was added to a whatsapp group - not sure where they got my number from - and Lydia contacted me. The usual small talk. How's life been, how many kids, yadada. I way shocked enough to be suddenly added to that group. It brought back so many bad memories, I wanted to cry, I wanted to write into the group how I wish they'd all die the most horrible, painful death. I didn't, I just left the group without any comment. I did answer Lydia and am doing the small talk, but inside all I want to ask is "how could you betray me like that? Why did you do that to me?"

I mean I guess I know the answer. I stayed losely in contact with another member of our group. A few month after graduation the topic came up and she said she didn't think I was bullied, because I "could have just covered up with makeup like they said I should and worn more fashionable clothes". Since I didn't, I chose to be ridiculed. I guess that would be the answer if I asked Lydia.

I don't know what kind of answer I'm expecting here, I'm just very confused and hurt and don't know how to behave. Ignore her? Block her? Ask her about it? Would that change anything? It would hurt so much if she just told me I was never bullied and I'm sensitive or asked for it. I don't know has anyone got advise? Has anyone who was bullied been in a similar position? What would you do?

Ich habe eine Freundin, die Brettspiele mag und gerade Deutsch lernt. Ich würde ihr gerne ein Brettspiel zum Geburtstag schenken, mit dem wir auch zusammen Deutsch üben können. Sie macht gerade eine A1-Kurs, sie ist also noch ganz am Anfang. Hat jemand eine Idee für ein Spiel, dass sich nicht nur an Kleinkinder richtet? Vielleicht etwas mit repetitiven Sätzen, die man schnell lernen kann. Wir haben schon Black Stories versucht, aber das war noch etwas zu schwierig.

Ich suche einen kleinen, günstigen Fotodrucker. Er muss nicht viel können, ich möchte nur Fotos vom Handy oder Computer ausdrucken, um sie an Brieffreunde zu schicken oder ins Tagebuch zu kleben. Ich brauche also nur kleine Fotos, kein A4 oder so. Mir reicht qualitativ das, was man bei Rossmann am Automaten kriegt, wenn man dort ausdruckt.

Ich habe gesehen, dass es auch portable Minidrucker gibt, hat jemand damit Erfahrungen?

For those among us who are menstruating: drip. is a very neat little period tracking app that offers basic tracking functions and fertility planning. All data is only stored locally.

It is open source and was developed in Germany. It's available on Android and iOS.

More information in https://dripapp.org/

You know those euphemistic words like "muck up" for "fuck up", "shite" for "shit", or "unalive" for "suicide" that people use to circumvent the rules of major platforms like YouTube and Tiktok? I just thought about how people are starting to use them on other platforms and in real live out of habit. But they only make sense in this very specific context, that a majority of communication takes place on privately owned, strictly regulated internet platforms that ban certain words.

If for whatever reason the details of how the platforms worked get lost (and they might, because it's so centralised that all it takes is for a handful of major companies to go under and take all the content they host with them), it'll be difficult to retroactively figure out what the culture of the 2020s looked like and where all those weird words suddenly came from.

Mascha Kaléko was born in 1907 as the daughter of a Russian father and an Austrian mother. The family fled from the persecution of Jews in Galicia to Germany in 1918. Mascha spend her teenage years in Berlin. In 1928 she marries the philologist Saul Kaléko. In 1934 she meets and falls in love with the Jewish composer Chemjo Vinaver and starts a four year long affair until her divorce from Saul in 1938.

Chemjo and Mascha flee to New York where she continues to write poetry in German, her mother language. By the time she wrote this poem she already lived in New York, where she suffered from loneliness and the fact that she could not get her German poetry published.

Ein Mensch wird "Pessimist" geschmäht,

Der düster in die Zukunft späht.

Doch scheint dies Urteil wohl zu hart:

Die Zukunft ist's, die düster starrt!

A man as "Pessimist" is flouted

Who sees the future gloom'ly clouded.

However this judgement too harsh appears:

It is the future that bleakly stares.

(I tried to translate it in a way that makes it rhyme in English. )

So I am currently rewatching Stargate SG1 and thinking about certain things that always rub me the wrong way when watching or reading SciFi. Now, I know that Stargate in particular doesn't really take itself too seriously and shouldn't be scrutinized too much. It's also a bit older. But there are still some things that even modern SciFi-Worlds featuring outer space and aliens have or lack, that always slightly rub me the wrong way. I would love to hear your opinion.

1. Lack of any form of camera surveillance technology

I mean, come on, the Goa'uld couldn't figure out a way to install their equivalent of cameras all over their battle ships in order to monitor it? They have forms of video/picture transmitting technology. Star Trek also seems to lack any form of video surveillance. (I'm not up to date with the newest series.) Yes, I get that having a crew member physically go to a cargo bay and check out the situation is better for dramatic purposes. But it always rubs me the wrong way that they have to do that. I would just love to see a SciFi-Series set in space where all space ships are equipped with proper camera technology. Not just some vague "sensor" that tells the crew "something is wrong, but you will still have to physically go there and see it for yourself". I want the captain of a space ship to have access to the 200,000 cameras strategically placed all over the ship to monitor it.

2. Languages

I have studied linguistics, learned several foreign languages and lived in a foreign country for a while, so my perspective is influenced by that. I always find it weird when everybody "just talks English". Yes, I get that it's easier to write stories in which all characters can just freely interact with each other. But it's always so weird to me when an explorer comes to a foreign planet and everybody just talks their language. At least make up an explanation for it! "We found this translator device in the space ship that crashed on earth". There you go. I love the Stargate Movie where Daniel Jackson figures out how to communicate with the people on Abydos. During the series most worlds will just speak English, with some random words in other languages thrown in. As someone interested in linguistics I love Stargate for how much it features deciphering languages, though I still find it weird when they go to another world and everybody just speaks English.

3. Humanoid aliens

Especially with modern CGI I would just love to shows get more creative when it comes to alien races. We don't need a person in a costume anymore. Every once in a while you will have that weird alien pop up, but all in all I feel like there's still a lot of potential. Also changes in Human physiology due to different environmental conditions on foreign planets.

That being said, I would also like to mention some SciFi-titles that in my mind stand out for being very creative in this regard:

• The writing of Julie Czerneda is very creative when it comes to alien species. She was a biologist and uses her knowledge to create a wide variety of alien life forms
• The forever war (Without spoiling the end, so I'll leave it at that. Just liked it as a creative take on an alien race so different it's incomprehensible to us)
• I very much appreciate Douglas Adams for the babel fish.
• I also liked The expanse for including the development of a Belter language and changes in human physiology due to different gravity.

What do you think? Do you know any good examples of SciFi-Worldbuilding, that solve some common inconsistencies?

(Edited because it looked weird :P) Also, I rembered one more thing: I have two serious food allergies and I always cringe when I see characters take some random food from an alien civilisation and eat. It's especially bad right now while rewatching Stargate. SG1 just keeps happily eating and drinking anything that is offered and there are so many scenes of them eating without asking much. Maybe it's just because I can't even do that in my own society and am so used to always asking "What is in it? Can I eat it?" Although some shows have good solutions like standard nutrient packs in a military context or food replicators that create any food you want.