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Not far away, but partially preserved by the mudflat, lies Rungholt. A city of ~1000-1500 (some sources say 3000) inhabitants that was drowned in the Grote Mandrenke (1362 AD). That's a very big city in that time. In my childhood we were told, while wandering the tidal flat, that we should listen closely if we could hear the church bells under the mud. Only in 2023 the whereabouts of the sunken city were definitely confirmed and mapped. "Rungholt" probably means "wrong/low wood".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungholt


> "Rungholt" probably means "wrong/low wood".

This is an interesting point. Names are often older than they appear.

I have a book on Greek mythology that takes the position that Hercules, including his name, is considerably older than most of the Greek pantheon and should be thought of as a foreign import. But the form of his name ("Heracles") looks so natural in Ancient Greek, "glory of Hera" in the same way that you see other Greeks named Agathocles or Themistocles, that the mythology around the relationship between Hera and Heracles, which is extensive, must have developed from that apparent similarity.

Potentialities like this keep us on our toes when we look at names like "Rungholt".


Absolutely, though in this case it would be the most obvious translation, since it was a frisian settlement and "Rung" and "Holt" are both frisian words in use. It is possible that Rung here could mean stanchion/post (so for wood that makes strong posts), but unlikely so close to the sea, is it not?

I get what you mean, though. Here is a village called Großenwiehe, easy to be translated as "Great Consecration", and that was the commonly accepted meaning. Only much later it became apparent that "-wiehe" probably came from wighæ, so "Great Fortification". And in fact the old fortifications are still visible today.


Oh wow, I had the exact image you linked photocopied and glued to the first page of my German folder. Has been ages since I saw this, thanks!


This can't be fully correct, though, at least for my (as-remote-as-it-gets) area. My father was born in '52 and had to learn it in school here. He still writes the small 'z' in Sütterlin, and it looks really nice.


Hmm, I believe you. The article also says "Sütterlin continued to be taught in some German schools until the 1970s but no longer as the primary script.[citation needed]"


Looks similar to the cursive z I learned - I guess in the late 70's/early 80's - in Scotland. It's still in my signature, although that's a right scrawl.


My biggest selling point for this would be, that the volume is probably the same throughout the whole text. I am listening to audiobooks to fall asleep, and many voice actors go from very quiet to loud in conversations. It may be good narration, but it's sometimes to quiet to understand, so I need to increase the volume only to be woken up by some loud lines later.

So I imagine generated audiobooks to be good in that regard. Another option would be to have a "normalize volume" setting at audible, or other services.


Why should that be dangerous? I have never heard that.

I have always had my fridge at 8°C and never had something dangerous happen to me. I have never come across fridges that were way cooler, apart from fridges of friends in Canada and the US. What's the reasoning?


The recommendation I've always heard in the Netherlands is 7°C, it's more recent that I've been seeing 4°C on meat packaging in Germany (where I live now). I doubt anyone's fridge is consistently at or below 4° without freezing things constantly, so I've been assuming this is wishful thinking and/or ass-covering on the manufacturer's part and not what anybody actually does. Your 8°C is close enough that it probably makes little difference, though afaik this is an exponential curve (at 14°C it would last far less than half as long) so I'd not be surprised if things spoil a bit sooner than they otherwise would

Even if your products generally meet their "should be safe at least until" date (Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum, idk if it's the same as "best before"), you might exceed that longevity more often than you do now and thus have less food waste by setting the fridge colder - if food waste is a thing you have in the first place (I'm the type of person that is hungry all the time, opens the fridge when hungry, and isn't super selective (among what I've bought anyway), so food I buy ~always gets eaten before it spoils, but then when I see food waste numbers, apparently that's not the case for everyone so I'm just throwing this out there)

Edit: trying to fact-check myself, I can't find any trustworthy source in Dutch saying your foodstuffs fridge should be more than 4°C. I measure new fridges when moving in and again at least once during the first summer to make sure they stay at or below 7°C when we had the door open a normal amount of times, so I know they're that (and not much cooler, to not freeze items or waste energy). So far, products meet their minimum shelf life date thingy and almost always exceed it. Strange. Maybe this recommendation I heard predates the internet (showing my age here), or maybe every page on the internet assumes that nobody actually measures it properly and so they recommend a value that's half of what's actually safe?


> I doubt anyone's fridge is consistently at or below 4° without freezing things constantly.

My refrigerator is typically between 3-4°C, never had any problems with things freezing.


Crazy, I'd think the fluctuations would be way too big. How long does it normally run for when it does a cooling cycle? Is that temperature throughout the fridge or only on certain shelves?

Ours (well, our landlord's) runs very consistently for 40 +/- 3 minutes, with just over 1h30min in between during normal use, or 1h54min if it was closed the whole time (like at night). The temperature of products, as measured with a cheap infrared thermometer that's probably off like 10%, varies between 2 and 7 degrees, but it's not very consistent between shelves (top seems warmer but then the very bottom one, that is only half deep, is as warm as the top again). The products I checked have all been in there for days; reflectivity may be part of the difference, not sure. I don't know what the air temperature difference is at the beginning and end of a cooling cycle though


It's closer to 2-3°C in the drawers at the bottom and 3-4°C at the shelves at the top. However, it's very consistent otherwise.

I can't tell you how long it runs for because the compressor is too quiet for me to hear, sorry. Maybe if I had an energy monitor on it. Sounds like a fun idea.


Thanks for that explanation!

The Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum is the deadline to which the item may still be sold by the vendor, iirc.


yr.no is the best for my location (northern Germany) as well.

Many locals use DWD (German Weather Service).

A lot of the German sailors use dmi.dk (Danish meteorological institute).

A lot of the Danish sailors use yr.no :)


So many left-handers here that feel disadvantaged in our right-handed society. If you ever want to do one thing where you feel you left-handedness gives you an advantage, pick up Kendo (the Japanese swordfighting). You have to wield your sword like everybody else but the aiming is done with your left while the right just provides the power for the stroke (the katana is a two-handed weapon). Since you are not supposed to fully power your slashes anyway, I felt being left-handed is a slight advantage in Kendo.


This is completely wrong btw.

No power ever comes from the right.

That is why there are warm up exercises using katate (single left hand warm up) to loosen and focus on your left.

It makes no sense for power to come from the right as fumikomi (the leaping motion at the time of the strike) is done using your left hips and legs.


~~Uh, did you read the comment?~~

Ah, I think that is a typo, otherwise the whole comment doesn't make sense and my brain corrected it.


Doesn't left-handedness give an advantage in most sword fighting and fencing sports? As demonstrated by the percentage of left-handed players at the top level is higher than the population average? I heard the same thing is true with boxing, presumably other martial arts, and tennis (and who knows what else).

The explanation I've heard is that in any sport, on average one would train more with right-handed opponents. So when facing a left-handed opponent you are significantly less experienced, which results in left-handedness having a slight advantage.

That is a bit different than what you describe (since you're not allowed to use your katana in a left-handed fashion), but still.


Can talk about foil fencing perspective: lefties get a competitive advantage only in junior years because training exercises are done against same-handed opponent (be it a coach or dummy) while they spar and compete mostly against righties. It diminishes with time.


> left-handers [..] feel disadvantaged in our right-handed society

> You have to wield your sword like everybody else

This right here is why.


I am exactly like this. When I was learning to write I frequently changed hands, until my teacher told me, that I have 3 days to figure out with which hand I want to write. Left felt slightly better to me, but by that time I was eating like my completely right-handed family and using scissors with the right. I also play guitar as a right-handed would. I tried a left-handed bass for a bit and it was super awkward. It also means strumming is much harder for me than changing notes on the guitar. I struggled so hard with clawfinger banjo playing, that I gave it up.

All later skills, like shooting a bow, I do as a right-handed, since I am right-eyed. This is hard to do, since my left arm is much stronger than my right and you need more strength in the string-pulling arm.

I feel wrong and awkward a lot. Writing on a keyboard is very liberating. But when I was playing first person shooters in my teenage years, my aim (right-hand mouse) was always bad, while my footwork (left-hand WASD) was very good :D


Those exist here at the expense of different peoples, depending where you are in Germany. Most popular, from what I can tell, are East Frisians, but that has to do with a comedian who made a lot of those jokes (Otto Waalkes).



Wow, that's surprising! I live at the German/Danish border (Flensburg) and didn't know this. Have you got any idea, why?

Close at the border we have a lot of shops where people from Denmark (and even Norway and Sweden) travel to to go shopping, because it is so much cheaper here. But thinking about it, I have never seen/overheard Danes in an Aldi - and I wonder why?


They closed because they lost money for 40+ years straight, or close to it. Aldi never really adapted their stores to Danish habits in the same way that Lidl has. The design of their stores always made you feel like you traveled back in time to the 70s or early 80s. They did to modernize in the later years, but it was simply to late. The stores still smelt weird though.

It may also be partly due to Aldi reluctance to carry brands beyond their own. For some items Danes don't care, but if you then can't get the brand name cereal or ketchup, then you have to go somewhere else anyway. The Danish supermarket space is insanely competitive, in regards to price, so Aldi just didn't have much of an advantage over local discount stores anyway, at least not enough that you'd bother splitting your shopping between two stores.

I believe they lost €125m+ per year in the final years, loses that need to be covered by Aldi Nord in Germany. In the end they just didn't want to keep losing money. REMA1000, from Norway, bought a large number of the stores. Not sure why, they look nothing like REMAs own stores, and in some places they are literally across the street from an existing store.


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