Editor Bob

Kraken.com

Jeremy, AI will take over, of course, it's inevitable. Bickering over the US presidency is small fry compared to what's coming next decade. I don't see it as dystopian though. It'll be great.

  Because that tired nobody has the full backing of the deep state and the world's media.

  Still had more life in him than Sleepy Joe.

Off topic posts removed.   If you have useful input to answer OP's question, please share it. If purely you want to pontificate about guns and their morality in general, start your own separate thread.

"Sure thing, SpiderPig, you can mention it on TT, if you must." Lol, what was I thinking? Anyway, thanks. :-) Malia is lovely. She and mum both doing great.

twitter.com/realDonaldTrump   thedonald.win  

The price of bitcoin is surging and recently crossed €20. Anyone here own any?  

There are four mobile network operators in Germany. These are T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone, and E-Plus.   As of November 2008, only two of these offer pay-as-you-go mobile broadband internet. They are T-Mobile and O2.   The idea of "pay-as-you-go mobile broadband internet" is that you use your laptop and a USB dongle to wirelessly connect to the internet. It works anywhere in the country that has cell phone coverage. The access is high speed and there is no contract commitment. You simply buy the dongle, plug it in, use the internet, then top up your credit as and when you need it.     T-Mobile's option is called the Xtra Pac T-Mobile web'n'walk Stick.  It costs a one-time fee of €69.95. For this you get a 77mm-long USB stick that can plug into your laptop, plus €10 of credit. The charge is then €4.95 per day of usage, midnight to midnight. Connection speed is 3,6 MBit/s. Download speed during the day reduces to 384 kbit/s after 1Gb, and 64 kbit/s after 2Gb. The stick can only be used with the SIM card that comes with it. If you want to use another operator's card you have to pay a €99.50 unlock fee or wait 24 months.   O2's option is called the O2 LOOP-Surf-Stick.   It costs a one-time fee of €69,99, similar to the T-Mobile option. For this you get an 87mm USB stick, plus one month of credit. Rather than paying day-by-day, O2 has month-by-month options. The €5 pack buys you one month of access limited to 30 MB and the €10 pack buys 200 MB. The €25 pack has no hard data limit, but connection speeds are reduced after 10 GB.

  Since living in Germany I've often had difficulty trying to spell out reference numbers over the phone. This is when talking to a mail-order company, for example. I'll say "N" and they'll understand "M".  Vowels are particularly troublesome. Especially the German letter "E" which is pronounced like the English "A", or the German "I" which is like English "E".   Another three letters that bother me are: "Ipsilon", "yot", and "doppel-fow" for Y, J, and W respectively. The first two I often used to get muddled up or pronounce wrongly.   So recently, finally, after years of living here, I decided to learn the German phonetic alphabet. The English one I'd learned years ago in the army cadets. The German one is different, however. And they don't seem to teach it in German language class (at least mine never did).   So perhaps you might also find it useful to learn. At the very least you should learn your surname, particularly if it's non-German sounding or contains lots of vowels. You probably don't need to bother if you're called "Schmidt".   German phonetic alphabet - known in German as the "Funkalphabet" or "Buchstabiertafel":   Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora, Emil, Friedrich, Gustav, Heinrich, Ida, Julius, Kaufmann, Ludwig, Martha, Nordpol, Otto, Paula, Quelle, Richard, Siegfried, Theodor, Ulrich, Wilhelm, Xanthippe, Ypsilon, Zeppelin   English phonetic alphabet - included for reference:   Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, Indigo, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Québec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Whisky, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu   Further reading: Funkalphabet - Wikipedia Nato phonetic alphabet  

Are you available for work as a babysitter? If so, post your details and availability here.   Your advert will be most effective if you include a short paragraph of text about you and what kind of work you are looking for. Remember to include contact details or instruct families to send you a personal message. Note that all posts here are automatically removed after three months. Please do not post a public reply to adverts - instead contact the advertiser directly and in private via the contact details they give.   See also: Babysitter wanted adverts

If you are a family that is seeking a babysitter, post your requirement here. Remember to include contact details (telephone number, email, etc.) or instruct candidate babysitters to send you a personal message via this forum. Note that all posts here are automatically removed after three months.   If you are a babysitter seeking work, please do not post a public reply to adverts. Instead contact the advertiser directly and in private via the contact details they give. Take care to note the date of the postings. The most recent adverts are at the bottom of this page. Plus, remember you should also advertise your services by posting a message to the babysitters available listings.

Post here for general chat about the current weather in Munich.   Only in cases of extreme weather should a new topic be started.   Current weather: Yahoo! weather forecast for Munich   See also the Munich weather discussion archive.

So you're seeking rental accommodation in Munich? Make sure you read this page through to the end, it contains lots of useful information. Remember to also read the second page, including the post about tips for first-time renters. Once you're done here, then also read the other page: Apartments in Munich   First decide: do you want furnished or unfurnished? If you choose unfurnished, remember that this means with absolutely no furniture whatsoever. Often there is not even a kitchen or a bathroom - just pipes sticking out of the walls ready for you to connect your own facilities. Secondly: live alone or sharing? In German the sharing of an apartment is known as "Wohngemeinschaft" or "WG" for short. If you are looking for a flat to yourself, short-term, and pre-furnished, then you should check the following advertised agencies:   Mr. Lodge - Apartments Munich Mr. Lodge is a professional Munich furnished accommodation agency. They are the largest such agency in Germany. They have on their books hundreds, if not thousands of furnished apartments for short term and long term rentals. These include 1, 2, and 3 room apartments as well as furnished houses. Mr. Lodge is a very international company. They have over 23 employees including people from Ireland, UK, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, USA and of course Germany. In addition to English and German they can also speak with you in Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, and Dutch.     This is a paid placement posting.

============================== Unemployment benefits in Munich, Germany   There are two types of unemployment benefits in Germany. Unemployment insurance (UI) benefits are paid only for a limited period. The potential length of UI receipt depends positively on the work-history in insured employment in the seven years prior to a benefit claim. It also increases with the age of an unemployed person. Workers who are younger than 42 years can receive UI benefits for no longer than 12 months. When people run out of UI benefit, they may receive unemployment assistance (UA) benefits, provided that they pass a means-test. There is no time-limit for UA benefit receipt and the formal replacement rates of UA are somewhat lower than those of UI benefit.   To be eligible for UI benefits people need to have worked at least 12 months in contributory employment in the previous three years prior to the benefit claim.   The claimant must not have reached the retirement age of 65 years and has to be available for a suitable job or a training course offered by the local labour offices. He/she also has to be available on short notice to the labour office. Of course, the claimant has to register as unemployed at the local labour office.   In the first four months of unemployment the labour offices regarded as a suitable job only those jobs with the same occupational qualification as in the previous job. Thereafter a job with a lower qualification could be regarded as suitable.   Not accepting a suitable job offer once may lead to a temporary loss of the UI entitlement for 12 weeks. A complete loss of the UI receipt is possible if the recipient refuses suitable job offers repeatedly.   In the first three months of unemployment a job was defined as suitable if it paid at least 80% of the previous wage of the UI benefit recipient. This percentage declines to 70% in the forth month unemployment. After the sixth month of UI benefit receipt any job with a wage that exceeds the UI benefit is regarded as suitable. A suitable job is also defined by the time needed to travel to work.   A job with a travel to work time of three or less hours a day is classified as suitable.   The level of the UI benefits is defined relative to the net earnings in the previous job.   The formal replacement rates are 67% for parents and 60% for childless people. There is an upper cap to the benefit level, which depends on the upper threshold for gross earnings up to which contributions to the social insurance system have to be paid.   Time in employment (months) - duration of entitlement (months):   12-15 - 6 16-19 - 8 20-23 - 10 24-27 - 12 28-31 - 14 age >= 45 years 32-35 - 16 age >= 45 36-39 - 18 age >= 45 40-43 - 20 age >= 47 44-47 - 22 age >= 47 48-53 - 24 age >= 52 54-55 - 26 age >= 52 56-59 - 28 age >= 57 60-63 - 30 age >= 57 >=64 - 32 age >= 57   UA benefits:   Unemployed people may receive UA benefits if they either run out of their UI entitlement or are not eligible for UI benefits as their work-history in base period 1 is too short. The formal replacement rates are 57% for parents and 53% for childless people. However, to receive UA benefits people have to pass a means-test that takes into account income of all the members of the unemployed person’s household. Due to the means-test, the UA benefit can be lower than the formal replacement rates suggest. Additionally, since the benefit reform of April 1997, the past wage, from which the UA benefit level results, is reduced by 3 % after each year of UA benefit receipt. Though after an initial UA claim, its receipt is first limited to one year, UA may be prolonged without any time limit. Only if the claimant reaches the retirement age, UA cannot be received any longer.   ============================== The Munich Employment office   Arbeitsamt München Kapuzinerstr. 26 80337 München U3/6 to Goetheplatz   Arbeitsamt Munich: website     General contacts: Tel. 089 5154 0 muenchen@arbeitsamt.de   Information about unemployment benefits: Tel. 089 5154 6981 Muenchen.Rechtsauskunft@arbeitsamt.de   Opening times: Monday 07.30 - 15.30 hrs Thursday 7.30 - 18.00 hrs Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 7.30 - 12.00 hrs     ============================== Registering as unemployed   When going to register as unemployed you have to find the correct person to speak to in the department for "Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitsberatung". The correct person is the one who is responsible for the occupation in which you were previously employed.   The different teams use a vistor system whereby you take a ticket from the ticket machine and wait for your number to come up. You then go to the door which is signaled with a red light. You can get general information at the info-counter in the entrance area.   For an overview of the different departments see this PDF document.   Registration for unemployment can happen up to 2 months before the end of an employment contract. To register for unemployment benefits you need to take with you a personal identity document, a copy of your "Lohnsteuerkarte" and a "Abeitsbescheinigung". This last document is a certificate from your previous employers stating how long you were employed with them.   The form for registering as unemployed can be found here.   Might be handy to print that form out and fill it in before you arrive.   A useful German word: "Das Arbeitslosengeld" - "Unemployment benefit".   ============================== Register as unemployed as soon as possible!   A law was introduced on 1.Jul.2003 which governs mandatory registration with the employment office.   If you're fired or your employment is otherwise terminated you must register yourself as unemployed within one week. If you register later than a week you will have your entitlement to benefits automatically shortened. If an employee is able to believably convince the employment office that a personal registration was not possible within the legal time period, then exceptions will be made on an individual basis.   The reason for this new law is that the sooner the search for a new job begins the greater a chance of finding a job and the reduction in the need for unemployment benefit payments.   ============================== Job search facilites at the employment office   At the Munich employment office on the Kapuzinerstrasse there are 167 computers available for job seekers. These are equipped with internet access although that access is restricted to job seeker websites.   There are 54 computers in the "Self information zone" near the main entrance. There are another 28 in the "Internet Center" on the 1st floor. Other computers are available in various departments throughout the building.   For more info (in German) see here.   ============================== Quitting a job versus being fired   Apparently, if you quit your job rather than being fired then you are not entitled to benefits for 3 months. During this time you have to pay the full whack on your health insurance. We don't know yet if the money you get after 3 months is the higher rate Unemployment Insurance (UI) or the lower Unemployment Assistance (UA).   ============================== Foreigners in Munich   All of the above is valid for all citizens of any EU country. There are different rules for non-EU citizens.