chips

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Posts posted by chips

  1. Posted

     

    However one should be a little cautious, yet not too much. We're not in the stages of checking under cars for bombs yet.

     

    The bomb squad at Poccistrasse does have the mirrors-on-sticks for looking under cars.

     

    I noticed that they seemed more relaxed this morning than first thing yesterday.

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  5. Posted

    Related to this topic...

     

    Is there anything in Germany similar to UK National Savings index-linked certificates?

    http://www.nsandi.com/products/ilsc/index.jsp

     

    That is, a place to put euros which is guaranteed to stay ahead of the inflation rate, after tax.

    (stocks and property are also possible, but I'm specifically thinking of something more cash-like)

     

    I know this is a bit of a contrarian question in the current climate... just thinking ahead.

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  10. Posted

     

    I tried quite a few and got bored with faffing around!! If anyone can PM me one they KNOW works now - would be great for me to test. At least then I know if it is the proxy or my setup.

    I've gone through this process a few times and always get bored before I find a working proxy.

     

    I guess it depends on how determined you are to watch British telly.

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  13. Posted

     

    I am a web developer and embedded software engineer. If you want a website put up with the minimal of fuss, check out Joomla or Drupal. These are Content management Systems that are easy to use. They are no substitute for real PHP, Javascript and MySQL knowledge, but you will get quite far with a CMS system and if your site is not too complicated, then this is the way to go for a beginner.

    I've used Joomla for a couple of sites. On the plus side it has a fair number of free templates and plug-ins, plus the editor has some degree of wysiwygness to it. It is, however, massive overkill if you're aiming for a mainly static site (such as wedding details) - you can publish static pages, but to do so you still have to get your head around their CMS concept. Having said that, once you've got it sussed it's pretty easy to knock out sites relatively quickly.

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  14. Posted

     

    As an aside to the discussion about tolls in Germany I heard yesterday that this stretch of Autobahn will no longer be toll free in the New Year. Here's a link in German:Bayern 3 News-vignette.

    Ok, so if I wanted to drive from Munich to one of the Skiwelt villages, that would require a vignette?

    Checking Google Maps the most direct exit is at Kufstein, but it looks possible to get off earlier.

     

    Does the requirement now start right at the border?

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  17. Posted

    A quick list:

     

    12 Angry Men

    Godfather 1 & 2

    Dr Strangelove

    The Matrix

    Clockwork Orange

    American History X

    Casablanca

    Fight Club

    Psycho

    Monty Python (Grail & Brian)

    La Vita e Bella

    Trainspotting

    Toy Story

    Akira

    Seven Samurai

    Alien & Aliens

    Usual Suspects

    Star Wars

    Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

     

    And another list of films that probably should be on the list but that I haven't seen:

     

    It's a Wonderful Life

    Chinatown

    Sunset Boulevard

    M

    City of God

    North by Northwest

    Metropolis

    Yojimbo

    The Maltese Falcon

    Lawrence of Arabia

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  19. Posted

     

    I may well be completely wrong, I'm willing to accept that, but as far as I'm aware, Gold is bought and sold in dollars. You may well dispatch X amount of euros out of your account to buy it, but it's converted to dollars. The point being then, that if the dollar swings wildly against whatever currency you initially used to buy it, then that currency swing can easily wipe out any profits the gold index might have seen when you sell your gold, get your dollars, and convert back to euros.

     

    It's like shares in American companies. Anyone who owned any over the last 7 years or so was whacked doubly by the fact that the shares fell for the US investors, but for European investors the exchange rate added double the pain. Example: if you'd bought $1,000 worth of shares back in 2002 (at a cost of €1,200 when the dollar was actually stronger than the euro), if those shares are now worth $500 and you sell them, when converting the funds back to Euros now, you'd get back around €350. Although the share price only halved, the massive drop in currency exchange rates made it worse. I'm pretty sure the same applies to Gold.

    Well not quite: Gold Fixing (Wikipedia)

     

    Plus, if you're looking to hedge against currency falls you're actually looking for the kind of effect you've mentioned - you want the thing you buy to increase in value when measured in the currency you bought it in, whether that 'thing' was dollars, gold, oil, yen, pork bellies or whatever. If you believe that *all* currencies are in danger - as mikem seems to - then buying commodities makes some sense.

     

    Since the pound is so cheap already we may have missed the boat to buy anything (I only got half of my savings into euro :( ), but it may yet get worse. On the other hand, if you're expecting the euro to collapse then there are a few more possibilities (including buying the pound - unless it collapses more!).

     

    Personally I think the UK is in bad shape. While Germany is probably ok, the euro is weighed down by the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland/Italy, Greece, Spain) and something bad may happen because of that. Who knows what or when. Plus the Germans have a stronger reason to abhor inflation than other Western economies.

     

    Maybe Germany will go back to the DM? :ph34r:

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  20. Posted

     

    I am in exactly this situation. I am the greedy boyfriend, privately insured. My partner is publicly insured. We are having a baby later this year. Will the child have to be on my Private insurance or my partners Public? Does marital status affect this?

     

    thankyouplease.

    If you were married the child would be on your private insurance, unless (I think) your partner earns more than you. Since you're unmarried, I'm unsure.

    What's more, if your partner is voluntarily on public, then during any Elternzeit she takes she will have to make contributions based on half your income. :rolleyes:

     

    Public insurance seems to be designed only for traditional atomic families.

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  23. Posted

    It happens on my mac. Note that if you try to follow the diagnostics link you get a server error, so something definitely went down over there. Google News is also giving me server errors half the time.

     

    Back to Alta Vista? :o

     

    Edit: Ah, seems ok again now. Somebody finished the reboot (and will get fired on Monday).

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  25. Posted

    Just tried Stimmer - they won't give me a quote over the phone, though they did confirm your TUV figures.

     

    I told Liebl (the English speaking one) that it seemed a little expensive and he pointed out that the headlights alone cost 225 ex vat. Still, he came down 150 on the total cost, plus we agree to skip the service. The final cost of 550 is closer to being reasonable.

     

    In answer to my own question, earlier, the TUV can be done before changing plates - the paperwork is taken to the registration office and applied to the new reg when changed.

     

    Feel free to merge this elsewhere, thanks for the comments. :)

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