dessa_dangerous

Sounds like a reasonable enough theory... I live in an unsexy Neubau in the west and everyone I know nowadays lives out here too.  The one place that I did used to visit frequently and actually noticed a pattern was in Friedrichshain.  Altbau though.

@lisa13 @Santitas I'm in Berlin (since 2006) and my building is not like that and neither are any of the homes I regularly visit.  Our building looks like it maybe *used* to be like that, but somewhere along the line the etageordnung was interrupted or abandoned. 

Eh, was a joke anyway.  Utopia's bound to be full of Nice People, and we've never mixed circles much  I like a little edge to public life.  And private too, I suppose.  A little evil goes a long way. 

ok, I'll believe you.  No clue what the last sentence means, or why it's relevant though, I'm afraid.  But whatever the explanation, I'm sure I'll be able to accept that, too.

  Surely you mean...   Sometimes. Perhaps even often, but far from always or even reliably.  Otherwise, I must fly with great haste to whichever utopian enclave in which you find yourself...? 

@sarabyrd, always and again.  The extent to which I miss her and wish she would come back doesn't seem to diminish with time.  

@Kommentarlos you're right of course, although there are some where the alt-ness is clear--user signs up and immediately has allegiance to some users, grudges against others, their reputation activity indicates that they sign up with a strong preference not necessarily just for certain ideas but for certain USERS, upvoting everything they post, regardless of what they post.  They sign up and immediately start posting as much as possible so they can gain access to Supporters, used to be they'd sign up immediately for Adults and Gentlemen (nope, not Ladies), they know how to use the wiki, they quote the TOS to established users, they remember when the red button existed even though they signed up last week, they know who the mods are, they know when you-know-who is posting drunk, they know what a Friday thread is and they know what "TT" and "EB" are short for.  With all these indications. or even a handful of them, we can feel fairly sure that certain users are dupe accounts of someone who's been around a lot longer than they claim.  Not all of them are trolls, of course, or created their accounts with any nefarious purposes in mind.  Some have been banned in the past and just want to participate, which, as long as they conduct themselves appropriately and don't make any express references to their old banned accounts, is not something we work actively to hinder.

  if the IPs would match, it would all be relatively straightforward.  Unfortunately, most committed trolls and alts are pretty diligent about using a VPN.  Some are more, some are less artful in their approach to this.  Some don't give a shit that you know the alt's a dupe and perhaps even intentionally use a service that switches their IP address for every post, to rub it in the mods' faces that they're an alt, but can't prove who's operating it.  Others really cultivate and stick to their alt's story--posting it out of the same far-flung location each time.  We know there's no one in Madagascar who posts here every day, but we can't prove which one of the Young NeoCons it belongs to (most of them not so young anymore).   Still others really stick to their far-flung place their main account posts out of and their alts can have a static IP here in Germany.  Again, I don't really believe someone in Singapore writes here daily, but what am I going to do about it? tl; dr: we do check for these things and when we find a way to shut down a disruptive alt, we do it without hesitation.  Also reports about alts are taken seriously and investigated.  If there's no action taken it's because we couldn't find a strong enough link between the alt and any other account.

I know some people actually haul their bikes upstairs and into their apartments and either hang them on the wall or leave them on the patio.  Depending on how your building is set up, you might find somewhere inside the foyer or hallway to put it (common in a lot of Altbauten).   As anyone will advise, there is almost nothing to deter a bike thief determined to take your bike, no matter how soundly you lock it up.  In your position I would ask your flatmates and neighbors about their experiences and whether they think the neighborhood to be a high-risk area.  For example, I live in what should be regarded as high-risk area, but possibly because the way our courtyard is set up (with the windows from dozens of units facing the Hof), bike security has never been an issue here.  People leave all sorts of personal items hanging off their bikes and nothing ever gets stolen (in the heart of "Kreuzkölln").

speeding ticket?

Szalai Tibor turns up in google as a prominent Hungarian tattoo artist. More from him:       apparently white ink really is a thing.  Still skeptical about the lollipop and the Oreos, though.

  top three are real, last two look fake.  In the "real" ones, you can see the irritation of the skin around the edges, and/or where blood has been wiped away, and some sort of cream or lubricant applied (standard procedure after finishing a tattoo).  Second and third look like cover-ups (#2 underwent an obvious several years in hell carving unsightly gashes into his arm, #3 not sure but looks like an old faded tattoo has been skillfully modified and incorporated into a new theme).  The absence of any trauma to the skin and the presence of white coloration give the final two away IMO.

@fraufruit maybe times have changed in the meantime, and it's not unheard of for infants ( >1 year) to be put up in daycare.  So they need diaper changes and cannot feed themselves.  Another thing is that of course, no one Erzhieherin need tie 40 pairs of shoes--two grownups will take out a group of 10-12 kids, and so getting them ready should take considerably less time.  When I worked as an early English teacher and visited a dozen kitas/kigas a week the majority of the kids were so small that they definitely needed help getting dressed before going out--jackets needed zipping up, shoes laced/buckled/velcroed on, mittens, caps, the whole shebang, and of course kids that needed help going to the toilet.  So no, at least in Berlin, that's not a requirement.

  When I worked in kitas and my German wasn't all that good yet, I was constantly having to learn new phrases to deal with the unique situations in which I'd find myself.  One of the ones I learned and had to teach to all of my kids in the 12+ different institutions I'd visit in a week was "hand vorm mund halten".  These kids had no idea about anything like that and would cough and sneeze at whatever happened to be in front of them, with some kids finding it even funny to sneeze and spit directly into the faces of other children.  Needless to say, there were a lot of shocking behaviors that I observed which were also observable in adults.  After I got scarlet fever for the second time at the same kita two years in a row I began to seriously consider a different line of work, one which preferably didn't require me to ride public transport, which is also full of grownups coughing and sneezing on each other without a care in the world.  Disgusting.

my vent: posts containing bare news links, commented news links, chat, jokes etc.  THE VENT IS A NO CHAT ZONE ABOUT THE ASSHOLES THAT ARE RUINING YOUR LIFE!!! ABOUT SCANDALOUS BITCHES AND LYING BASTARDS!! IN YO RL.   There are tons of other threads for links, jokes, and commiseration (Why are you unhappy today, for example).  I miss the forum feature with the subtitles.  After the "upgrade", the Vent--No chat! became The Vent.  "Why are you happy today? Let's hug each other and be merry" became Why are you happy today.  "Why are you unhappy today?  Let's lean on each other for support (or something like that)" became, you guessed it.  But the Vent has been the forum's only, and therefore sacred, chat-free thread for thirteen years.  Where you can cuss, cry, scream, wish hexes on people, plot revenge, plan murders... no, wait.     Actually, this is getting too meta for the Vent.  Going to report myself now.