marron12

Browsing Lemmy and kbin. There's lots of interesting stuff when you sort by new. Today's unexpected find was banjo music with duck sounds.

Once in a while, I try my hand at translating.

It must be a lot of work to repost all these pictures and the links. I always like seeing your posts of artifacts and ruins.

Thanks!

Wow. I'd never heard of stomatitis before, but it sounds pretty painful. Hope he gets through it OK. Thanks for the extra pic! That's a face that's hard to say no to.

Any favorites that you would recommend off the top of your head? I'm open to any kind of food.

Scooter is adorable. I hope he got whatever he wanted.

I look for good food and things to see and do that are unique to the area.

New Orleans, for example. The French Quarter is interesting. I like the food, art, and street music. But it's also nice to see the bayous. Lake Pontchartrain. Plantations and oak trees. Trucks full of sugar cane driving down the road. People fishing in lawn chairs at the side of the road.

Or taking a tour of a destroyer in July. Sunny, 95 degrees, and like 115% humidity. Those nice thick metal walls absorb it all. AC in only one corner of the ship. That sweet-ass Southern iced tea feels just right after that. Gator meat isn't bad either.

Yeah. In case anyone was wondering, the down payment on a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor near your heart is $100,000. Cash, or no surgery for you. The tumor is growing fast, so you only have a few days to come up with the money.

That's all because the insurance company said the surgery wasn't necessary. Or maybe it was too experimental. I forget. Some family members with high paying jobs managed to come up with the money, and my uncle got to live a few more years. I'm sure not everyone is that lucky. And why on God's green earth should it have to come down to luck?

Insurance changed their mind after a long appeal. I think it took 1-2 years.

Now, more than a decade after Sylvia’s death, their efforts have landed the Wildensteins before France’s highest court. The evidence she and Dumont Beghi brought forth has persuaded prosecutors that the Wildensteins are a criminal enterprise, responsible for operating, as a prosecutor for the state once put it, “the longest and the most sophisticated tax fraud” in modern French history.

A trial this September will determine if the family and their associates owe a gargantuan tax bill. The last time prosecutors went after the Wildensteins, several years ago, they sought €866 million — €616 million in back taxes and a €250 million fine, as well as jail time for Guy. The consequences could do more than topple the family’s art empire. The case has provided an unusual view of how the ultrawealthy use the art market to evade taxes, and sometimes worse. Agents raiding Wildenstein vaults have turned up artworks long reported as missing, which fueled speculation that the family may have owned Nazi-looted or otherwise stolen art, and spurred a number of other lawsuits against the family in recent years. Financial distortions have saved the family hundreds of millions of dollars, prosecutors allege, but their treatment of Sylvia could cost them far more — and perhaps lead to the unraveling of their dynasty.

What a story. It's a long read, but fascinating.

If the summary speaks to me, I'll look at the free preview from Amazon or wherever. If I like what I see, I get the book. If it's an audiobook, I'll listen to a sample.

I don't care about reviews too much because taste is very individual. I'd rather see for myself, and it only takes a few minutes to tell if I'm going to like something.

It can be to limit how much vacation time the company has to pay out on separation, or to limit how much "liability" for vacation pay they have on the books at any given time. If your employees get 5 days of vacation a year, use it or lose it, you don't have to deal with someone who (the horror!) has built up 2 weeks and wants to use it all at once.

There are no state or federal laws that give employees a right to paid vacation time. Only 10 states require the company to pay out unused vacation time when you leave (CA, CO, IL, IN, LA, MA, ME, ND, NE, RI). In most of those states, use it or lose it policies are illegal. Everywhere else, the company policy basically decides if it gets paid out or not.

I would just add that pretty much any kind of music can work. The most important thing is you like it. Sometimes you have to try different bands to find something where the vocals are clear and the lyrics are interesting. As long as you can find the lyrics online, you should be good.

My thing is mostly metal. There are a lot of good bands, way more than just Rammstein. Eisbrecher, Erdling, or Saltatio Mortis, for example.

Or all different kinds of rock. You might like Sportfreunde Stiller (indie/alternative rock) or Revolverheld (alternative rock/pop). They both sing pretty clearly, not very fast, and use everyday language.

Oh, and Lyrics Translate is pretty good for translations.