Help shaft.ed succeed in life

[shaft.ed]

So I've got about two weeks to find a flat in Munich. I'm having trouble finding useful websites for rental listings. I imagine that a large part of the problem is that I can't read German as of yet. But I do have German speaking friends in the lab. So if any of you guys know any good websites for local rental listings in Germany please post them here.

My observations of Germany so far.
-You guys need to be open later. 24 hour grocery shopping is really one of life's greatest joys.
-And seriously what's with banks closing for lunch? Have you heard of staggering your lunch breaks?
-Get bigger milk containers. Biggest bottle is 1 liter. Seriously
-Why are you guys getting better cereal? I've never seen Kellogg's "Crunchy Nut" in the states (maybe the name doesn't market well) but man it's good stuff.

[shaft.ed]

I'm actually a fatty magnet. Don't have trouble with that.

[shaft.ed]

I've only been around Schwabing where my lab is located. And I've only been here for a day. So my views might be inadequate.

[shaft.ed]

Since I'm already asking for help:

I'm trying to download either google-video or skype. But both downloads fail on my computer. I can download the initial small setup file, but when that prompts the download of a second larger program file it tells me that the connection is interrupted and talk to the system administrator. I've tried connecting to two different wireless connections but no luck.

Also when i googled the error code it appears as though my firewall may be blocking the file transfer. I've got windows firewall turned off anyway. And am using McAfee for protection, but I'm too retarded to figure out how to temp disable it. I might also have some vestiges of Symantec that I was unable to remove previously.


Side note about Germany:
-The bratwursts give me diahrea.


THanks in advance!

[shaft.ed]

ha don't have Aim, wonder if that will download

happen to be on gmail?

[shaft.ed]

thanks agin for the help.

I have skype now. Will go with that as most everyone i know uses it.

[shaft.ed]

Love Crunchy Nut Cornflakes... suprised the US doesnt have them.

I've never seen it before. It's sooo nutty.

Also 4 minutes into skyping my internet connection died.

[shaft.ed]

don't they use the regular channels such as classified listings?

I haven't gotten to anz papers yet. But I don't know any German.

[shaft.ed]

No, you can't sleep on my couch

[shaft.ed]

Thanks VRK. So far I'm only finding sites that eat up a months rent for the service of...I don't know what.

New topic to help shaft.ed succeed in life:

I've now got some fellowship money, and my laptop is screaming like a fat chick near a drunken RECK. So any advice on what kind of laptops (mid to mid-high price range) I should get would be appreciated. Mainly use it for PowerPoint presntations, word processing and occasional Illustrator/Photoshop. Ability to run Diablo III would be a small plus.

[shaft.ed]

better trolling plz

[shaft.ed]

why would anyone want an iPhone that big? How do you fit it in your pocket?

[shaft.ed]

OK so I need scammer advice

Here are two emails I received after I replied to craigslist postings. Please rate them on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being legitimate and 10 being a princess in Nigeria. Note that before playing, bad English is not neccessarily a tell because these are supposed to be Germans.

Hello,
It is nice to read from you regarding my advertisement about my lovely furnished two bedrooms flat. I am delighted to let you know that my apartment is still very much available for long and short term periods. Also, it is available for reservation incase you want me to reserve it for you till any period. For now, no one is occupying my apartment and it will be very nice renting it to you.


I resided in this apartment with my family before my recent transfer. I am in Notting Hill,London at present for my company's recent construction project in London. This project will last for 3 years but my wife and family are in India. The apartment is located at; 3 Mathilden, Munich 80336, Germany.


The cost for the apartment( 2 bedrooms, sitting room, 2 bathrooms and separate kitchen) is 400EUR per month including all facilities/utilities (water, electicity, heater, internet, gas etc.) and the refundable security deposit is 500EUR.


If you need more information and pictures about the apartment please don't hesitate to contact me.


Thanks
[name]
[phone numbers]

Thanks for your E-mail and Top of the Day to You, And it is my gladness to hearing from you.

This email is long, but renting it is important to you, and I want to try and give you some insight into who I am and about the home you are renting.

I don’t know you personally, but this is overwhelming and you are in my prayers!

About me: Eng. [girls name, that's weird], I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. I am currently 45 years old and married. I have only one child.. I enjoy movies, sports, reading and working out. I’m interesting in a good tenant that will consider the home as his/her personal home and take good care of it.

I am the owner of the Apartment you are making enquiry of. Actually I resided in the Apt with my family, Such as my wife and my only daughter before and presently we had packed out of the apartment due to my transfer from my working place to one of our branch in West Africa and i have a very big project to handle here and this is going to take me a long time, Presently my apt is still available for rent , Including the utilities like hydro,washer and security, And Well Furnished and i am with the Keys and the Documentations to the Apartment. Pls i want you to note that, I am a kind and honest man and also i spent alot on my property that i want to give you for rent, So i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this home and want you to treat it as your own, Is that taken,it is not the money the main problem but want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i came for a check up. I do that once in a while, I also want you to let me have trust in you as i always stand on my word.

The accommodation comprises of 1 Bedrooms, 1Bathrooms, living room. The living room is (17'0×16'0), kitchen breakfast room (13×11), bedroom (12'10×10'5), bathroom and a separate WC Facilities and electronics like satellite TV and internet connection, and a Sony DVD player, air conditioning, alarm system. The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils, a refrigerator-freezer, four-hob and oven, microwave, dishwasher and washing machine.

We have each convenience that you could always wish. We have a friendly community of neighbors. Portions of activities such as passages, bingo, klutch of the coffee, divided groups that roll and for every holiday. The restaurants, supermarket,bakeries, pharmacies, cafes, shops, offices and the warehouses are within distance that walks..

Please feel free to email anytime of the day OR reach my mobile # @ [removed-mith] for further discussion.

Looking forward to see your reply so that i can forward you the Rent Application Form so that we can move-on with the renting process.

Thank so much for your interest and you are welcome.

You are blessed in Jesus name.
Warmest Regard.
Eng. [girls name]

[shaft.ed]

Never mind, did a quick google search of the phone numbers and they are both scams. Feel free to play along.

[shaft.ed]

I'm gonna play them out just to see how fun it gets. I'll keep you updated if you're interested.

Meanwhile I still have no apartment leads. The ones I found online aren't available until AUGUST! Seriously they post apartments that far in advance here.

[shaft.ed]

The second was is just...weird.

Yeah I don't think I would have rented that one even if it wasn't a scam.

[shaft.ed]

Well the security deposit is the scam because that is what they require before they "mail you the keys"

[quote=""Mitchell""]Hello,
I have no person there who will show you the inside, you can go and view the exterior location but can't view the inside till you get the keys. The apartment can be reserved for you till whenever you wish to move in provided you have deposited for the apartment. All amenities (internet, water, heater, gas) are active and will be ready for use when you arrive in the apartment.

I have attached the rental application form and more pictures to you if you are interested in renting my apartment kindly complete it and return it back to me. Once I receive the filled form my lawyer here in UK will prepare the contract lease agreement form.

After signing the contract you will pay for the refundable security deposit only. Upon receiving your payment the keys and documents of the apartment will be shipped to your address and it will be delivered to you after 3 days. The first month rent will be paid as soon as you move into the apartment

Now I am waiting for your reply, if you are ok with the above conditions kindly return the filled rental application form to my email asap for my lawyer to prepare the contract.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks
Mitchell
+447031864266[/quote]
and the pictures were really pretty. Amazing what 400E can get you nowadays.


So what should I reply to "Mitchell"?

[shaft.ed]

@TDC/other German scummers: What's the usual "kaution" payment when you sign a lease? Seems like 3 X the cold rent is standard here. That's rather crazy IMHO.

[shaft.ed]

@TDC/other German scummers: What's the usual "kaution" payment when you sign a lease? Seems like 3 X the cold rent is standard here. That's rather crazy IMHO.

Yeah, that's the norm.

Man, so that's 3x rent for deposit, 2.2 times the rent for agent fees, and 1 rent for actual rent. So a half years rent just to move into a place. Wow. I think I'll take Mitchell's apartment once I hear back about load bearing walls.

[shaft.ed]

Sweet signed a contract yesterday. Move in on the 15th. That's right, 1.5 months to get an apartment, so I can pay an agent 1000 Euro just for showing me the place.

OK new question for Germans. Have any of you tried the 'surf stick'? Aldi has one for 50€, and 15€ a month unlimited internet and no contract. Just not sure about connectivity.

[shaft.ed]

I would say the chances are good, but it would probably make sense to actually test it first. Don't want to be stuck with 56k because UMTS only works when you stand on a ladder in the kitchen.

I assume you are aware that it limits the speed to 56k anyway once you reach 5GB traffic?

Ahh, no actually I wasn't sure about that. When I translated it, it said something about the throttle and 5GB. Anyone have an idea what 5GB would be? I'm mostly going to use it for Skype with video, which likely isnt going to function at 56k.

[shaft.ed]

OK so the apartment has been gotten. Internet has been ordered. Sex swing has not been installed.

It's now time to purchase a laptop. I have a fellowship that will pay for one personal computer, money is almost no object. It will be used to process microscopy data, so I need something with good graphics and fast speed, that will last me a couple years. I really only know Sony and Lenovo (IBM) laptops at all, so I've been checking them out and am curious what people with more knowledge would suggest. I'm also wondering if a solid state hard drive is somewhat or highly recommended. Note I will not be saving or working with data from my computer hard drive, I will be writing to externals. Freestanding monitor might also be an option to make up for smaller screens.

Current options ranked in order of consideration.

Vaio Z series:
13.1 inch screen
intel i5 2.53GHz processor
Solid State Drive
8 GB DRAM
1 GB NVidia graphics card

Thinkpad 410s:
14.1 inch screen
intel i5 2.4GHz processor
Solid State Drive
8 GB DRAM
512 MB NVidia graphics card

Vaio E Series:
15.5 inch screen
intel i5 2.4GHz processor
HSD
8 GB RAM
512 MB NVIdia graphics card

Vaio CW Series:
14 inch screen
intel i5 2.53GHz processor
HSD
8GB RAM
245 MB NVidiea graphics card

So would any of these be a good idea, if so which one?

[shaft.ed]

Can you explain what exactly "processing microscopy data" entails? I can't quite envision how that would require "good graphics".

Welp you start with medium to large data files (currently my biggest are about 2 gigs, but they have the potential to grow). Then you open them with an image processing program. I'll 99.9% be using ImageJ / FIJIsince they are open source. These are Java based programs that allow a multitude of different manipulations. Some examples would be opening the files to make simple measurements of size or intensity. Analyzing time lapse data to track particle movement. Most complicated function is going to be 3D rendering (actually 4D since it's time lapse) where image stacks are freely spun about in 3D space. Measurements, masking, and tracking etc. will be performed in this view. I may also be running deconvolution plugins, which are usually pretty taxing. In my previous lab I had a desktop with 4GB RAM and it would still crash on occassion due to too much going on. Primarily with the 3D rendering program when I had too large an image file open, or too many files open due to time lapse.

I'll also be doing post processing in Adobe programs, but this is generally less demanding than the analysis steps.

The only reason I can think the solid state would be beneficial is because the programs are installed on the hard drive. So I wasn't sure if this would help make program usage less sluggish.

Also yeah the solid state is going to cost about $1K more along with a couple other bells and whistles, but like I said money is not that big of a concern. If I keep it below 2.5-3K I'll be fine.

[shaft.ed]

So yeah, 16GB is going to run me about $4K, that is actually a bit too much. It's also 9 pounds (at least from Dell).

[shaft.ed]

Whatever you do, don't buy dell.

Yeah my only Dell purchase died 1 month after the warranty expired. So I'm not doing another Dell. Just they were the first company I could find offering a 16GB RAM. Lenovo has one too, but its like 4.2K or something.

[shaft.ed]

OK figured I'd put up some pics of my new place so that you guys could know how much I am succeeding at life with your help.

First my wall of south facing windows. Yeah lots of crap on the floor. I blame IKEA


Then what I can see out of said windows. OMG a roof and some trees!


My kitchen is so damn spacious I had to take two pictures to get the whole thing.

Note the luxorious IKEA wears



And probably what I like best about my apartment is the location. 3 blocks to the UBahn. 15 minute walk to work. 3 blocks to the asian market. 3 grocery stores within a block and a half. 3 bakeries within a block. 2 ice cream shops within a block. 2 butchers within a half a block. And 15 hair salons within a 3 block radius!

[shaft.ed]

Has anyone here tried undervolting their laptop? Mine gets quite warm and has a lot of fan noise, I was thinking this might be helpful.

[shaft.ed]

sooo...I got my shiny new laptop with 8GB RAM, but, when I run my image analysis program it tells me that since I'm 32 bit I can only allocate 1.2 GB of memory. If I manually adjust above this threshold the program doesn't open. Now I'm stuck only being able to open about 3/4 of my data files. This is something I can workaround in the future. But it would be really helpful if I could allocate more memory to this program. Is there anyway to do so?

[shaft.ed]

Yes I'm using ImageJ/FIJI

Control Panel says I have 64-bit Java as well as a second instance of Java (not specified). Both are version 6 update 18. They were preinstalled on the computer at purchase.

[shaft.ed]

I'm guessing there are some programs that might not work on 64 bit Java. But it looks like this is the problem. When I go into the memory allocation it is definitely limited to 32 bit. I'll check the FIJI forums to see how to switch it. Thanks.


EDIT: yeah I'm just an idiot. Downloaded the 32 bit version because I forgot I was running a 64 bit Windows. Now have 5.8G memory to work with. Thanks!

[shaft.ed]

So I've bought a pair of Eurail passes for me and my wife. We'll have 15 days to visit as many countries as we want in the Eurail system. We've decided that since money is a little tight with my wife back in school, we're going to start our travels on the cheaper side of the continent. I don't know much about the area (hell I couldn't even show you a good time in Munich) so I figured I'd shamelessly solicit advice for our vacation from fellow scummers who may or may not have been.

Possibly helpful information:

-The Eurail pass doesn't cover all of Eastern Europe. Included countries are: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania and Bulgaria.
-Since most of it's neighbors aren't in the system, Montenegro ends up being a dead end (was thinking of visiting Kotor).
-We'll likely be starting the trip by going down through Italy and then hopping a ferry over to Greece. So with the time burnt and the distance, Poland is likely out and possibly Czech Republic.
-We aren't huge fans of standard nightlife (like clubs/bars) but my wife does like 24 hour cities, like in Shanghai were you can go to eat streetfood in the middle of the night.
-My wife is also a big fan of mountains and lakes, so I'm thinking of visiting Lake Bohinj in Slovenia.
-The only thing I'm interested in while traveling is pretty much food, and avoiding tourist traps.

[shaft.ed]

Thanks for the replies guys.

@Yaw, I don't think we will get time to do island hopping in Greece. I know that's probably the best thing to do there, but the ferry schedules look too slow, and the ferries inside Greece aren't covered by our pass.

@Nelloz, Thanks for the tips. I've been searching Croatia's national parks and they're beautiful. Did you stop at Plitvice Lakes on your way into Zadar? I don't know if we will get all the way down to the islands because Croatia is a dead end, but we will definitely see some of the parks. Thanks.

@Jahudo, We might actually be stopping in Venice. If we go to Slovenia we can either return to Munich through Venice or the North through Salzburg. Some food suggestions would be great. There's a night train from Slovenia to Venice so that could work out good.

@Korts, Thanks a lot for the offer, but my wife isn't keen no meeting internet strangers . But thanks for the Pecs suggestion. It's nice and low in Hungary so it will fit well on the itinerary. I'll check it out.

[shaft.ed]

i havent seen my wife in 5 months

EDIT: I'll admit I'm also a bit anxious about meeting people in real life. But I know that my wife being there will make things pretty uncomfortable.

[shaft.ed]

We should be going the last two weeks of September. I kind of wanted to go to more off the beaten path types of places, so I was thinking of Slovenia. But that makes Budapest-Vienna less doable. Salzburg is an easy daytrip from Munich so it wont be too hard to get back there at some point. I'm also probably going straight to a meetinAg in Eibsee from the end of the trip. So it might be a bit closer coming from the south than returning home and coming back out.

I was thinking Pecs to Plitvice Lakes, to Lake Bohinj, to Venice for the return leg.

I guess the other option for Croatia/Slovenia would be to just skip Greece and pay the extra for the Ancona-Zadar ferry Nelloz suggested. Then we bypass a lot of slow trainage in the Balkans. So we loop out to Hungary after hitting former Yogoslavia. I'll have to see what we would miss by skipping Serbia, Bulgaria and the Greek mainland. But the train speeds are really poor down there. It would eat up a lot of our travel time. Bonus is we definitely get to see the Kornati Islands.

[shaft.ed]

Thanks Jahudo. That sounds like a nice day.

Is anyone familiar with Cinque Terre in Italy?

[shaft.ed]

So Nelloz, do you think renting a kayak in Zadar for a half day would get us anywhere or are the islands too far apart? I'd like to see the islands, but the only way I can do it in a day is by going on a big group tour. Don't really think being cramped on a boat with 50+ other people for the day is going to be a great deal of fun.

Korts, I have Budapest down for Monday September 27th. I am beginning operation travel guide to work my wife over. But I won't have any form of communication when we get in the city. I'll keep you posted.

Jahudo, my co-worker just walked to Venice (well not the whole way but over 300km). She said the same thing. Actually she found watching tourists to be an enjoyable aspect of her time in Venice.

[shaft.ed]

Yeah, neither of us drink so...probably not going to Oktoberfest. There is a Dirndl shop across the street from my apartment should the need arise.


Also I just realized today that Salzburg was named after the nearby salt mines. Feel really stupid about that one.

[shaft.ed]

So this is hilarious in a not very funny kind of way.

Turns out that the "calendar of events" for my wife's exchange program list Oktoberfest as a holiday from sept 18th to Oct 3rd. My wife took this to mean she had the time off from classes (I swear she's lost about 40 IQ points since starting business school). So we won't be taking our train vacation after all. To top it off we now have a pair of Eurail passes that we likely can't use because Eurail is saying that the rule for not being a resident of a European country for more than 6 months applies to the time of arrival and not the time of becoming a resident. Now I'm wondering how strict the train people are and if they will notice the difference.

Oh well, thanks for the help anyway guys.

[shaft.ed]

So, my wife just registered for her courses and it turns out she actually won't be taking any classes over the weeks planned for travel (yay for lazy MBA program with 4 day classes!).

It's back on, and even better I somehow managed a last minute hotel reservation in Manarola.


<excited

[shaft.ed]

Aside from some of the advice in this thread, I basically mapped out the trip by panning across Google Earth with the photos turned on. If it was pretty I added it to the list. Quite a few things were not doable or had to be dropped because they were too remote for the schedule. But it should be awesome.

[shaft.ed]

where do you go via Scotland? Also, Ireland is the only UK country where my pass is valid. So complain to you overlords.

[shaft.ed]

So Slovenia if beautiful country. Italy was dirty and smelled like piss everywhere. Raining in Croatia right now. Hope it clears.

[shaft.ed]

So I'm sitting in a hotel lobby watching a program about a bunch of Croatian guys that put together a Mariachi band. They aren't so good at it, but they look to be having a great time. World is a strange place.

Plitvice Lakes are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I've heard the term breathtaking used to describe incredible views, but have never experienced it before today. My heart skipped a few beats walking around this place. Wish we could stay longer but all the hotels in town are booked. Might come back for a winter holiday.

Don't have pictures of the lakes on my laptop yet but I do have a couple from the first days of the trip.

[shaft.ed]

Food has been hit or miss. Really good and really bad in Italy. We found a place in Slovenia that we liked a lot and gave ridiculous portions of meat so we just ate their twice. Croatia has been quite strange with the best food coming from unexpected places (national park cafeteria, boat tour and bus station stall).

And somehow we ended up eating Chinese in Rome and sushi in Venice. They were both good to great in quality.

[shaft.ed]

ZOMG! This morning we just decided let's go to Budapest. After 7 hrs on the train and a few minutes roaming around looking for an apartment to rent I'm on a balcony in Budapest. Beautiful city.

Korts, help. Where do we find roasted chestnuts, goulash and baklava?

[shaft.ed]

We started our trip with a scenic train tour through the Bernina Pass. That meant an early train out to Switzerland and a transfer to Chur for the route between Chur and Tirano Italy. Although we came for the Alps, we ended up with pretty crappy whether so we couldnt see them at all. This did make for some interesting views as our train winded around little towns draped in clouds.




Taking pictures from the train wasn't easy since it was moving and the windows are reflective. I'd actually recommend putting the camera away and just enjoying the views, but I couldn't help it. The train to St. Moritz was full, but this was ahead of the pass itself although the views were still beautiful. After St. Moritz we ended up with an entire car to ourselves (the forced first class purchase from Eurail was pretty convenient at times). We passed by the milk lake

which was still impressive even with the cloud cover.

But the highlight had to be Alp Grum.



If you have some extra time in your trip I would recommend getting out here and walking around. It was incredible.

TIP: We took the local commuter trains instead of the tourist Panorama trains because it fit better into our schedule and was cheaper since the tourist trains aren't completely covered by Eurail passes. This is definitely the way to go as the Panorama trains we passed en route were stuffed with people standing elbow to elbow.

Our journey through the pass ended in Tirano. We decided to go on to Milan to be closer to our next day's destination, but had some time to kill and it was dinner time. So we got take out of pasta and pizza. I noticed that my wife's pasta was in a container that looked like a frozen dinner. Sure enough it had "Microwave 4 minutes" printed right on the top. Got that heated TV dinner for the bargain price of 7 Euros.
Tourist traps 1, shaft.ed 0

Next day we departed from Milano Centrale. This station has some of the oddest decor I have seen. It felt like a mix between Gothic and Art Deco.



We took the train from Milan to La Spezia and then caught a local to our destination on the Cinque Terre. Manarola is an incredibly photogenic town. It is beautiful from almost any angle. Between the ocean cliffs, the charming buildings and the terraced vineyards, there is just so much eye candy.


But it was way more inundated with tourists than I had expected. We spent the day walking some of the easy trails around the town and settled on the cliffs to watch the sunset.

By the time the sun was down the day visitors were gone and the town was much more relaxed. We ate at one of the family run restaurants in town and 2 out of the 3 dishes we ordered were wonderful, especially the trofie with Sea Bass and white wine sauce.
Tourist Traps 1, shaft.ed 1

After dinner we went down to the ice cream parlor and cashed in on their deal of 5 scoops of ice cream for 3 Euro! Then went down to the seaside to watch the waves crash on the rocks.

Great place

.

Next day, we slept in a bit and then were off to Rome. Our route took us back to La Spezia and we had about an hour to kill there. It was actually a nicer town than I expected and itself might be worth a visit. We strolled around an open air market and got some stuff for lunch.

In Rome we first had to find a hotel. We didn't have reservations anywhere except Manarola. When we got to the listed address for the hotel we searched out, it was just a desk with a couple Indian guys chatting at it. They said the rooms were actually somewhere else, and so we had to walk from the south side of Termini to the North. This was actually better as the south side seemed more sketchy and smelled of piss. But those who haven't been to Rome, be aware the listed address for your hostel/hotel might be very different from its actual location. A lot of hostels that I found during my search (especially those near Termini) were actually laundromat/internet cafe hybrids that acted as a point of contact to eventually get you to your rooms.

After finally getting a room we walked up to high ground and watched the sun set over the Basilica.

We somehow ended up eating Chinese food (really good chinese food) and then walked the city at night. This was my favorite thing about Rome the city's sites at night are just spectacular.


The next day we started with a subway trip to St. Peter's.

This seriously felt like giant gaudy bathroom with the pink marble all over the place. Enjoyed the exterior with the sculpture work way more than the interior.

The line for the Sistine Chapel was over 2 hours so we skipped it unfortunately and walked across the entire town catching sites along the way. The only standout to me was the Pantheon. Although the floor is over half coated with other people, and again pink marble everywhere, it's still a great experience looking up through the dome.


For some reason I got the idea that Circo Massimo was an open air market. But it was just a big ring of grass surrounded by lots of traffic. Yeah not worth the walk. So we headed up to the Colosseum to see the inside during the day. The admission was a it pricey at 12 Euro a person, but I think it was worth it. It was interesting to see the guts of the place exposed.

By the time we got done the sun was fading and we walked back to the hotel before heading out for dinner, which was unremarkable. Overall, I felt Rome to be too hectic for me. The sidewalks were all too small with too many people. And motor bikes are everywhere with their engines howling all day and night. It was also an incredibly dirty city (actually what we saw of Italy was mostly dirty), and the smell of pee could pop up after almost any turn. That said, the sites are incredible and I'm glad we made even the short stop here.

Next day depart for Venice.

[shaft.ed]

yeah, so I'm too lazy to keep boring you guys with the detail of our trip.

Here's the image dump

[shaft.ed]

Ok so new question

Say you have a pile of 300 images, and within this 300 images there should only be about 60 unique images represented somewhere between 3 and 6 times. Does anyone know of any software that might be able to do this?

Just for completeness' sake, the images represent single slices in depth through a volume of a fluorescent sample. However, the sample is in motion along the z-axis. The "same" stack of slices was collected 5 times in order to account for planes that may not have been represented in individual stacks due to jumping around along the z-axis.

[shaft.ed]

no they are the same sample imaged 5 times in a row over the same static 3-D space. It takes about 9 seconds to acquire 60 512x512 planes, so each image at an 'identical' depth will be about 9 seconds apart. But since the sample is in motion the image planes won't line up in every instance even though they are from the same depth. My hope was to toss these image into some sort of "likeness" filter and force them into a number of bins equal to number of z-steps plus any extra distance on the top and bottom that might be caused by movement along the z-axis. This would then reconstruct a virtual stepping along the z-axis.

[shaft.ed]

I'm pretty sure a solution exists, I just wouldn't know where you can find it.

[shaft.ed]

does anyone know what kind of chatting apps are ideal nowadays?
Interfacing with phones and PCs

trying to coordinate lab stuff and I wanted a place I could sit online if anyone needed something from me

[shaft.ed]

I'm more looking for WeChat but not Chinese