
“Lord of the flies”
***
Join as a member to continue learning
Find out more
Find out more
All lessons, tools and premium features (and there’s a LOT of them :).
Already a member?
Already a member? Log in here
4.4 20 votes
Article Rating

***
This article belongs to the following series:
The full power of my site for 72 hours.
All lessons and all tools, no credit card needed because I'm not a shark.
How to select a water or other melon.
I never learned how to thump a watermelon. Instead, I press on its ends, either the stem or opposite. A ripe melon will have a little bit of “give.” Over time, you’ll develop a “feel” for the method. As with thimping, it tells nothing about the flavor. For that you must, of course, listen very closely.
Caveat: some melons are very firm even when ripe.
Nice, I’ll try that!
Is there such a thing as “too much give” though? When it’s a bit too ripe?
Cooler Life Hack, nur schade, dass ich erst jetzt von ihm erfahre. Es gab nämlich diesen Herbst hier in Texas besonders viele Fliegen, deutlich überdurchschnittlich viele. Jemand hat mir die Gründe mal erklärt, hab die aber leider schon vergessen. Abends war das immer mega nervig.
Einziger Nachteil: Mit dem Life Hack hat man keine Möglichkeit, zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe zu schlagen. ;)
Wenn du das ganze Haus voller Fliegen hast, dann ist es vielleicht ein bisschen aufwendig, aber im Urlaub habe ich mal 5 in 5 Minuten geschafft.
Eine andere Methode ist eine Sprühflasche für Pflanzen. Du stellst sie auf “Strahl” und schießt auf die Fliege (very Texan). Sie fällt dann nass runter und du kannst ihr zeigen, wo der Ausgang ist.
Ich kenne eine noch texanischere Lösung :D und zwar eine kleine Schrotflinte, die Salz schießt. Eine Familie, die wir kennen, hat sowas.
Peak Texas.
Gefunden!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmqTHLn1JWg
Genau, das isses. It’s very real :D
Vermisse ich etwas? Ich glaubte dass, “Your daily German” für Deutsch zu lernen war un nicht für Fliege zu vermischen.
Im Kalender mache ich, worauf ich Bock habe ;).
LOL genau
Off topic but I like your little bell in the corner that wiggles and lets you know you have a notice or response to a comment. Nice!
Yeah, I added that function a few weeks ago, and I think it absolutely makes life easier for you all if you ask a question about something :).
I totally agree, Thanks!
I know a guy who goes ballistic whenever he sees a fly. I should tell him about this! Übrigens: Wie sagt man auf deutsch, “go ballistic,” meaning, I suppose, irate?
Ich würde sagen
Tolle Idee, aber es wird die Fliegenklatschenhersteller aus dem Geschäft bringen!
So sieht Disruption aus!!! Jemand soll Cathie Wood anrufen, damit sie investiert :D.
Übrigens, auf Deutsch sagt man
Klingt nicht so gut wie “put out of business”, leider.
Ich liebe Fliegenklatche! Dein Life Hack fuer Fliegen seht sehr nutzlich aus.
Wir haben hier wenige Fliegen, aber wenn einer auftaucht, haben wir zwei Katzen. Es ist sehr unterhaltsam.
I live in horse country and although I don’t own horses, I reap the benefits of my neighbors’ every time I open my front door. I will be trying this out.
Rubber bands make great long-range fly-slaying weapons. I became a marksman while working graveyard shift at a convenience store. The place would get hundreds of them, and in my boredom around 2:00 in the morning I would shoot them off the ceiling. Of course the resultant falling fly-gut debris was a problem sometimes.
Wow, that rubber band has to have a serious velocity to actually hit and “split” :9. But I could totally see me doing the same when bored. Stuff like this is a really good way to turn your brain off and be in the moment :).
When I was a kid, I was told or learned somewhere that flies actually take off backwards. I learned to be really good at catching flies with my bare hand by swiping my hand over the fly, moving my hand from behind the fly and passing a few inches over it. I would clasp my hand closed as I passed over the fly. The timing of closing your hand was the hard part, but once I got the timing I could catch a fly almost every time.
Damn, I’ll try that, for sure!!
Der Life Hack. Toll! Hihihi
This is a good day to say I love the artwork you use every day for the calendar. It’s lovely!
Also, thanks for including those of us who are former-members. I can’t keep up with all of it—aber ich liebe diese Kalendern!!!
Camille
Yeah, I made an account for Adobe Stock image library just for this :). Most calendar themed drawing out there look cheap or super childish, but this was nice.
Ja!!! Sehr schön!! Ich liebe es. :)
Camille
Oooo that’s brilliant!! now if I can just remember it til summer comes around again.
My father taught me this: If a fly lands on you or a table, clap a few inches above it. It will fly directly up into your hands (as that is always their flight path). It works as long as you don’t mind fly guts to wash off.
Wow, I’m curious to try this, but yeah… the guts are a factor.
I heard Europe doesn’t use screens on their windows. Is that true?
I think in the South it’s more common, but in Berlin I rarely ever see them. I wouldn’t think of installing them either, at least not in the city. They kind of “darken” the room a little.
You definitely see them in hardware/home improvement stores in Munich at least. I think I’ve seen them once or twice in people’s homes, probably mostly in bedrooms to keep mosquitoes out at night.
Brilliant. I wonder if it works with mosquitoes,too
Good question, I’ll have to try it.
Now that you mentioned that, I was thinking if we could build a tiny drone that flies around and squashes mosquitoes as they sit on walls. Shouldn’t be too hard technically.
You didn’t even tell us how to say ‘life hack’ in German! But I’ll give you a point for die Fliegenklatsche.
Great question!
How do you say “life hack” in German?
You say… der Life Hack :)
kann man diese Idee (life hack) ohne Denglisch ausdrücken?
Denglisch finde ich eher lahm.
Na dann nimm halt einfach “Trick”. Ist aber auch lahm.
That’s a really cool hack.
Hallo,
No typos!
Great life hack, definitely going to try it next time I have a fly in my room.
Spent about 10 minutes thinking about life hacks and will have to say I’ve got NONE OF MY OWN… wish I had one for memorising difficult German vocab though :)
Bis morgen!
Oh, if you come up with a good life hack for learning difficult words… you’ll never have to work again :)
I’ve got a lot, how much time do you have :) I think my favorite “trick” is giving myself permission to forget. Sometimes my brain will remember a word on the first try. Other times it takes forever. OK. Just part of the process. I’ll either look up the word or make do with the ones I’ve got. After all, I still forget words in English even though my brain has been steeped in it for 200K+ hours. Now sometimes I’ll still grumble out loud in frustration, but I also like to do an inner happy dance when I do remember something. Sounds silly maybe, but I swear it helps.
And that brings me to my second favorite thing, which is to just try to have fun with it. By that I mostly mean coming up with a silly image for a word (or a phrase, those are easier to remember). I learned this the other day, “die Ohren auf Durchzug stellen”. You can do that when that one family member is preaching at you about something at the holiday gathering. I’ll picture the words as a train going in one ear and out the other. It doesn’t have to be a correct explanation (Durchzug is like when two windows are open and the wind blows right through). It just has to be memorable and make sense to you.
I guess none of that is really a hack because it’s still a lot of work to learn new words, but it makes the process more fun.
Yup, being okay with not remembering a word even though you “should” know it is really helpful.
Have you read my article on learning vocabulary?
I think we have a similar philosophy (though I think you’re more about context, while I think context is a waste of time)
https://yourdailygerman.com/learn-vocabulary-fast-method/
Yeah, I read it a while back. Read it again just now and I think our approaches are more similar than I thought back then. Funny how that works. Chaos, asking your brain for the answer, letting it adjust.
I don’t like lists for the most part. I usually just have a dictionary open on my phone and plug in whatever words I want to know. Read the translations, listen to the pronunciation, maybe say it once or twice. And let it go. I think that probably works about the same as handwriting lists, at least for me. Just gotta find what works for you.
Context, do you mean it’s never important to you? For me, it gets more important as I get more advanced. In the beginning, you just have to learn words to a large extent. But I don’t mind throwing on a native podcast from day one and just letting the sound wash over me. Eventually I start to hear a word here and there and think what the context might be. Same with reading. Interview I want to understand? Take a sentence, learn a few words, pack it up in 5-10 minutes when brain is tired. Repeat at leisure. I try to get the gist, not understand 100%.
I will try
Ich benutze einen Handstaubsauger, um sie aufzusaugen, wenn sie gegen das Fenster gepinnt sind.
Danke, dieses Lösung wird sehr hilfsbereit sein!
ja stimmt, das funktioniert gut!