The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Therese Norén:

Show all comments by Therese Norén.

Posted on entry I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours ::: September 01, 2009, 05:27 PM:
Sweden, working 40 hours a week and then some in a well paid job, married with one child, a healthy family.

Taxes (local, regional, national, church) and retirement fund: 26.25%
Taxes and healthcare: 26.33%
(I think I bought OTC medications for that sum.)

My employer pays an additional 41% of my salary on top of that in social taxes. Sales tax is (mostly) 25%. I pay for my own glasses and dental. If I'd need an opthalmologist, it'd be covered.
Posted on entry An item with suspiciously plan-like characteristics ::: March 16, 2009, 12:14 PM:
I'd have loved to be there, but I'm on call Friday night. I was looking at tickets anyway, but it just didn't work out.
Posted on entry We're not led, we're kept ::: August 04, 2007, 02:49 PM:
Charlie @36: If you had the time during the fall, I'd invite you. Not all of Sweden looks like central Gothenburg. There are beggars and slums (and the suburb where I live is one, at least on the other side of the main road), but the slums aren't as slummy as the ones I've seen in England and the US.

On the way out to my grandmother-in-law's tiny summer house, the bus passes through one of the most prestigeous seaside resorts, Tylösand. There, you'll find tacky displays of riches (limos and gigantic summer houses), in a most unswedish kind of way.

We're not so much modest as we have a different kind of esthetics of wealth.
Posted on entry Open thread 86 ::: June 23, 2007, 12:20 PM:
The one syllable word for everything in northern Swedish is "jo". It's originally the form of yes you use when you reply positively to a negative question. ("I guess you don't want any more tea?" "Yes, I do want more tea.") In northern Swedish, it became the standard word for yes, and it can even be pronounced on the inhalation. There's no way to write that down sensibly, so I've taken to writing it *schuuu* with different number of u:s depending on the length and infliction.
Posted on entry Sidelighted Scabs ::: April 16, 2007, 08:02 AM:
Darkrose: Yup.

More on Baen's Bar, link in the second entry after that.
Posted on entry Mary Bennet, Vampyre Slayer ::: April 15, 2007, 07:50 AM:
bryan, 134: And the margin is too small?
Posted on entry Fuzzy internet porn law struck down ::: March 23, 2007, 06:01 PM:
Helen, thank you for calling me a liar. Even though I had net access, I did not look at porn on the net until I was well into my twenties.
Posted on entry A spelling demonology ::: March 20, 2007, 02:20 AM:
Like Nina, I wouldn't be able to spell out words orally if my paycheck depended on it. I've never heard of a spelling bee in Swedish.

Many of the words on your list is on my "always look it up on dictionary.com" list.
Posted on entry Prayer in the schools: a modest proposal ::: February 06, 2007, 02:01 PM:
The Christmas tree came to Scandinavia really, really late. I discuss the issue here. Can you please stop propagating that myth?

Sacrifices were hung on oaks, not evergreens.
Posted on entry Open Thread 74 ::: November 18, 2006, 02:30 PM:
Regarding the recent sidelight about legalising slavery to get rid of African poverty: I have lost all ability to distinguish between satire and reality. I'm glad this was a prank/piece of conceptual art, but the idea isn't too far from what I've heard from free market enthusiasts.
Posted on entry "Blog" ::: April 12, 2006, 05:00 AM:
Pleading for mental processes regarding pre-pubertals.
Posted on entry The perfect uselessness of Warren Whitlock ::: March 16, 2006, 04:03 AM:
"One of the things I can imagine would enormously limit the mobility of the um...receiving partner, thus making the sex less fun."

I know that many would disagree.

I actually went looking for a d-ssh, and it's nothing you can't improvise with a sturdy scarf. The second hit on Google was the Wikipedia article on dildo harnesses, which was a very interesting read.
Posted on entry Fckng Ralph Nader, fckng Public Citizen ::: January 03, 2006, 05:36 AM:
I'm sorry, but it's not available for common prescribers here in Sweden, either. Had it been, I could have arranged something, at least two years from now.
Posted on entry Cold Blows the Wind Today ::: December 17, 2005, 10:22 AM:
Someone asked about how many elder people died from cold at home. The Swedish number of people over 65 who die of cold exposure (ICD 10 code X31) is around 20 per year. Last year, it was 23. This is in a population of about 1.7 million. I don't have a specific number for how many of them die in their residence (because the .01-09 subcodes are seldom used and are not available in the official statistics), but this is not a high number anyway.
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 20, 2005, 05:43 AM:
For those using mmol/L (why on Earth are you measuring per dL??), the fasting blood sugar cut-off level for diabetes is 6.1 mmol/dL.
Posted on entry Reality Based Time ::: September 29, 2005, 03:16 PM:
Railway time was the introduction of a standard time in Sweden, and it was decided to be Gothenburg time, since it's on the west coast.

Meaning that people on Stockholm time would be early for their trains, instead of the Gothenburgers missing theirs.
Posted on entry Better bad sentences ::: August 12, 2005, 06:43 PM:
You are all bad people, and I need to wash my brain to get rid of the gonad imagery.

I'm thinking warm water, no centrifuging.
Posted on entry Slush: noted in passing ::: June 10, 2005, 04:21 AM:
On backwards-reading: yeah, I read most unusual looking words backwards. I can't really shop at Nordstrom's for the distraction of it. Mortsdron? What's that? (Actually, that's a good fantasy villain name. Maybe he lives in Cadosia.)

It's a perfectly common last name, formed according to the Swedish practise of taking two words relating to nature and putting them together. (The result is often nonsensical.) The words in question here is "nord" (north) and "ström" (stream). My maiden name was Wikström, where "vik" means bay or gulf.

When we're talking about car names and other languages, Honda made a huge mistakes a few years ago when they named a model Fitta. It was quickly renamed to Jazz in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
Posted on entry Slush: noted in passing ::: June 09, 2005, 02:44 PM:
One of Jordan's Aes Sedai is called Kiruna. Still makes me giggle every time.
Posted on entry The garden this week ::: June 09, 2005, 02:14 AM:
When I was ten (or so), my mother decided to plant roses outside our new house. We were looking through the catalogue together, and I got to pick one rose. Of course, I chose the Therese Bugnet. Which ten year-old can resist a rose with her name on it?

They grew surprisingly well, for such a northern climate. (A hundred miles from the Arctic Circle.) More than ten years later, they were the only thing left from the first incarnation of the garden.

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