My first computer was a ZX81 - in 1982 - which, with my brother, I built from a kit and was astonished when it actually worked. We eventually added the 16k ram pack too: how could anyone possibly use all that?!
First phone. I think it was a Nokia 5110 or similar in 2000.
Biggest one for me was swapping from setting the alarm as late as possible and then rushing to get out of the house, to setting it an hour earlier and using that to read, do a little qi gong and have a leisurely breakfast.
My main requirement is that it has to be available on my heavily locked down work phone and work laptop as well as my home ones. If it isnt in my face whenever I look at a screen, it isnt going to work. So it ends up being Google tasks.
Not a developer, but I will always use 2 monitors when I can - using the secondary for Outlook: inbox on one side, calendar on the other. I will also swivel this for showing presentations/plans/documents to members of my team in face to face meetings, and will move Zoom windows to in webinars etc it whilst I get on with some actual work on the main monitor.
I am - in the UK - and I think that it should be opt out rather than opt in.
We have used ALS Testing in the past. More recently Latis Scientific. Both have been good, we swapped just because of some internal admin thing at one point.
In my case, I approached our usual plumbing contractor who have a couple of labs that they usually used. I now go directly to those labs.
I manage utility services - among other things - for a group of properties - and have had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination at various times. The results have always been absolutely fine. Not just with EU limits, but far, far, far within them for almost everything and definitely well within them for all measures.
I’ve got no issues at all with drinking tap water in the UK, even given the state of the rivers etc.
The first I thought of was Dead Horse, Alaska. Permanent population 25 - 50, I understand.
I really can’t recall where I first heard of it though.
I have probably heard of a few other odd ones like this.
Never touched Instagram. Deleted Facebook a decade or more back.
It’s difficult to tell how many there are around here overall. There are a scattering of pagan, witchcraft and occult communities, but pretty much no activity on any of them: I have made a few attempts.
But then every so often someone does post something on one of them and at least some of those posts get a significant number of up votes - but then no follow-up activity at all… so I don’t know who is up voting or what their background is.
Anyway, howdy back at ya.
I am a pagan. There are pretty much no widely accepted texts within paganism that make any statements about subject. In my experience most pagans are quite happy to coexist with other religions in general - and given that in almost all circumstances pagans will be in a small minority that makes perfect sense. On the other hand, most pagans that I know are far less happy to coexist with the more bigoted and hateful varieties of religion.
There is a strong feminist trend within paganism and this - particularly linked with the ahistorial but often assumed heritage of witchcraft, and the associated history of hanging and burning of witches - does not lead the more patriarchal end of the Abrahamic religions to sit well with a lot of pagans - and I know a lot who are far happier about visiting the roofless moss-covered shell of an abandoned church, with a hawthorn growing in the apse than they are visiting an occupied one (unless it is in search of a sheel-na-gig etc).
On the other hand, there is a strand of Norse paganism that crosses into white supremacy and neo-nazism, so that brings its own hate, bigotry and patriarchy. I do not know what their stance on other religions is.
The ‘original’ game: Why Don’t You - Yes But was the one that I first recognised in myself. There are plenty of other examples on that website, but as the page says, it doesn’t have the full explanation and context.
There have been several. I’ll pick Eric Berne’s book Games People Play.
I immediately recognised a few that I had played and, having been ‘called out’ on them by the book, it did lead me to stop and behave more constructively.
For complicated reasons over which we have had very little control, we have had to move house 3 times in the last 5 years.
In April of this year, thoigh, we finally found somewhere that we both really love and which should be pretty much permanent. I am very happy about that.
Hell, that’s going back a way. I don’t think that I have heard one of those since the 90s. They really haven’t aged well - not that they were exactly the height of PC humour back then.
What’s the difference between a shopping trolley and an Essex girl?
A shopping trolley has a mind of its own.
This is a noted issue with Ticks. When removing them, unless you do it properly, you may end up with the mouthparts left embedded in your skin.. However, even with those, the body will usually deal with it without too many problems.
Mosquito proboscii are much smaller and so I would not anticipate any issues for anyone with a functioning immune system to deal with without ever noticing.
Risk assessments.
These days my job doesn’t have much connection to my degree subject at all, so there is very little that it prepared me for. But my previous role - ranger - was very much tied into the subject that I took: Environmental Science.
Risk assessments are not unique to this area, of course and some of this is due to it being 20 odd years ago that I that I got my degree, but even so, looking back, I am surprised that risk assessments didn’t feature anywhere. Not during that degree nor during the - much more practically based - arboriculture course that I took shortly before.
Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.
From the NHS website:
Encephalitis is most often due to a virus, such as:
- herpes simplex viruses, which cause cold sores (this is the most common cause of encephalitis)
- the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles
- measles, mumps and rubella viruses
- viruses spread by animals, such as tick-borne encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis, rabies (and possibly Zika virus)
Encephalitis caused by a virus is known as “viral encephalitis”. In rare cases, encephalitis is caused by bacteria, fungi or parasites.
At the point where you and the AI can see someone straightening their tie in a certain way and you and the AI can exchange a single wordless glance and you both burst out laughing 'cos it was just like that thing that you both saw 6 months ago and found hilarious then - then maybe.
Not before.