I was on a work trip back in the 80s that took me to one of the northern islands of Vanuatu. Our plane landed on a football field, that’s how remote our destination was. After we set up camp, someone said they’d heard there was a teacher from New Zealand in the nearby village. Well I’m a New Zealander too, so off I went to meet her. Within the first few minutes we had worked out that not only were we originally from the same small town… she was my older brother’s first girlfriend.

But actually because NZ has a small population and we all travel a lot, it’s not as mad a coincidence as all that. It sometimes feels like we are all just a couple of degrees of separation from each other. “Oh you’re from Oamaru? Do you know XY?” “Not really, but one of my cousins works for his sister, ZY.”

Also usw for “und so weiter” - etcetera.

I hope this sets off a whole chain of people posting pictures of their truly weird hands.

For what it’s worth my own right hand has bad arthritis, every finger is wonky in its own special way, also the thumb. And I’m old, so it’s all veiny and speckled with liver spots. No, you’re not getting a photo.

Struwwelpeter. We had an English copy handed down by my grandfather. It’s insane.

Example: “Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug (“The Very Sad Tale with the Matches”): A girl plays with matches, accidentally ignites herself and burns to death. Only her cats mourn her.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

– pay for a large residence and security on the outskirts, then stay inside. Use disguises/body doubles when going out.

So … you can everything you want, except sponteneity? Or privacy, with all those staff hanging around. And there’d still be some douche tracking your private jet.

It was partly because my parents forced me into a scholarship that was tied to teaching afterwards - I was entirely unsuited to being a teacher, but neither of them even attended high school, and to them being a teacher was the pinnacle of achievement. I was pretty good academically but university overwhelmed me, so between that and no incentive to succeed, I failed miserably, only passing a few courses. I ended up getting a professional qualification (not a degree) in my 30s and had a decent career.

Living in a squat for a few years showed me I would have made a fantastic electrian or plumber, but you had to have a penis for that for some reason.

That sounds like a protection racket.

But but but it saves users from doing “gymnastics with their eyes”!! Jaysus, what a load of bs.

I hate algorithms, they narrow everything down, desperate to squeeze you into a little box. FB knows how old I am, so while I’m stalking my nieces it shows me ads for incontinence pants, tea towels and comfy shoes. It became a complete turn off with Netflix, it’s part of the reason I cancelled. Don’t miss it.

I’m on a combo binge. Recently I read an obituary for CJ Sansom, a writer of historical detective fiction. I’d never heard of him, but the books sounded good so I started reading them. Next thing I see there’s a TV series, Shardlake (Disney+), so now I’m watching that. Pretty well done, and the lead actor is great. (On to the third book in the series now.)

I my (extensive) cookie experience, double chocolate usually means the same amount of chips, but the dough part is also chocolate flavoured. Hard to tell in this instance, but the “double” cookies may be a shade darker.

This is the correct answer. It’s how ships avoid running into each other. When whoever is steering the vessel is facing the bow (front, usually the pointy bit), port is their left, starboard their right. Ship’s running lights are red on the port side, green on the left. So if you’re out on the water at night, you can immediately see whether a ship is coming towards you or moving away. The rule for passing an oncoming vessel is “port to port”, thus avoiding confusion and collision.

Sitting up in bed I would consider the headboard the stern, because I have my back to it, and the foot the bow. So the area to starboard is right, and portside is left. Ahoy maties!!!

I found out what was going on from Yahoo! Lol. https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bing-api-down-taking-microsoft-090532873.html

And that’s a real dagger tucked into his sash. (I learned a bit about fighting Sikhs from reading Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock, and watching a load of YouTube videos.)

1626, three-storied house.

I still use my iPod Classic. I can plug it into my car for when I’m out of FM range, and I have a Bluetooth adapter for it that plugs into the headphone socket & lets me listen via my hearing aids. It’s better than a phone for me, because the mobile signal is weak where I live, and most of my garden is out of WiFi range. It fits all my music and still has room for podcasts.

iTunes sucks though, ugh.

Almost all the ads I’ve seen on Prime video are for other Prime movies. They never appear during a natural break in whatever I’m watching, just burst right in in the middle of a scene. They elicit zero positive emotions, and I am about to cancel my subscription.

My experience tells me that if you eat it, you’ll spend the next several hours vomiting. Your friends who also ate it will go out dancing and have a fabulous time.

The swastika is still a positive symbol in Asia. In northern India for example: https://vajiramias.com/current-affairs/project-swastik/5e76ddb61d5def05d74372f2/

I’ve started reading Hominids already and finding it interesting but the writing is annoying me - there’s some lacivious drooling over the lead scientist’s lacy bra, plus details of her appearance, while her male assistant is merely “gawky”. It seems a quick read though so I’ll hang in there. (Speaking of Neanderthals, the Kim Stanley Robinson novel Shaman is set at a time when we coexisted, very interesting speculation on their mentality and interaction with our mob.)

Next on my list is Leckie - I loved the Ancillary trilogy and am looking forward to more Radch.

Someone said that to me just the other day! That saying “no problem” implies there might be a problem. Crazy. I’m thinking of switching to “well it was quite an imposition on my time and energy to help you out, especially given you’re not paying me, but I’ll let it slide this time because you seem like an ok person and I’m in a good mood” just to annoy them.