Sure am. I've started on the 13+ age group since they didn't have too many entries. But man, kids are creative. Love seeing the stuff they come up with.
Unmolded my soap today. The good batch is looking pretty good (although I probably should have put some effort into removing air bubbles). The dodgy batch has been melted down and poured into new molds, hopefully it has been saved.
It's not very complicated to make a basic soap, most difficulties come in when you are trying to add colours and fragrances. I mix it under the rangehood to deal with any fumes from the caustic soda. It's basically a process of warming up the oil to around 54 degrees, mixing the caustic soda with water and waiting for it to cool to 54 degrees, then when they are both at the same temperature mix them together until it starts to thicken - I use an old slender blender so don't need to have strong arms, and it mixes in a couple of minutes. Then you just pour it into the moulds and wait a bit. You can use something like a milk carton lined with baking paper, then in a day or two cut it into slices and leave it to dry for around 6 weeks to fully harden.
These batches are made with beef fat which I collected off a very fatty batch of soup bones I made stock with a while ago, so they should also count as quite frugal!
I think we straddle the edge of social media here. I think the layer of anonymity here means we're not quite social media. This feels more like the old usenet newsgroups of the 90's to me. I know it's pretty much the Reddit 2009 experience, but that also felt like Usenet.
Walking through the park today and went under trees that just had bark chips and dirt underneath. Looked a bit meh. I was reminded of a pic of some young adult saying how people tell him to go outside instead of being of the computer all day. He showed outside, a very dull dingy grey dirty old eastern bloc dormitory city. So his SIM city would be better, just like on the new Brave New World series, people could be fed a nice make believe place.
But surely it would be best if he went outside and did something to improve his home rather than escape reality?
I pick and pull red threads apart,
And sew myself a scarlet heart.
Powered by my woven mind,
Perceive the schemes across time.
Within chaos we perform the innate,
That-which-makes-us-human trait:
Assign some reason for the random,
Find some meaningful religious fandom,
Add a cause for the effect of common sense,
Draw in the pattern to flatten the tense,
Allocate the words to describe the past,
Rhymed with the concepts so my art may last.
Replaced the headlight globe and managed to order my one of my favourite café lunches yesterday over the phone before I got there (the kitchen would have closed before I arrived).
I’ve been intermittent with my hayfever defence and I have been attacked. Ugh.
But… as for today, I have done a load of laundry, started the trickle-charge on one bike, washed and put the side mirror back on the scooter, finished a lengthy phone call and am now at the hairdressers.
Of course, I always accomplish things other than what I should be. 😂
I had a dream I could see death. As in, I could see where people had died, no matter how long ago, as ugly growths and it was everywhere. And I could see upcoming deaths in people via grotesque disfiguring and mold. Rather disturbing.
So Elder refused to go to school this morning. Yes we are back to this again. Mondayitis. But Miniest refused to go because her brother isn't. I ended up having to leave or I'd be late for work.😥😬😫And now I'm I T C H Y. The rash (or whatever the hell it is) had actually gone down a bit overnight and didn't look so livid this morning. Off to work so I can stress less🫤
My tactic is to make it as boring as possible if they stay home. Youngest stayed home today, and he nearly went insane without people to stimulate him. He's going to school tomorrow. 😁
I put bin night into my calendar as a recurring reminder. Every two weeks it's yellow/red bin. Works a treat: my phone knows what colour bin night it is!
Today's rental viewing was a lot better than I thought, heaps of space inside and nice kitchen - but overheard someone chatting to the agent who'd already applied before even inspecting the place 🤡 tf. Gonna apply anyway but ugh...
Now that's an interesting question. Given that he didn't wipe all his posts and comments as he went, I wonder whether it might be possible to re-create his database record manually?
The simple and official answer is that baku deleted his account and we will respect that decision. There is no such user. There is also no admin tool in our UI that permits this.
But if he somehow reached out to me and requested it, I'd be willing to have an attempt to rebuild his old account. Helping Seagoon_ last week taught me a bit about the user tables (there are actually two) in the database and I think it might be possible. I'm not about to do it without him asking, though.
If he does it needs to be done of his own free will and when he’s ready. Sometimes when you’re having a rough time or undergoing a lot of change you need to withdraw and save your energy for yourself.
Also sometimes well meaning people might not quite grok your reactions or situation, or you might feel that you’re burdening them.
However he is not a burden, his social skills are fine and he’s welcome back any time. (Seeing the self deprecation in his last post/s hurt)
I missed what happened. All I saw was that Baku has left and felt kind of sad at the gist of it, since not long ago I mentioned I enjoyed Baku’s posts.
It’s a funny thing. Reminds me of when I did a short stint at a community centre that had hydro and the morning regulars would notice if someone hadn’t been for a while and someone else would always have some idea of how they’re doing and if they were okay.
I really do like our community here. While I sort of come in and out, or lurk more when I think I don’t have much to say or am busy, it’s a part of my life. Even if it’s online. I refer to the DDT IRL, almost in the same way as regulars in the community. Not so much by specifics, but more, like oh yes, a few people mentioned they’ve been unwell or, someone had this experience, etc.
I guess since @[email protected]’s recent absence, it’s just made me hope Baku is doing okay IRL. (I also don’t mean to imply any pressure to return. I’ve been in enough online communities to see people come and go, that’s absolutely their right, but for those that contribute regularly, you notice when they’re gone.)
Just one day of using the Samsung UI for more than just work and I'm reminded how much I hate it. And the fucking bloat. Can't delete the Facebook app off the phone, only disable it, what a joke. Can't be stuffed dicking around with custom ROMs for this one, I think I'll be using this phone for work only as much as possible rather than making it my primary.
Gonna be hopefully clocking some overtime this pay cycle, maybe I'll get a Nothing Phone 2a or something else with stock Android. Although once again, hisssss at modern smartphones not having headphone jacks
Red Magic 9 Pro user here, it has a headphone jack and is a beast of a phone and comparatively cheap.
I could not possibly recommend it more highly. I no longer have to charge my phone every day and when I do charge it it's done in less than 30 mins, performance is insane for a phone.
It's a gaming phone, and so is also like having a Nintendo switch in your pocket for nearly half the price of the latest Samsung / Pixel / iPhone, whilst it blitz's day to day stuff.
You don't have to ever use the gaming mode btw, there's a literal physical slider on the side to enable it. It feels like a 2000s gamer designed their dream modern portable device that's primarily a phone.
Oh wow, that's really high praise and sounds like an amazing phone. It's beyond my budget though, I think I gotta go for something more mid range with all the moving expenses coming up.
I went from a Samsung to a Pixel, because of the Samsung bloat. I mean I get a bit of Google bloat, but nothing like Samsung.
Also I miss phones have a charge port AND a headphone port. My Pixel uses ONE usbc port for both and I fucking hate that shit. I feel like they're forcing me to buy wireless head/earphones and I don't want to fucking dammit! I preferwired ones tyvm
Same!!! I will never use wireless headphones - sorry but I already have trouble remembering to charge my phone as it is, I do NOT want to have to remember to charge headphones as well and I would be fuming if I'd headed out and the headphones had no charge. No thank you.
I can get away with a 3.5mm to USB c converter if I have to, but it sucks on flights, PT etc when you want to charge your phone and listen to music at the same time.
Sigh. I remember the days when you could swap out phone batteries 😭
It’s cold. I am desperate for some warmer weather. I know global warming is bad but if a tiny bit of it happened to Melbourne so we could have some glorious Spring weather I would not be mad.
I think this movie could have benefited from another 20 minutes. The problem is that suspense over the whole movie was not built up tho individual scenes were good.
There are two ways to show a bad guy. One is to show him doing his evil acts. The other is to show how seriously the good people are chasing him.
There has to be much more screen time of the chasing by good guys than of the bad guy doing evil stuff otherwise we just don't take in the story of the good guys adequately.
So I came away from watching that movie not as affected by the stories of the victims and the victim's families struggle for answers and justice as I should have been.
A good example of the right balance is the movie Zodiac. A few scenes of evil, 90% is the chase.
3 hobbits.
I rewatched the pilot of MAS*H. It cannot be over stated how popular and influential this series was . I have watched the whole 220 episodes , some more than others. It was show I would watch after high school.
And I couldn't watch it this time. Maybe I'm tired of war and sarcasm.
But I did think of the show and pondered how American sitcoms are different to Brit culture sitcoms.
I think Americans like to have many episodes a year in their shows because they like to get to know the characters really well. Brit sitcom is 6 episodes a year and more about a situation and challenge.
I think it can all be explained by The Office and how the show differs in UK and US versions.
Melbcat has been vomming again so is once more being force fed elixir of narnies, and I’m doing a lot of washing/carpet cleaning.
Also cleaning in chunks for an inspection. I’m so exhausted and keep crashing. I will probably end up just shoving a lot of things in cupboards if they fit.
There is good news though. I asked the vet about D-Mannose (which is used for utis in humans). I’d bought a bottle since Melbcat is constantly getting them due to kidney disease and developing resistances but haven’t been game to try it yet because I don’t know the dose for cats.
He said he’d have to research but I did see what he pulled up on the screen and google it later… he’d found a relatively new article I may or may not have seen saying it had been found helpful as a preventative measure in cats and dogs.
But what I really need to know is the dose. Too much can cause problems. I need to email and see if he’s found anything else.
ordered a "new" PC to take over plex responsibilities. The old XPS is starting to show its age.
Heres my question, do I go Linux? Or stick to win 11?
I've heard Linux performance is a lot better, but my experince is pretty limited to a few Ubuntu Distros.
The other challenege is my library sits on a 12tb internal drive on the XPS. Is Ubuntu going to be ok reading off what I assume is NTFS?
Yes Ubuntu can read NTFS. And yes, I've found Plex runs happily on low spec Linux machines. Running mine on an Ubuntu VM with 2GB ram allocated quite happily.
any special deployment of Ubuntu required as far as drivers go? I know you can just chuck it on from a live USB but I've never actually optimized anything. Frankly, it runs like crap on Windows.
I’m literally running Plex on a Synology DS220+ NAS with all the usual addons in docker containers. I only use it locally and have had zero issues (Besides it getting laggy when downloading from Usenet at nearly 1gbps but I’ll give that a pass)
win 11 is such a cluster of bullshit the hassle of setup is gonna be about the same, but the nix box isn't going to rape its own hardware to death and snitch on you for mp3's
I booted 11 because it was installed and just to make sure the desktop runs (and I new how to review system specs on windows easier). Having to use OOBE to bypass account creation requirements is such bullshit.
I put Debian on my optiplex with xfce as the desktop environment and it uses less than a gig at idle. Debian's great too because it has a slow update cycle so you don't need to worry about anything breaking. You could set Plex to autostart so you never actually see the OS, then you have free extra RAM from using a lighter system
Oh damn… turns out while I knew I was near one bad spot, I’m actually right between two. On a busy highway per se. No wonder I’ve been getting a lot of grief.
Even with how much I keep to myself and mind my own it was unavoidable.
I saw Vampire Survivors has a local coop mode now. I'm going to try it out with my girlfriend soon, and it sounds like a good excuse to get addicted again and get a friend hooked too
I have now come to realise that it takes about 4 years of early mornings to ruin my usual sleep schedule. No matter how late I sleep, how tired/exhausted I am or whether it’s a day off, unless I’m unusually unwell, I cannot sleep in the same way I used to.
This is an annoying revelation. Even napping, which I do very poorly, is worse now.
I need to find a way around this. I need more hours.
You have to find your natural sleep length. For most people it's between 7 - 9 hrs. Food, alcohol, caffeine even water plays a big part in how well we sleep. Higher the stress level the shittier the sleep, the tired we are during the day.
Had to do a "Criteria" assessment for one of the jobs I'm interviewing for - interesting insights! I don't agree to what it's said on some things, but I did answer trying to be in a strictly current role mindset, but also remembering what my current workplace has some... quirks.