Had to do a flame test to identify old fuel for recycling.

Made blue dye from indigo, and red and orange dye from madder, mixing in alum and other things. Making blue is amazing, it comes out green then changes colour all at once. Get the mix wrong and you get the wrong colour… Also we boiled one batch of madder and got orange instead of scarlet, so even the temperature had to be regulated.

Most recently, been making etched plates from the inside of soft drink cans, etching with copper sulfate (they sell it in Bunnings as a fertiliser). Lots of fun!

So yeah mostly art projects.

That said even baking a cake is pretty fancy chemistry.

Have you not played Dwarf Fortress? Frame rate goes way down, a situation imperceptible to the dorfs. Then eventually the operator of the machine looses interest, or a oandemic makes the pop count drop, or a combo of those.

Edit; You should read some Greg Egan if you’re into this question.

I do, and he reads them days later and apologises.

Now that he is overseas on a business trip he reads them all immediately, but apparently in-house is not an option.

Thankyou for restoring my faith in you, mate. I hope the girlfriend shopping issue works itself out (perhaps she should use her phone hotspot to connect her shopping machine if she wants to be scammed? I use mine for some stuff on occasion, if and as necessary, and my boyfriend and other housemates are thus not affected) and I hope the rest of your weekend is excellent.

Ha! Here I was thinking it was some sort of garbled “your mum” joke.

Well, I doubt they plan to ever buy HP again.

Lol ?!? My girlfriend did no such thing! (My boyfriend didn’t either!)

Tell yours to use more small local shops, for the sake of the environment. Honestly it isn’t tough to shop without ads that steal your money, credit card, and identity.

I rarely see them, have never clicked one.

I suspect very few people do.

Yep, yanks tend to think they can just police everyone into doing it their way.

If you’re now in Australia, it is polite to ask “where y’from” as a starter convo, as knowing who your mob are is part of getting to know you. An Aussie would find the answer [insert country name here] as pretty standoffish (sort of an “I don’t want to talk about it or be friends with you” answer) but if they were determined to get to know you they might then ask patiently “where in Canada?” or ask about the part of Canada you might originate from, knowing it is a large place. This helps them to understand who you are and work better alongside you in big projects in future. Unfriendly people aren’t really worth working with or helping out if the going gets tough.

Think of it this way: If you have spoken four words to someone “Canada” and “why do you ask?” they are less motivated to cover your shift. If they know you are from that cool place with several excellent bands and a beautiful landscape and you often chat about whales or whatever, they might try to help you out. Also, how cold and bleak your life would be without the occasional conversation with someone at least once a day. Many people live alone.

How do you first get to know your work colleagues? Ask about a sport or the weather? Or ask about something else? Is small talk and office acquaintances not a thing where you are from?

All teachers discuss getting a difderent job. Sometimes they quit rather suddenly when the job arrives. None of us hide the general search from each other but often hide the interviews. None of us need excuses to want another job, everyone knows the job sucks.

Incidentally: If you have to work two jobs at once, then there is something wrong, mate. There’s no way I could work a second job while teaching.

It has a lot of meanings.

The oldest one I know of is that of Monkey King, who in the ancient story stole and ate the peaches of immortality. He did this without any plan; in some versions he was hungry and didn’t understand that it would make him immortal. This act of spontaneity also inconvenienced the peach owner, who had intended to serve the peaches to those who were worthy of them.

Since then various martial arts moves and stories and so on were named after that one little bit of the story, usually to showcase a combination of spontaneity and strength.

Isn’t that “you have the right to remain silent etc” stuff on TV shows meant to protect yanks from testifying against anyone they don’t want to testify against?

Never stabbed one potato in all that time.

…Perhaps they don’t explode in Australia? Or it could be a microwave thing. I don’t have a microwave.

Been practicing cooking for pretty much thirty years. Many many baked potatoes, never had one explode.

Ned Kelly is getting very Robin Hood like here in Australia, although his actual story isn’t as heroic.

For an arthurian hero, perhaps Whitlam? Or Governor Macquarie, who arrived in Australia and removed the corruption in the system, and also changed our currency from alcohol to coinage (basically he took on the bastard cops and won). He also was able to answer the question of “you and whose army?” with “my army” and not be inaccurate. Naming half of Australia after himself was a bit rum though…

We all know a yank asked this one. They always assume we are all from the US.

Similar to Memrise, which was really fun when you could make your own mems using imagesearch and customise everything… And now is a rubbish duolingo clone.

The public school uniforms are heavily subsidised and students parents tend to buy them for them. If a family member cannot afford one, for whatever reason, they can have a confidential meeting with a yearmaster and the school will buy it for them (it’s the same uniform, the school just sends someone out to the uniform shop to buy a uniform of the correct size), but that rarely happens, as it is cheaper than buying the kid a shirt and shorts that aren’t a uniform. A lot of kids just live in their uniform weekdays, as they’re cheap hard-wearing clothes the parents don’t have to pay as much for.

No idea about private schools, but they’re probably richer families, I guess.

Here in Australia school uniforms are compulsory for public (gov run) primary and high schools, and usually in private schools. Students wear a uniform to school from age 5 to 18. They are thought to place everyone, rich and poor, on the same level. They are definitely not political. How odd to think what a 10 year old wears to school is a political statement!