Some middle-aged guy on the Internet. Seen a lot of it, occasionally regurgitating it, trying to be amusing and informative.

Lurked Digg until v4. Commented on Reddit (same username) until it went full Musk.

Was on kbin.social (dying/dead) and kbin.run (mysteriously vanished). Now here on fedia.io.

Really hoping he hasn’t brought the jinx with him.

Other Adjectives: Neurodivergent; Nerd; Broken; British; Ally; Leftish

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Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: August 13th, 2024

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  • Mental health problems by any chance? He may need more help than family can provide if you want him to get back on his feet (and out the door).

    It would be a good sign if he seems like he wants to get his own place again, even if he’s not able to make steps towards it.

    Source: I’d probably be in the same boat if the laws and property upkeep rules were stricter here. Even so, I’d be wanting to get out of family accommodation ASAP. My family are good people, but I can’t spend long periods with them. There might be a hint or two in that somewhere.

    (But whatever you do, please don’t fail to be kind.)


  • Most of the old buildings (usually churches / cathedrals) here have been built upon and changed over the centuries so what you see above ground is still old, but it’s not - at least comparatively - ancient.

    I’m in England. I may or may not be in a town that has something like that, but even the places that don’t have something are within a couple of hours’ drive of somewhere that does.

    I will say that where I am is listed in the Domesday book, but that isn’t saying much to be fair.


  • Peroxide and then hypochlorite bleach. Not at the same time. There are products that contain them if you can’t get them neat. In fact I recommend those.

    Try the peroxide first. Dilute as necessary. Wipe or spray on. Leave it on for a while to loosen anything and everything it can. After a while fill with hot (60-80C) water, but beware of thermal shock. Leave to stand until warm, not hot. Try to clean the glasses as best you can. This may be all you need.

    If not, try the bleach. Same steps, but make sure you’re in a well ventilated area. I’ve found that while it stinks up the place, the mould just peels right off and into the hot bleach solution.

    If the glasses smell of bleach afterwards, fill with warm water and leave for a day or two. Repeat as necessary. The bleach will dissipate eventually.





  • WHY IN GODS NAME ARE YOU LEAF-BLOWING AT 8AM ON A SATURDAY

    These people are usually the sorts who rise at 5am regardless of day and have become bored after 3 hours awake. If they think about it at all, they believe that everyone who is not yet up by 8am is a fool who ought to be out of bed, thus that is the perfect time to make noise.

    As to why they rise at 5am, take your pick from: i) Old and unable to sleep for long periods - Will be asleep again in an armchair by 11am once they’ve gone back inside; ii) Military bearing or wannabe - Probably has reveille.wav for an alarm; iii) Abject a-hole who gets a kick out of it. Honourable mention: iv) someone with no choice under direction from one of the above.






  • Yes. It is an instrument used in the consumption of drugs.

    Or do you mean musical instrument? TL;DR: It can be.

    It comes down to how wide you want the definition of “musical instrument” to be. Is a drumstick a musical instrument? Is it what makes a drum designed to be played with sticks an instrument? What is such a drum without at least one stick?

    “Well I could hit the drum with something else.” Sure, but does that make the “something else” the instrument?

    What is a woodwind (musical) instrument without the player’s breath? A saxophone without a reed?

    “I could smack it on something.”

    Well, yes, that’s the crux of it.

    In the loosest sense, anything that can be used to make a noise is a musical instrument. Take the popular joke of mayonnaise: if you put a straw in it and blow, I’m willing to bet some sort of noise can be had.

    This then brings in the other argument: what counts as musical?




  • There’s no proof the universe will end in a Big Crunch. Apparently there’s some measure of the universe where if it’s less than 1, we’ll get a Big Crunch, and if it’s greater than 1, we’ll get a Big Rip where everything just falls apart. I may have those backwards, but the important thing is when it’s exactly 1, it implies a universe that continues forever, getting colder and colder. And as best as science can determine for our universe, the value is precisely that.

    But here’s another, well, dimension to that: There’s a popular but unprovable conjecture that our universe is the inside of a black hole that exists in a higher-level universe. In our universe, black holes boil away due to Hawking radiation, a process that can take trillions of years for very large black holes.

    Once the black hole we’re inside of stops consuming matter in the level above, that spells a very slow but alternative end to our universe. One day it will simply cease to exist.

    “This the way the world ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper.” – T.S.Eliot.



  • As I used to say to customers of the ISPs I worked for, Internet e-mail was not designed to be instant, and it’s largely good fortune that it works fast enough most of the time.

    It would be closer to IM if everyone in the conversation was on the same mail server, which is what often happens within a large organisation, but even then there are overheads that expect there to be a sending and receiving server if not a lot of other things along the way. And as soon as someone outside that organisation needs to be included, their mail system could introduce a bottleneck even if there’s no bottleneck at the sender’s side.

    Instant messaging tends to be far more streamlined and centralised precisely so it can be quick.



  • Assuming 1) you want things to be colder, 2) your budget can accommodate a bit of extra electricity usage and 3) the following actually exists on your appliance, many freezers have a dial somewhere that can be used to set the temperature.

    Sometimes it’s coupled to the setting for an attached refrigerator section. Sometimes, yes, it’s an unchangeable setting whether there are other settings elsewhere or not. Might still be worth double-checking.