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.
I’m off to Cornwall in a few weeks. Pretty much every year I go there with friends - we stay for a fortnight in a chalet that one of them has.
I hope that my SO and I will be able to get another week or so in in September. It’ll also be in the UK - maybe Yorkshire this time.
We might spend a few days camping somewhere too - maybe north Norfolk.
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.
Yes, definitely. Why you are doing it makes all the difference.
There is - in my experience - a good deal of how you - and the organisation in general - do it too, and that accounts for much of the cultural difference. Charities tend to treat staff (and volunteers - since so many depend on vols) as people rather that resources much more, although there is also a tendency for the cause to outweigh everything, which can lead to staff, particularly, being expected to commit totally around the clock, and sidelined if they don’t. I have only encountered a few organisations that do this to a problematic extent really though.
I did in my late 20s after working in IT. I didn’t know what I wanted and wasn’t planning on non-profit or anything as such, but jumped ship, did a range of random things before spending some time volunteering (at something that was not in any way IT related)- which was the critical thing. That put me in a spot to A) show some commitment and B) get some training as it was offered. A paid post followed in due course after that.
That is a very simplified version, but volunteering was definitely the critical element for me.
Since then, I met plenty of other people who made the jump. Some simply moved with their existing skills to an equivalent role in a charity - and there are plenty that need project management skills - whilst others have taken the same route as me and spent some time volunteering.
Volunteering means you don’t get paid for some time, of course, so you have to either live off savings and/or find a live-in role and/or work part-time or something and you probably need to downsize one way or another, but people find a way and make it work.
Of course once you are in a role with your chosen cause, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be away from being overworked, stressed and given more and more responsibility. It is a trope that working for a charity means that you don’t do it for the money and you work waaay longer than the official hours say.
Certainly my role at the moment, with a large charity, is the most demanding I have ever had and there is basically nothing left at the end of the month for savings: I am just keeping afloat. For all that though, there is no way at all that I would go back to a for-profit role, and I have never looked back for a moment. The culture is totally different and leagues better.
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.
Definitely in favour myself - and my SO is the same. We have discussed it more than once and we would both like this option to be available to us in the UK as and when the time comes.
The biggest issue, I think, is the kind of circumstance where an elderly parent or relative is bullied or made to feel like a burden by their family and that they ‘should’ choose this option. If that goes on long enough and subtly enough, they may internalise it and come to feel that they have made the choice freely themselves. However, as my wife (who has a background in counselling) has pointed out, distinguishing that kind of situation from a genuinely choice is similar to other major life choices involving medical intervention - all of which involve professional counselling specifically aimed to distinguish between the two. With the right kind of questions it usually doesn’t take long for distinctive patterns of thought and speech to reveal the roots of the choice that someone says they have made.
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.
I was Terry Pratchett’s gofer at an event once, quite early in his career.
I have met and chatted with Prof Ron Hutton a couple of times.
I ferried Portillo across a river for one of his shows - and was briefly featured as a result. He was an arrogant git.
Others would include Roy Hudd, Tony Benn, Swampy, Chris Packham and probably a couple of others.
acting like there are no cut and dry cases is just being disingenuous.
No it isn’t.
The political environment in which cases occur can always have an effect. Political views change, and there are no absolutes in politics.
Legal systems change and vary from place to place as do standards of evidence.
Psychological assessments are always open to interpretation at the time and reassessment as understanding and scientific models change.
There are too many moving parts to ever be 100% certain. 99.999999999… yes. 100% no.
Cases have been reviewed decades after the event and found to be defective.
I only know what the media has shown me about Brevik - and I expect that you know no more.
From what I have seen and read, it seems clear cut and indefensible of course, but then it so often does - until it doesn’t.
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.