palordrolap

My own external 1TB HDD is old enough that it only has USB2 connectivity. It transfers at around 40MB/s. Maybe you’re in the same situation?

I only transfer files of a few gigabytes to it every month or so, which I find bearable, but I’d be less happy if I was trying to move hundreds of gigabytes or the full drive contents on a regular basis. That would literally take hours.

Literally: https://www.youtube.com/@Amateur.Chemistry

I guess no-one else thought to take the name before he did.

Usenet then Slashdot and a forum on a website that no longer exists.

Once I got Internet at home, there were a few online chatrooms that were web based, but were basically IRC. It looks like one of those sites still exists, but if it’s the same one I used (and Yahoo used as a proxy) it’s not at the URL I used it at. Also either I’ve forgotten my details or I’ve been deleted (or it’s a knock-off).

Then Digg, Reddit, Twitter and now the Fediverse.

Oh and throw Discord in there too somewhere towards the latter end.

Dishonourable mentions: MyYearbook and Tagged.com. The former was a bit like old-school MySpace, but it became a soulless dating site called MeetMe with none of the fun Flash games and chat. Tagged was basically a (surprisingly smut-free) user avatar trading site. Attractive people’s pictures (usually women) could end up worth ridiculous sums of fake money. Like vigintillions of dollars kinds of ridiculous.

Now it seems that both are part of the same company, at least based on how the websites for MeetMe and Tagged look. Very glad I’m out of there.

If you want some idea what it might have been like, it would probably be about as close to Welsh as Welsh is to Breton.

… which might not be all that helpful as a factoid, so here’s Wikipedia’s Swadesh list for the Celtic languages: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Celtic_Swadesh_lists

(In loosely related news, you know you might have been reading too much about linguistics when, while scanning the above, you recognise the Welsh word “benyw” as a cognate for the English word “queen”, (but with a meaning closer to Norwegian “kvinne”). That was a kick in the head for sure.)

I’m not OP, but yes I hoard. For most of the non-sentimental stuff, any third party coming in would result in me saying “OK” and throwing it all out because wanting to get that third party out of my safe space as soon as possible and not have to think about it would trump the need to keep those things.

And I’d deal with the regret later. Both that I didn’t have the stuff any more and the cynical belief that the need for it is bound to be hastened precisely because I got rid of it.

For the sentimental stuff, that third party is going to quickly become an enemy, whether either of us likes it or not.

Stuff that’s in the middle ground, for example, old computer parts, maybe that third party might be able to help reason about it, but it’s going come down to one of the two above results pretty quick.

FWIW, I had a partial clear out about a decade ago and I still have regrets.

“Might be useful one day” is a real problem for hoarders.

If you find a use for one of those things you’re keeping, you won’t have another because you would have already used it, so you keep two. But if you keep two and use one, then you’ll find yourself in the situation where you only have one, so better have three just to be safe. Now multiply that for several different kinds of things and you have a house full of stuff.

And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the stuff that might have a sentimental attachment.

Dr Becky (aka Dr Rebecca Smethurst) for Astrophysics / Space news.

Any of the channels run by Brady Haran like Numberphile and Periodic Videos.

Most of my other picks have been mentioned already or else lean into spectacle which might not be appreciated by a 12-year-old girl. (Quite a few of the chemistry channels I watch are like this. In order of decreasing silliness: Nile Blue / Nile Red, Labcoatz, Amateur Chemistry, Chemical Force… Actually CF is pretty good by comparison.)

But I’m not you or your daughter. Check them out anyway and see if either of you likes what you see.

Language evolves. Ð/ð made it into the very early Old English alphabet, but it didn’t last long and was supplanted by Þ/þ for both soft and hard sounds.

Bear in mind that very few people were literate at that time, and that there are very few, if any, words that were distinguished by the need of an ð (I mean, we get by just fine with “th” for both sounds), so those who could write, simplified.

S and Z have a similar kind of relationship, and we harden S in places we might otherwise expect a Z, just like what happened with Þ. One of, if not the main reason Z has managed to stick around in English is because of its use in loanwords from other languages, and we’re now so familiar with them we don’t even think of them as foreign. And likewise Z itself.

The closest I get is the “release” or “drop” or similarly hard to describe thing that I could do when trapped on a hot bus on hot days that allowed me to handle the heat, but it only worked every so often.

I imagine I was triggering a change in blood pressure through conscious vascular relaxation or similar. Or maybe I was just fooling myself. But it gave a few moments of reprieve from the oppressive heat and allowed a reset before I started boiling again. (Getting off the bus would have meant being out, walking, in cooler air, but under the hot sun for even longer.)

We don’t get hot weather a lot in the UK (even if it is increasing in frequency) and even more rarely have I found myself on a bus during the brunt of it, so it’s not exactly something I have much need or opportunity to practise.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some kind of control over the “blood runs cold” fear response. That would fit with my psychology, tbh.

Blame the time vortex and an information paradox called Bad Wolf.

- or “wibbly wobbly timey wimey… stuff” if you prefer.

Dolphins evolved from land mammals just like we did. Kick that fish and there won’t be any dolphins.

mineral oil […] innocuous

From an electrical standpoint, sure.

From the standpoint of making an enormous mess if it escapes, it’s very much not.

This sounds like my experience before I burned out. And while I was in the process of burning out, I still would have preferred to work from the office because home was, and is, my safe space. I don’t want work intruding there.

This does not mean that I haven’t worked from home - I was the on-call tech more than once, nor does it mean that I think WFH is a bad idea. In fact I’m all for it for those who can handle it.

I like the idea of unnecessary layers of manglement sweating because they can’t justify their existence through pointless micromanagement.