MrsDoyle

I use a usb mug warmer to heat microscope slides.

It’s Scotland, you cannot take their freedom.

Cheap cat food. She turned her back on it, made scratching motions as if burying shit, gave me a “look” and stalked away.

Good luck with that. Where I live all public hospital grounds have been declared no-smoking zones. I’ve seen patients in wheelchairs sparking up under the no-smoking sign right outside the entrance.

Meanwhile in Scotland, I stepped into my garden for five minutes this evening and now have at least five midge bites on my face.

I’m still eating blackcurrant jam I made in 2013. I use jars whose lids have the pop-up seals. Pour hot jam into hot jars, screw on the lid and the little thingie in the middle should pop down as it cools, showing it’s sealed. When you open the jar it pops up again, to show the seal is broken. Just about all my jars come from a particular brand of pitted kalamata olives I’m partial to. Perfect size for jam.

When I was a child mum sealed the jars of jam with a disc of cellophane that had been dampened in vinegar, fastened with a rubber band. Pretty good seal actually, it tightened as the jam cooled. But if the jam went mouldy we’d just scrape the mould off - no big deal.

Best was my sister’s - her new in-laws’ gift was the use of their sauna business as the venue (they were nudists, it wasn’t a sleaze thing). The caterers had to turn the sauna on to heat the food, so after we’d all eaten, most of the guests stripped off and had a sauna - including bride and groom and me, chief bridesmaid. Really nice, fun atmosphere.

Worst … nah, I enjoy weddings. Never been to a bad one.

Raspberry jam is insanely easy to make. Equal weights of fruit and sugar, heat slowly to dissolve the sugar, then boil rapidly for five minutes. Bung in jars and screw the lids on while still hot.

The only sterile part is the jars - I put them in a lowish oven for ten minutes or so after washing them. Lids are washed, dried and swabbed with vinegar.

And if they’re still alive come autumn, their sisters kick them out of the hive. No freeloaders! (I’ve seen this happen, it’s quite brutal. The drone is struggling to get back inside into the warm, but the workers just shove him out.)

I’ve never learned about servers - never worked in IT, just a simple old hobbyist. Also never used a Raspberry Pi. But thank you! I might get around to reading up on the topic of servers over the winter. My computer has two drives, the original “spinning rust” and an SSD I installed (so quick! so quiet!). My thought is to keep Windows on a partition until I’m sure I like the distro I’ve chosen.

I have multiple backup drives, from a wee 4Tb Toshiba to a SparQ drive with 1Gb cartridges (a whole gigabyte, how will I ever fill it?). I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything saved, but I’m equally sure there’ll be something I’ve missed.

These days I mostly keep it plugged in, but it had good battery life when new. I got a replacement battery when it failed to hold enough of a charge for 5 or 6 hours. I honestly can’t remember how long ago that was. I still travel with it occasionally, it’s useful for working with photos (Gimp).

I have a Toshiba Satellite T110, 11.6" screen, now running Linux Zorin. I’ve had it for 15 years - got a new battery at one point and added RAM, very easy to do. It’s been a cracking little machine, really nice for travelling with.

Why are there Ubuntu haters? I’m on the verge of installing Linux on my desktop and have the Ubuntu pro installer on a thumb drive ready. I’m worried now…

I started out thinking to go with Mint, seems popular, but there was an instruction to verify the ISO image and it was just too complex. https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=291093

I’m already using Linux on an old laptop (Zorin) so I’m not inexperienced, but good lord that’s a faff and a half. I have a life!

I blocked the moth person, I got sick of those posts.

“Don’t tread on me because it’s really hot and I’m all sweaty in this getup - you could slip on the grease and hurt yourself.”

I subscribe to c/womensstuff and I’ve seen the messages to men who post there accidentally. They go like this: “thanks for your comment, but unfortunately this community has a rule that only women are permitted to comment - hope you understand 🧡”

How is this “somewhat abusive”?

I’ve discovered I can still load books on my aged Kindle Keyboard via email. When you register a Kindle you get an email address for that purpose. More fiddly that just dropping files in its Document folder, but it does work. (I’m so bloody annoyed at Amazon for that change to Kindles.)

A Spanish friend showed me a group photo from her work, about 30 people, and said “See if you can pick out the one American.” I did, really quickly. Because all the Spanish people had similar dark eyebrows. The American had pale, indistinct eyebrows.

That’s so nice! I gave away a microwave, and the couple who took it brought along a little pot plant as a thank you.

I had a big heavy electric bike I used for my work commute, and once I retired it gradually morphed into a coat rack. I put it on Gumtree, a UK Craigslist equivalent, priced at £50 more than I actually wanted for it, which was well under half the price I’d paid. A full 27 SECONDS after I listed it, I had a buyer, and less than half an hour after that he was at my door. As expected, he offered £50 less than the listed price, and was delighted when I accepted. Bargain!

I noticed he’d come in a car, and wondered out loud if it had room for a big heavy bike. “No problem, it can fit loads!” As he wheeled the bike out the door, he realised just how heavy this big heavy bike was. But he forged on, managed to heave it into the car, and drove off a happy man.

Questions he didn’t ask: How old is this bike? (Seven years or so.) What’s the projected lifespan of the battery? (About another year.) How well is it holding a charge? (Not well at all.) How much is a replacement battery? (£200.)

I fully expected to hear back from him complaining about the big heavy lemon he’d just bought, but no. I guess he’s enjoying his new coat rack.