GreyShuck

From Nov 24th, we progressively decorate the house, one item per day, throughout Brumalia - the old Roman/Byzantine winter festival - in preparation for Saturnalia.

Otherwise, we’ll have a pair of candles going for the eight sabbats themselves, regardless of anything else that we do for them, but I don’t think that candles alone really count as decorations.

Improve education for girls worldwide. A very strong link has been established by numerous studies.

Leaving aside points about driving licence numbers being unique or whatever, it would be the silver pentagram that I made back in the '90s and have worn (or occasionally carry in my wallet etc, when the cord breaks) ever since.

I think that the closest that I had at school was the library. Even decades later I am still happy when surrounded by books.

Otherwise, somewhere green: walking in woodland or sitting by a stream always improves things.

I’ve had the same number for 24 years now. I have only ever had a handful of spam calls in total over that time.

I probably get one a month or so on my work number.

Basically all of them.

A quick skim shows me that the only people who have called me this so far this year are:

• Doctor
• Dentist
• Sister
• Wife
• Close friend

I expect that this would be much the same for last year too.

I have no reason not to speak to any of these.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For me, at least, it correlates to the direction that provides the widest/least obstructed/most visibly clear/least disruptive/least hazardous direction to give onward travel. Clearly the direction that that boils down to varies according to the individual situation.

I don’t recall being alone with a single central obstruction in the middle of an otherwise deserted and symmetrical street with no other influencing factors enough times to have noted any innate bias on my part.