GreyShuck

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

It's Scunthorpe all over again. Have we learnt nothing?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

Aliyev's comments are short-sighted, delusional bollocks but... have you never had a candle as a gift?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 138 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Yes, fun idea. No problem with that but... that 'flag' is a sail. They're different things.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

Facilities manager for a wildlife and heritage charity. I lead a small team looking after health & safety, compliance and building maintenance and repairs.

Ninety percent of my time is spent at the keyboard, but since I am peripatetic and move around the properties that I cover, I have a different, and usually beautiful, view out of the window each day of the week. When I am not sat behind a desk, I will be crawling through an attic or have my head down a sewer or something.

My time is spent arranging contractors for routine servicing or repair projects, reviewing fire risk assessments and dealing with outstanding actions, writing client briefs for renewable energy projects, chasing people to do workplace inspections, advising on risk assessments, updating our compliance tracker, arranging asbestos surveys, ensuring that everyone who needs training has it up to date, proving to utility companies that their meters are wildly inaccurate and need to be replaced, working out why the biomass boiler/sewage treatment plant/water heater/automatic gate/car park machine/phone system/greywater pump/security alarm/whatever isn't working and getting it fixed and so on.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

My childhood imaginary friend(s) were a flock of flying bunnies of various colours. It is not often that you get to see them represented.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

By that age, I was into my third long-term job (> 5 years) and had had upwards of 16 short term ones - multiple part time ones at once, or some just for a few weeks or a couple of months here and there between the long-term ones etc.

48 doesn't seem that unlikely - nor even an indicator that they will not be staying put for any length of time unless your job is a shitty one with a high turnover anyway.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

It's my turn to cook tonight. I'm doing a shakshuka.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

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.

 

...so that the browser will open the desktop version of that particular site?

If there is a way of doing this in some other browser, I'd also be interested.

 

More than 30 public figures including Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton and Greta Thunberg have written to Shell criticising its “callous and vindictive” lawsuit against Greenpeace after activists occupied a moving oil platform last year.

In one of the biggest legal threats in the environmental charity’s 50-year history, Shell is suing it for $1m (£790,000) in damages, with costs that could run into the millions.

The move follows a protest in January last year in which four Greenpeace activists boarded a platform north of the Canary Islands that was being transported to the Shetland Islands, holding signs stating: “Stop drilling – start paying.”

Monday’s letter , signed by dozens of prominent musicians, activists, and lawyers as well as more than 100,000 members of the public, calls on Shell to respect the right to protest.

 

The Conservative party will lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience just from MPs who have already announced they are standing down, a Guardian analysis has shown, amid an exodus likely to be even greater than in 1997.

So far, 66 MPs elected as Conservatives in 2019 have announced they will not stand again – this includes four who have since lost the whip and sit as independents – which is close to one in five of the total.

 

The minimum wage has driven up the pay of millions of Britain’s lowest earners by £6,000 a year, making it the single most successful economic policy in a generation, according to a leading thinktank.

Since its introduction in 1999 by Tony Blair’s first Labour administration the policy has secured cross-party agreement, and should be seen as the basis for further improvements in the welfare of low wage workers, the Resolution Foundation said.

The minimum wage will increase on Monday 1 April as it rises from £10.42 to £11.44, in the third-highest annual change in its history – a rise of 9.8% in cash terms and 7.8% above inflation.

In a study released to mark 25 years since the policy’s introduction, the foundation said workers would have been £6,000 a year worse off since 1999 if their pay had only risen in line with average wages rather than the increases recommended by the independent Low Pay Commission.

 

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have recovered remarkably preserved microbiomes from two teeth dating back 4,000 years, found in an Irish limestone cave. Genetic analyses of these microbiomes reveal major changes in the oral microenvironment from the Bronze Age to today. The teeth both belonged to the same male individual and also provided a snapshot of his oral health.

The study, carried out in collaboration with archaeologists from the Atlantic Technological University and University of Edinburgh, is published in Molecular Biology and Evolution. The authors identified several bacteria linked to gum disease and provided the first high-quality ancient genome of Streptococcus mutans, the major culprit behind tooth decay.

 

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 4,300-year-old tomb with remarkable wall paintings illustrating everyday life. The tomb is located at Dahshur, a site with royal pyramids and a vast necropolis that's about 20 miles (33 kilometers) south of Cairo. When the team returns to the field, they plan to excavate the burial shafts to see if any mummies remain.

The mud-brick tomb is known as a mastaba, a rectangular structure with a flat roof and sloping sides. Inside, the team found wall paintings depicting scenes of life in ancient Egypt, such as donkeys threshing grain by trampling over it, ships sailing the Nile river, and goods being sold at a market, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement.

 

In Greek legends, the Amazons were feared and formidable women warriors who lived on the edge of the known world. Hercules had to obtain the magic girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte in one of his 12 labours, and Achilles killed another queen, Penthesilea, only to fall in love with her as her beautiful face emerged from her helmet.

These horseback-riding, bow-wielding nomads, who fought and hunted just like men, have long been shrouded in myth, but archaeologists are discovering increasing evidence that they really did exist.

Excavations of graves within a bronze age necropolis in Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan revealed that women had been buried with weapons such as razor-sharp arrowheads, a bronze dagger and a mace, as well as jewellery.

 

Researchers have for the first time discovered evidence of microplastic contamination in archaeological soil samples.

The team discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than 7 meters deep, in samples dating back to the first or early second century and excavated in the late 1980s.

Preserving archaeology in situ has been the preferred approach to managing historical sites for a generation. However, the research team say the findings could prompt a rethink, with the tiny particles potentially compromising the preserved remains.

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