I’ve lucky enough to be able to fund my study while I’m in middle age.

I took up my degree course because I enjoyed computing and the theory behind it. I enjoy it for the most part, it’s engaging and intriguing. I’m getting some personal and academic development out of it even though it’s got fuck all to do with my “real” career.

I can see people stressed off their tits with it though - people who have a career pinned on success with the degree; people who went to uni because they felt it was just the next natural step; and people who did it because they were told to.

I feel genuinely gutted for them that a topic that brings so much learning and satisfaction can bring another so much stress and anxiety.

Shame.

Fuck yes.

I still use an inexpensive Contigo one I bought in the US for US$12 or something ten years ago. I don’t think it’s got much of the blue paint left on it now. Banging purchase.

UK squad: Oh hang on, looks like Asda do one similar over here for a tenner, just a tad smaller.

They can be bulky but it’s much better than actively buying disposable cups for use at home. Hell, I’ve even bought a takeaway coffee from a local chain in the afternoon, rinsed it out, and put my own coffee in it for that evening’s shift at work.

I mean, I can’t really talk, I’m still working away at undergrad level; and I’ve got all the social media clout of the average housebrick.

You are absolutely right, but how are you going to make a fire Twitter post if you can’t engineer a situation like this? 🤔

What a shame. I’ve been working with different branches of the public sector pretty much my entire career, and the NHS is one of the more frustrating ones to tweak and change.

First and foremost: the frontline workers such as the paramedics; GPs, nurses; and domestic staff are absolute world-beaters. Constantly squeezing conditions and low pay for the amount of work they actually do, and constant battering from the press makes it a really hostile environment for people to do their very best in, but fair play they don’t half put a shift in every day. Good on them.

As for the ambulance service - the last couple of times I’ve worked with them has told me that the two most likely places you’ll find an ambulance is outside a hospital waiting to handover patients; or at an ambo depot because there’s not enough folk to staff them.

Whatever’s left are pulled between dozens of competing calls, a fair chunk of them absolute bollocks too - either self-inflicted (entirely frustrating as the mental health root cause should be tackled before it becomes a paramedic problem), or overdosing (alleged or genuine) which again is either an addiction or a mental health issue.

The resources that remain are thrown to people in cardiac arrest; catastrophic bleeding; or infants. People like the older person in the headline or the footballer in the article aren’t actively dying, so they get pushed to the bottom of the queue.

I’m going to get on my soapbox here and say if I were PM, I’d create a whole new ambulance service for mental health emergencies. It would take the weight off the ambulance service to deal with issues requiring a bit more than battlefield medicine; it would reduce the workload of the police service who frequently get lumbered with mental health calls (and as great as the cops can be at finding solutions to most problems, they’re not mental health practitioners and aren’t the right folk for the job); and it would probably mean the ambo service can work within their current means with such a massive chunk of workload taken off them.

Man I feel better after writing that.

That would make a banging remix to Save A Horse, Ride a Cowboy .

I wonder if your phone would do that really satisfying “rr-rr-RRRRRR-RRRRRRR-rr” vibration pattern like it does encountering a shiny in Pokémon Go whenever you face a genuine representation of a gay man in a public space?

Attack: 9

HP: 8

Authenticity: 15

Reminds me of how service industry workers are so used to negativity now that it’s depressing

Nah I jest. Spidey bois are our friends, they’re unsung heroes of the pest-killing world.

I’m still not a fan though.

Absolutely.

You need a lighter in front of the nozzle first. This isn’t amateur hour.

Oh my word, that was a beautiful but incredibly tough read.

edit: sharing my experience below, the length got a bit out of hand!

I live about four or five hundred miles from where I grew up with family, and I got wind of my dad being in hospital. I gave him a call like I did every short while, and the opening lines were a bit of a comedy:

“Hi dad, how are you?”

“Aye I’m alright thanks”

“Anything exciting happening? Any news with you?”

“no not really”

“… you’re in the hospital, aren’t you dad?”

“…yeah” 😂

We had a good chat - I offered to fly down and see him but it all seemed very positive and I’d already had plans to pop down the following month.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance - a couple of weeks later I got the dreaded phone call that he’d died as a complication of his illness. I was obviously gutted, but I consider myself very very very fortunate that in that phonecall, I had the opportunity to have a good chat with him and was able to tell him everything I wanted to, there was nothing left unsaid.

Anyway…

The part of our brain that does evaluation, desire, and choice has been completely overrun; when someone asks “I’m gonna grab sushi, do you want any” we stare at them in confusion.

Absolutely. The day after my old man died, I was due to cover a night duty at my old workplace. It’s a straightforward role to deal with stuff that comes up, most of which is safety-critical in the industry so drinks, drugs, poor behaviour or low mental health are things to declare beforehand so you don’t put yourself or colleagues at risk of clouded decision making.

My other half was away on a family visit, so a dear friend of mine invited me round for a few days to avoid the workplace - I politely declined thinking I was gutted but otherwise okay. I relented on going out to the local town for the afternoon - the Coca Cola truck was doing a promo thing so it would have been a good laugh before work.

And it was - I had a good half hour. He invited me round to his place for a quick BBQ before work, and it sounded like a good idea. Went to Tesco, and we were stood in the meats aisle. He asked me:

“Do you fancy burgers or hotdogs?”

I wasn’t arsed either way. I just said “I’m not bothered mate, whatever you fancy”. He wasn’t having it.

“Do you want the burgers, or a hotdog?”

I wasn’t moved one way or another, I’m usually happy enough to eat most things so I just said “i don’t mind mate, you choose”. Nope. Wasn’t having it.

“No fella, I’m asking you. Do you want burgers, or a hotdog?”

I was getting a bit miffed at him asking me the same shit over and over but I just ran with it, and looked at both things he had in each hand. I could see the prepacked meat in each hand, but I couldn’t choose. I knew I could just almost flip a coin in my head and pick left or right, but I couldn’t critically evaluate what I wanted in such a basic decision. My mind felt like it was full of treacle, able to look and think and feel, but unable to move itself in a particular direction.

I understood what he was doing. “I’m sorry bruv,” I said, “I can’t choose”. I phoned up and booked my three remaining shifts off.

It was the strangest feeling being unable to make that decision. It wasn’t a hard call, just the mind was under so much stress I wasn’t aware of that I couldn’t just step forward.

As it happens I went home, had a good cry, got changed, and went back to his place for the evening and got hammered with him - lots of beer, Die Hard and Predator, and cracking tunes through to about 6am.

“pls gimme pointy ends” sounds like the Simple Wikipedia article for “Requesting A Stabbing”

Fucking hell, I thought us Brits had a reputation for being tone deaf inward-looking shitheads… I mean we can be yeah, but this lass takes the biscuit.

It’s insane how blinkered she is.

That’s dead interesting. I can’t profess to understand the hows and whys, but it’s amazing that these sorts of technologies were adopted so early.

Great stuff. I’d positively melt in 34degrees mind!

Disclaimer: I can write my entire knowledge of DIY and building on an ant’s dong in black marker

A pal of mine started a business building ecologically-sustainable holiday lodges. They were built out of timber and hay, with a limestone render.

They were beautiful and warm, but that was the result of years of battles with the planning dept who pushed back at almost every turn (despite absolute carbuncles going ahead no bother), and the architect who was more concerned with dropping prefabricated lodges in - defeating the selling point of being as green as possible.

I appreciate your input though, if there was ever such a thing as an across-the-water fist bump, this would be it!

Stone houses are awesome.

Not nearly the same historical context as the Dammuso are in, but stone buildings generally mirror that property before you factor in central heating and the like.

I live near a Scottish city which prides itself on the building of grand houses using a particular type of quarried stone, and it’s nice being eight degrees below the summer weather…

…but it isn’t much fun being eight degrees below the winter outdoor temperature either!!

Fucking hell, thank you. I thought I was going quite mad - I’d just taken a detour in solving it instead.

Cheers friend!

Alright, education time needed!

I’m a fair few years out from my entry level uni maths module, so:

In between the second and third step of the solution, why is 1a / 2√a = 6

not evaluating as

a/√a = 12 ?

Charizard origin story.

Yeah it’s a valid point. The closest train service is about 35 miles away… and it’s 30 miles to the city by road so it’s a bit of a pain in the backside. I’d love to use public transport more but the infrastructure isn’t really here north of Scotland’s central belt.

When I lived in the south of England, one of the best things about it was not having to plan journeys. I could blindly walk into the local town’s train station and there’d be a London-bound train every twelve or fifteen minutes. It wasn’t really cheap, but I:d much rather pay the premium to travel without thinking; and with fewer emissions.

Here though, we’re a bit fucked. It’s not a rare story either - anything outside of Scotland’s city limits, public transport is a bit spotty and rather expensive, but it is what it is.