Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org

@johnabs

It doesn't really bother me but it is so very dependable and the action so damned fast that I wondered if other people react the same way to their morning coffee.

Being retired I don't have any sort of routine - I wake up when I wake up and get up when I please! To be honest I don't really like coffee that much as it doesn't taste of anything these days so I literally drink a cup or two in the morning just to avoid caffeine withdrawal symptoms.

@tayfonay

There are a few flights and landings that stick in my mind.

In the late 60s or early 70s, I along with a number of schoolfriends flew from some airport in the UK to Ostende in Belgium in a Douglas Dakota. The airline was, I think Dan Air. On the flight out the sole cabin crew a doughty female shouted at us kids "Come on you lot, some of you sit up here at the front or the pilot will never get this thing off the ground" the pilot one Captain Abrams, bounced us down the runway at Ostende so heavily that some of the suitcases burst open.

Another memorable one was coming in to land at Colombo, Sri Lanka during a tropical storm we could see out of the aircraft windows that it was raining buckets and the wind was blowing so hard the palm trees were almost flat on their sides and I thought "He will never try landing in these conditions, surely" but he did and it was a perfect landing!

@BrianJopek

Despite the USA spending years and vast sums of money ramming 'democracy' down every nations throat; willing or not - the US is not one. No, it is not a democracy at all.

Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by a significant margin but that foul piece of excrement, trump actually got the keys to the white house That is not democracy in action, is it?

The same thing applies to the UK, my homeland as there, numerous governments have been elected on a minority vote because of the utterly archaic electoral system.

@nusher

Here in Luxembourg they have fixed that problem pretty conviningly! All buses, trains and trams within the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg itself, are completely free; the only exception to that rule is, if you wish to travel in 1st Class on the trains; for that there is a modest charge!

@RejoinEU

I know this is nit-picking a bit but it's not contamination the turns ammonium nitrate into an explosive - it's always an explosive but one that is fairly difficult to detonate. However, if it is stored badly and allowed to clump together due to the ingress of moisture or if it is contaminated with something like diesel oil, it becomes much easier to detonate - that is the danger. Another danger is that it is a strong oxidizing agent so if anything inflammable comes into contact with it and catches fire, the fire will be very difficult to extinguish as the oxygen needed to continue combustion comes from the ammonium nitrate itself not from the atmosphere.

Don't get caught up in this awful american sales-fest (since you just elected that cünt trump for a 2nd time, you are not even worthy of a capital letter)Just fückin ignore it!

@sellathechemist
Interesting, my landlord here in Luxembourg wanted to 'invest' in heat pump tecnology and several companies who offer that technology did come round, survey and prepare quotes; all emphasising very strongly the fact the government here pay most of the bill!

Only one company representaive was honest enough to say that in a house (the old village school built circe 1900) built of random stone rubble bonded with lime mortar with walls 650mm thick and a protected facade (you can do what you like to any other part of the building by you cannot alter the facade), that heat pump technology would be useless without doubling or trebling the size of the radiators throughout the house and applying substantial insulation to the exterior facing walls. As putting it on the ouside frontage of the building would not be permitted due to the preservation order and on the other parts it would ruin the look of the building as it has dressed stone surrounds to all the window and door openings which would be covered up, the insulation would have to be applied to the inside of the building so the total cost would be enormous as would the disruption.

@kityates

When poliomyelitis was sweeping through the UK, I can still remember the terror on my mother's face, when one of her 3 boys showed any symptoms that could mean one of us had contracted polio!

I can also remember the relief on her face when each one of us had been vaccinated against it and the threat of losing a child to this awful disease receeded.

Sorry to be so 'bodily' this early in the morning but I am seriously wondering if there is something wrong with me!

Tell me: "does one slurp of one's morning coffee bring on an URGENT need to go for a shit?" or am I quite abnormal in that respect?

Given the extraordinary speed with which it seems to act, I am guessing the caffeine, if caffeine it is that causes the effect, must be absorbed by the mouth or at least by the stomach in very short order indeed! However, I wonder if it is simply a case of "Incoming - everyone needs to shuffle down a bit to make room!"

Is there a gastroenterologist in the house who can offer his/her opinion on the subject?

@Bez_Lightyear

@isotope239 @JonChevreau @Gustodon

Yes I use mainly Mastodon and Bluesky these days - I abanoned "Twatter" some months back!

@randahl

OK - so it appears that alien spacecraft have actually "crashed" on earth - that seems to be what was said!

This is completely non-trivial - the guy appears to be saying "yes there are aliens and yes we have bodies from spacecraft that have crashed"

@JackTheCat

I'm an Englishman (by birth if not by soul) and I agree with you - Scotland should be independent. The Scots are as distinct a race from the English as it's possible to get and therefore, if for no better reason, they should be in a position to mould their country in the way they see fit!

@JackTheCat

I'm very partial to a Belgian speciality beer called Kriek. It's a very weak beer (+/- 3% alc) often made using Lambic which is a beer brewed using wild yeast rather than brewers yeast. It is flavoured with the juice of sour cherries and I LOVE IT!!!

@JackTheCat

The deeply conservative Luxembourg government has, surprisingly, recently passed legislation that allows people to grow their own (but only 3 plants that must not be visible from the public highway). I keep meaning to go to the head shop in the capital city to get some seeds and get a crop going. I don't like the modern high THC quasi-hallucinogenic varieties so I'm trying to hunt down some of the proper fits-of-laughter provoking stuff we used to smoke back in the 60s and 70s.