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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • Had to do a flame test to identify old fuel for recycling.

    Made blue dye from indigo, and red and orange dye from madder, mixing in alum and other things. Making blue is amazing, it comes out green then changes colour all at once. Get the mix wrong and you get the wrong colour… Also we boiled one batch of madder and got orange instead of scarlet, so even the temperature had to be regulated.

    Most recently, been making etched plates from the inside of soft drink cans, etching with copper sulfate (they sell it in Bunnings as a fertiliser). Lots of fun!

    So yeah mostly art projects.

    That said even baking a cake is pretty fancy chemistry.






  • Sorting the safe from the scam seems a terrible way to spend an arvo playing roulette, but sure if she feels she must. Personally I have been very successful searching without those advertisements. You can hover over them as you go past, and their links are invariably complex enough to nope the hell out. I don’t need that sort of risk in my life.

    If she honestly wants to shop H&M (USian I’m guessing?) or David Jones or whatever, she should go to their website. Even the most humble local shops have websites these days, my local custom paper seller has, like most shopfronts, had its website long before the shopfront arrived in the world. And buying from the small and local is better for the environment, better for your home town, and more reliable.


  • Thankyou for restoring my faith in you, mate. I hope the girlfriend shopping issue works itself out (perhaps she should use her phone hotspot to connect her shopping machine if she wants to be scammed? I use mine for some stuff on occasion, if and as necessary, and my boyfriend and other housemates are thus not affected) and I hope the rest of your weekend is excellent.










  • If you’re now in Australia, it is polite to ask “where y’from” as a starter convo, as knowing who your mob are is part of getting to know you. An Aussie would find the answer [insert country name here] as pretty standoffish (sort of an “I don’t want to talk about it or be friends with you” answer) but if they were determined to get to know you they might then ask patiently “where in Canada?” or ask about the part of Canada you might originate from, knowing it is a large place. This helps them to understand who you are and work better alongside you in big projects in future. Unfriendly people aren’t really worth working with or helping out if the going gets tough.

    Think of it this way: If you have spoken four words to someone “Canada” and “why do you ask?” they are less motivated to cover your shift. If they know you are from that cool place with several excellent bands and a beautiful landscape and you often chat about whales or whatever, they might try to help you out. Also, how cold and bleak your life would be without the occasional conversation with someone at least once a day. Many people live alone.

    How do you first get to know your work colleagues? Ask about a sport or the weather? Or ask about something else? Is small talk and office acquaintances not a thing where you are from?


  • All teachers discuss getting a difderent job. Sometimes they quit rather suddenly when the job arrives. None of us hide the general search from each other but often hide the interviews. None of us need excuses to want another job, everyone knows the job sucks.

    Incidentally: If you have to work two jobs at once, then there is something wrong, mate. There’s no way I could work a second job while teaching.


  • It has a lot of meanings.

    The oldest one I know of is that of Monkey King, who in the ancient story stole and ate the peaches of immortality. He did this without any plan; in some versions he was hungry and didn’t understand that it would make him immortal. This act of spontaneity also inconvenienced the peach owner, who had intended to serve the peaches to those who were worthy of them.

    Since then various martial arts moves and stories and so on were named after that one little bit of the story, usually to showcase a combination of spontaneity and strength.