Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@SpinyNorman said:
Very artistic, it's nice to see interesting images like that. Get 'em in the Tate bleeding Modern! I like visiting the Tate Modern but more because I like the building and the space, it used to be a power station. Most of the actual exhibits I've seen there were rubbish, something a 5-year old would do. Or maybe I ain't proper educated like them arty types.
You are very kind but my images still have a long way to go . . .
Tate Modern (opposite St Paul's on the Millenial Bridge) has a strong educational focus. It might be worth finding out if this extends to adults. The 'rubbish' is often my favourite work. Art can be elitist, often is cliquey.
To put it in another context, would you consider Tendai Marathon monks, mummified Buddhas or zen sand gardens as an art form, religious sanctioned insanity or perhaps a form of deviancy. Maybe oriental expressionism . . .
Everything has a context.
Anyways . . . pic of pylons that I took last year . . .
@federica -I have to wonder how long it has been since your ex-boss had to seek employment. At least in the States, enthusiasm is a must during the job-seeking process. It's something they look for in interviews.
1
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
She's been self-employed for nearly 20 years.... So yes, I think she has a distinctly jaded outlook.
TbH, I really wonder how long her business is going to survive....In this economic climate, she's already talking about finding part-time work, herself....
1
SarahTTime ... space ... joySouth Coast, UKVeteran
Yeah, people have some amazing stories to tell when you take the trouble to ask them.
1
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
I just went to work on a night I was supposed to be off. The parents of the little boy had funny looks on their otherwise welcoming faces, and INSISTED that today is Tuesday -- not Wednesday. Really. I actually had to check my phone!
I'm adjusting very well to night shift work. I'm sleeping great during the day and the typical fatigue of night shift work is simply nonexistent.
But since 'change' is multispangled, what I have lost is my awareness of what day of the week it is.
2
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited January 2015
There has been some media interest on the use of technological gizmos lately, and I think we may have a backlash soon.
They (researchers companies and analysts who study this kind of stuff and gather conclusive data) have discovered that the "average person uses their mobile phone, on average 224 times/day.
Read that again. 224 times.
The worst culprits are those between 18 - 24. And of those, females use their phones for at least a half-hour longer, duing the day, than guys do.
Texts will soon cost more to send than making calls, I guarantee it. Why? because more people text, than speak. So the phone companies are going to determine ways to increase their profits....
Selfies, photos of 'look what we ate last night' and FB/TheMetapicture videos, denote the most prolific use.
Children up to the age of 5 can use a mobile phone before they can speak.
There was also a public discussion programme in which three families exposed the true and real horror of their children being addicted to their appliances, and how difficult it was to wean them off them.
Parents were resorting to confiscation, removing the batteries and even putting cameras in their kids' rooms to catch/prevent them from using their tablets, phones, smart-phones, instead of sleeping.
This was causing real problems, with some children only getting 2 - 4 hours' sleep/night.
One young boy was habitually setting his alarm for 5am, so he could play WoW before needing to go to school...
These three families willingly and readily participated in an controlled experiment and did away with such appliances altogether.
The children experienced severe withdrawal symptoms, described by contributing psychologists as almost identical to those of a drug user...
I'm adding nothing more, except we, as parents, really should pay attention to this and try to modify our children's behaviour - now.... no, I mean, NOW.
My son looks so bored when he does not carry his tablet somewhere, and during his waking hours, the only things he seems to talk about is Minecraft, Clash of Clash, Boom Beach... and his forbidden objects of desire: Call of Duty and GTA, which due to his age are naturally VERBOTEN around the house.
In the summer, kids play outside and this obssession seems easier to keep within manageable bounds, but in winter, it's awful: if children are not gaming, they get bored, and I seem to be like the only mother in the universe who limits gaming time.
So I have to shut up, comply with the general rules and do like the rest of the parents in order not to get my son ostracised by the "weird mom" label.
As a parent, the gaming issue is triggering all sorts of qualms within me.
I feel so lost because it's me against the other-in-my-view-more-permissive parents.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I honestly believe if you were to speak to parents you know (similar ages, with same-age children) they would all voice the same concerns, and agree with you. And I bet they would all also say, "What can you do, but go along with what their peers do...?"
I kid you not, if you were to all get together, discuss this, and make a list of rules, implement them with all of your children, and report back in 2 weeks, you'd all see a massive difference in your children's attitudes and behaviour.
This group of 3 families supplied alternative pastimes and activities; walking, swimming, cycling, playing family games, reading out loud and critiquing the book, joining in with FAMILIAL activities. They REPLACED the electronic stuff with human interaction.
It took a couple of weeks, but goodness, the changes they saw in their families' relationships was a real eye-opener!!
@federica said:
I honestly believe if you were to speak to parents you know (similar ages, with same-age children) they would all voice the same concerns, and agree with you. And I bet they would all also say, "What can you do, but go along with what their peers do...?"
I kid you not, if you were to all get together, discuss this, and make a list of rules, implement them with all of your children, and report back in 2 weeks, you'd all see a massive difference in your children's attitudes and behaviour.
This group of 3 families supplied alternative pastimes and activities; walking, swimming, cycling, playing family games, reading out loud and critiquing the book, joining in with FAMILIAL activities. They REPLACED the electronic stuff with human interaction.
It took a couple of weeks, but goodness, the changes they saw in their families' relationships was a real eye-opener!!
Why not try it...?
My 12 year old daughter must be an anomaly. She gets bored with her smartphone and often forgets to charge it, to my chagrin, since I sometimes can't reach her when I want to. All she wants to do is draw! Artists! Sheesh! lol
4
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
There was also a public discussion programme in which three families exposed the true and real horror of their children being addicted to their appliances, and how difficult it was to wean them off them.
This reminds me of an article I read thanks to Facebook (it figures!), written by a journalist who's taken on the problem of addiction from a more compassionate angle. In a nutshell, addiction is not an effect of using even the most addicting drugs (opiates, alcohol or 'downers'). A person has to be in a state of emotional isolation, this journalist says, for 'addiction' to happen, and that includes the physiology of addiction. This is complete NEWS to me, having worked in the field as a nurse fwiw.
Mice given a choice between plain water and cocaine water chose only the cocaine water until they blew their teensy little hearts up. But these same mice were stuck in an ugly, in hospitable cage with no mice toys or other mice to relate to. So another researcher set up the same two 'solutions' in a mouse Disneyland of other mice, things to do and chew, stimulating toys and environments. The mice ignored the cocaine water.
Children becoming 'addicted' to their phones means SOMETHING about a lack of relationship and isolation, wouldn't you say? And children who use their gizmos 'appropriately' rather than being glued to them perhaps are experiencing more interpersonal warmth, stimulation and ??? Food for thought.
3
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
@Hamsaka said: Children becoming 'addicted' to their phones means SOMETHING about a lack of relationship and isolation, wouldn't you say? And children who use their gizmos 'appropriately' rather than being glued to them perhaps are experiencing more interpersonal warmth, stimulation and ??? Food for thought.
>
I'm certain most parents would recoil in horror at the suggestion that there is a 'lack of relationship, and isolation'.
They would probably feel this is an unfair accusation, and protest that they love their children, and the isolation is self-inflicted.
While I completely understand and empathise with their outrage at such an accusation, I think it would, under scrutiny be a case of "Unconsciously misplaced" love, and an inability to know how to now deal with the situation.
We love our children.
We give them everything we can to make them happy, keep them level with their peers (children can be so thoughtlessly prejudiced and critical) and help them keep abreast of modern trends.
And we do this because we care so much for them, and want them to have whatever it's possible for us to give them...
Undoing the "harm" hurts us, because not only do we see we have inadvertently made our children 'suffer' we also feel enormous guilt for not doing things right, when we thought we were doing exactly that.
My grandson is one who has been taught by his parents to use gizmos 'appropriately'.
He loves books, he adores games, he thrives on his little bike - but he loves playing a game on the system with his dad and mum... but they have a clock, and when the big hand is ~here~ and the little hand is on ~this~ number, the game stops.
And often, it is he who says 'hurry up daddy, you haven't got long!"
Sadly, those children have hitherto been in the minority.
maybe 'new' parents are getting more wise to this now....
I dunno.....
0
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
You helped me get more clear on what I was thinking. I said something about isolation versus a happy-enough environment may, like the mice (our distant proto primate ancestors) we go for the cocaine water when 'where we are' is chronically uncomfortable.
I wasn't thinking of anything like neglect but something a lot more subtle, not caused by parents but caused by our culture. I think today's kids aren't much different than the Stone age kids, neurologically. We used to live in more silence than noise, have ever so much less novel stimulation. Maybe the addictive behavior with gizmos is a 'retreat' from hyperstimulation? Maybe our brains are struggling in a whole new way?
I think your child who put the limits on gizmo time is exactly right. I got my grandson a refurb iPad and it was so 'cute' how damned fast he picked it up that Mom didn't limit him. Thankfully, the oldish battery wore down fast so it would last about an hour at full charge. She kept the charger in her room and never sent him the memo he could leave it plugged in. I'm sure there ARE neglectful parents who's kids escape this way . . . but that's not what was going through my head. I didn't really know what it was until I read your post and wrote it out
I have a basket in my bedroom that the kids have to check out the nook or the two
Game controllers. No cell phones until 18. All items must be "checked in " at night
Before bed. The list of conditions are posted above the basket.
Just call me the mean mommy.....hahaha...they dont dare bring up the peer stuff...cause
They know they will get a lecture...hahaha
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
We don't give the kids the sugar bowl and a spoon and then remonstrate them for eating all the sugar. It makes sense to teach them 'how' to manage themselves with very very yummy things, which now include iPhones and game controllers. Smart mom!
Ad targeting - I love it. Whenever I view an embedded youtube add on this site, I keep getting a pop-up offering to sell me a cheap funeral plan... if not that its a dating agency add, and occassionaly the odd meditation course on CD for £29.99- what does this tell me about the information the ad men have stored about me....
...\lol/...
1
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited January 2015
Oh FFS.....
Amal Clooney reveals her court outfit: 'I'm wearing Ede & Ravenscroft'
Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney bats away interest in what she was wearing for Armenia genocide court appearance, with joking reference to English legal robe makers.
I take a very firm stance on technology similar to that of @Hamsaka (we don't have an xbox or PS4, but do have tablets - and reject the peers argument for them becoming nobby no mates) and phones for our kids to contact us when we leave them with a baby-sitter, and for my eldest son, who travels home on his own through a less than salubrious part of South London some nights. However, most kids turn up their nose to his phone - and he doesn't get it out unless he has to as he's ashamed of being seen using it.
Anyway, I've gone and got myself 2 magical compost bins (and for the life of me they look like 2 black recycled plastic cones with plastic lids on them - no base required), and they were subsidised by the local council as an initiative to cut down on waste - and the fact that leaving food waste in bins for 2 weeks (yes 2 week collections in our borough) can be rather hazardous and smelly, I took the deal they offered
I've been throwing peelings and scraps of food into them for the last year or two, and they never get full up I tell yer! Today, I visited the one I haven't used for a while and took the lid off to find the top layer had transformed into a seething mass of hundreds nay thousands of wriggling earthworms and beetles and a cloud of little flies. My conclusion can only be that I have a magic compost heap that transforms waste organic matter into, well, wriggling, crawling and flying but living organic matter and an awful smell...
My next step is to save up for a Zen greenhouse (which appears to be just an aluminium frame interlocked with panels of glass and a glass panelled door, where I can put the magical composted material that remains after it has bequeathed earthworms beetles and flies, into little magical growing pots (for the life of me they appear to be just bits of recycled plastic cones , and although they are much smaller than the compost bins, but are similar in shape and with a perforated base (I expect using similar technology to magic compost bin technology) then I all I have to do is sprinkle a little water on them regularly, pray to the sun-god for sunshine, be a little patient and do the occasional bit of weeding from time to time and hey presto: apparently you can magically produce food and flowers! And I am also told by elders that pottering in a greenhouse grants a great deal of pleasure to you and the people around you - probably by keeping you out of their way. Now that really is awesome magically transformative technology. And appears so simple in it's construction!
Don't you just get overwhelmed by the advances in technology around us!? Yet, all I appear to do is transform the products of these magical technologies into S*@T which I just flush down the toilet, which is another wonderfully magical technological device - now you see it - splash - now you don't...
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@Anataman, I get excited about composting and the chemical magic of it too. Either we are too easily amused or Buddhism really does bring forth the sheer wonder of the most mundane things of life
There is an open range zoo about twenty minutes from where I live with giraffes, ostriches, hippos, lions etc. I take my kids there occasionally.
I always remember being at an open house mansion several years ago that overlooks the zoo. I was walking around and noticed two guys standing and staring at the giraffes down below.
One pulled me up and asked (with an English accent) "I didnt know you had giraffes in Australia?" The poor guy thought they were just wandering about in the bush!
@Jeffrey - there is on average about one person a year in Australia killed by sharks. However over the last three years there has been seven people killed in Western Australia alone. Unfortunately this has led to a very controversial cull of Great Whites in that state.
0
HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
@Jeffrey said:
I read that hippos kill thousands of people a year whereas sharks kill about 5 per year!
I saw something like that on Facebook. Cows kill 22 people a year, horses kill seven or eight, and yeah, hippos kills a LOT of people in comparison
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Had the interview today. I think it went well... I asked how soon the applicants would be informed, and they replied "By the end of next week", but as the Manager saw me out, she smiled and assured me that "We'll be in touch very soon..!" So I'm hoping.... fingers crossed....
Comments
What, Battersea Power Station...?
Oh no, I see its in Southwark.... I used to live not far from the BPS, but I'm very out of touch with London Life now.....
It's the old Bankside power station in North Southark.
Tate Modern (opposite St Paul's on the Millenial Bridge) has a strong educational focus. It might be worth finding out if this extends to adults. The 'rubbish' is often my favourite work. Art can be elitist, often is cliquey.
To put it in another context, would you consider Tendai Marathon monks, mummified Buddhas or zen sand gardens as an art form, religious sanctioned insanity or perhaps a form of deviancy. Maybe oriental expressionism . . .
Everything has a context.
Anyways . . . pic of pylons that I took last year . . .
shitshitshitshitshitshit.......
~sigh~..... Job-seeking AGAIN......
shitshitshitshit!!!!!!
Keep your head up Aunt Fede....tomorrow is a new day
I understand though, if you feel like smacking the smiley.....hahahaha
you are so talented fed. just need a good luck. wishing you
Bummer! That sucks mate. Wishing you good luck........
How bleedin' annoying that must be!
You have noooo idea....
And no-one is more surprised than I....
I have an interview with a local company this coming Friday 10.30am...
I picked up an application form last night, completed it, and handed it in today at around 11.15am, with my current CV....
I received a phone call inviting me to an interview, at 1.45pm...
Is this a record?
It is in MY book!!
Hot damn!!!!!! Go get 'em!!!!
S'funny because now-ex-boss said "remember though that they don't like enthusiasm. It scares them. They prefer hum-drum run-of-the-mill..."
The Lady from this local company said "We were attracted by the obvious enthusiasm in your application, and CV....."
...So now-ex-boss, put that in your pipe and smoke it....! Hah!!
She's been self-employed for nearly 20 years.... So yes, I think she has a distinctly jaded outlook.
TbH, I really wonder how long her business is going to survive....In this economic climate, she's already talking about finding part-time work, herself....
No!!!
Friday job does sound more suitable though? Sending OODLES of positive vibes your way for the interview. Hope you will update. Hugs x
Thank you, and you betcha!!
New News App from the BBC providing news worth reading . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30796537
Good heavens... now that's a woman after my own heart....
I really do wonder why people bother with fictionbooks and films.Real life is somuch more amazing!
Yeah, people have some amazing stories to tell when you take the trouble to ask them.
I just went to work on a night I was supposed to be off. The parents of the little boy had funny looks on their otherwise welcoming faces, and INSISTED that today is Tuesday -- not Wednesday. Really. I actually had to check my phone!
I'm adjusting very well to night shift work. I'm sleeping great during the day and the typical fatigue of night shift work is simply nonexistent.
But since 'change' is multispangled, what I have lost is my awareness of what day of the week it is.
There has been some media interest on the use of technological gizmos lately, and I think we may have a backlash soon.
They (researchers companies and analysts who study this kind of stuff and gather conclusive data) have discovered that the "average person uses their mobile phone, on average 224 times/day.
Read that again. 224 times.
The worst culprits are those between 18 - 24. And of those, females use their phones for at least a half-hour longer, duing the day, than guys do.
Texts will soon cost more to send than making calls, I guarantee it. Why? because more people text, than speak. So the phone companies are going to determine ways to increase their profits....
Selfies, photos of 'look what we ate last night' and FB/TheMetapicture videos, denote the most prolific use.
Children up to the age of 5 can use a mobile phone before they can speak.
There was also a public discussion programme in which three families exposed the true and real horror of their children being addicted to their appliances, and how difficult it was to wean them off them.
Parents were resorting to confiscation, removing the batteries and even putting cameras in their kids' rooms to catch/prevent them from using their tablets, phones, smart-phones, instead of sleeping.
This was causing real problems, with some children only getting 2 - 4 hours' sleep/night.
One young boy was habitually setting his alarm for 5am, so he could play WoW before needing to go to school...
These three families willingly and readily participated in an controlled experiment and did away with such appliances altogether.
The children experienced severe withdrawal symptoms, described by contributing psychologists as almost identical to those of a drug user...
I'm adding nothing more, except we, as parents, really should pay attention to this and try to modify our children's behaviour - now.... no, I mean, NOW.
My son looks so bored when he does not carry his tablet somewhere, and during his waking hours, the only things he seems to talk about is Minecraft, Clash of Clash, Boom Beach... and his forbidden objects of desire: Call of Duty and GTA, which due to his age are naturally VERBOTEN around the house.
In the summer, kids play outside and this obssession seems easier to keep within manageable bounds, but in winter, it's awful: if children are not gaming, they get bored, and I seem to be like the only mother in the universe who limits gaming time.
So I have to shut up, comply with the general rules and do like the rest of the parents in order not to get my son ostracised by the "weird mom" label.
As a parent, the gaming issue is triggering all sorts of qualms within me.
I feel so lost because it's me against the other-in-my-view-more-permissive parents.
I honestly believe if you were to speak to parents you know (similar ages, with same-age children) they would all voice the same concerns, and agree with you. And I bet they would all also say, "What can you do, but go along with what their peers do...?"
I kid you not, if you were to all get together, discuss this, and make a list of rules, implement them with all of your children, and report back in 2 weeks, you'd all see a massive difference in your children's attitudes and behaviour.
This group of 3 families supplied alternative pastimes and activities; walking, swimming, cycling, playing family games, reading out loud and critiquing the book, joining in with FAMILIAL activities. They REPLACED the electronic stuff with human interaction.
It took a couple of weeks, but goodness, the changes they saw in their families' relationships was a real eye-opener!!
Why not try it...?
My 12 year old daughter must be an anomaly. She gets bored with her smartphone and often forgets to charge it, to my chagrin, since I sometimes can't reach her when I want to. All she wants to do is draw! Artists! Sheesh! lol
@Federica said:
This reminds me of an article I read thanks to Facebook (it figures!), written by a journalist who's taken on the problem of addiction from a more compassionate angle. In a nutshell, addiction is not an effect of using even the most addicting drugs (opiates, alcohol or 'downers'). A person has to be in a state of emotional isolation, this journalist says, for 'addiction' to happen, and that includes the physiology of addiction. This is complete NEWS to me, having worked in the field as a nurse fwiw.
Mice given a choice between plain water and cocaine water chose only the cocaine water until they blew their teensy little hearts up. But these same mice were stuck in an ugly, in hospitable cage with no mice toys or other mice to relate to. So another researcher set up the same two 'solutions' in a mouse Disneyland of other mice, things to do and chew, stimulating toys and environments. The mice ignored the cocaine water.
Children becoming 'addicted' to their phones means SOMETHING about a lack of relationship and isolation, wouldn't you say? And children who use their gizmos 'appropriately' rather than being glued to them perhaps are experiencing more interpersonal warmth, stimulation and ??? Food for thought.
>
I'm certain most parents would recoil in horror at the suggestion that there is a 'lack of relationship, and isolation'.
They would probably feel this is an unfair accusation, and protest that they love their children, and the isolation is self-inflicted.
While I completely understand and empathise with their outrage at such an accusation, I think it would, under scrutiny be a case of "Unconsciously misplaced" love, and an inability to know how to now deal with the situation.
We love our children.
We give them everything we can to make them happy, keep them level with their peers (children can be so thoughtlessly prejudiced and critical) and help them keep abreast of modern trends.
And we do this because we care so much for them, and want them to have whatever it's possible for us to give them...
Undoing the "harm" hurts us, because not only do we see we have inadvertently made our children 'suffer' we also feel enormous guilt for not doing things right, when we thought we were doing exactly that.
My grandson is one who has been taught by his parents to use gizmos 'appropriately'.
He loves books, he adores games, he thrives on his little bike - but he loves playing a game on the system with his dad and mum... but they have a clock, and when the big hand is ~here~ and the little hand is on ~this~ number, the game stops.
And often, it is he who says 'hurry up daddy, you haven't got long!"
Sadly, those children have hitherto been in the minority.
maybe 'new' parents are getting more wise to this now....
I dunno.....
You helped me get more clear on what I was thinking. I said something about isolation versus a happy-enough environment may, like the mice (our distant proto primate ancestors) we go for the cocaine water when 'where we are' is chronically uncomfortable.
I wasn't thinking of anything like neglect but something a lot more subtle, not caused by parents but caused by our culture. I think today's kids aren't much different than the Stone age kids, neurologically. We used to live in more silence than noise, have ever so much less novel stimulation. Maybe the addictive behavior with gizmos is a 'retreat' from hyperstimulation? Maybe our brains are struggling in a whole new way?
I think your child who put the limits on gizmo time is exactly right. I got my grandson a refurb iPad and it was so 'cute' how damned fast he picked it up that Mom didn't limit him. Thankfully, the oldish battery wore down fast so it would last about an hour at full charge. She kept the charger in her room and never sent him the memo he could leave it plugged in. I'm sure there ARE neglectful parents who's kids escape this way . . . but that's not what was going through my head. I didn't really know what it was until I read your post and wrote it out
I have a basket in my bedroom that the kids have to check out the nook or the two
Game controllers. No cell phones until 18. All items must be "checked in " at night
Before bed. The list of conditions are posted above the basket.
Just call me the mean mommy.....hahaha...they dont dare bring up the peer stuff...cause
They know they will get a lecture...hahaha
Good on yer!
We don't give the kids the sugar bowl and a spoon and then remonstrate them for eating all the sugar. It makes sense to teach them 'how' to manage themselves with very very yummy things, which now include iPhones and game controllers. Smart mom!
Ad targeting - I love it. Whenever I view an embedded youtube add on this site, I keep getting a pop-up offering to sell me a cheap funeral plan... if not that its a dating agency add, and occassionaly the odd meditation course on CD for £29.99- what does this tell me about the information the ad men have stored about me....
...\lol/...
And in today's news....
Goodness knows what ads I'll have popping up now!!
A rather incongruous combination there.
..."Drop-dead gorgeous"....becomes 'Drop dead, gorgeous!'....?
Oh FFS.....
>
How to objectify arguably one of the world's most prominent HR Lawyers, with one stupid sexist question.
I take a very firm stance on technology similar to that of @Hamsaka (we don't have an xbox or PS4, but do have tablets
- and reject the peers argument for them becoming nobby no mates) and phones for our kids to contact us when we leave them with a baby-sitter, and for my eldest son, who travels home on his own through a less than salubrious part of South London some nights. However, most kids turn up their nose to his phone - and he doesn't get it out unless he has to as he's ashamed of being seen using it.
Anyway, I've gone and got myself 2 magical compost bins (and for the life of me they look like 2 black recycled plastic cones with plastic lids on them - no base required), and they were subsidised by the local council as an initiative to cut down on waste - and the fact that leaving food waste in bins for 2 weeks (yes 2 week collections in our borough) can be rather hazardous and smelly, I took the deal they offered
I've been throwing peelings and scraps of food into them for the last year or two, and they never get full up I tell yer! Today, I visited the one I haven't used for a while and took the lid off to find the top layer had transformed into a seething mass of hundreds nay thousands of wriggling earthworms and beetles and a cloud of little flies.
My conclusion can only be that I have a magic compost heap that transforms waste organic matter into, well, wriggling, crawling and flying but living organic matter and an awful smell...
My next step is to save up for a Zen greenhouse (which appears to be just an aluminium frame interlocked with panels of glass and a glass panelled door, where I can put the magical composted material that remains after it has bequeathed earthworms beetles and flies, into little magical growing pots (for the life of me they appear to be just bits of recycled plastic cones , and although they are much smaller than the compost bins, but are similar in shape and with a perforated base (I expect using similar technology to magic compost bin technology) then I all I have to do is sprinkle a little water on them regularly, pray to the sun-god for sunshine, be a little patient and do the occasional bit of weeding from time to time and hey presto: apparently you can magically produce food and flowers! And I am also told by elders that pottering in a greenhouse grants a great deal of pleasure to you and the people around you - probably by keeping you out of their way. Now that really is awesome magically transformative technology. And appears so simple in it's construction!
Don't you just get overwhelmed by the advances in technology around us!? Yet, all I appear to do is transform the products of these magical technologies into S*@T which I just flush down the toilet, which is another wonderfully magical technological device - now you see it - splash - now you don't...
...\lol/...
btw I love this ittle image I took a screenshot of:
its all in the heart and eyes ...\lol/...
@Anataman, I get excited about composting and the chemical magic of it too. Either we are too easily amused or Buddhism really does bring forth the sheer wonder of the most mundane things of life
I like giraffes.
@Amthorn said:
There is an open range zoo about twenty minutes from where I live with giraffes, ostriches, hippos, lions etc. I take my kids there occasionally.
I always remember being at an open house mansion several years ago that overlooks the zoo. I was walking around and noticed two guys standing and staring at the giraffes down below.
One pulled me up and asked (with an English accent) "I didnt know you had giraffes in Australia?" The poor guy thought they were just wandering about in the bush!
I read that hippos kill thousands of people a year whereas sharks kill about 5 per year!
I saw something like that on Facebook. Cows kill 22 people a year, horses kill seven or eight, and yeah, hippos kills a LOT of people in comparison
Good plan.
Had the interview today. I think it went well... I asked how soon the applicants would be informed, and they replied "By the end of next week", but as the Manager saw me out, she smiled and assured me that "We'll be in touch very soon..!" So I'm hoping.... fingers crossed....
Yeah but people kill an awful lot of cows.