Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

4 minutes ago, Grizz said:

thank goodness it is not only me…

I was wondering if it was something to do with the Edge browser now with added AI.

I often hit the comma “key” on this iPad instead of the space bar. Perhaps, I could suggest it as a new thing, the Essex comma. 

[PhilJ W]

I have been wearing the knee supports all day with no aches or pains whatever. The proof of the pudding will come tomorrow when I do my next shop in Tess Coes. 

[Hroth]

Both my android tablets are showing signs of artificial stupidity too.  I think they're trying to wear us down...

 

[Grizz]

12 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I have been wearing the knee supports all day with no aches or pains whatever. The proof of the pudding will come tomorrow when I do my next shop in Tess Coes. 

ah but will the knee supports be as good tomorrow when you put clothes on? 😂

[Coombe Barton]

10 minutes ago, Grizz said:

ah but will the knee supports be as good tomorrow when you put clothes on? 😂

How do you know he's not just going to streak in Tesco? 

Apart from the knee supports, of course.

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, DaveF said:

For some reason pages 12727 and 12728 have identical posts.

...

Edit - Now I have posted this, at the top of page 12729 pages 12727 and 12728 are no longer the same posts. 

Dave this is exactly the sort of thing I observed the other day. It all sorted itself out like it has for you.

[The Lurker]

Hope that Stewart makes a good recovery from his stroke.

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

But i’m not sure why you are railing against things like bean sprouts - which add a nice refreshing crunch to Chinese inspired stir-fries.

Due to their particular growing conditions, bean and alfalfa sprouts are the sort of produce most likely to be contaminated with bacteria.

 

Having said that, yes, bean sprouts are nice. I never saw the point of alfalfa (or similar) sprouts. They started to appear on Aussie hamburgers with "the works"- presumably to make that appear healthier. On top of bacon and fried egg they could only contribute a potential bacteria vector, rather than offer any health benefit.

 

Edited February 11 by Ozexpatriate

[TheQ]

With a new tablet running version 13, I've been having all sorts of problems with the spell checker, with strange functions and changes they've done to android, not knowing if it's also weird functions of this tablet.

[Hroth]

10 minutes ago, TheQ said:

With a new tablet running version 13, I've been having all sorts of problems with the spell checker, with strange functions and changes they've done to android, not knowing if it's also weird functions of this tablet.

 

One of mine has 12, one has 13.  Both insist on "helping" in much the same way.  As they theoretically come from different manufacturers (Lenovo and Samsung*) I'd assume that it's an Android "thing".

 

* Unless they all come off the belt at an anonymous manufactory and get badge engineered...

 

Edited February 11 by Hroth

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

The autocorrect on this device seems to have gone mad over the last few days.

The latest incarnation of Office 360 has a very aggressive style advisor.

 

For bulleted phrases (which are not necessarily complete sentences) it insists on double underlining in blue every last word not followed by punctuation marks like a period/full stop. I was taught not to use terminating punctuation with such phrases.

 

Any colloquial expression of quantity using softening or approximating words like "pretty" - (pretty much, pretty soon, for example) is now flagged as insufficiently concise or precise, depending on context. It's annoying. I don't know if it has a more 'chill' setting where it just highlights errors that a plainly wrong.

 

58 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I was wondering if it was something to do with the Edge browser now with added AI.

I expect so. I would not be surprised if Copilot is a factor in the changed behaviour you observe.

 

Edited February 11 by Ozexpatriate

[Coombe Barton]

2 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

For bulleted phrases (which are not necessarily complete sentences) it insists on double underlining in blue every last word not followed by punctuation marks like a period/full stop. I was taught not to use terminating punctuation with such phrases.

 

That p155es me off as well.  Apple pages doesn't.

[Ozexpatriate]

6 minutes ago, Hroth said:

* Unless they all come off the belt at an anonymous manufactory and get badge engineered...

Android gets extensively personalized by the equipment provider - certainly Samsung.

 

I would expect this to mostly be in appearance rather than underlying capabilities like spelling or grammar checking.

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It's annoying. I don't know if it has a more 'chill' setting where it just highlights errors that

On whatever version of Word Aditi used  a few years ago she turned everything off. So she managed to produce a 55000 word project with no spelling errors and one minor formatting error in a reference. She is a very good proofreader. One of the external examiners said they like to find a few errors for corrections to prove they had read it! They did ask her to change the title. She had no objections to that at all. 

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Dinner this evening was chicken casserole with dumplings followed by bread and butter pudding. Now I'm going to sit down and watch 'Death in Paradise'.

[Dave Hunt]

Reading the recent posts about food dislikes I must be in a very small ER minority as I really like milk (cold or hot but not just lukewarm), thick custard (hot or cold), rice pudding, tapioca pudding, sago pudding and brussels sprouts (and no, not all together as someone is bound to suggest). I did, however, find school dinners varied from unpleasant through disgusting to inedible so after a short time my lunchtime meal consisted of sandwiches made and packed by Mum or in later years something bought from local shops.  

As for teachers, I did have my share of the whole spectrum from caring and good to sadistic and educationally ineffective. Fortunately I managed to maximise my dealings with the former and ignore the latter so overall I did benefit from the schools I attended, which seems to go for the ex-schoolmates with whom I am still in touch.

 

Dave

[Gwiwer]

3 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

overall I did benefit from the schools I attended, which seems to go for the ex-schoolmates with whom I am still in touch.

In the very long term I have benefitted. 
 

Because all the force-feeding (of lunches, lessons, bullying and abuse) has probably shaped me into a patient, empathetic and calm person. It’s only taken half a century. 
 

If I had been able to test for Asperger’s in my school years I may well have qualified for some form of “special schooling”. Would that have changed anything?  My three nephews all went through that system with the elder two able to join mainstream education at Sixth Form level. The youngest never did. None has much in the way of academic qualifications but all have benefitted greatly from the personal attention they got in very small classes and the vocational training their school excelled in. 
 

Instead I struggled to get the bare minimum of O and A levels required for university, achieved a BSc (Hons) - the only member of my family ever to graduate - but was at all times thought of as “a bit weird” and not befriended by anyone much.
 

Uni was a bit better than school but the only friends I remain in contact with from those days are two lads I met in Sixth Form when they transferred in from other schools and two girls both of whom I got to know as friends of my sister and both of whom I dated early on. At different times!   

 

And there is one chap I met way back in Primary School with whom I am still good friends 60 years on. 
 

 

[RobAllen]

1 hour ago, Dave Hunt said:

Reading the recent posts about food dislikes I must be in a very small ER minority as I really like milk (cold or hot but not just lukewarm), thick custard (hot or cold), rice pudding, tapioca pudding, sago pudding and brussels sprouts (and no, not all together as someone is bound to suggest).

It’s impossible to overstate how good hot custard on treacle pudding or apple crumble is. 

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[The Lurker]

52 minutes ago, RobAllen said:

It’s impossible to overstate how good hot custard on treacle pudding or apple crumble is. 

And there we must agree to disagree- any form of custard, or indeed cream, will ruin treacle pudding or apple crumble IMO. Or any other pudding. 
 

that’s not just a school dinner thing either- my Mum is a great cook but I never wanted her custard either. Neither did she, most of the time! My old man on the other hand is happy to have a little pudding with his custard and equally happy to have the cold custard with his cornflakes the next morning if he can get away with it.

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[jjb1970]

I love Brussels sprouts and bean sprouts, I sometimes have a bowl of buttered sprouts on their own for lunch and a favourite comfort food of mine is bean sprouts stir fried (extremely high heat, very quick) with a sliced onion and garlic. I love raw bean sprouts too, a staple of SE Asian salad type dishes like gadogado. 

Brussels sprouts are a perfect example of how one person's mundane and prosaic is another's exotica. Over here they're a  bit of a luxury and not easy to find. Fresh ones are as rare as rocking horse turd and eye wateringly expensive. Frozen ones appear at Christmas time for sad foreigners like me wanting a taste of home but are still expensive. In fairness Brussels sprouts are one of those vegetables which freezes well.

On the other hand things like fresh dragon fruit, lychee, rambutan and guava are cheap as chips. And the pineapple here is superb, Europe gets most of its pineapples from the Caribbean and Latin America where they have a much sharper taste, pineapples grown in SE Asia are very sweet.

[jjb1970]

More importantly,  I hope Stewart makes a full and swift recovery!

[BR60103]

For junior school (called "public" school over here*) I was in a small town and we had 90 minutes to go home for lunch.  There were no lunch facilities.

High school had a cafeteria where it was possible to buy a hot lunch or salad and a few extras. It was not compulsory and most students brought sandwiches from home. The meals were adequate to good, although the English staff tended to cook the vegetables too long in hot water.

 

Most of our teachers were good and reasonable. There was one who was abusive and threw things. I found out from my father that she was known for that even to the high school staff.

 

* public school to distinguish it from the separate (C******c) school.

[Ozexpatriate]

We've done the 'school dinner' (particularly desserts) conversation before.

 

I cannot eat 'gritty mush' without feeling nauseated. So oatmeal/porridge, runny polenta/grits, rice pudding etc, disgust me. I don't know why. It's entirely a texture thing. I don't mind the taste of many of these things, but after a couple of mouthfuls I feel revolted. I have to assume there is some mental connection with the texture of certain effluvia/ejecta.

 

Smoother consistencies - like mashed potatoes are fine. More dense, like thicker polenta, is great. Baked polenta is even better.

 

Edited February 12 by Ozexpatriate