On the revert reds, TWICE this week I had revert reds happen to me (once I rolled off the dots too soon and the other I wasn't in the right place and forgot I wouldn't get my signal that way) and BOTH TIMES the motorists at the cross streets waved me to go through the intersection anyway. It was very nice.
I think that the first time (Kenilworth/Holland) the guy saw me swear up a storm when I saw it revert red lol
@ksawatsky It's trying to solve traffic not going vroom vroom fast at every possible moment forever and ever and that is all.
It's not even about bikes and the dots - it's a mechanism that is set up for cars that bikes also use and basically meant to stop the light change when a car is only on the sensor to turn right. Bikes are just also part of the mechanism because it's easier and cheaper than doing it properly (streetside buttons)
The thing that really gets me about Israel's war on Gaza is thinking about the absolutely tiny size of the Gaza Strip.
To put it into perspective, the Gaza Strip is 41km long. That is about the width of Ottawa from the river to the edge, so it's like Centretown is Gaza City and everyone going into Rafah is like we're all Beckett's Corner, across the river from Kemptville.
It's like if Gaza City was Orleans and all moved over to the distance to Rafah in Stittsville.
And really we're talking a much narrower width, since Gaza is about 12km across at its maximum. We're talking two million people in the space from Orleans to Stittsville and from the river to the airport, basically.
I intentionally posted a couple of photos without alt text from the mastodon app on my phone, intending to delete and redraft a post from my computer so I could just type the alt text on a keyboard (I find the alt text adding process on the app tedious and hard to adjust) and the app reminded me that my photos had no alt text. I'd never noticed that before because I always add alt texts, I guess!
Other than the semi-frustration of adding alt texts in the app, I like the standard mastodon app. It does the job. I wish it had access to settings like filters and such, but I don't mind dealing with that kind of stuff on an actual computer.
I think I might be An Old now because I have been increasingly finding typing on my phone to just be really tedious and really prefer a computer.
@casseagull I'm still on team bring-back-keyboard-phones, but now we've lost headphone jacks and I'm pretty sure I'm just going further and further onto the losing team.
I also made paneer on Friday for dinner last night and browned it in our air fryer, which worked a treat.
We made chicken tikka masala, palak paneer (spinach and paneer cheese curry) and baigan bharta (eggplant curry) and had them with some homemade mango chutney.
I am odd in that when I go on vacation I most miss cooking meals and my commute to work.
I am basically incapable of following recipes as written and it makes sharing them with other people hard because I've inevitably made at least five changes.
First day back at work after being on vacation for the last 2.5 weeks, so of course I forgot my pass when I went into the office, which also means I forgot my frigging locker key and don't have access to my keyboard and mouse or my cutlery for eating my lunch or my water bottle. HECK.
@casseagull wearing sweaty & smelly bike clothes... don't forget the cleats...smeared with chocalate pudding...dazed and unable to communicate due to overwhelming noise and carpet chemical exposures..time for cozy in person meetings in the smallest meeting closets.
I grew seedlings this year in a makeshift grow station in our basement, which is just one of those heavy duty plastic utility shelves and LED grow lights and I am so pleased with how (some of, at least) my plants turned out.
I started the seeds in takeout containers with lids to keep the moisture in, then opened them once they sprouted. I then graduated the larger seedlings to paper pots I made so they could grow even larger and now I am working on hardening them off over the next two weeks.
Got the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis in the ground today. I’m particularly sensitive about my zucchinis, as either the weather or the local wind life have thwarted my attempts to grow them so we got a protective cover for them this year and I wrapped their stems in foil in the hopes of preventing squash vine borers. Fingers crossed.
I went to the Friends of the Central Experimental Farm plant sale today and was fairly disappointed. It was too much pushy Important Gardening Ladies for a not very interesting selection.
I was hoping for a good number of native plants too and there was only one table that also wanted $25 apiece for trilliums (!!!!)
But if you see trilliums with flowers on them for sale at less than $20/each, it's a good sign they were dug from the wild. These plants take many years to grow big enough to bloom, and that's not something a grower can manage for $5-$10 a pot.
Yeah, why can't you all shut up about the genocide of Palestinians and just enjoy your bread and circuses... okay, well, the bread is too expensive for lots of people right too, so at least your circuses!
We're also going to throw this LGBTQ+ reference in here to make it seem like your choice is also a little homo- and transphobic.
Here also is an angelic photo of the contestant from genocidal Israel and an unquestioned statement about people being pissed that genocidal Israel - which isn't even fucking IN Europe! - is in Eurovision, given said genocide, is antisemitic (it's not! Israel is committing genocide and that is shitty, no matter what religion they are)
Something you could be doing to support student protesters’ encampments and demands at your alma mater is write a letter to your university’s president voicing your support for the demands and shame that your university is invested in funding genocide.
Next I plan to look into what my bank (credit union) is investing in and to figure out how to contact the public service superannuation fund to request they divest from anything on the BDS list (see link) and any weapons manufacturers. https://bdsmovement.net/get-involved/what-to-boycott
My toxic trait is that in other currencies I always refer to the single note coins as loons and the double note coins as toons. Euro loon, euro toon. Pound loon, pound toon. 🤷♀️
Some friends’ son is cat and house sitting for us while we’re gone and while I am sure he’s doing a great job MAN is it hard to get proactive information from a 20 year old guy. We ask about the cats and he offers zero additional information besides that they’re good or whatever. It’s honestly hilarious how on brand it is for guys of his age.
The last time I was in England for any length of time was almost 20 years ago (how am I even old enough for that to be the case???). I remember that I made tacos for the family I was staying with (I was obsessed even then) and finding the ingredients for it was quite hard - I had to make a lot of replacements. Now there are Mexican and Thai and even bubble tea places in tiny little seaside towns in the north east. It’s quite a change.
I found Sainsbury’s GF sandwich today, in a train station of all places (a GF grab and go in a transport hub is an extreme level of difficulty normally!) and one of them is egg and cress. Yum.
We were running late because we had a hard time getting a cab and I almost cried that they just had a sandwich for me. In the Ottawa airport my only real option was such that was more than $20 and was a contender for the worst sushi I have ever had.