I'm fine. No offense to anyone here intended, it's a wonderful online community; but I made a deliberate decision a while back, to avoid hubski and a few other online reading sources that I was a little addicted to, in favour of re-claiming some of my free time for more deliberate reading (i.e real books), and listening to music. Some recent examples are The Expanse books, and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (both recommended). As far as point two, sadly, I have not had bees for the last two seasons. I may install a swarm this Spring if one presents itself, though. Would be nice to have some girls around the house again. Thanks for asking :-)

No, I'm not... :-)

Who knows? It doesn't freeze here, so they do some foraging all winter, here. Colder places they only fly to collect water occaisionally in winter, and spend a lot more energy (honey) generating heat with physical activity.

Yeah, they hunker down and don't forage as much. Also since they aren't as busy, they get grumpy faster. Best time to open a hive is a fine Spring day when they are busy as, well, bees :-)

Most will never experience it, but there's nothing quite like the smell of a healthy, busy beehive. Very complex and hard to describe, but extremely pleasant. Honey and beeswax and flowers and earth. It's mid-winter here but now I have a desire to crack the hive open anyway (it's unusual to open a hive in the winter).

And there's this as well : The Dr. Seuss version

e.g. First result for 'hubski briandmyers search' is this :

Just hubski plus whatever is usually enough.

I can't recommend "Dark Tower", frankly. "The Stand" was great, as I remember it, except for the deus-ex-machina ending, which seemed bolted on - but the story up to the ending made the game worth the candle. However, a much younger 'me' read that, so take it as you will. I have not read the extended version.

Your description of "It" reads a lot like how I'd describe his "Dark Tower" series - an enjoyable read (if you like King), but not very deep, and a little unsatisfying. I'm interested to see what the film looks like, though - I think it could translate well. I've heard they have lined up Idris Elba as the gunslinger.

As always, an enjoyable review - thanks.

I keep seeing references to 'IT' (admittedly, at least a couple from KB). It's been on my list for a while now, and probably the only King blockbuster I haven't read. I think I'll pick that up, when I finish what

I'm on now ("The Count of Monte Cristo" - one chapter in, and captivated).

Recently finished 'Blindsight' by Watts, which I believe was reviewed on hubski. Interesting ideas were explored, but the writing and the story didn't do it for me.

Also recent : "The Stranger" by Camus. Maybe I just didn't 'get it' but I was underwhelmed. At least it was short.

"Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger. Rubbish. At least it was short.

True story - a friend of mine used to have an MR2 and was involved with a local MR2 car club; so he had a bumper sticker on it, which displayed their web address : "mr2.org.nz".

My wife saw it and asked me "Why does he have a bumper sticker that says 'Mister Two Organs' ?"

Ah yes - the best Star Trek film of them all.

You are correct! From "The picture of Dorian Gray" (and it's 'lifelong passion', but I only know that because I googled it).

I know nothing about automatic transmissions, but I'm pretty sure in this case, it's nothing to do with Boolean algebra - he's saying it's Boolean in the sense of 1/0, on/off, yes/no - i.e. in contrast to fuzzy logic. Boolean logic yields ON or OFF only, whereas fuzzy logic can supply a range of values, which might be interpreted as "cold", or "near".

Don't ask me why, but I kinda like this (it's a remake of an old Sun Ra piece - Rocket Number Nine).

[edit] And holy crap, only 18 views!]

I like Nirvana ...

Frank Zappa maybe. Smart guy, very prolific, very influential.

Those books look awesome.

'Cenotaph' is one of the words I'd never come across before moving to NZ; there's a prominent one at Auckland's war memorial museum.

Thanks for taking the time to share this, it made my day. Have a badge.

I suspect it's more a case of sobering up, and not sugar. The normal metabolism of ethanol does not appear to yield any sugars at any point (but I am not an expert).

There's quite a bit of evidence that suggests there's no such thing as a sugar rush in any case; but I know from experience that very few people will ever believe that.

Consumption of ethanol lowers blood sugar though - does not increase it.

Liqueurs often have a lot of sugar in them (schnapps etc), but spirits, wine and beer have nearly none. Maybe you're thinking of carbs?

Programming can be a great career, you just want to master an application domain

This meshes with my experience. My niche is embedded programming. It's not glamourous, and you don't get to use cool new languages -99% of what I've done in my career has been in plain old 'C'; but if you have the knack, there's always work to be found, and it's always different. It's been good to me.

In 1971, an accidental release of weaponized smallpox from the island infected ten people, of whom 3 died.

So yeah, it doesn't even need to escape a lab. Feral campers could do the job.

You do realise that they don't vaccinate for it any more, right? And they have not, for many many years (because the vaccine itself is not risk-free).

All it has to do is escape the lab (not likely UNLESS some lab tech does something stupid) and remain undetected long enough to spread. Low, but definitely not nil, odds.

$30 a month for a phone plan with no data? Seems high (but maybe that includes a free phone, or something?)

I pay $16 per month - NZ dollars, about $11 US; I get 500 MB data (which rolls over if unused, good for up to 12 months), plus I get 100 rollover minutes to NZ and AU per month; unlimited texts to NZ and AU; unlimited minutes to calls to the same provider; and most international calls are 6 cents per minute. But I pay about twice what you do for monthly internet + VOIP landline (fiber with a 500G data limit, with a small extra charge for going over).