Random thing you love right now that doesn't deserve its own thread

That's awesome Uni! I remember encouraging you the public speaking. It's so great when it clicks and you can just start rolling out coherent lessons on demand. It's an amazingly useful skill for an instructor/professor.

The 1 on 1, that's the kind of thing that just warms the heart. That's what you are there for, to help the students succeed, and I'm so glad you've found your home.

There is a task in the most recent episode of Taskmaster where a giant, golden pineapple is moored out in the middle of a slow waterway. On top of the big pineapple are little pineapples including an actual pineapple. To retrieve these pineapples the contestants have to stand on a walkway and use supplied tools, including grabbers, fishing nets on poles (all too short) and a small but powerful magnet on the end of a length of rope.

Spoiler:

Several contestants used the magnet whilst not fully appreciating that a) most of the pineapples aren’t magnetic and b) they are standing on a metal walkway with metal railings. Invariably they’d swing the magnet then hear a ‘thunk!’ as the magnet firmly attached to the walkway. One contestant slowly realising the truth of facts a) and b) looked at Alex and said, “You just stood there and watched me try this for ten minutes.”

Brian Blessed as the voice of "Granpy Rabbit" on Peppa Pig is an absolute delight and I love it every time. It's like a ridiculous, over-the-top Shakespearean Gimli the Dwarf on cocaine. 11/10, no notes.

Higgledy wrote:

There is a task in the most recent episode of Taskmaster

Spoiler:

the revelation when each of them found the stuff around the corner was so very good, it's like, did none of y'all WATCH the show before being on it?!

Ranger Rick wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

There is a task in the most recent episode of Taskmaster

Spoiler:

the revelation when each of them found the stuff around the corner was so very good, it's like, did none of y'all WATCH the show before being on it?!

Yeah. That was classic.

I wasn’t feeling this season for the first episode or two because I thought the seasons preceding it were so brilliant but I’m REALLY into it now. There are so many genius tasks and it’s another delightful mix of personalities.

Higgledy wrote:

I wasn’t feeling this season for the first episode or two because I thought the seasons preceding it were so good but I’m so into it now. There are so many genius tasks.

The tasks have been good, and the cast is electric and play off each other really well.

We're also working our way through Taskmaster AU and for being a first season it's pretty fantastic, AU and NZ have both nailed the format while having their own take on it. (AU tasks were actually filmed at the same location as NZ, but the stage portion is filmed in AU).

The host is kind of a dick, though, (and not in the greg davies joking way) but everyone else is A+.

Where are you watching them?

Higgledy wrote:

Where are you watching them?

Why, a whirlwind tour of the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, of course.

I do not like NZ Greg. I think he might be the first person from New Zealand that I haven't liked.

Grabbed this keyboard/mouse combo that support three separate connections. I have the dongle attached to my gaming pc and the bluetooth connected to my Mac Mini and iPad Pro. Working great so far. Now I don't have to have two keyboards on my desk. (I do still have two mice though because I'm still going to use my G602 for games.)

I can also finally ditch the terrible Apple Magic mouse/keyboard.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/produ...

PaladinTom wrote:

Grabbed this keyboard/mouse combo that support three separate connections. I have the dongle attached to my gaming pc and the bluetooth connected to my Mac Mini and iPad Pro. Working great so far. Now I don't have to have two keyboards on my desk. (I do still have two mice though because I'm still going to use my G602 for games.)

I can also finally ditch the terrible Apple Magic mouse/keyboard.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/produ...

You made me think of my recent pc change. My whole setup is now wireless. Wireless keyboard, mouse, and controller. With all of them connected to a single usb hub. So for my work laptop I can plug in one thing and have a full desktop setup. Turned off backlight for my keyboard but otherwise quite happy with this. My headphones are wired but I'm not a monster.

I can also finally ditch the terrible Apple Magic mouse/keyboard.

Burn the heretic!

fangblackbone wrote:
I can also finally ditch the terrible Apple Magic mouse/keyboard.

Burn the heretic!

I didn’t completely hate the keyboard. The keys were nice and clicky, but the whole deck was too flat and I always wish it had risers to angle it up a bit.

That Magic mouse though? Hoo boy I did not get along at all with that ergonomic nightmare. Way too flat and it always just felt… off. I even tried using BetterTouchTool to set cool swipes and gestures but the mouse was just too tiny to reliably use for touch.

I should’ve bought a magic trackpad instead.

PaladinTom wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:
I can also finally ditch the terrible Apple Magic mouse/keyboard.

Burn the heretic!

I didn’t completely hate the keyboard. The keys were nice and clicky, but the whole deck was too flat and I always wish it had risers to angle it up a bit.

I still use my old wired Apple keyboard, even on my PC, mostly because it's so flat and I like the keys.

I'll leave my nerd membership card at the door on my way out.

I was being sarcastic. Apple peripherals are the bane of everyone in IT.

Yup. As a lifelong Calvin & Hobbes fan, I hope that it is one of those things that's totally weird and artsy that I will probably hate but that he obviously loved making. That man gave the world something as close to perfect as makes no difference, walked out on top like a legend, and locked the door behind him so that no one else could come along and ruin it. He deserves to do whatever the f*ck he wants whether I or anyone else likes it or not.

hbi2k wrote:

Yup. As a lifelong Calvin & Hobbes fan, I hope that it is one of those things that's totally weird and artsy that I will probably hate but that he obviously loved making. That man gave the world something as close to perfect as makes no difference, walked out on top like a legend, and locked the door behind him so that no one else could come along and ruin it. He deserves to do whatever the f*ck he wants whether I or anyone else likes it or not.

I'd say you're on the right track:
IMAGE(https://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781524884949/the-mysteries-9781524884949_lg.jpg)

Immediately pre-ordered.

Just a lovely day: mini bbks got up and played Minecraft for an hour letting me lie in to the unheard of hour of 08:30, took them swimming and eldest did a full width of the pool for the first time, mucked about in the back garden before playing a Minecraft board game ( Mojang have an absolute strangle hold on this house) youngest went to bed and just finished a Godzilla film with the eldest a passion we both share. Happy times.

Entering the fifth race in his K-1 series, my son, JT, was tied for second place after steadily improving.

Spoiler:

A note on scoring: The winner of the race gets 10 points, second place gets 9, and down. Every kid who runs gets at least one point. So if 7 kids run, the seventh-place kid gets 4 points, and if 13 kids run everyone after ninth-place gets 1 point.

There was one kid who won every race and had 40 points (hereby known as "The Fast Kid" as he usually smokes everyone by 20 seconds). My son and another kid were tied with 31, but my son has gotten second two weeks in a row and has been much closer to The Fast Kid. So we thought second place was a lock.

Come race day, The Fast Kid isn't there, so we all get excited (we didn't let JT. know the overall scores, but he was excited he could win his last race). JT runs like a champ and wins the race. And with the extra 10 points, wins the series 41-40!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.io/uCWDVSO_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium)

So we run into The Fast Kid later. Turns out he was there to pick up his trophy and root on his older sister. He couldn't run because he had gotten his tonsils out earlier that week. And there were about eight kids in the race. So if The Fast Kid would have just walked the path, he would have won.

Do I feel bad for the Fast Kid? Yes. Am I super proud of my son for being a good sport when we ran into him? Yes again. Am I giving his first real trophy back? Hell NO!

Hey, those are the racing breaks. It would have been a real D-move for that kid to walk just to take a trophy. He had agency in this and chose the high road. Seems like a good kid.

Reminds me of the movie Rush, minus the horrific Kart accident...

After hours of fiddling I finally got the random piece of popcorn hull out from between tooth and gum. Only took brushing 3 times, floss, several sharp objects, and I finally got it out with a mechanical pencil.

Something like Grin Softstx do really well with getting stuff out of gum pockets.

Active noise cancellation.

It’s amazing! How did I get along without it for so many years?

Retroachievements. I can finally track the games I play and see how poorly I stack up against people with the leaderboards on many emulated games I play when not on Xbox Live. I'm impressed and proud of the guys who take care of the retro gaming community, and how they're making it easier for end users like myself to play games I love, and to laugh at how bad I still am at them.

In the "This was almost a loathe" category, I left my Powerbeats Pro earbuds and case in my pocket and they went through the washing machine. But, after letting them dry, they have recovered completely. I am shocked at how waterproof those things were.

That's a result. They are basically splash resistant, nothing more. You got lucky.

Robear wrote:

That's a result. They are basically splash resistant, nothing more. You got lucky.

Rather be lucky than good. I honestly thought I would be somewhere looking for recommendations.

Maybe the case saved them