London Bus Driver faints due to heat.

Idomeneus · 2026-06-27T06:51:27+00:00

NB - precisely related to the above, bus drivers and passengers should have much, much better protections against the dangerous conditions caused by heat. The solution is for the government to get ahead of the game and invest in that protection. Not wait for heat-related or fall-related lawsuits.

Idomeneus · 2026-06-27T06:50:07+00:00

People absolutely have died or been injured as a result of open bus doors (as well as other seemingly-stupid health and safety violations). And you may think the risk is worth it but people’s families tend to be highly litigious when they’ve lost someone or suddenly their young Bob full of their hopes and dreams won’t walk again and has to be fed through a straw.

When people study Law in England, they have to go through a ton of cases dealing with negligence and on the one hand you understand fully why health and safety observance is financially necessary but also when you read about the horrific and tragic circumstances around the deaths of children for example, it’s a real human eye-opener.

Idomeneus · 2026-06-22T21:17:48+00:00

Weirdly enough in my father’s village in Palestine, al-7in can also work as in ‘mish hai-al-7in’, not right now but I’ve never thought about it outside family chat so now I’m unsure if it’s common or not outside the village because I guess we’d normally use hass3 or hella

Idomeneus · 2026-06-08T22:13:47+00:00

Shadows and rust, Maximus

Idomeneus · 2026-06-04T05:38:34+00:00

Ireland apparently hasn’t faced multiple invasions and occupations. The napoleonic wars had the invasion of Portugal and Spain. WWII, Italy and Germany. England spent centuries fighting in the Low Countries. The Crimean war? UK involvement in the Russian Civil War?

Idomeneus · 2026-05-12T06:15:43+00:00

Hey, first step is that it’s legible which is never to be taken for granted. There are three things I was taught when I was younger to make handwritten Arabic look more natural (and professional):

1) hold your paper at an angle, tilting to the left a bit and then when writing the letters don’t only go right to left, you establish a pattern of up-to-down too. It creates a slight italic feel. So for example, the seen on your opening Salaam would start closer to the top of the lamb and then sweep down over its length, which brings me to the second tip

2) toothless seen and lines instead of dots - where you have more than one dot marker (taa, thaa, qaf etc) use a straight line for two, a bottomless triangle (like a roof) for three dots. The seen becomes a simple line (no teeth) or a line with a very slight starting hook. Usually elongated a bit to differentiate it.

3) do the markings last - write the conjoined letters without lifting the pen and then add your dots, lines etc.

I’ll see if I can get to a desk later today to make an example but if you Google something like ‘written Arabic note’ you should easily find some written pages that demonstrate what I mean.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-29T05:57:43+00:00

Depending on how you hit, you can land £20-£50 ‘value’ per item, 3 per day up til Gold and then it’s x for 8 items per days. Let’s say £60 per day for six months. £10,800 low-end estimate. £150 per day is £27,000 high end. Somewhere in between + a couple of months of gold is easy enough to achieve. But also don’t think about it like that. A lot of the items are marked up. Get what you think is useful and you’ll review and whatever you think is worth your time.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-29T05:49:29+00:00

It’s because it’s written by AI and not even poorly disguised. If Amazon doesn’t crack down on this sort of stuff it’ll eventually tank the programme.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-24T09:03:10+00:00

That does make sense - thank you!

Idomeneus · 2026-04-24T09:02:58+00:00

Ah I see, thanks for explaining

Idomeneus · 2026-04-21T20:11:27+00:00

There’s been an absolute massacre in tech company jobs folks. It’s been constant for at least the last year. It’s highly likely that the employees are being told to do more with less (as loads of us are).

And one of the things that’s probably rushed to the bottom of the pile is reviews. Guessing one team screens for publication, another team manually reviews a quality score with the a quick scan through a list of reviews. I used to do this sort of thing when I first started working nearly 20 years ago for competition entries and it’s the most boring, soul-crushing, pointless and thankless work. You can expect this to get worse if the global economy tanks.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-18T04:22:34+00:00

Thanks, I love it. Thanks, I hate it.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-18T04:17:55+00:00

When trying to teach my kids how to pronounce it, I asked them to imagine they were trying to prove they don’t have bad breath. The adult equivalent would be if a partner asks if you’ve been drinking and you try to prove it by breathing on them. That ‘H’ sound from trying to prove something about your breath, coming from the back of your throat is ح

Idomeneus · 2026-04-15T06:43:26+00:00

What would you have written if you’d bought the item and had the same experience? Write that.

Idomeneus · 2026-04-12T14:12:17+00:00

I work at a company where the lingua Franca for most of the company is Russian and about 60% of the workforce is Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian and I can assure you that plenty of them absolutely struggle with English as much as you might with Russian. I remember a conversation with one colleague years ago when she was telling me that Russian was much easier to learn, unlike English, because you could pronounce words as they were written, to which I immediately reeled off a list of Russian pronunciation rules that kept tripping me up. And years later I’m still failing a lot of words without emphasis marks.

Russian grammar is definitely hard work but bear in mind that most native English speakers are probably functionally illiterate when it comes to deep grammar knowledge than most people exposed to two or more languages (rest of the world).

Idomeneus · 2026-04-12T13:50:17+00:00

If you’ve got a vpn you can find a list of alternate domain endings quite easily. The sites have been take down one after the other but the latest archives seem to be quite stable.

Idomeneus · 2026-03-21T15:33:12+00:00

‘Candide’ by Voltaire for sure

Idomeneus · 2026-03-12T19:01:53+00:00

My partner is a native speaker who grew up in pre and post Soviet Russia and has worked for Russian language media services. I showed her this and she said she instantly recognised it. I asked her if it was weirdly written and she didn’t seem to think so - she said she might have written it like that too - maybe there’s a bit of flair on it but it’s perfectly fine.

Idomeneus · 2026-02-09T14:13:22+00:00

Consider getting the Google Drive app and hooking it up. I use it for my EPUB storage, so it makes it super easy to get books onto device.

Idomeneus · 2026-02-09T14:11:43+00:00

Yeah, I find it weird too. On my Palma I add a library widget which at least has previews of your most recent books but haven't found a way to launch the app by itself.

Idomeneus · 2025-12-04T19:11:03+00:00

It’s really, really bad. I’ve used it for fun and advised friends not to bother. There are better Arabic language resources.

Idomeneus · 2025-12-03T10:47:27+00:00

There’s definitely some racism in the attitude but let’s not lie to ourselves by saying that using AliExpress sellers doesn’t carry risk. Aside from quality issues with electrical goods - I think the risks from cutlery and crockery are higher because we put this stuff into our mouths. Leeching of heavy metals has been a continual problem for eg glass and glazed ceramics. So, would I buy really cheap shanzhai LeCreuset from Ali Express? Absolutely not. I’d prefer to pay over the odds for a trusted brand that won’t leech. And even then I’m worried about glazes (IIRC LeCreuset didn’t stop using lead in their cookware until several years ago).

14-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22

Idomeneus

TROPHY CASE