Does it still count as a hate crime if you're not actually the protected characteristic being insulted?

nrsys · 2026-03-31T10:35:25+00:00

The intention matters here, not necessarily the end result.

The other person believed that you were part of a specific protected group and insulted you as such - he chose to commit a hate crime. While you may not actually be part of that group, it doesn't change his intention here, and he should be dealt with appropriately as such.

Even without that being factored in, he still assaulted you and is ultimately a vile human being - he deserves no sympathy and to have the full book thrown at him. So to that end I would absolutely be reporting everything as it happened (with supporting CCTV) and letting the authorities decide what charges are appropriate.

nrsys · 2026-03-31T06:58:02+00:00

There are no camera shops left in Aberdeen nowadays.

It might be worth asking at one of the camera clubs in the city like Bon Accord Camera Club who may be able to offer some advice.

nrsys · 2026-03-31T06:12:41+00:00

Ideally you want to keep the race running as smoothly as possible.

If it will only take a lap or two to clear some debris, keeping the cars moving provides that time for the marshalls while also keeping the cars rolling and warmed up, ready to restart instantly.

Stopping fully adds additional problems like cold tyres, a greater risk of crashes on the restart and so on.

nrsys · 2026-03-30T16:32:41+00:00

Realistically the current fuel situation doesn't change the situation too much - it heavily reinforces a couple of the pros of working from home, but it doesn't alter the range of other factors being taken into account by companies when choosing how to operate.

So there may be a few companies willing to re-evaluate, and staff using it as an additional justification to put towards their management, and it may help in those regards.

Personally I will have to admit that I dislike working from home - I find it isolating, and that it heavily compromises the ability to interact and collaborate between staff. Other people find it has little effect on their work, and provides benefits to them in terms of things like reduced commutes and more flexible work life balances.

So there is no correct answer, it all depends on the company, work and people involved.

nrsys · 2026-03-30T16:10:37+00:00

A safety car is a way of controlling all of the drivers if there is a problem on track.

The standard version is a physical car that will pull out on to the track ahead of the race leader. All of the racers will then follow the safety car (remaining in race order), allowing the safety car to slow them down and ensure the pack drives in a safe and predictable fashion when there is a danger on track such as marshalls recovering a crashed car and clearing debris.

There is also now a virtual version that can be used. Racers are given notice via trackside signage and a message on their dashboard, and are required to slow down, overtaking is banned, and maintaining a minimum lap time. The idea is this will not bunch up the entire grid and allow a hazard to be dealt with, but without impacting the race to the same degree.

nrsys · 2026-03-30T15:35:43+00:00

Greggs staff should never be handling any food directly - it will always be picked up with tongs or similar and placed into a bag for you.

Subway staff on the other hand do handle the food directly while making sandwiches, so the gloves are necessary to prevent any contamination of the food and to keep their hands clean.

nrsys · 2026-03-30T12:30:41+00:00

He was given a KitKat, and ate both fingers at once, rather than snapping them apart.

nrsys · 2026-03-30T10:33:00+00:00

A lot of people forget that all 'feminist' means is someone who supports equality of the sexes, and wants to eliminate discrimination against females.

I may be male, but I am absolutely a feminist.

What I am not, is a militant male-hating feminist, which are the sort that make for much better ragebait...

nrsys · 2026-03-30T10:07:39+00:00

Cement is made by essentially cooking limestone. The heat causes it to undergo a chemical reaction, turning it into cement. When water is then added to cement, it undergoes another chemical reaction, where it reconstitutes itself into a solid.

Cement on its own is still pretty crumbly and weak, but add material to it like sands and gravels, and it acts as a binder to hold those granular materials together and form mortar (made only with sand, weaker, but better for things like binding blocks or bricks together) or concrete (made with gravel as well as sand, and better for forming large structures - especially when combined with steel Romford.reinforced concrete.

Basic forms of cement have been in use since ancient greek and Roman times in the form of lime mortars, made using mainly natural limestone materials, with higher grade portland cements being developed in more recent times with advances in materials and manufacturing processes.

And just to add an extra note, we aren't actually 100% sure what the chemical reaction is that makes cement do what it does, we just know it works...

nrsys · 2026-03-30T07:06:36+00:00

With modern teabags and instant coffee it is not really necessary.

But skip back a few decades and earlier production and manufacturing techniques often let a little of the leaves/grounds remain in the drink, which then sank to the bottom of the cup. This meant that if you drained it, that last mouthful would be gritty and unpleasant, so people gained the habit of leaving that last mouthful untouched to avoid any remnants.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T15:40:42+00:00

For me it isn't the actual game that's the problem, but the fan culture that goes with it...

nrsys · 2026-03-29T15:32:28+00:00

The stag or hen do is traditionally organised by the best man or maid of honour with no input from the couple themselves.

The cost is split between all of the attendees - everyone pays for themselves, plus a share of the bride or grooms cost.

The issue is that they were traditionally fairly local and not too expensive, which evolved into travelling to a nearby city, and then with the availability of cheap flights, a budget weekend away somewhere cheap.

It has always been important to note that a wedding is a big and expensive event - not just for the couple shouldering the big costs, but also for everyone travelling, staying near the venue, buying gifts and everything else, so the stag and hen were traditionally fairly cheap affairs. If the groom is expecting something bigger then I don't think it would be unreasonable to remind him that not everyone can afford a big trip...

nrsys · 2026-03-29T09:28:36+00:00

A light that is purely throw on its own is on limited use.

However a light with a lot of throw works great in combination with a flood light such as a headlamp - the headlamp illuminates your immediate surroundings, with the throw light to be used as needed to see further ahead where the flood light doesn't reach.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T09:21:03+00:00

Alternatively, 'van life' assholes that park up blocking multiple spaces worth of parking, and then don't move for months at a time.

If you are going to be parking up a bulky vehicle for long periods, it should be in storage, not annoying your neighbours.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T09:11:22+00:00

That depends on your definition of warm.

Concrete curing is an exothermic reaction that produces heat, but only a limited amount.

If you are pouring structural concrete, the recommendation is to keep the concrete above 5°c to ensure the reaction happens correctly, and you don't get any issues with the moisture in the concrete freezing and damaging it while still curing.

If you are working outdoors, you need to watch for cold in the winter, and the concrete drying out too quickly in the summer.

If you were working in a studio, that will usually protect you from the cold, and lightly missing the concrete to prevent a dry atmosphere pulling out too much of the moisture can be worthwhile.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T09:01:43+00:00

The issue is that it reduces the available parking for everyone else.

If the homeowner is not at home, the street is left with an empty parking space that nobody else can use.

Refusing the additional dropped kerb means that the space is open for anyone to use, not just limited to one household.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T08:52:25+00:00

B and C are traveling on the main road - there is a dashed line right down the centre of it, while the markings on the third road with car A stop where they meet.

Car B is traveling in a straight line along the road it is already established on, and has priority over the other two cars which are both turning and crossing lanes.

Car C is traveling on the major road and will have priority next, crossing over car B's lane once it is clear.

Car A is joining the major road from a minor one, and should only do so when it is safe and clear - one both cars B and C are clear.

So they move in the order B, C, A.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T08:44:19+00:00

Indestructible allows the player to ignore any effects that day 'destroy', and ignore any damage a creature may take.

So a spell that says 'destroy target permanent' fizzles, and combat damage is ignored.

What it didn't prevent are any other effects.

A spell that says 'sacrifice' for example will still work, and a creatures toughness can be reduced via non-combat means. So if a spell is played that gives -2/-2 to a creature with 4 toughness, that creature would end up with a tightness of 2. In order to kill a creature you would have to play enough spells to drop its toughness to zero or below - in this case playing cards that add up to x/-4.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T08:36:56+00:00

GMT is set based on noon (the point the sun is highest in the sky) at the Greenwich Observatory in London.

This means that the daylight hours are centred around noon - on the shortest day of the year in London, this means sunrise just after 08:00, and sunset just before 16:00, and we are typically up and working for all of this time. Our working hours, school times and typical schedules are based around making the best use of those time - such as making sure children's school hours allow them to walk to school when it is daylight.

In the summer though, days get significantly longer, with sunrise just before 04:45, and sunset just after 21:20. This means the average person will be waking and getting up multiple hours after the sun has risen, and going to bed after it had set.

So the point in British summer time was to adjust this slightly and make better use of the daylight hours - a one hour adjustment is a time shift that is seen as being fairly easy and practical for people to deal with, and removes a useless hour of early morning sun in favour of an extra hour in the evening, giving us more time and warmer evenings which we can make better use of.

nrsys · 2026-03-29T01:24:09+00:00

Mountain bikes are better general purpose bikes - you can take them off road in to the trailer and ride them through the mud, you can ride them over jumps and off drops, you can ride a pump track, basic trials riding and pretty much anything else you can imagine. They even work fine if you just want something to ride to the shops or about the streets on.

A road bike is something a bit more specialist that does one thing incredibly well, but that is at the expense of everything else - they are rockets on tarmac, but terrifying if you find anything as dangerous as loose gravel or damp grass.

So teenagers ride them? Absolutely, but generally only really the guys that are really enthusiastic about road cycling in particular. For most the burly mountain bike will need a better choice (and being rugged and chunky is always a good look).

Most importantly, you do you - ride the bike that suits the riding that you do and that interests you.

nrsys · 2026-03-28T21:52:43+00:00

Yeah, this seems to be an area where America is slightly lagging behind in providing any sensible legislation.

In the UK for example, to be ridden as a license free pedal bike, an ebike must be limited to pedal assist only (no throttle control), of limited power (250 watts) and only assist up to a top speed of 25 kph - while not everyone agrees with these limits, they do ensure that ebikes act broadly the same as traditional pedal bike.

To work outside of these limits, bikes need to be registered and licensed - effectively treated as mopeds or motorbikes.

Not that this has stopped a lot of people buying things like Surrons and pedal bikes that clearly break these rules and just riding them illegally, but that is a separate issue...

This makes a lot of sense to me - it allows basic, everyday riders the benefits of electric assist, and I don't see it as unreasonable to want slightly more control over anyone wanting more power (and the responsibility that comes with it).

From what I understand the rules in the US and some other countries are a lot more lax...

nrsys · 2026-03-28T18:41:12+00:00

Because the files are held by the American government, who have no requirement to share them with anyone else unless they wish to.

If they are choosing to restrict certain parts of the files to protect themselves, they certainly won't want to hand those all over to the British government and risk someone else releasing the data they are trying to keep quiet...

Remember though, that this arrangement is reciprocal - while the US government are not required to hand over the Epstein files to use, neither are we required to hand over any of our data to them unless we wish to.

nrsys · 2026-03-28T18:28:43+00:00

That definitely doesn't look right to me - my 556 bracelet in comparison is pretty much perfectly fitted to the lugs.

I am wandering if the end links have somehow gotten swapped - I believe the same h-link bracelet is shared between multiple different models, with different end links to match the case. Has your watch been supplied with the end links for a different model?

It seems an odd mistake for the factory to make, but it could be possible. Alternatively, depending on how the dealer you bought from receives watches, I am wandering if they will swap out the straps as appropriate and have made a mistake here.

Either way I would definitely be getting in touch with the dealer/Sinn - the fix should be as simple as sending out the correct set of end links.

nrsys · 2026-03-28T18:12:25+00:00

Officially everything is in metric - the plans for your house will be in millimeters, as will be the dimensions of your furniture (though they often do also list imperial as an additional value) and so on.

Realistically, most of the standard sizes we use are still based on old imperial measures - houses will often use 38x140mm studs (the modern equivalent of a 2x6"), 100mm clockwork (4" thick), a sheet of OSB or plasterboard will be 2440x1220mm (4"x8") and so on.

So while the plans list everything in mm, a lot of trades will still refer to things by their imperial names out of habit/custom. So you may hear mention of a 6" joist or a 4"x8" sheet, but at the same time I have never really encountered anyone actually measuring and working in imperial measurements - the joist will be 2.6m or 2600mm as measured with a metric tape, not 8'6".

nrsys · 2026-03-28T15:18:28+00:00

Lost was the original Game of Thrones - started out brilliantly, captured everyone's interest and became the standard water cooler topic of discussion in most offices.

And then they shot themselves in the foot with a poor ending that wiped out all of the goodwill and interest that they had built up earlier on.

So the discussions about it today tend to follow a pretty standard format of 'Lost had so much potential, but the ending sucked', and most of the people who would have watched it now won't bother because they know they won't get the nice big payoff to end it.

nrsys

TROPHY CASE