Fossicking and skerrig are related to mining activities, so may be more localized to areas were the gold rush was big. I confirmed they’re actual words.

My parents emigrated from Aus/NZ just before I was born, so I inherited a bunch of weird down-under, outdated vocabulary.

“What are you fossicking around in the pantry for?” “Did you find a few skerrigs of chocolate?” “I need to use the dunny.” “That guy in car dealership was apoplectic.”

Lots of other turns of phrase, but - with the possible exception of “dunny” are legit words.

EDIT: OK. A few others, I still use ‘blasted’ as an adjective. If my kids do something ridiculous, “Jesus wept, child,” sometimes comes out of my mouth. Then a bunch of, “running around like a sprayed blowfly,” or, “wandering around like a lost soul.”

Second one looks good. She has got a bit click-baity, but I found a lot of Thais Gibson’s “Personal Development School” channel on YouTube to be really accessible. She has links to tests, but it’s also useful just listening to her video overviews if the different attachment styles and seeing if you recognise yourself in any of the descriptions. Certainly I was at a loss, watched them, and was like, “Oh shit! Her description of anxious preoccupieds and dismissive avoidance is almost verbatim what I’m dealing with!”

If you are dismissive avoidant, don’t read the comments. There are a lot of butthurt anxious preoccupieds out there. They really do experience DAs like that, but they’ve got their own shit to work out and contribute to the dynamic.

Nosing (instead of reversing) into a parking spot. You always pick the conditions of your arrival, but not always your departure. Also, reversing into traffic is ridiculous and illegal in some places. Parking nose-first is dangerous and lazy.

EDIT: Love how you’re all justifying your bad driving habits. Camera? Still can’t scan for incoming traffic. Bad weather only on occasion? It’s more than bad weather that can make reversing out of a door dangerous.

… and I HATE angle parking.

I’m totally struggling with the mixed units here: potential energy being compared to power. “How much hp does your car have?” “A tank of gas.” Wut?

This line right here: “battery storage equivalent to the output of 20 nuclear reactors.” I suspect the author has considered GW with GW/hr…

These guys are good.

I always get concerned that somehow I have packed hard drugs (I don’t do hard drugs.)

Traditional homes of the Hakka people: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people

Those round houses people are asking about are traditional homes of the Hakka people. IRC they are made that way to be highly defensible. No buff on Chinese history, but they’re ethnic Han Chinese living in the mountains of South of China, and I think there was some animosity.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people

Canadian politics: red, Liberal party (center); blue, Conservative party (right); orange, New Democrat party (left); green, Green party (was kinda conservative, then had a meltdown around identity politics); BQ are kind of French separatists.

I’ve had members of the Métis community tell me to use “indigenous” with a mixed group because in Canada the Métis and the Inuit don’t fall under the Indian Act.

That escalated quickly.

Never trust a Campbell.

It’s other common name is the European Fat Dormouse.

I don’t see why the need to shame. Some of us like our dormice with some fat on them.

“Had a relationship with …”

Sex with a minor. Hmm … sex with a minor. I could swear we had a word for that.

I often cringe a bit at the rhetoric coming out of the men’s rights corner, but the gender bias around sex with minors in so consistent.

Hydroelectric dams. Pump water uphill when the energy isn’t needed for something else. Hydroelectric is a good variable energy source too. Probably not very efficient, but simple.

I’m not a medical professional, but I’ve got a few in the family and my own experience to go on.

Medical professionals do not seem to respond well to self-diagnosis. I’d stop at the list of symptoms, and then see what they say. If they point in a different direction be ready to hear it, but at that point I’d maybe say something like, “Hmm, Y could be it. I’ve wondered if it might be X, do you think that’s possible?” By asking a question instead of telling them, you’re framing things as them as the expert rather than you being adversarial, or preempting their work.

It’s a bit silly, but as a professional in a different field it is absolutely infuriating how people with one hour of amateur Googling will toe-to-toe with me with years of intensive study. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just some point ego kicks in for just about anybody. Let them be the expert.

I suspect you already know this, but DO NOT ask for particular medications. That’s something people with “drug seeking behavior” do. Ask if there is something that might help. If it’s not what you want, then, “I’ve tried that before and I didn’t find it helped. It’s there something else?” Maybe then you could say something like, “is a ketamine infusion an option?”

As for the clerks at the desk … err on the side of not telling them much, i.e. “I’ve got these three symptoms and I’m really concerned. If this goes on for X more days, I’m going to be in a bad place. Dr. Familyphysician said she wanted me to see Dr. Specialist as soon as possible.” They’re professional gate keepers. Allow them to feel important for helping you. Don’t give them any reason to shut the gate on you. It’s their only real agency. Don’t give them a reason to use it.

Be conscious that there are a lot of problematic patients. A lot. DON’T look like one.

Motivation.

Is it? There are plenty of Jews and plenty of Muslims who are not involved in this and see it as wrong. Plus, that’s such a broad statement as to be meaningless. We could equally say government is the problem, but there aren’t many advocating for anarchy. Or people are the problem. I’d be more inclined to say tribalism is the problem, the very foundation of an “us” vs. “them” mentality. Sometimes assholes pick a fight and call it religious. There’s a strong case to be made that war has become much more brutal and far reaching since the Napoleonic wars and the rise of the nation-state. I mean, we can blame religion … that certainly erases the need to look within ourselves and ask why humans do this to each other.

It’s a bit like pretending Nazism was a German problem and pretending like the same dark forces don’t exist now and in many people everywhere.

There are definitely some religious dickheads, but there are dickheads of all stripes.

If religion is so vile, how do we hold in tension the fact that religious people are often behind the most charity towards the marginalised and disempowered? Atheists talk a good game, but rarely leave their armchairs to do anything positive. Religion can become a tribal marker, but it also is one of the main forces working against tribalism.

Mollusks and arthropods ruled the oceans at this time. The first land plants appeared on land.