What are you doing today?

[betta4ever!]

Deciding where to buy some more canvases, gold leaf sheets (the fake ones of course, first time I'm trying them out), and gesso, which I first heard about yesterday (lol)!

 

[Essjay]

Tomorrow is Mother's Day in the UK, so my younger son, his partner and our grandson are due in about an hour

 

[gwand]

It is Saturday so I will be doing water exchanges on my 3 tanks. The 10 gallon tank has much brown algae, diatoms I think, that will not remit despite several modifications. Today I will remove plants and objects from the tank, wash off the algae, soak in a 10% bleach solution for a 1 minute and then rinse thoroughly before placing back in tank. Any other suggestions?

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Last night some friends and I got to spend several hours playing Irish trad music for a packed house at the local restaurant/watering hole. The highlight of the evening was when two of my kindergarteners showed up with their dad, came right up to the front of the stage, and started dancing, to the loud acclimation of the crowd. We got to make a ton of people very happy, and we got paid rather well for the pleasure. It doesn't get much better than that!

 

[gwand]

Last night some friends and I got to spend several hours playing Irish trad music for a packed house at the local restaurant/watering hole. The highlight of the evening was when two of my kindergarteners showed up with their dad, came right up to the front of the stage, and started dancing, to the loud acclimation of the crowd. We got to make a ton of people very happy, and we got paid rather well for the pleasure. It doesn't get much better than that!

What instrument do you play WB?

 

[WhistlingBadger]

What instrument do you play WB?

In this band I play pennywhistles, bodhran, and sing.

 

[Fishmanic]

I didnt know what bodhran was so I found this on youtube

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I didnt know what bodhran was so I found this on youtube

Yep, that's the one. Mine is prettier than that one. (has to be to compensate for the guy playing it)

 

[emeraldking]

Busy with catching and bagging livebearers for tomorrow's AquaTerra Event. And the labeling is time consuming...
But it's done. So tomorrow, I do hope that it will be good business.

 

[gwand]

Busy with catching and bagging livebearers for tomorrow's AquaTerra Event. And the labeling is time consuming...
But it's done. So tomorrow, I do hope that it will be good business.
View attachment 313887View attachment 313888

What is the Aqua Tera event? I am new to this world.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I don't know what it is either, but I think I want to go. *looks up airline tickets to the Netherlands* *can't comprehend numbers that high*

 

[On_a_dishy]

Daughter (18) has called it off with boyfriend to concentrate on revision for her A level exams, so it's Operation Break-Up support (ice cream, coffee shops, Brad Pitt films...)

 

[jaylach]

Daughter (18) has called it off with boyfriend to concentrate on revision for her A level exams, so it's Operation Break-Up support (ice cream, coffee shops, Brad Pitt films...)

Could also add a bit of pot and issue over... just kidding. Leaving pot out of it ice cream is a good choice. Don't know so much about the Brad Pitt movies as I'm a guy and would go more with Sandra Bullock movies but what the heck?

Seriously a child's breakup thing is always a major thing especially when the child is young. Not sure exactly what 'A level exams' are but it would seem that, if more important than the relationship, the relationship probably was not all that strong.

Bottom line is that I have just gained respect for you for giving your child such support. I SO wish that I had ANY kind of support from my parents when I was 16-18. For instance I was really interested in electronics and early computers but my parents would not allow me to take such special classes so I had to teach myself and I did so. This was way back in the early 1970s, I'm 68. Many years later I am a bit of a computer geek with 5 awards from Microsoft and was invited to the 2009 Microsoft Global Summit with Microsoft paying everything except air fair all without ever taking a computer class although I have taught such classes on the college level. Hmmm, sometimes I wonder if my parents lack of support actually hurt or helped me. The lack of support sort of made me determined to prove them wrong. I'm a bit of a freak with numbers or used to be. When I was in third grade I was doing 2-3 variable algebraic equations.

 

[On_a_dishy]

Could also add a bit of pot and issue over... just kidding. Leaving pot out of it ice cream is a good choice. Don't know so much about the Brad Pitt movies as I'm a guy and would go more with Sandra Bullock movies but what the heck?

Seriously a child's breakup thing is always a major thing especially when the child is young. Not sure exactly what 'A level exams' are but it would seem that, if more important than the relationship, the relationship probably was not all that strong.

Bottom line is that I have just gained respect for you for giving your child such support. I SO wish that I had ANY kind of support from my parents when I was 16-18. For instance I was really interested in electronics and early computers but my parents would not allow me to take such special classes so I had to teach myself and I did so. This was way back in the early 1970s, I'm 68. Many years later I am a bit of a computer geek with 5 awards from Microsoft and was invited to the 2009 Microsoft Global Summit with Microsoft paying everything except air fair all without ever taking a computer class although I have taught such classes on the college level. Hmmm, sometimes I wonder if my parents lack of support actually hurt or helped me. The lack of support sort of made me determined to prove them wrong. I'm a bit of a freak with numbers or used to be. When I was in third grade I was doing 2-3 variable algebraic equations.

Your parents misjudged how computing was going to explode - it's great that you sensed it and carried on regardless! I was at university doing an English degree when Microsoft introduced Windows to the world - so I spent 3 years reading books and handwriting essays and, when I emerged, blinking into a world of word processing, everyone knew how to operate this new technology except for me! I've never quite caught up.
A levels in the UK are the subjects students study, the results of which can get them into university. A levels are graded A*, A, B etc, down to E (or fail, which is a U). I much prefer the US GPA system as ours is so haphazard. For example, a student might get one mark off an A and so end up with a B - the same grade as another student who is only 1 mark off a C at the other end. So you have 2 students with the same grade, but 1 has more in common with A grade students and the other has more in common with C grade students.
Daughter has an offer from Cambridge so she has to throw everything at it. On results day we don't mind if she doesn't get the grades, but we don't want regrets at having not tried. I'm trying to get her interested in fish, but to no avail!

 

[jaylach]

Your parents misjudged how computing was going to explode - it's great that you sensed it and carried on regardless! I was at university doing an English degree when Microsoft introduced Windows to the world - so I spent 3 years reading books and handwriting essays and, when I emerged, blinking into a world of word processing, everyone knew how to operate this new technology except for me! I've never quite caught up.
A levels in the UK are the subjects students study, the results of which can get them into university. A levels are graded A*, A, B etc, down to E (or fail, which is a U). I much prefer the US GPA system as ours is so haphazard. For example, a student might get one mark off an A and so end up with a B - the same grade as another student who is only 1 mark off a C at the other end. So you have 2 students with the same grade, but 1 has more in common with A grade students and the other has more in common with C grade students.
Daughter has an offer from Cambridge so she has to throw everything at it. On results day we don't mind if she doesn't get the grades, but we don't want regrets at having not tried. I'm trying to get her interested in fish, but to no avail!

Oh, it was more than my parents not seeing what was coming. They wanted me to be what they wanted with no regard as to what I wanted. In my preteen years I was always being tested and really wanted no part of it. All I wanted was to know where my baseball glove was. I was forced to miss games to go take another never ending test. During this I was rated at an IQ level of +/- 175 but that meant nothing to me. I finally got out of that by deliberately answering questions wrong even though I knew the right answer.

Sigh, IQ tests... They mean nothing as to how smart you are as they are just what IQ stands for, intelligence quotient, which actually has nothing to do with actual intelligence. It just gives a reference as to how easily you can learn. Yes, I DO learn things easily but only if I have interest. Did my IQ help me teach myself computers? I'm sure that it did but only due to my interest in computers.

I have what may be a strange thought as to teacher/student relationships. I strongly believe that a teacher can teach a student nothing. All a teacher can do is to present information. It is up to the student as to what is done with that presented information. On the other hand, if a student really wants to learn something, a teacher is not needed as the student will find their own way to learn as I did with computers. For example I decided that I didn't just want to use a computer but also want to write my own programs. There was a computer magazine called Compute that published code that you could type in to make simple games and utilities. I would faithfully type in these programs but would stop when something came up that I didn't understand. I would not continue until I did understand. Through this method of learning I ended up writing an early on-line communication program that was used all over the country; this was way back in the days of BBS systems. In the early 1990s I also wrote a graphics program that had features not available in even today's software. I used to write in BASIC and Assembly but no longer do as today's programming has nothing to do with being original. Today's operating systems are so large and inclusive that one no longer actually programs anything new, today you just make system calls. That bores me.

I still do program a little but it is mainly on-line stuff related yo my own web sites. I do HTML which is the heart of normal websites along with JavaScript which is the workhorse of the internet along with being able to do some edits in PHP which is the key in such software as these forums and it is interactive with such things as data bases.

I really often miss the old days when you could actually manipulate the operating system to do what you wanted. You just can't do that today as the OS will refuse to accept without the user manually allowing.