A scorpion. It stung me between my toes and it was not a big one but hurt pretty bad. I went to the emergency and what scared me more than the sting was the nurse's insisting on injecting the antidote right where the little guy had u stung. The pain subsided in an hour or so but it felt like I had a bad case of pins and needles on that for for the next few days, incessantly.

Someone had to do it, so here it is, copied from that place that we have now left:

One morning to spice things up, teacher decided to have a classroom drawing project. One person would start, then the next student would add to the drawing. She asked the students who wanted to start first, so little Johnny raised his hand. Knowing little Johnny had a disturbed mind, she decided to pick Suzie first.

["I drew a box on the ground!"] (https://i.imgur.com/PicyJVo.jpeg) Proclaimed little Suzie.

The teacher said it was a great start, and asked the next student to add on. Ignoring little Johnny teacher chose Billy.

"I turned the box into a house!"

The teacher thought it was wonderful, and went on to Timmy.

"I added the sun to shine down onto the house!"

"Excellent" replied teacher. Still ignoring Johnny the teacher chose Jenny next.

"I added some snow on the roof because it's been such a snowy winter!"

By this point like Johnny could barely control himself. Teacher thought there was no way Johnny could ever turn this into a dirty picture, so he allowed him up to the chalk board.

"This is my dad bending over in the shower to pick up the soap!"

Yes, i think squid proxy would do the trick too. It even has installers for windows.

Look at the silver lining. At least their computers must have escaped the recent windows BSOD.

I cannot complain about this. I grew up in a small settlement and while my parents encouraged my scientific temperament, we were too poor to travel anywhere just to see an eclipse. One of the best celestial show comes around and my town is right in the middle of 22km wide line of totality and we got 45 glorious seconds of darkness. Those 45 seconds cemented my love for space.

Sites like Anna's library should permit users to flag books without OCR and permit users to submit OCR version of the books.

I just want you to consider one more aspect of it. I've seen this discussed and backed up with scientific articles but I'm too lazy to find and include them in my post. Basically, all your cravings originate from your gut and your gut is ruled by the bacteria that have made your gut their home over the years. You've colonized your gut with a particular set of bacteria by giving them what you eat.

Now, if you change that food pattern, these bacteria, that control the gut, will make your body release chemicals that will make you crave for food that will keep them alive. Realise this and act accordingly. Being conscious about it has helped me overcome many food related 'addictions' i had like that of soda, of wafers. I still fall prey when I consume sweets continuously for a few days during festivities. Everytime it is the same struggle against the cravings, but I realise I'm just fighting against the settlers in my gut, brave it for a few days and notice my cravings become dull over time. Probiotics like kimchi, saurkraut, kefir, kombucha etc. help to some extent but ultimately it is more of a mind game.

Make what you will from my advice, but it does work for me. I wish you all the best in your fight against your gut settlers.

It's been many years since I read it but the 'explanation' in Lee Smolin's 'The Life of the Cosmos' sounds the most convincing to me.

I'm the book, as far as I understood it, he suggests that theory of evolution applies on the biggest scales too. New universes form when a black hole collapses. Our Universe is just one of the universes that all have slightly changed values of the universal constants, like the way evolution works. There are many universal or physical constants in science, some of the most widely recognized being the speed of light in vacuum c, the gravitational constant G, the Planck constant h, the electric constant ε0, and the elementary charge e.

There is a very narrow range of these constants where 'normal stuff' of the universe like formation of matter can happen and heat death of the universe can be avoided. We just happen to be in the right universe with the perfectly balanced constants, in the right corner of it, at optimal distance to an optimally sized star, tilted at an optimal angle, with a moon at the right distance to help evolve life capable of developing a fediverse where we can mull this over.

Evolution, nothing special about it.

Would you, at least, agree that the background musical scores are amazing?

I don't know what it actually means but the scientific name of Indian Cobra is Naja naja and in Hindi "naja" means "Don't go", which seems very apt.

I have hosted Jitsi publicly for my organisation for a bit and all the while I was hosting it, there was not much difference between it and the one hosted by Jitsi. Sometimes the add-ons like etherpad etc are a bit of a hassle to configure. Sometimes these features offered by the online service are an iteration or two ahead since the folks at Jitsi are actively developing it and have access to alpha/beta builds that are a trouble to implement locally.

Since you are already considering the privacy concerns, there is nothing much remaining. Maybe uptime concerns if third parties are going to use your service too and will shout at you if they can't access your service.

I also dabbled with hosting it through OpenFire which gives you more granular control over scheduling the meetings. Maybe you could explore that too.

Overall it is a fun thing and you feel fully in control.

I met all of you cool guys here. Witness me!