You have one minute to teach someone something new. What is it?

Could be something you know from work, one of your hobbies or just a fun factoid you’ve learned.

Blade safety.

  1. If you have to carry a bladed object (kitchen knife, scissors, etc.) hold it by the blade. You fall, you’re less likely to injure yourself or someone else.

  2. Using a sharp knife is far safer than using a dull one.

  3. Cut towards you, not away.

  4. If something falls in the kitchen, don’t try and catch it. It’s mostly likely to be sharp.

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A few simple characters that mean the same thing in Chinese and Japanese. It’s fun to demystify the characters a bit.

口 - an open mouth. Means “mouth” or “opening” (like in the English “cave mouth”). :lips::grimacing:
人 ー represents a person standing with their legs apart. Means “person, people”:walking_woman:t4:
大 - the same as above, but the person’s arms are stretched wide. Means “big”
入 - a person walking so quickly their long hair is streaming behind them. Means “enter, entrance”.

山 - looks like a tall mountain flanked by two smaller ones. Means “mountain”. :mountain_snow:
出 - mountains piling up on top of more mountains! When this happens, it is time to get out of there! Means “exit, go out”.

入口 - “enter” + “mouth” = entrance door/ doorway
出口 - “exit” + “mouth” = exit door / doorway

門 ー looks like a pair of swinging saloon doors. Means “gate”. :shinto_shrine::door:

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Wait, I’m supposed to cut towards myself??

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Yep, especially when the object is not secured (such as using a box cutter or holding a piece of fruit and cutting it into pieces). This gives you greater control and makes injury to you and others less likely.

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Cpr .

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If something falls in the kitchen, don’t try and catch it. It’s mostly likely to be sharp.
Sharp or very hot!

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(To a friend who both smokes and sews.)
Do not smoke around your fabric. The material will pick up the smoke smell and it will stink!

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If something falls in the kitchen, don’t try and catch it. It’s mostly likely to be sharp.

Unless your cat is underfoot when it falls. I caught that knife by the blade, I still have no sensation in a small part of that finger, and I have no regrets.

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How to pill a cat.

This needs to be a practical demonstration, as how much force you can exert, when, and in exactly which part of the cat’s mouth, is hard to explain.

(A previous cat, Chloe, was hyperthyroid for her last five years or so, and required a daily pill. She never grew reconciled to this.)

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Esperanto is a language invented in the 1800s by a man who believed that if everyone could speak the same language, we’d be able to communicate better and wouldn’t be so confrontational with people of other cultures.

It was created to be very easy to learn and as such is very regular. All nouns end in the letter -o. If it’s plural, it ends in -j - so, -oj for a plural noun. If it’s an adjective it ends in -a, and adjectives agree with the word they’re modifying, so they also take the plural ending. All verbs take the same ending for tense. Despite all this, the word order is very flexible, allowing people from languages with different word orders to adapt the language to suit how they speak.

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The amount of time one spends stepping over cats and balancing things in the kitchen is astronomical.

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I have dozens of factoids but can’t think of any when asked to pick one, just when they come up lol

But here’s a practical life tip:
If you’re tired, like “I haven’t sleep in 24 hours, only got a tease of a nap between tasks and have a full day’s work to go but I’m falling asleep on my feet” sort of tired, find a recliner or lean back in your chair. Close your eyes. Keep them closed for fifteen-twenty minutes. Don’t worry about falling asleep, but don’t open your eyes and just relax and don’t move around.
Even if you don’t nap, this will revive you enough to function for a few more hours. Mythbusters did a test on driving drowsy, and this helped almost as much as a real nap did. It is literally a life saver.

If you feel drowsy and have been tired all day: lean back in the drivers seat and rest first. Then go. Judgement is one of the first things to go when impaired, even if it’s just by lack of sleep. Which means you can’t tell how terribly tired you are until you blink too hard and wake up in a different lane. I’ve had that experience and it’s terrifying and absolutely scared me enough to know where the line of “too tired” is.

So yeah, a pro-tip that I will preach because it has saved my hide with my long commutes and early mornings and busy schedule. (And I can’t fall asleep easily so having a go-to that isn’t just “nap” or “more caffeine” is great)

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“Don’t put it down. Put it away.”

This simple advice has stopped me from losing so many items, and generally helps me keep things tidy.

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In the Middle Ages, there was the fuss about witches and them being in league with the Devil. As part of this, the Vatican said that black cats should be killed, because they were associated with witches.

However, if a black cat had even one white hair, this saved their life. It was known as the “Angel Mark”, and showed that the cat had been touched by an angel, so the cat was spared.

My black cat, Void, has several angel marks.

Link to superstitions about black cats, especially the angel mark.

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This is so interesting, thank you for sharing. It’s shocking how black cats (and dogs) are still stigmatized due to superstitions. Shelters have a really hard time adopting them out.

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A lot of shelters won’t adopt out black cats around Halloween for similar reasons.
Either they’re afraid the cats will be hurt or some people simply want to use them as costume accessories and return them afterwards.

People suck, sometimes. :frowning:

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Does the stigma affect cats that are mostly black, or is it mostly about all-black cats?

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Speaking of cats, the cells that give a cat their fur color start growing on the back of a cat embryo. They slowly start expanding downwards along the sides and up the head as the cat grows. Sometimes, though, they don’t make it all the way. This is why when cats have white patches, they’re most often on the stomachs, chests, noses, and socks; that means the colored coat didn’t make it all the way.

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And while we’re speaking of cat coat colours, the Siamese type ‘points’ colouring is temperature-dependent.

Basically, the colour on the points is the cat’s natural colour, but it gets destroyed by heat, including body heat. So colourpoint cats are born completely white (because wombs are warm!) and then their true colour develops, but only on their cool extremities. This also means that colourpoint cats in warm countries tend to be paler than colourpoint cats in cool countries.

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