The days are long, but the years are short. My childhood took a huge amount of time to pass. My child’s seems to be flying past at warp speed.

They rapidly become far more of a fully fledged person when they hit school age. Mines a few years ahead, and they are now awesome to interact with.

Depending on how I measure it, either becoming a dad, or founding a community group that has changed quite a few people’s lives for the better.

The horrors persist, but so do I!

It would technically be false imprisonment in most places. Kidnapping would require taking you away/hiding you.

The other option is “Jon Withanhache”. You can then complain they spelt it wrong too.

Not infinite. Eventually they begin to overlap and are no longer distinct rainbows.

It’s related to the number of total internal reflections inside a raindrop. The 2nd rainbow is actually inverted, colour wise. The 3rd inverts again, and so is normal. Each reflection loses more light however, so it gets dimmer. 3 is the practical limit in the sky, with our eyes. In the lab version, at least 18 rainbows can be detected, even by undergraduate level students!

I remember when the smoking ban came in. A lot of local pubs had to do emergency renovations. It turns out, without the cigarette smoke, people could smell how bad the carpet etc were!

I watched a documentary on it a while back. Basically, baby talk actually follows a lot of rules religiously, that often gets blurred in normal speech. This lets babies lock on to the rules faster. The sounds are also emphasised. This makes mouth movements more obvious, and gives a better reference for practice. It also includes a lot of repetition, which also helps with practicing hearing words, rather than just sounds. The sing song nature also acts as an indicator. This talking is for you to learn from.

Once they start speaking however, you want to transition to full sentences. The sing song nature can hang around, along with slightly simplified language. Think of it like training wheels. Great for early learning, but a detriment if left in use too long.

Mine was reliably responding to commands at around 3 months. About 6 months for first words. They were talking in full sentences happily about 18 months (I think. We didn’t get full night sleeping till gone 24 months. The period is slightly blurry.)

Baby talk has its place. It’s structured to help with learning to talk. It also acts as an indicator “pay attention to this”. The mistake most parents make is continuing it too long. Once they start talking, shift out of it to full sentences etc.

That said, if they only hear you talking baby talk, you’re doing them a disservice. They need both.

In the OP, the baby likely just wanted more attention. Non-baby talk = less attention, in their mind.

It’s not for everyone. The continuous grind is exhausting. However, having a little bit of your soul outside your body, and vulnerable, has an incredible effect on your motivation. I find myself happy to push through exhaustion to set something up for my little minion. For them it’s a fun activity for an hour. For me, it’s several hours of work to give them a fun experience.

A relative was caught out recently. They pretended to be the bank. I missed the beginning, but what I heard sounded extremely professional, and exactly like a bank employee. It was only when they seemed confused I paid more attention. I jumped in rapidly when they gave them a code they got via text. By that point they had practically forgotten that the scammer called them, not them calling the bank.

I immediately put a stop to it. Even when ending the call, they were calm and professional. I told them that we needed to call them back on a confirmed number. And got a bunch of details in case it was real. I still wasn’t sure at that point if it was actually a scam or just our bank having a REALLY bad procedure.

Long story short, it was a scam, and the bank confirmed it. I don’t know if they managed to cancel the gift cards in time. However it was a credit card, so that was between the bank and the supermarket who sold them.

I personally wouldn’t have fallen for that one. I’ve got a bunch of mental “hell no” filters. Outside of those however, it was more professional than the conversation with the bank’s actual fraud department.

Unfortunately pessimistic can still be right. At least it’s on its way.

I got the shipping notification (tracking code generated). 2nd day afterwards, I got an update, out for delivery. The 6-10 days seems to be a pessimistic estimate.

Not really. The biggest issue is motion sickness. A lot of games have you teleport around for that reason. I can personally handle it quite well, but some games still mess me up e.g. subnortica.

That said, some people do have eyes that are slightly off level with each other. That can cause interesting problems for them. It’s not hugely common however.

They seem to be going out in batches. I was lucky enough to get an early one in the UK.

It runs perfectly, best I can tell. I did have some setup issues streaming it from my computer. I wanted a repeat view for others to watch.

It runs fine on a power bank. It’s happy charging and playing simultaneously. I clocked about 15W when it was on but idling, with 50% battery.

I drive a van in the UK (work related). I suspect bringing SUVs into the same rules as vans would be remarkably effective. They are often the same weight already.

Basically, vans have 10mph knocked off national speed limit roads (50 on single, 60 on duel carriageways). Apply the same to SUVs (and enforce it!).

Those who need them can still buy them. They are just required to drive a bit safer and slower. It will put off those who just want a big fast ‘safe’ vehicle.