Any question answered...

Google fern spores and compare, that's my first thought.

Fern spores, as above.
Ferns don't seed or flower

Thanks 👌

I renewed mine recently and it was actually surprisingly quick. I think about a week. If you have a fairly recent passport, they take the photo digitally from that which I imagine can speed things up significantly. Maybe trying to process and scan physical photos would be longer.

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@DethBeard
My grinder arrived about a week after ordering and has nothing to suggest it’s a fake. Saved me about 30%

Mattress toppers - we have a sofa bed that I find comfy enough but my in laws do not. We had a mattress topper for it but it was so huge that when the sofa bed wasn't isn't use(most of the time) this huge mattress topper was a nightmare to store.

Anyone got any experience with a comfy topper that can be rolled down or otherwise packed away small?

I like reading books on an eInk device
I like browsing in physical book stores and want to recompense them for this.

How can I browse in a bookstore, find a book that I want and then buy it in digital form, giving money to the bookstore in the process? Preferably via the bookstore's sales process.

Buy the physical book and borrow an electronic version from a distant acquaintance on the Internet?

Are “gender coded words” an actual thing? If I understand it correctly, they are words that are associated with masculinity or femininity, and subtly convey a gender bias when used in, eg, job descriptions. But isn’t claiming that words like ‘expert’, ‘leader’, ‘polite’ are biased towards one gender, inherently biased itself?

—After more research, it seems these gender codes are revealed at cohort/ mass data set level. Interesting but I still wonder how they control for bias.

How can I browse in a bookstore, find a book that I want and then buy it in digital form, giving money to the bookstore in the process? Preferably via the bookstore's sales process.

That’s a really good idea. If bookstores sold the ebook as well that could work out nicely for them.

It's never going to make sense for small independents to set up their own ebook e-commerce platform when Amazon already have that sewn up. There are some options with Kobo who do an affiliate scheme (I think) for indies. There are also a couple of promising initiatives (bookshop.org and indiebound.org) but one is US-focussed at the moment and the other, if I remember correctly, doesn't do e-books yet but hopefully will be planning to...

Buy the physical book and borrow an electronic version from a distant acquaintance on the Internet

This is probably the current correct answer. But it does beget the question of what to do with the physical book. I don't want it. Maybe leave it on a wall outside the shop? With a sticker in the frontispiece, marketing my great new digibook/ bookstore collab startup...

Also, are torrents of good quality (Kindle level) eBooks a thing?

And having to use Calibre every time to load a book sounds like an ass ache.

I want the experience to be seamless like Amazon, except with a physical browsing element and no Amazon.

If I want to intersect two pieces of 6mm sheet material at 90° then my slots will be 6mm. Easy. But if I want to intersect at 120° then how big do the slots need to be?

Messing about in Fusion360 indicates 6.9mm but some confirmation/correction would be nice

Edit. 6.9 isn't enough

This is probably the current correct answer. But it does beget the question of what to do with the physical book. I don't want it.

Donate it to a local charity shop. Treble win.

Or, just reverse shoplift it (e.g. put it back on the shelves after you've bought it).

Anyone got any experience with a comfy topper that can be rolled down or otherwise packed away small?

Vacuum storage bag? That should shrink it to something much smaller and more manageable, plus also keep it from being eaten by moths.

Or, just reverse shoplift it (e.g. put it back on the shelves after you've bought it).

As a former retail store manager this would drive me insane if it happened covertly and a lot.

Why the fff do we have 12 copies of this gdm book?!

Feels a bit like buying a bottle of water at an airport where the cheapest option was to buy a copy of the Daily Telegraph, which came with a free bottle of water and was less than the water on its own, and putting the newspaper back in the pile.

Best turbo trainer tyre?

Anybody know what that blimp over central London is doing? (flying, obviously)

At first I thought it was advertising for Wimbledon or something. But it's circling somewhere round Westminster area?

Are you sure it's not hippy on his new commute?

Bit of helium in the tyres...

(double post)

If you are forced to pay for the Telegraph the least you can do is flush it down the toilet, where it belongs. Leaving it there is an environmental hazard