My condition is severe, so I have to a keep close watch on my body temperature and can’t eat chilled foods
In 2012, when I was 37, I started noticing that my fingers would get swollen and red whenever I held an iced drink. I thought it was strange, but I didn’t know what was going on. Then the same thing would happen when I handled food from the fridge. My instinct was to put my hands under hot water, but that made it worse.
For a while, that’s all I experienced. I thought it was weird but not dangerous. I was busy with my three children, so didn’t worry.
Continue reading...Returning for a 20th album of sumptuous synthpop, Andy Bell and Clarke open up about difficult recent years, being happily uncool and battling resurgent homophobia
Andy Bell is rabbiting away on multiple topics. There’s his farm in Mallorca, where he and his husband Stephen Moss have had a fine year harvesting pomegranates, kiwis and lemons. Then there’s the Erasure frontman’s fascination with clowns (“Would the makeup help you avoid facial recognition technology?”), memories of 90s nightclubbing (“You could do anything and get away with it!”) and a worry that he’s turning into “a fussy old grandpa”. Suddenly, he catches himself: “But what about you, Vince? You’re being very quiet!”
Bell’s bandmate, whose only contribution since joining the video chat from his San Diego home has been to say hello, smiles. “No, no, I just love listening to you, man. I’m really enjoying this.”
Continue reading...Gieß den Kiez app shows trees in critical need of watering and can be adopted by other heat-stressed cities around the world
Amanda Gläser-Bligh sometimes attracts puzzled looks when she goes to water the eight-year-old street tree she has adopted outside her door in Charlottenburg, Berlin.
“I named her Linda the linden,” she says. “Berliners are not always known for being super friendly but most people react really positively when they find out what I’m doing.”
Continue reading...We can’t count on tomorrow so it would be rational to own less. Yet we make our homes nicer, just to anchor ourselves in the here and now
I was standing in front of a locked basement door in a building in our neighbourhood, laughing, as Ukrainian air defence shot down drones directly above me. I had run into the first residential building I could reach, and I even took a photo of the locked door – a shelter, and the shelter locked – because I wanted to remember it. I was on my way to buy curtains.
I hadn’t checked whether there was an alert before I left home. I had simply set out for the shop, 20 minutes away through our residential district, on foot. But somewhere along the way, things started exploding in the sky above me – and I was suddenly walking through a city under attack because I had decided that my windows needed new curtains. What the fuck was I laughing at? I should have been terrified, and I was. It was just that I still wanted the curtains, and the absurdity was hilarious.
Diana Berg is a Ukrainian artist, writer and cultural manager from Mariupol, and the founder of Platform TU, an independent cultural initiative now operating in exile after Russia’s full-scale invasion
Continue reading...
Franciscus van Assisi is misschien wel „de meest populaire heilige”, ná Maria. Op 4 oktober viert de katholieke kerk zijn 800ste sterfdag. Wie was dit ‘arme kereltje’?
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Amazon is also bringing back physical page-turn buttons, which disappeared when the company discontinued the Kindle Oasis in 2024. This time they come in a separate $79.99 magnetic cover, which works only with the new Signature Edition versions of the Paperwhite and Colorsoft. The new Kindles have screens that sit flush with the edges, colors that wrap around to the front, and optional aluminum housings. They also have user-replaceable batteries to comply with European Union rules, Amazon told The Verge.
The base Kindle starts at $149.99, or $189.99 in aluminum. The Paperwhite starts at $199.99 and the Colorsoft at $289.99, with Signature Editions at $249.99 and $319.99. Those prices match what Amazon has charged since August, when it raised Kindle prices by $40 to $50, citing memory and storage costs. The base Kindle is available now. The Paperwhite and Colorsoft ship Oct. 28.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.