optional

o.O I never knew there even was support for Windows 95. At least it was a time before Windows Update, and I don’t know of any Service Packs either. It would have been a pain to download anyway, with my 56k modem and the 20Pfg/min price tag 😬

What has happened on 2001-12-31? My Windows 95 lived beyond that point. I think I still have it installed on my retro gaming laptop that’s lying down in my cellar. Might be time to boot it up once again.

That’s not true. It’s perfectly fine to have fun in Germany, as long as it doesn’t disturb the neighbours and is propperly announced to the local authities two weeks in advance using form SVaF-18/1-42.

It happens more often than you think. There’s an old German song about a bear who accidentally gets a job in a factory they built above his cave one winter. When he roams around the factory after waking up they mistake him for an unshaved, lazy worker and put him in front of a machine to do some tedious work.

It’s basically the opposite story to the one in this comic.

I mean, obviously people would be confused if you called February “spring” in Australia, but then again you celebrate Christmas in summer 😁

What do you mean when you say that the US uses this model and Australia uses that model? Who uses it and for what? In my country the government doesn’t tell us what season it is or what system to use. People just use whatever system they fancy and most likely it’s just based on gut feeling instead of a calendar day.

No one will look at you sceptically when you say “This is a cold winter” on a freezing November day, nor will the be confused if you say “What a nice spring day” on a sunny February afternoon.

There are (at least) four different definitions of winter:

• Astronomical seasons are what you describe, and these are obviously based on astronomical events, for which the equinoxes and solstices are the perfect fix points. That the seasons start at these days is purely conventional, and in some times (roman empire) and places (Celtic calendar) people used these days as the center point of the season instead (also known as “Solar seasons”). Why those don’t match up with the actual temperature has already been explained in countless other replies.
• Meteorological seasons use a simple, month based approach, where winter is just December, January and February. That makes it easier for statistical usage but obviously is also just a man-made convention.
• The energy sector defines winter as the time of extended energy needs due to heating. Where I live, that’s defined as 1. of October - 31. of March, but for obvious reasons that’s highly dependent on where you are.
• Phenological seasons are a bit more what you’re looking for: They are based on biological events in indicator plants and a lot more complex than just being four fixed periods and only ever the same for small regions. Where I live, there are ten phenological seasons, winter starts when the English Oaks drop their leafs and ends with the blooming of the Common Hazle.

In other cultures there might be vastly different seasons. In many tropical countries you’ll only have the dry season and the monsun season.

Use the drumset on speaker mode at 3am, sell silence to your neighbours for money and use the ransom to buy a pressure washer.

It seems to be some kind of production facility with machines standing in there. So maybe the Idea is to have electrical boxes on every pillar, so you’ll have electricity available wherever you place the machines. If the production lines are changed regularly, you wouldn’t want to rewire the entire building each time. A bit like these cubes hanging from the ceiling so you don’t need to run extension cords through your workshop whenever you need power somewhere, but a bit more encapsulated.

Chemistry is the study of the physics of the outer electron shell, as my physics teacher used to say.