No comment on headphones vs. not; I’d never even heard of it until this post, but I found some free audio for people in the same curious boat: Binaural Beats
As a dog owner in a city full of smokers, I can verify that this is true.
I did my first cables on the Northward Hat from Tin Can Knits. Free pattern, super simple, knits up fast, and you get to give someone a fancy hat!
I don’t know about ”most people in the workforce.” I’m in my mid-30s, and not only do I remember it once or twice from my childhood, I also encountered it once in 2013 (at a brewpub somewhere in New York). You’re right, though, that it becomes less of a thing with each passing year.
I frogged the majority of a piece recently, and I felt better when I reminded myself that I like knitting. I don’t care a ton about knitted things. So I got to have all of that fun and learning, and now I get to do it again without even buying more yarn. (Mine was also on my only long circular, so now I can magic loop again. Double win.)
Also, it’s a beautiful piece, so go you. I actually dig the colors.
I frequent a bakery that sells the Swedish treat called a semla. No one who works there speaks Swedish, so when I ask for ”two semlor” (pl.), they repeat it right back to me ”two semlas”. Sigh. They have a very finite number of foreign language menu items—they can learn the plurals. (Don’t get me wrong, if ”semlas” is the price of semlor I don’t have to make, I am willing to pay it, but boy does it annoy me.)
And that is exactly how I ended up never watching Game of Thrones.
These things fall into two categories—stuff that you buy because the quality is unquestionably higher than alternatives, and stuff that may or may not be a little bit better than alternatives but that you have strong, minimally-rational feelings about.
I find the second category more fun to talk about, so I offer up the fact that this is a C&H [sugar, US based] house. Once my wife brought home some other sugar, and I complained until the bag was gone.
I’m neither a writer nor a scientist, but there’s a copy of this on my bookshelf and I wish I could lend it to you: Deadly Doses: The Writer’s Guide to Poisons
Short answer: yes—Wikipedia: Artistic Roller Skating. I’m guessing your country’s governing body (e.g. USA Rollersports) could direct you to some if you were interested.