Size: height depth width… Can be easy to miss one dimension. Energy rating - obvious reasons Noise depending on the room it’s in Ergonomics - can you reach all the bits you need to… Imagine filling it with your weekly shop. - better energy rating=more insulation=less space. Doors can generally be reversed, but check. Some FFs have two compressor circuits, others only one. Can be important if keeping it in a garage. Do you need a water cooler/ice maker thing? More to clean, more to go wrong. YOUR FRIDGE DOES NOT NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION Nor does it need funky windows & stuff Self defrost is a must. We spent ages discussing colour, now you can barely see it behind pictures & papers etc.

Think " is this a useful feature for me, or is it marketing fluff? "

Finally, while a fridge should be a long term purchase, is just a box that gets cold. Don’t lose sleep over it.

That when I grew up I’d know what I was doing and my body would work.

For people like that there’s no compassion, regret or remorse, it’s either water under the bridge or someone else’s fault.

Unless you are taking the readings for a specific purpose under medical instruction, then so long as you’re consistent it probably doesn’t matter too much. You’ll get sufficient information to show any trends. - take readings throughout the day, that way you’ll get used to the process and your stress levels will fall giving more consistent numbers. Not a medic but have experience of BP measurement.

While I have no experience of healthcare, I know that office politics and culture can be a nightmare in any workplace. What I also know is that we are or own ‘brands’ and if we want to be good at anything we need to develop ourselves as we see fit. This is part of being professional. You choose to do it in work break hours where you have the time and maybe are less tied. Maybe it gives you access to people who can help when you need it. All this is good, but I think it’s worth noting that you will miss out on some of the office culture (for better or worse). Professionalism is as much about what you know as well as your network, and people make snap judgements about others. You seem to have come off badly this time, these things happen, but are fixable one way of another. What if you (force yourself to) spend one break ‘socialising’ every now and again? You may be able to turn the conversion into something more worthwhile. You may find someone who will become a real asset.

I’m waaaaay along the spectrum and I too would rather learn than idly chat. The above is very hard for me to do, but I have reluctantly found that there are benefits. It’s a bigger picture thing.

Be you and do your thing, but do it strategically. I suspect that your ‘brand’ is very saleable, so if it’s not working where you are, you can always try elsewhere.

Bedtime doesn’t equal sleep time, but is a good discipline to start making ready for bed and putting devices away. Getting ready for bed at 10, asleep by 11 doesn’t sound bad to me.

Battery replacement is an issue, but is easily solved with good design. I don’t need the thinnest phone that’s difficult to hold, a few extra mm won’t affect my life negatively. I’d rather have something usable and maintainable.

My biggest gripe however is the built in obsolesce of software support life. Perfectly good electronics are rendered useless by the system not receiving software / security updates after a couple of years.

Another vote for scratch. Most kids that age want quick results and not to spend ages debugging something. Funnily enough I’ve seen the same scratch interface used to program industrial robots.

How much time one on one are you committing to spend with the child? This will make the difference.

Alternatively, think about some sort of robotics kit. Doing stuff in software is great but if it changes something in the real world, even better. Have you thought about something arduino?

Just for balance though, make a raft, a treehouse, a tent, make a fire without matches. It’s all problem solving but I bet any kid will remember getting muddy more than writing a neat while loop.

Exactly. Thanks. This is a ‘non-domestic’ application shall we say. Measuring something with any buffer capacity at all should negate the water’s pH, so shouldn’t be a problem, but the manufacturers advice still doesn’t sit comfortably with me. But they should know!

Has a psion5, brilliant tech. Loved it. The calendar was way ahead of its time, 2AA batteries gave weeks of life and you could just about touch type on the keyboard. If I could get it to synch with office I’d be tempted to dig it out again, it really was the future.

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