@eliza I think the mood was set when Honda announced the closure of their Swindon plant and literally turned a ship around that was carrying a load of equipment to update the production line.
A long-awaited parliamentary report in the United Kingdom asserts Russia may have influenced the Brexit referendum; more importantly, the UK government did little to find out and prevent it.
Musk challenging fellow techno- oligarch arsehole, Mark Zuckerberg, to a cage fight is mind boggling Dunning-Kruger, even by his standards.
Musk is basically a walking heart attack waiting to happen. Zuckerberg will absolutely beat the crap out of him in pretty short order.
I hate them both, but I think I hate Musk more, and itโs a shame this thing isnโt actually going to happen, because I would dearly love to see him meet the limits of his own hubris.
@bri_seven It would of course be poor ifnormation hygeine for you to tell us that catchphrase, though that won't stop any of us from wanting to know. @goatsarah
@David Iโm reminded of the time when I was a preteen. I was bullied a lot. My friendโs brother thought he could get in on the action. He positioned himself and a crowd of about 20-30 kids on a bit of green space on the route between our homes and challenged me to a fight, effectively blocking my way unless I agreed.
I didnโt want to, but he made it very clear that I wasnโt getting past without.
I was a year older. I was taller. I walked up to him, knocked him down, sat on him before he could get up, then put my arm across his neck until has face turned purple and he started crying.
Then I got up and walked away.
He went home and cried to his mum. She effectively game him the โfuck around and find outโ lecture.
Donโt challenge bullied kids to fights. They have likely learned through experience. Zuckerberg looks like he was bullied a lot more than Musk was.
It's two years since I handed in my notice at Maths. Which means it's a year and nine months since I worked. That's longer than I expected, to be honest. I remember earnest conversations with various people about how to figure out my next steps and do something new and exciting, maybe be a consultant or a swoopy-in-troubleshooter. But I never had the energy, and for a while at least I let it all slip to one side.
It isn't as if I've been doing nothing for the past couple of years. I've had and recovered from surgery, done a third of a law degree, learned the theoretical bits of how to sail, learned Portuguese... But at some point I need to earn some money again. And at times at least my brain feels like it's able to do things without getting stuck or melting down. Mayyyybe I can try applying for jobs or short term gigs.
So I'm wondering. What am I good at? If you've ever worked with me, either professionally or on some volunteer project, what were the things that particularly stood out? I'm not just looking for ego stroking (much though that will be nice) bu
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It's two years since I handed in my notice at Maths. Which means it's a year and nine months since I worked. That's longer than I expected, to be honest. I remember earnest conversations with various people about how to figure out my next steps and do something new and exciting, maybe be a consultant or a swoopy-in-troubleshooter. But I never had the energy, and for a while at least I let it all slip to one side.
It isn't as if I've been doing nothing for the past couple of years. I've had and recovered from surgery, done a third of a law degree, learned the theoretical bits of how to sail, learned Portuguese... But at some point I need to earn some money again. And at times at least my brain feels like it's able to do things without getting stuck or melting down. Mayyyybe I can try applying for jobs or short term gigs.
So I'm wondering. What am I good at? If you've ever worked with me, either professionally or on some volunteer project, what were the things that particularly stood out? I'm not just looking for ego stroking (much though that will be nice) but if you can remember particular things I did well, or particular ways in which I was especially useful, that might help shape my thinking.
I never knew you that well when you were at Maths, but I remember having mentally noted you as one of the more competent COs. So I'm sure you could easily do that again, if you wanted. And I'm not *just* saying that because I'm hiring right now... jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/41784/ ๐
Flight today had a lady who was clearly a nervous flyer. We hit some moderately serious clear air turbulence over Normandy and she screamed and had a panic attack, and then as we were descending over London, same again in the thermals making the big clouds that are currently blanketing SE England.
She was having a very very bad time, and everyone else being calm around her didn't seem to help. I felt pretty bad for her. She was clearly terrified.
was on one the other day, originally meant to be a 737-800 but saw a notification that it got swapped to the Max 8 ๐ฑ โฆ didnโt die if thatโs any reassurance
from what I've read, there's not much difference between a packed long distance flight and all those people driving the same distance one per vehicle. It's going really far that consumes tons of carbon. (But taking a bus or train gives you the group transport benefit of flying and the lower energy consumption of going by ground. A minivan full of friends is probably pretty fuel efficient too.)
I hope that keeping my car travel to a minimum does something to offset the yearly transatlantic flight to see my family. I'm able to do just about everything except medical appointments and buying gardening supplies by foot or bike here, which wasn't feasible in the US. (Designing towns to be accessible for non-drivers goes so much farther than treating transport as an individual choice, I think.)
@dusepo I mean, the only thing I really blame Crowe for is TAKING THE ROLE HE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN OFFERED IN THE FIRST PLACE. ...Sorry for shouting, I guess that bothers me more than I realized.
@dusepo ...& there was so much to like about it! Including but not limited to Colm Wilkinson's stunt-casting, Ann Hathaway's (not very surprisingly) excellent performance, a welcome-to-heaven ending 100% less-creepy than the traditional staging,.... But yeah, javert gets enough screen time it's hard to watch through his scenes.
@Buster For some reason this reminds me in part of Neil Young getting sued by his label for (among other things) using a vocoder on _Transformer_. (Framed by the label as 'not sounding like Neil Young. Which is hilarious to me because as a high school kid at the time it felt like a rare example of a middle-aged rocker actually doing something interesting instead of pandering to the kids.) @goatsarah
@Buster As an effect itโs pretty obvious, but when trying to sound natural it is still possible to hear it, but the number of people who can are quite few (as in you have to learn, not as in you have to be a super human).
Also depends on how bad the original is, and how willing they are to do retakes.
Also the people who can sing will burst out in song randomly. Jack Black can sing for sure. ๐
@mattb Book is disturbing as hell & IMO very worth reading. Alfredson's film version is a VERY close adaptation & it's very creepy & effective. Haven't seen the American version or the series.
if he criticised injustice when he was poor they said he was jealous and if ditto when he was rich they said he was a hypocrite and actually they just didn't want it criticised. Ish. From memory.
@Ailbhe I do think there's a lot of, "when you point out that this is real humans I joke about wanting dead, it makes me feel bad and I'd rather you didn't do that" going on here.
The reason it pisses me off so much specifically, I guess, is because when this started happening I was anticipating bringing my boat here eventually, and followed the discussion groups, and now I've followed them for the last few years.
And some of the stories I heard, people were really fucking scared, you know? When the only people who knew about this were sailors and marine biologists and a few others, seeing videos of people cowering in terror and despair as this gang of enormous fucking sea monsters set about destroying the only thing keeping them from just drowning.
And the story of the family who evacuated to their life raft (being in an inflatable life raft is a wretched miserable experience: you are cold, you are wet, and you are almost certainly covered in your own vomit), beggi
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@Ailbhe I do think there's a lot of, "when you point out that this is real humans I joke about wanting dead, it makes me feel bad and I'd rather you didn't do that" going on here.
The reason it pisses me off so much specifically, I guess, is because when this started happening I was anticipating bringing my boat here eventually, and followed the discussion groups, and now I've followed them for the last few years.
And some of the stories I heard, people were really fucking scared, you know? When the only people who knew about this were sailors and marine biologists and a few others, seeing videos of people cowering in terror and despair as this gang of enormous fucking sea monsters set about destroying the only thing keeping them from just drowning.
And the story of the family who evacuated to their life raft (being in an inflatable life raft is a wretched miserable experience: you are cold, you are wet, and you are almost certainly covered in your own vomit), begging rescuers not to come near in case they brought the orcas back.
And then people tell me that I'm pissing them off because I think that laughing at these people is fucked up. Just ... no.
@Kincaid @Ailbhe yeah. If this doesnโt deescalate soon, it possibly ends in the extinction of the Iberian orca.
The Spanish marine authorities could have nipped this in the bud 3 years ago by culling 3 individuals, but decided malign indifference was a better approach because of the reason.
A common complaint about โdisruptorโ types is that they are entirely cavalier about tossing aside established practice without establishing whether or not itโs established for a bloody good reason.
A phrase often used by critics of these people is that safety standards and engineering regulations are โwritten in bloodโ.
I understand one of the people currently trapped in the โFred in a very expensive shedโ submarine is the man responsible for building the thing with obvious disdain for safety and engineering regs.
@Hugs4friends โพ Indeed. If, as seems likely, they die because they trusted this cowboy with their lives, I hope enough remains of his estate for their families to sue it into oblivion.
It's the "teenage son" that boils my piss. take all the risks you want for yourself and your rich mates, but taking a teenager into what can be fairly described as a rickety deathtrap? No.
Yeah. I've been waiting for someone to say, "What seriously, your pops got a whole fishing boat for free? Yeah right!" which is something else that needs addressing in this context. Rural and coastal communities often have barter cultures, and while my dad is skint, he's also built many of the dry-stone walls (a dying skill) in his part of Wales, and odd-jobs for people without even thinking of charging. You got a swarm of bees? Call dad, he keeps them and farms them for honey. What goes around, comes around.
It's all just a lot more complicated than The Discourse (as you put it) allows for. We should be advocating for deterants to stop an endangered species from attacking boats, not egging them on! Because at this rate people will start harpooning orcas on sight...and then it won't be "the rich" who suffer.
@Probably Paul Also, there are a glut of GRP boats from the 70s and 80s that are literally worth nothing, but the hulls are still perfectly fine. These boats are often passed on for a couple of hundred euros, or even nothing, and then the interiors and rigging rebuilt as hobbies.
@Probably Paul Iโll also note that one of these orcas has turned up in a French river estuary dead, with a bullet in it. The French do not fuck about.
Sites like Twitter always had this thread decontextualising problem too, although they do show that a post is part of a thread at least. Some Fedi clients do the same or better, like the one I'm on at the mo:
@SusanLewis If you arenโt comfortable with the Unix command line and editing system files on Linux, itโs going to be a very steep learning curve. Hosting fediverse servers is not something that has been packaged up in a โplug and goโ way yet. You need to have a domain name, set up an HTTPS reverse proxy, an email server, database, etc.
@SusanLewis OK. You are gonna struggle to get it working then. Maybe someone will build a "home fediverse server" package that can run easily on a Mac or Windows machine, but they haven't yet, to my knowledge. It's currently a bit arcane.
[mobile.twitter.com] Here it is summarized: ----------- so my eldest brother, who is a moron, has been playing soldier with his moron friends in the deserts of texas for the last year preparing for the collapse of civilization if biden won (lol).
Silo SPOILERS. DO NOT OPEN THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE READ AT LEAST THE SECOND BOOK
My brain wonโt let nightmare go. Just imagining the RNC โlongtermistโ approach to silos is terrifying. Like schools: how would they combine vouchers and book bans?
At least the anti-union, โjust work harder to get advancementโ sentiment would go over great.
But then again, every hard right post-apocalyptic fiction ends up with collective ownership by the โgood guysโ.
@Miguel Arroz The one thing we know works in an encounter is dropping small explosives over the side. This makes them go away, and probably does them no harm, but the Spanish and Portuguese authorities get really pissy about it (mostly the Spanish to be honest), so open discussion of non-lethal methods for dealing with the situation has been difficult.
With the recent celebrity status the orcas has gained, itโs rapidly becoming impossible.
A lot of the blame for this lies with the Spanish maritime authorities who adopted a position of sanctimonious indifference to an escalating threat to marine traffic in their waters for years, until the behaviour had spread to nearly every pod of Iberian orcas. For about 2 years, it was literally just one or two individuals and could have been contained.
Now in winter, they migrate north. The French have demonstrated a rather more โhands onโ approach, as demonstrated by one of the animals washing ashore in a river having been shot. ๐
sur que les Portugais sur les ocรฉans il ont rien prouvรฉ๐ Diego suarez Diaz &1 certain magelan๐ค on raconte qu il aurait fait le ier vrai tour du monde.. Les Portugais ont colonisรฉ le Japon chรจre sarah Brown..et quand on sait que les Japonais furent les premiers ร dรฉfaire une armรฉe de "blancs "(la Russie en l occurence) รงa a du รชtre sanglant.. Les anglais ont envahi la chine en la mettant sous opuim certes c est plus sweet๐ Avec leurs cliques franรงaises du napolรฉon 3 cela va de soit๐
The absolute best thing about running your own family Fedi server is that when you see wankers pop up on your posts, you can tell them that theyโre wankers, tell them that they need to fuck off, and then server block and purge them.
@Richard Gadsden oh, that prick? I donโt think he does social media any more. He used to have a Facebook but blocking him on it starved him of the attention he apparently craves and he deleted his account.
If heโs stalking me now (and I have no reason to believe he is), heโs being very quiet about it.
In another place, there is a discussion about whether someone would leave the UK if money were no object.
There are lots of responses along the lines of, “I would be out of here faster than a blink”, but also plenty saying that people only think that the UK is a “shithole” because they aren’t wealthy.
I don’t think that’s right. I’m fairly wealthy, and like many of similar means I spent some time involved in UK politics as a decently high level. My experience is that it was full of people who wanted to improve things, but then were at some point offered a Faustian bargain: in order to have the power to change things, you need to be part of the British Establishment. To be accepted as part of that establishment, you must be willing to do what is required to perpetuate it.
The result is that the vast majority of people in the UK with the power to actually do anything are the ones who have either been willing to make a deal with the devil, or who are the devil.
The rest give up and walk away.
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In another place, there is a discussion about whether someone would leave the UK if money were no object.
There are lots of responses along the lines of, โI would be out of here faster than a blinkโ, but also plenty saying that people only think that the UK is a โshitholeโ because they arenโt wealthy.
I donโt think thatโs right. Iโm fairly wealthy, and like many of similar means I spent some time involved in UK politics as a decently high level. My experience is that it was full of people who wanted to improve things, but then were at some point offered a Faustian bargain: in order to have the power to change things, you need to be part of the British Establishment. To be accepted as part of that establishment, you must be willing to do what is required to perpetuate it.
The result is that the vast majority of people in the UK with the power to actually do anything are the ones who have either been willing to make a deal with the devil, or who are the devil.
My pronouns are: she/her My adjectives are: caprine/atopic My prepositions are: up/on My nouns are: Sarah/Elizabeth/Brown My verbs are: climb/sleep My interrogatives are: why/what
If all announced clean energy manufacturing projects are realised, solar & battery manufacturing already meet the needs for 2030 to stay on track for net zero. Wind, heat pumps & electrolysers are not yet on track but are expanding rapidly.
Data from International Energy Agency (IEA) graph from Energy Monitor.
Ok, so I need to say something about the orcas, or rather the response to them, because this is pissing me off.
There is a popular portrayal that they are somehow proxies for a class war hunting down and destroying the playthings of the rich, invading their habitat, and this is absolutely not what is happening.
There are two types of vessel that can broadly be described as "yachts". The first type are the ones you're probably thinking of: things owned by multi millionaires who cruise about living a life of unattainable luxury. These vessels have price tags that start at 7 digits for a modest one, and go up from there. They are owned by multimillionaires, centi-millionaires, and billionaires, and they are completely and utterly immune from orca attack.
This is because they are motor vessels. They steer by vectored thrust, or by directing propeller wash over a relatively small hydrofoil. As a result, there is nothing for the orcas to attack, and even if there was, these people don't like to be kept waiting on their way to Monaco or wherever. They h
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Ok, so I need to say something about the orcas, or rather the response to them, because this is pissing me off.
There is a popular portrayal that they are somehow proxies for a class war hunting down and destroying the playthings of the rich, invading their habitat, and this is absolutely not what is happening.
There are two types of vessel that can broadly be described as "yachts". The first type are the ones you're probably thinking of: things owned by multi millionaires who cruise about living a life of unattainable luxury. These vessels have price tags that start at 7 digits for a modest one, and go up from there. They are owned by multimillionaires, centi-millionaires, and billionaires, and they are completely and utterly immune from orca attack.
This is because they are motor vessels. They steer by vectored thrust, or by directing propeller wash over a relatively small hydrofoil. As a result, there is nothing for the orcas to attack, and even if there was, these people don't like to be kept waiting on their way to Monaco or wherever. They have power plants the size of road haulage vehicles and can outrun the orcas.
The second type, which are the boats that the orcas are attacking, are sailboats. These travel at about 5 knots, which is the cruising speed of an orca, and have huge rudders because they need to balance turning forces from the sails that power the boats. The smallest boats that are capable of sailing in the waters where these animals are have rudders comparable in size to an adult human. The orcas seem to regard these as prizes and love detaching them.
While the very rich sometimes do buy these kind of boats, they are not the typical person who does so. Most of them are bought second hand, and they have very long lives (a lot from the 1970s are still in perfectly good condition). They are generally bought for the price of a used car, or less A lot of people live on them and pay for mooring and maintenance fees by doing casual labour. This is still cheaper than renting a one bedroom flat in a lot of Europe.
I live in the area where these animals operate. Friends of friends have been attacked. They aren't "yachties", they're just people with day jobs who have enough disposable income to invest in a hobby they enjoy.
So either, best case, you are gloating at people of modest means facing a salvage and repair bill that they can't afford and is more than the value of the boat, or potentially you are laughing at terrified people watching their home and everything they own get sent to the bottom of the ocean by one of the most sadistic predators on earth, and who will then have to get in the sea with these predators which, if they're lucky, will decide to leave them to drown.
This doesn't make you an online class warrior, or the left-wing equivalent of an edge-lord. It just makes you an arsehole.
@legumancer Davy Iโve seen videos of them playing volleyball with seals before killing and eating them, and obviously having a great time doing it. If the shoe fits โฆ
Thanks for this insight! It's really helped me understand what's going on with the Orcas and boats, and why it's a problem. I've thought about this post a number of times since seeing it a few days ago, so I wanted to come back and thank you.
I also appreciate your insight in one of the replies โ that there's tagging, tracking, and communication going on to combat the problem and avoid encounters. I find that really interesting and resourceful.
@Acorn Squashbuckler Itโs already paid dividends. We were notified last night that one pod has started migrating west. Before, the first weโd have known about it was when boats were suddenly attacked off Faro. Now we know to stay away.
@Noodlemaz You may not think playing volleyball with seals before killing and eating them isn't saidstic, but if so, you and I have very different definitions of that word.
Lots of dolphins in general are, let's be honest, bastards. Orcas aren't the worst dolphins, but they are certainly up there.
If you think that enjoying inflicting pain and suffering, and killing for enjoyment, is something that is unique to humans, then you're a fool.
Reddit just asked if I was enjoying it. I clicked โnot reallyโ, so it offered me feedback. I thus provided some:
You asked if Iโm enjoying Reddit. I used to. Now it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, with the rush to โenshittifyโ. I hate that the trend in the tech industry is to race to r the bottom in terms of user experience in order to suck up to the money men, and I hate that you have declared war on your user base.
I'll admit it's been a while since I listened to the books, and I haven't watched the show. Do they not have anything to view the outside world in the show? I remember them describing watching the condemned going out and cleaning the camera lenses and acting happy.
The problem I have going faster is it all has to be technique. My poor 49 year old heart wonโt actually go any faster. Graph below shows the speedrun ringed where my heart went to 175bpm for 8 minutes and stayed there.
I did feel while I was up there that my muscles simply couldnโt get the power they wanted. Maybe I can go faster in winter when heat dissipation is easier.
Saw young Dr Bacalhau (yes, that really is his name), the dental surgeon, today. In March 2020 I had a cracked tooth removed, with the intention that it would be replaced with an implant a few months later.
3 days later, the world went into lockdown. I never got the implant.
In the years since, I learned to live with the gap. It’s next to a tooth I lost for orthodontic reasons as a teen, so it’s quite a big gap.
But I have been told that the asymmetry in my bite and lack of support for adjacent teeth is causing a problem, so I need an implant.
Fist thing they did was a CT scan of my jaw. The resolution is really quite incredible. He showed me the 3D scan. Bicuspid next door has a really kinky root.
The bad news is, the jawbone there is only 6mm thick, and he wants 8-10mm.
So I need a bone graft. They scheduled me for one in September. Double appointment, done under local anaesthetic (not hugely looking forward to that, but I’ve had worse. Don’t ask. Really). He’s gonna do the graft (new technique I think - some sort
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Saw young Dr Bacalhau (yes, that really is his name), the dental surgeon, today. In March 2020 I had a cracked tooth removed, with the intention that it would be replaced with an implant a few months later.
3 days later, the world went into lockdown. I never got the implant.
In the years since, I learned to live with the gap. Itโs next to a tooth I lost for orthodontic reasons as a teen, so itโs quite a big gap.
But I have been told that the asymmetry in my bite and lack of support for adjacent teeth is causing a problem, so I need an implant.
Fist thing they did was a CT scan of my jaw. The resolution is really quite incredible. He showed me the 3D scan. Bicuspid next door has a really kinky root.
The bad news is, the jawbone there is only 6mm thick, and he wants 8-10mm.
So I need a bone graft. They scheduled me for one in September. Double appointment, done under local anaesthetic (not hugely looking forward to that, but Iโve had worse. Donโt ask. Really). Heโs gonna do the graft (new technique I think - some sort of synthetic scaffold), and put the screw in. Then 4 months later, they place the tooth.
Will be nice to have my ability to chew properly on the left side back.
Whole lot (including todayโs consultation and CT) is going to come in at under 2000 euros, and my experience of Portuguese dentistry thus far is that they do really, really good work.
The HUDOC database provides access to the case-law of the Court (Grand Chamber, Chamber and Committee judgments and decisions, communicated cases, advisory opinions and legal summaries from the Case-Law Information Note), the European Commission of Hโฆ
We went to the V&A recently and saw their Korean Wave exhibit. One part spent time on the Korean beauty sector and the myth of the 10 step regime. They had a 3d printer for personalised face masks, which was interesting, but looked like a glorified plotter (either very limited or no Z axis).
Since there's so much snake oil in this area, and your face is so visible, people are willing to latch on to whatever hope they can.
It's interesting talking to people about skincare. From purely medical (I've a few friends that suffer from Psoriasis), through to managing effects of hormones (it comes up a surprising amount teaching teenagers), through to purely cosmetic.
I latched on to some "advice" from a (I think) GQ article in 2003ish. George Clooney was interviewed about skincare and he said to keep it simple. Use a face cleaner, scrub a few times a week, and use a SPF moisturiser daily. I've been happy with that advice.
You know youโve turned a corner in language learning when the employee in McDonalds doesnโt switch to English in order to point out that you should have used the pluperfect instead of the perfect.
What if we, like, dig 50 really deep holes in Fulton County Georgia to put it in? Iโm sure that would work out fine, right? abc.net.au/news/2023-05-26/treโฆ
Operators of the Fukushima nuclear power plant are set to release treated wastewater into the ocean. But already Japanese authorities are facing a barrage of criticism from fishermen.
Imagine being Jacob Rees-Mogg; he desperately wants to be Brideshead Revisted, but is actually an (albeit well read) idiot cousin of the Boswells in Bread, and all the upper class old money he sucks up knows it, and judges him for it.
Heโs not like Nadine Dorries; going through life oblivious to her own stupidity. Jacob knows heโs both very very stupid and a transparent imposter who will never get what he wants: the acceptance of the inbred wazzocks he deifies, and it must utterly torment his every moment.
Sarah Brown
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