Fish Id Wardrobe ⁂

https://social.tchncs.de/@fishidwardrobe

Monsters from the Id! Fish from the Wardrobe! Or something.

Motto: Move Things And Breakfast.

#TeamPuddleglum

Pronouns: He/Him (if you like)
Location: Manchester, UK (ish)
Will CW For: Politics/Doom, Mental Health, Spoliers (, Spiders)
Other Account: fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk

Public Key

npub1h76ykzad8s3kchmmvwwuvs2sqkzc7edaty229gznz9pgg3hy7hdscp0tzr

NIP-05 Address

fishidwardrobe_at_social.tchncs.de@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqstldztpwkncgmvtaak88wxg9gqtpv0vk74j99z5pf3zs5ygmj0tkcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dstjl9zc

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1h76ykzad8s3kchmmvwwuvs2sqkzc7edaty229gznz9pgg3hy7hdscp0tzr

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Last Notes

2026-09-16 02:37:21 UTC

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i'm still trying to get my head around "If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human…"

2026-09-02 19:48:12 UTC

i wonder how many of these palestinian fundme posts are genuine?
i mean: i'm going to guess it's not none. but on the other hand, hundreds of desperate folks posting … here? does that sound a bit off to anyone else?
if someone was to fake such posts, how would we know?

2026-08-27 07:35:14 UTC

yes the #nepal flood pictures are dramatic and make a good post.
see those little dots running away? those are people. we're watching them die.
let's maybe at least CW that shit, okay?

2026-08-10 21:05:09 UTC

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(looks up producerism) — oh, every UK party except the greens does that. so _that's_ what it's called. ta.
Starmer: "we're the party for working people!" (subtext: not children, the disabled who can't work, the unemployed, whatever we call "housewives" now, etc etc)
Let's see if Burnham pulls the same trick.

2026-07-20 17:01:27 UTC

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that last paragraph…

2026-06-28 19:34:56 UTC

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"first, put back two eggs."

2026-06-25 02:12:44 UTC

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he's aiming for funny. sometimes he hits it. but he's seen some shit, and he's getting on a bit.

2026-06-23 16:51:40 UTC

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"self defense" and "guns" are not the same thing. this point is obvious to anyone outside the US.
will stop talking now.

2026-06-23 16:32:58 UTC

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i don't think we're too far off in the UK, if the yearly riots in southampton and police arresting grannies for holding the wrong sign are anything to go by.
of course we're not where the US is yet.
my hypothesis is this: the guns won't help. not during the collapse, and not after. if you say they're not *causing* the collapse: sure. but.

2026-06-23 16:14:55 UTC

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speaking for the rest of the world outside the US: the guns aren't making you safe, mate.

2026-05-29 12:24:45 UTC

Very un-british of us but we have bought a portable air conditioner for the next goddamn heatwave — and hopefully now we have one, there won't be one for a while? at least, until it breaks?
i've just noticed that the thing has a little sticker above the front vent, that says:
> do not insert your fingers to avoid injury
ooookay. so if i'm worried that my fingers might get injured – say, from a rabid chicken or a rogue airfrier – putting my fingers in here won't help?

2026-05-26 18:53:10 UTC

i fucking love the internet. even now.
oven went bang. bought a replacement online from my sofa; more choice, cheaper.
oven turns up and it's the standard cost-saving BS: a perfectly good double oven, but only one shelf for each oven.
fine. went back online and sourced extra shelves, genuine article. arrived today. perfect.
how the hell would i have found a company to sell me replacement shelves for an obscure brand of oven, pre-internet?

2026-05-24 07:38:04 UTC

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useful for detecting undercover cops, if it were true.
- waves baggie
- two people in the room fall down, rest are fine

2026-05-22 11:18:47 UTC

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well, he's a politician. he's saying whatever he thinks he has to say. i don't listen to them when they are trying to be elected.
he's also not my friend or my ally. i'm not holding my breath for him to be Good.
i note he's said he wants electoral reform, though. he's said that before, i think. long term, if he introduced PR, that would be the most positive thing that happened here since the NHS.
if he's also going to be all nazi about refugees, he can still get in the sea. But it would be a win.

2026-05-22 11:11:28 UTC

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that is perfectly, entirely reasonable.
i have no idea what Burnham will do if he becomes leader.
i do know what Starmer will do, though.
it's a punt. i'm betting he can't be worse. (not, in fact, that i have anything to bet or any other way to influence the game.)

2026-05-22 11:04:53 UTC

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i'm not voting labour but i do think labour lurching back to the left would be good for the country. i'll take a little win (or a possibility of one, even) over the steady stream of bad shit we've been getting.
so in that spirit: Burnham thinks he has to appeal to the racist vote to win the seat. that area voted for Brexit bigtime.
maybe he'd rather not. i dunno. but he's got to be an MP before he can lead the country.

2026-05-12 06:51:50 UTC

#microfiction
Avis sighed contentedly. That had been a good day. They'd finally finished repairing the plumbing in block C, and everyone there would have hot showers in the morning. Plus, he rotated into Farming next week. He couldn't wait to see how the pigs were doing.
Since he decided to come here – wait, exactly five years ago! – he was starting to feel much better about himself as a person. He couldn't imagine doing all that subversive political activism now.
He didn't know it, but his sentence was up. Tomorrow he'd remember that the court had sent him here, and the time-lock on the brainware that made him "seek pennance" would expire.
Most prisoners remembered their time in prison fondly. This was by design.

2026-04-23 07:11:05 UTC

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well, no. documents you post to teams are stored in sharepoint.
which is one. but it's shit.

2026-04-11 05:02:13 UTC

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speaking from a country that's had two (2) shitty female prime ministers — maybe, buuuut…

2026-04-06 16:38:25 UTC

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the "facts" in your post tell us what a principled, smart guy scott is. so now we know that if we we want to commit the fallacy of Argument From Authority, we can definitely use him as one.
now, perhaps you'd like to contribute to the actual debate?

2026-04-06 16:09:02 UTC

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certainly doing your pal scott a solid here by getting snippy because someone asked you for a factual argument. nice work.

2026-03-28 09:59:19 UTC

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or newpipe.
on a pc an ad-blocker will remove the ads, of course.

2026-03-23 07:13:25 UTC

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well, it was him i meant when i said "you sound like an arsehole"…

2026-03-23 06:46:43 UTC

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very few of us have actual ducts, is the problem.

2026-03-23 06:40:39 UTC

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aaaand now *you* sound like an arsehole. might want to work on that.

2026-03-06 12:29:43 UTC

that tv show on bond themes was really rather good but now, inevitably, i have tina turner singing "it's a goat and honey trap" in my head.
i KNOW that's not the lyric. but it's what she actually SINGS.
what does a goat-and-honey trap look like, and what does it catch? a tyrannosaur with a sweet tooth?

2026-02-27 12:36:19 UTC

#OddHillsToDieOn
if i'm to take the last train to clarkesville, and there is only time for coffee-flavoured kisses and a bit of conversation — then how am i getting home?
one can only hope that the train-driver is themself having a leisurely cup of coffee, after which they will drive the last train FROM clarkesville. but it seems sketchy at best.

2026-02-25 22:42:20 UTC

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everthing is too complex, nothing is obvious, everyone needs to know a whole bunch of things and few people are experts.
on the other hand, part of the reason we got here is by trying to make computers so simple that "your granny could use them".
"too clever is dumb" — Ogden Nash

2026-02-25 18:28:30 UTC

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… aaand the hard disk is now corrupt. running fsck on it on another box. replaced old graphics card on the sensible suggestion that this might be a voltage issue (thank you). went into bios and set date (of COURSE it was mm/dd/ yyyy, I'm an idiot, again thank you.

2026-02-25 16:40:03 UTC

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plugged in the fans to the motherboard. still no cmos reset. it was doing it every boot an hour ago! i'd got to the point where it wouldn't boot from the hd, now it does!!
two theories:
- i just went with "default cmos settings", last time it demanded i reconfigure. that works better; i did something weird the first time.
- i'm going insane.
fuck it, going to put the lid on the case and call it working for now.

2026-02-25 16:25:13 UTC

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okay. currently it kind of works. and if i turn it all off and pull the power entirely, i can reboot and the bios doesn't reset — so it's not the CMOS battery?
let's try plugging the fans in again.

2026-02-25 16:06:03 UTC

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the weirdest thing — which may be nothing to do with anything else — is that i can't set the date correctly in the bios because it thinks there are only 12 days in the month.

2026-02-25 14:51:26 UTC

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put the hard drive back in and that's wiped the cmos again!
accepted default cmos settings and now i'm getting a different boot sequence?
xfce now works for some reason but firefox: "cannot change mount namespace" …
ignore me i'm just ranting at this point

2026-02-25 14:42:05 UTC

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well, there's nothing wrong with the hard drive. fsck found a couple of bad block counts, but it mounts okay on Debian…

2026-02-25 13:36:52 UTC

xubuntu. installed a new graphics card; now it looks as if half the OS is missing.
i hate computers.

2026-02-15 21:21:40 UTC

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https://f2.tchncs.de/media_attachments/files/116/076/739/467/768/857/original/568cb426ea1a616c.png

2026-02-15 18:44:34 UTC

re: the well known Wondermark! "Sealion" strip; i've often thought it a little unfair on people (often autistic people) who really need a little more information to get over the line of understanding. surely the strip is an exaggeration?
nope. had one here yesterday.
i mean, i *do* still worry that some well-meaning but inept folks will get branded as sealions by over-sensitive types.
but. the breed exists exactly as described.

2026-02-08 10:55:10 UTC

there is something inherently delightful about a cat, asleep in a ball like the firefox logo, using their tail as a pillow.
my adopted four-footed daughter has an unusual tail. it's shorter, and thicker, and she's demonstrated multiple times that she has complete conscious muscular control over it.
Watching her wash it is … weird. most cats will go through some shenanigans to capture their tail so they can wash the end. not her: she just sticks it up in front of her face and grabs it.

2026-02-04 00:41:22 UTC

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it's not that it's not *good*. it is. how did it get *popular*??
i suspect the answer is: "best of"s. they made a ridiculous lot of albums, with one big hit on each…

2026-02-03 19:34:54 UTC

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same, and i sometimes think they get nervous because they don't understand what they meant, either.

2026-02-03 15:08:07 UTC

weird, very late take: how did the Rolling Stones ever get popular? it's just white guys playing traditional blues, for the most part. some of it is jazz!
don't get me wrong: it's bloody good. they deserve all that praise. but the actual albums are really completely unspectacular; the sort of stuff you only like if you listen hard? and then that one track everyone has heard of.
not regretting finally buying them. but it's confusing…

2026-01-24 08:09:04 UTC

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so, basically, we don't have the 'right' *kind* of imagination? 🙄

2026-01-21 10:12:40 UTC

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chris boucher is sorely missed here. nice bloke, too, the one time i saw him at a con.

2025-11-18 08:28:12 UTC

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1. adblock
2. Chrome is not "AI" free, either: https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/18/google_chrome_ai_browser/
firefox with the ai turned off and ad blocking installed is still, for me, the least bad option.

2025-11-16 21:21:05 UTC

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just click on the link, surely?

2025-11-06 10:00:30 UTC

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alternatively: labour should stay right to give the greens a clear run.
I'm sure if they do, many "real" labour MPs will move to the greens.

2025-11-01 21:00:35 UTC

I've been saying this for a while, in fact. But.
I think we're going to need a new internet, folks. This one is broken.

2025-11-01 20:06:33 UTC

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i would like to know if the government's "promise" to introduce "ai" to "simplify" things has anything to do with this.

2025-10-29 22:21:31 UTC

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yes, we should all be aware that there are people worse off than us. no argument from me there.
the problem only comes when it's used as an excuse, or as some sort of stick.

2025-10-29 21:16:55 UTC

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i assume, at least metaphorically. if you're busy with two broken legs you're unlikely to think, "ere, that blokes only got an arm gone, lucky toff!"

2025-10-29 18:56:03 UTC

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it turns up a surprising amount of the time. anyone remember "eat your vegetables, there are starving children in africa"?
and I do see every so often well-meaning folk here telling us, or at least implying, that because we are more priviliged than others (which is true) our problems don't count (which is false).
like i said: common fallacy. anyone can trip up on it.

2025-10-29 18:50:28 UTC

this came up on the other account, what I'll call the "streets of london" fallacy:
> how can you tell me you're lonely / and say for you the sun don't shine / let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of london / I'll show you something that'll make you change your mind…
it's a lovely tune, but the lyrics don't make sense, even leaving aside the matter of whether showing me destitute homeless people would cheer me up.
here's the fallacy: **just because other people are worse off than me, doesn't change how bad my problems are**. if i have a broken arm, i still have a broken arm even if three other people have two broken legs.
this is a common fallacy — and as a fallacy, we can all be tripped up by it, so I'm not criticising anyone.

2025-10-29 07:46:17 UTC

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if the communications are encrypted — how do they know they contain emojis?
the more I look at this, the stupider it gets.

2025-10-29 07:32:13 UTC

**Australian police building AI to translate emoji used by ‘crimefluencers’**
I suppose there might be a real danger going on here but from the language used, it sounds like keystone cops time.
> “While these networks do not have a centralised hierarchy or a single ideology, they are prolific and are attracted to violent extremism, nihilism, sadism, Nazism and satanism,”
Nihlism! Satanism! Oh no!
> “developing a prototype AI tool that will interpret emojis and Gen Z and Alpha slang in encrypted communications and chat groups to identify sadistic online exploitation.”
Do they need the "ai" to decrypt the comms (which it can't do?) or to understand emojis (which it also can't do, but any teenager probably can?)
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/afp_ai_commissioner_barrett_speech/

2025-10-26 20:43:04 UTC

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i like it. primary flavours going on are celery salt and cayenne; there's a lot of depth behind that. already use a lot of celery salt here, so it's a good fit — although sadly a bit too much cayenne for my wife to handle, or her hernia will start up…

2025-10-26 14:24:43 UTC

Surprised to see Old Bay Seasoning for sale in a supermarket here in the UK. I've seen it in so many US recipes. So of course I had to buy some.
Considerable amusement when I got it home. Clearly the tin has not changed since at least the 1950's — and it took me ten minutes to work out how to open it…

2025-10-02 06:33:08 UTC

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lots of raspberry noises?

2025-10-01 11:41:04 UTC

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fuck.

2025-09-23 07:20:19 UTC

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in the hope it will combust?

2025-09-21 22:27:00 UTC

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agreed, but it's also rather difficult. the UK hasn't fed itself without imports since at least the 1800s…

2025-09-17 18:30:03 UTC

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always assuming they were astute enough to wonder who organised the event, and bright enough to find out. that's not a given, I think.

2025-09-12 12:54:29 UTC

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similarly bemused by uk coverage. apparently they found a "high-powered rifle", but even I can tell from the description that it's just a regular rifle. newspapers like drama.

2025-09-11 07:29:13 UTC

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puts me in mind of bugs bunny: "and baron of woostersyterstersestershire"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hYUuDSF1huU&t=129s&pp=2AGBAZACAQ%3D%3D

2025-09-06 11:30:52 UTC

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"it makes us look violent when we are arresting octagenerians with a sign for terrorism" is a hell of a self-own

2025-09-04 08:04:57 UTC

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::salutes you with my mug of coffee::
ah, the eternal game. good luck to you! :)

2025-09-04 07:50:55 UTC

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well, I'm oooold. bits falling off and all that. but in seriousness I do notice the older I get the weirder my medical problems are: for example, viruses that just make me sleepy or give me brainfog, no other symptoms

2025-09-04 07:25:09 UTC

this is a weird one. I'm suddenly having trouble digesting meat.
it's not lyme disease, because the symptoms are mild and it's not just red meat.
meat still tastes great, but sits in my stomach like i'd eaten a cheap 'hamburger' from a stall at a funfair.
it's been a week.
i guess I'm demi-veg now? no objections, because I've wanted to eat less meat for a long time, except: there were practical reasons why that didn't happen and they still apply. this is going to be a pain in the arse.

2025-09-03 03:34:17 UTC

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no, that's interesting. I can normally get away with one day without arch support.
the bugger is if I get plantar and gout at the same time…

2025-09-02 19:46:05 UTC

I don't know who needs to hear this— except, that's not true: you need to hear this if you suffer from plantar fasciitis (f**ked up heel) and don't know this trick:
put a small bottle of water in the freezer. when it's frozen, get it out and roll it under your bad foot for a couple of minutes.
two times out of three, for me, it just – poof! – fixes the pain right away.

2025-08-20 01:30:26 UTC

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can't see with *both* eyes

2025-08-18 02:41:25 UTC

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meh. cooties aren't real. and if they changed the sheet I'd be fine anyway.
As a kid "duvets" were a new-fangled expensive thing (UK); I just had sheet and blankets. I suppose I learned to keep the sheet on?

2025-08-18 02:28:46 UTC

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I'm not sure this bothers me so much as having a doona (/quilt/duvet/whatever) and no sheet. which I know is perfectly normal in some countries, and doesn't bother my wife, so, just me.

2025-08-12 11:43:21 UTC

**Dear Britain, it’s now clear: 20mph zones save lives and don’t slow traffic. Implement them**
By all means lets. but: "don't slow traffic"?? isn't that exactly the point, *how* they save lives? WTAF?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/12/britain-20mph-zones-save-lives-traffic-safe-streets

2025-08-06 04:28:31 UTC

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most of them, in fact ;)

2025-07-25 08:45:22 UTC

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the problem is we're sending them to other countries, which send them to israel

2025-07-20 10:26:55 UTC

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bogus. it was a test, not real, and inside the test data was a blackmail scenario.
LLMs cannot think, cannot reason, cannot plan. There is no-one there to blackmail you. It just looks as if there is.
These companies are determined to make us think otherwise.

2025-07-09 07:46:13 UTC

I have just committed the small sin of being slightly rude to a first line support staff at work. I'm looking at a ticket that basically just says "please ring me". and this gentleman has forwarded it as is to our team with "is this something you can help with?"
I DON'T KNOW WHY DON'T YOU FIND OUT FIRST THAT'S YOUR JOB
gaah

2025-07-01 20:54:35 UTC

**Pressure grows on Yvette Cooper to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action**
>Proscription of a direct-action protest group is an unprecedented and extremely regressive step for civil liberties,” they write. “The conflation of protest and terrorism is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes. Our government has stated that it is committed to respecting the rule of law: this must include the right to protest.
>“To use the Terrorism Act to ban Palestine Action from direct action would be an abuse of this legislation and an interference with the right to protest. Misusing terrorism legislation in this way against a protest group sets a dangerous precedent, threatens our democratic freedoms, and would be a terrifying blow to our civil liberties.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/01/yvette-cooper-plan-ban-palestine-action-un-experts-lawyers

2025-07-01 04:55:07 UTC

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We're dealing with a grave situation: AI companies trawling our hashtags. very unsavoury.
Bit of nonsense to confuse "AI", or at least keep our spirits up. (oooh, bourbon gravy…)

2025-06-27 21:10:19 UTC

Watching QI°, and Alan Davies° going off-piste at the very start and (not entirely incongruously) leading the audience in a couple of verses of "Hitler has only got one ball"°.
At first I felt it was gammon° nonsense. But it struck me all of a sudden that actually it's still the perfect anthem for these newer times; fascists hate to be mocked.
We might need some extra verses, mind…
° I'm not sure how to explain this to non-UK folks…

2025-06-25 09:04:31 UTC

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someone else's slides, and you didn't notice until now?

2025-06-23 06:52:24 UTC

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sociopathic politicians love a despot, I suppose

2025-06-23 06:48:50 UTC

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UK here: unfortunately it looks as if *we* are, in fact, going in with him.

2025-06-21 08:45:01 UTC

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*Fully* nude? As opposed to what? a little bit nude?
Still, good for them. I imagine it makes you feel alive. Afterwards.

2025-06-05 09:31:45 UTC

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werefore art Romeo, or shouldn't I ask? Shakespeare fans, I assume?

2025-05-29 19:10:38 UTC

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boiled salt beef, apparently: powder = sprinkle with salt.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/381/

2025-05-28 10:06:24 UTC

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I was brought up spiritualist, so I'm *kind of* okay with it, but I wonder if all those using it would be equally comfortable with "passed through to the spirit realm", which is the only way it makes sense to me.
(If not: do some people not pass, but fail??)

2025-05-22 20:23:56 UTC

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People with more money than sense. Or, if you're really lucky, just people with too much money. It has rather lost its appeal.

2025-05-22 14:58:07 UTC

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there was (years ago) the carpenter who lived off-grid in a forest making a house out of timber he'd felled himself. walls were straw bales and plaster. it was rather lovely.

2025-05-11 08:02:27 UTC

Laurie Penny on being #ActuallyAutistic — no surprises here, and not much joy, but I found it powerfully affirming: https://observer.co.uk/news/first-person/article/laurie-penny-autism

2025-04-27 12:32:37 UTC

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before :(

2025-04-27 12:08:17 UTC

whelp, first blood sugar check: 7.6. I *knew* I was pre-diabetic, but somehow it surprised me. It comes down different when you measure it yourself

2025-04-24 11:54:23 UTC

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I have always thought that Coogan was an unfunny comedian but a truly brilliant character actor.

2025-04-21 09:15:41 UTC

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yeah, that's the other thought. I gather the drugs for type 2 aren't nice, so maybe I should start monitoring my diet NOW and get a run up on that before/if I'm diagnosed…

2025-04-21 08:58:40 UTC

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I'm just a magnet for medical weirdness :/
Looking online I do see that pre-diabetes folks can sometimes have mild hypos. but of course searching for medical stuff online is problematic…

2025-04-21 08:34:21 UTC

seriously considering buying a blood sugar monitor.
I don't need one. I'm not diabetic; I am *pre* -diabetic; at risk of it. And I'm pretty certain that once in a while I go hypoglycemic: I kind of go stupid and phased out, and eating something fixes it.
On the one hand: data is good. I want to know what's going on. On the other: I'd have to commit to logging my food intake and glucose. Which is a PITA. and I have lots of other medical stuff going on already.

2025-03-28 11:39:47 UTC

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yep. can't find a clip, I can just hear him saying it in my head, and I'm pretty certain it's not a line from Blazing Saddles :)

2025-03-28 10:16:20 UTC

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Rip Torn says "nooclear" in Dr Strangelove, I think? :D

2025-03-28 09:21:23 UTC

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you mean they can't bring themselves to use the word? or they can't pronounce it? 😅

2025-02-19 12:20:49 UTC

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I called it a superpower too! Sorry to hear you're getting resistance. Here in the UK they suggested, but it was up to me.
The good news is, whichever way you go, it's an upgrade - and whichever way you go it will take time to adapt to it. (I stll pick up books and hold them next to my face, then remember and adjust the distance.) So it's not life-threateningly vital to make the right choice.