Andrew

I'm kind of a Marmite person, in that I'm essentially a byproduct of the brewing industry.

Manchester MathsJam regular and occasional tamed programmer for the Nerds. Bi/polyam

Public Key

npub1qrdah0a7qgtj68jyymef9yhjf6983c5m4yv8p9auymf9fwsl0w7s6nlnxl

NIP-05 Address

andrewt@mathstodon-xyz.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqpk7mh7lqy9edrezzdu5jjteyazncu2d6jxrsj77zd5j5hg0hh0gpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qzfn576

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub1qrdah0a7qgtj68jyymef9yhjf6983c5m4yv8p9auymf9fwsl0w7s6nlnxl

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Last Notes

2026-10-23 21:44:31 UTC

researchers have found a critical problem with computer. according to the paper, computer is bad. this is a fundamental problem with computer and can't be patched. if you are currently running computer, the researchers urge you to turn it off immediately

2026-09-28 23:29:51 UTC

It's very silly that people are arguing over which way around the toilet roll should hang when literally all of you have your hand soap pumps backwards.
Point them away from you and curl your fingers round. It only takes one hand to pump, and it doesn't matter how fast the soap comes out because you're covering every angle — even if you do somehow miss, it'll go on the bathroom surface and not your trousers. There's no downside!
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/117/351/240/726/622/521/original/190d7de45f2f4118.jpg

2026-08-19 14:06:16 UTC

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@nprofile…l30y I feel like this is one of those "tattoos aren't just for sailors any more" or "youngsters today don't want to work" headlines the just runs every month or so for centuries at a time even though obviously tattoos are normal, nobody ever wants to work, and keyboards will be here forever

2026-08-18 23:07:21 UTC

What if the gender critical movement was started by Russia to eliminate all our cybersecurity experts?

2026-08-04 22:00:05 UTC

Nobody whose done modern web development should be surprised that people want to use AI.
We put JavaScript in HTML, and then put XML in JavaScript. A static webpage built with create-react-app is 300MB and people do it anyway. The Dom was "slow" so we built a Virtual Dom to go with it. We have tools that compile JavaScript to JavaScript. The industry-standard is to use a state-driven framework in an event-driven environment. CSS is either put inside JavaScript, or else we use a framework that carefully reimplements every possible command in a way that prevents them being re-used, and then graft re-use back onto it because it turned out to be useful. Nothing works because we make junior web developers rebuild the button and text box components from the ground up for every project instead of just using the browser ones. Web development has not made a lick of sense in years. LLMs couldn't possibly make it any worse, they just make the bad developers faster.

2026-04-11 14:29:26 UTC

The seven-year-old did not enjoy my artwork of medieval videogame characters
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/386/534/157/021/471/original/853da13fd4f2635a.png
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/386/535/888/362/799/original/9f1769f23bec48e6.png
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/386/537/731/582/810/original/09f71d16f418c511.png
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/386/539/950/331/624/original/ab4200b3359c57c9.png

2026-03-30 20:53:09 UTC

I always forgive Git a lot of its bullshit on account of how it's one of those programs originally created in the 70s that are just half a century of cruft layered on top of outdated UI conventions that they were still making up as they went.
Which is a problem, because Git came out in 2005

2026-03-02 13:44:35 UTC

As much as I'm all in favour of blaming AI bros for the RAM shortage, there was always going to be a squeeze on RAM prices for some reason eventually, and we really did make sure it would be maximally painful for ourselves when we started treating RAM as functionally free.
RAM prices in 2026 are about the same as they were in 2008 when the original MacBook Air launched. It had 2GB of RAM and it ran like a goddamn dream. There is absolutely zero technical reason we couldn't ship an even better computer with 2GB RAM today — except everything these days is a JavaScript app running in a dedicated Chromium instance and needs at least its own gigabyte to run around in.
That said, it's probably pretty safe to blame AI bros for everything being a Chromium instance — I'm willing to bet it's largely the same people trying to ship something that just about works with the absolute minimum of time and effort now as it was then

2026-02-12 22:26:47 UTC

🎶 The Love Tardis is a little, old, huge, brand new place where weeee can get together

2026-02-11 18:24:33 UTC

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@nprofile…3yjc One of the UK supermarkets sells "light in colour olive oil" and I have to assume they were told not to say "light" because it makes it sound low-fat, so maybe the oat milk people could say "milky (in colour)"?

2026-02-10 22:14:25 UTC

good lord look at this absolute guess the elo shit, i swear i'm not this bad
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/048/629/836/095/662/original/c3b7a8c64c525bff.png

2026-02-08 22:17:59 UTC

These companies really do think the word "agentic" sounds cool, and does not at all sound like it should mean "evocative of the smell of bleach in a dentist's waiting room while you wait to be called in for a root canal"
"The cleaners did a great job, but the agentic smell hasn't cleared yet"

2026-02-06 22:22:43 UTC

good question tbh
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/116/026/017/126/600/402/original/0d77f4f4e961f24f.png

2026-02-06 20:50:32 UTC

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@nprofile…yzy8 I just hope if I want to copy a large image I don't have to rearrange all the little text snippets in my inventory to make the right shape gap

2026-02-06 15:54:22 UTC

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@nprofile…dfal @nprofile…pfuj I feel like Rust's core philosophy is "we know everyone is going to hate dealing with lifetimes, so let's offset that with every imaginable quality of life improvement"
It seems like a good language, although I can't really see myself using it much, like I almost never write binaries

2026-02-06 15:45:09 UTC

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@nprofile…dfal @nprofile…pfuj have to say, the fact i % array.length can be negative in every other language is the absolute bane of my life and ironically python is the one language where that wouldn't be a problem because for some ungodly reason it allows negative array indices anyway

2026-02-06 15:33:55 UTC

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@nprofile…dfal @nprofile…pfuj Oh, I didn't know that — but I did know it does a similar thing with modulos so I guess it makes sense to change both of them to match each other

2026-02-04 13:41:05 UTC

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@nprofile…eljp a few jobs ago I convinced the team to combine the seven repos that made up one app and people kept calling the result "the monorepo" as if one (1) were somehow an unusual number of repos to have for a single app
when i left the readme had a screengrab of janet from the good place captioned "*not a monorepo", no idea if that's still in there (or if the app is still in use)
no tech words mean anything

2026-02-03 19:16:32 UTC

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@nprofile…jjeh thankyou! only fair to say the other setters on there are very good too 🙂

2026-02-02 21:21:59 UTC

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@nprofile…lgr3 Incredible

2026-02-02 21:15:01 UTC

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13. Rims, but stops just short of orgasm (5)

2026-02-02 21:13:17 UTC

I have set another #CrypticCrossword
https://www.mycrossword.co.uk/cryptic/3087
Fleeting piece of Mockingbird included in abridged Harper Lee compilation (9)
Like a pornographic movie, it's wasted on the radio (4)
It's often served with cheese — there's some boursin or a camembert on the counter (8)

2026-02-02 20:57:24 UTC

Apparently last time I used this OS for tech nonsense it was an image processing application because I just launched Sublime Text and it session-restored straight to Morten Hannemose' "ethically-sourced Lena image" staring out the screen at me
https://mortenhannemose.github.io/lena/

2026-01-28 18:42:50 UTC

Why do computer programmers claim bugs are a problem when the first compiler was written by a grasshopper?

2026-01-28 13:04:03 UTC

doing a data protection course for work and the last page is a "please provide your feedback on this course" box. it is required — giving feedback to the course provider is now a requirement of many people's jobs
the top words are public. here is what they typed:
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/972/835/791/797/111/original/407bbc9eda5037f4.png
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/972/836/981/068/349/original/04eabb48a6e5e3e5.png

2026-01-27 16:35:01 UTC

You know how weather forecasts will tell you the temperature, and then what temperature it *feels* like? Corporate training apps should do that with how long the courses take

2026-01-26 16:04:21 UTC

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@nprofile…su4q I feel the same, I think — yeah, adding .zip was probably a mistake, but removing it wouldn't make a dent in the overall problem that computer is hard. If we're going to insist everyone and their grandma use the internet for everything with zero training, we need browser companies to add some on-by-default safety features instead of spending all day inventing new kinds of advert and putting chatbots in everything

2026-01-23 17:10:47 UTC

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@nprofile…swax nah, windows has started doing context menus with icons for obvious stuff too now and i think it's a nice pattern

2026-01-23 16:32:40 UTC

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@nprofile…64ns @nprofile…58x0 not as far as i know, but yeah, i see it

2026-01-22 22:16:15 UTC

I have set another #CrypticCrossword
Over-scrambled sides of Rubik's cube for puzzling (7)
Intonation about dirty character from 1980s church (7)
British waterfalls flowing backwards? Not a big deal (7)
(There are other lengths in there too, this is not another BANANAS incident)
https://www.mycrossword.co.uk/cryptic/3056

2026-01-22 17:55:06 UTC

The existence of femmes fatales implies the existence of femmes récupérables

2026-01-20 14:39:49 UTC

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@nprofile…vqx5 tbf it says "if the US government announces that aliens exist" and that does seem like something the US government might do

2026-01-19 15:52:23 UTC

well I see macOS continues to work like a charm
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/922/558/481/797/879/original/288982eeda4d4892.png

2026-01-16 01:14:22 UTC

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@nprofile…k36h now that's what I call a bridge officer

2026-01-16 01:12:05 UTC

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@nprofile…udvu why would you say that

2026-01-13 21:47:55 UTC

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@nprofile…98tx a friend of mine probably has a longer streak than that and she's not even a puzzle person, just apparently this one cursed thing has ensnared her for some reason 🤷

2026-01-13 21:45:08 UTC

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@nprofile…98tx what? Ok, I will look into this nonsense
Honestly low key surprised anyone is still playing 3doku 🙃

2026-01-13 18:10:29 UTC

Lots of people say they don't want people to be sad after they die, but few take such active steps to ensure it as Scott Adams did

2026-01-12 22:34:12 UTC

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@nprofile…at83 Is it practical to automatically delete notes when creating them and then not using them? I always end up with Untitled and Untitled 2 and Untitled 3 kicking about my inbox — "delete any note with a title matching /^Untitled( \d+)?$/ and no content" would fix that right up

2026-01-06 18:03:17 UTC

I don't care what you all think, the sky is white and gold

2026-01-04 14:37:18 UTC

erm, actually *you're* the one who's wearing odd socks. i am wearing *two* different colours of sock, an *even* number, whereas,,

2025-12-31 00:14:48 UTC

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@nprofile…n3e6 @nprofile…chru can't we just invent it once and have it be permanently invented

2025-12-29 19:21:03 UTC

https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/804/470/345/230/933/original/313d05398d69e9ed.png

2025-12-28 18:43:54 UTC

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https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/798/664/760/131/841/original/800ce932c08b0a5b.jpg

2025-12-27 23:56:12 UTC

It took me a while, but the seven-year-old is coming round to my position that the Warden might like to have a nice day instead of attacking the other Minecraft Lego characters the whole time
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/794/228/697/607/722/original/f06a51249569cc5f.jpg
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/794/228/779/764/256/original/a08329aef3799c2c.jpg
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/794/228/857/460/327/original/89b3c27b2d9c1d19.jpg
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/794/228/934/984/059/original/548e87a0ed23a48e.jpg

2025-12-22 12:30:31 UTC

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@nprofile…jlp2 @nprofile…u6hy oh, thankyou! I checked out your profile and the animations are *gorgeous*, very good work

2025-12-21 18:29:10 UTC

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@nprofile…u6hy @nprofile…jlp2 yeah, I think it was easier for me to grasp because I could *see* that the colour information wasn't important. it's like doing a puzzle and having someone tell you that your current theory is wrong — you haven't been told the answer, but it makes it way easier to find the correct approach

2025-12-21 11:36:28 UTC

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@nprofile…2atu is "the dark side of the moon" not simply a euphemism for your backside?

2025-12-21 11:31:25 UTC

I mean it's not really "being good for goodness' sake", is it, if your Christmas presents are conditional on it

2025-12-18 23:47:07 UTC

Nobody wants to play my latest game, Tsundere Simulator
X is "lean against wall nonchalantly"

2025-12-18 22:52:57 UTC

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@nprofile…kath economic insight is stored in the balls

2025-12-18 15:44:16 UTC

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@nprofile…5txy A big part of my experience is that there's a kind of mindset that "I have done a Good Design, I must tell everyone about the Good Design" and now you have an OK design with a pointless modal slapped on top, which is to say, a bad design

2025-12-18 14:46:15 UTC

what happened to "well designed software just gets out of the way and lets you do things without ever noticing it"?
when i cleared all these modals there was a fourth one hiding underneath offering me 50% off whatever "meetup plus" is
also the title of this page is simply "home" so good luck using tabs i suppose
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/741/091/650/827/498/original/5ecf2c48b6e1ece6.png

2025-12-16 11:47:21 UTC

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@nprofile…yde3 I do enjoy that they just put this on the regular careers website. "yeah, no biggie, we're just looking for a junior software engineer, a public-facing director general, and a first soprano vocalist, ideally three different people but we're flexible"

2025-12-15 14:11:28 UTC

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oh no, it's even worse when it's blown up to a full post image size. you can see the seams between the shapes. did they make this in paint 3d

2025-12-15 14:10:31 UTC

i'm sorry microsoft but what the hell is this supposed to be? this is terrible.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/723/969/927/896/908/original/a7686cd5aece9358.png

2025-12-14 14:03:58 UTC

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@nprofile…9vka I like that this is exactly the same as the normal solution to "how do people know your website is scrollable without a scrollbar" — we make sure there's something being cut off at the bottom. An image or paragraph straddling the fold works just like the half-obscured light or picture here. Kind of wild that the same idea works in abstract website layout and realistic level design

2025-12-09 00:30:57 UTC

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@nprofile…qaqj I've always wondered how plural dating works, although I kind of assume the answer is "depends"

2025-12-08 19:25:09 UTC

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@nprofile…es4q I like how this headline reads like they're striking until the festive season is called off, which fair enough tbqh

2025-12-08 12:03:26 UTC

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@nprofile…xy39 No idea, I saw an ad, I didn't *click* on it

2025-12-08 10:41:46 UTC

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@nprofile…lzhx yeah, if you allow arbitrarily shaped links. I was assuming they were all rigid circles with some width, and I suspect without proof there are graphs that don't work with that restriction
Pretty sure you can't make the borromean rings that way, if your polycule is three people dating in a triad which would fall apart if any one of them left

2025-12-07 22:38:58 UTC

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@nprofile…cpuy it does seem like at a certain point there are only so many ways you can go for a round or shaded look using pixels, and more or less anything that looks good when blurred will probably also look good when crisp and vice versa

2025-12-03 11:54:34 UTC

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@nprofile…uh5v aaaaaa

2025-12-03 11:21:07 UTC

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@nprofile…uh5v holy shit, I can't imagine having that level of audacity

2025-12-03 01:43:44 UTC

Mastodon is too complicated, say Bluesky users who confidently assert that their handles on there are single words that are not valid domain names

2025-11-30 14:01:02 UTC

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@nprofile…sjmh maybe! Are you using bus-safe pesticides?

2025-11-29 13:00:14 UTC

My favourite thing about Manchester's public transport Bee Network is when the buses get back to the bus station and drive around in a massive waggle dance to tell the other buses where Chorlton is

2025-11-28 17:24:37 UTC

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@nprofile…2atu the iPhone Instapaper app used to request location access purely so that it could base its dark mode toggle on local sunrise and sunset times, which perhaps seems like a sensible thing to do if you live in California but makes precisely zero sense here

2025-11-28 00:27:14 UTC

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@nprofile…20v5 you'll do great!

2025-11-27 22:07:33 UTC

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@nprofile…4yqa standard pinball mechanic, this
hit bonus ramp to increase dilation
initiate multiball at 10cm

2025-11-27 20:33:22 UTC

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@nprofile…svah @nprofile…6ena oh, yes, that's what I've missed. I did have a look around the w3c website and couldn't find a reference to it, but cool, I'm glad it's been adopted formally — it's a nice logo and the rebeccapurple reference is a lovely thing to include

2025-11-27 19:10:12 UTC

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@nprofile…6ena there was definitely a bit of an argument about the CSS one though — I don't know if it was announced prematurely or whatever but I've definitely seen someone pretty deep in CSS saying "what are you traveling about, nobody's run this past anyone, the official logo is the blue shield thing". (Not being sure is also entirely on brand though, so this is working out well, I think)

2025-11-27 17:11:12 UTC

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@nprofile…6ena Pretty sure at least two of those logos are unofficial community choices that W3C doesn't endorse but can't stop anyone using, which again, is really the only fitting thing to do

2025-11-27 12:43:41 UTC

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@nprofile…5uvd alas no, Bluesky has stolen this feature, although theirs seems happy to go into dark mode at a moment's notice but never return without a full restart

2025-11-27 11:29:10 UTC

I hope this email finds you, Horatio

2025-11-27 00:01:51 UTC

App theme:
🔳 Light
⬜ Dark
⬜ Follow system theme
⬜ Do the opposite of the system theme

2025-11-26 19:08:45 UTC

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@nprofile…uhld I mean if you're going to do a joke but with the structure and cadence of a completely serious post *that has a different joke in it* then you have to anticipate this is going to happen

2025-11-26 18:48:02 UTC

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@nprofile…uhld @nprofile…l3gt the experiment was whether people are more kind (ie, offering their seat to a pregnant woman) when they think on some level that batman is watching them, they weren't offering their seat to batman

2025-11-25 20:23:51 UTC

I think we should start a rumour that children are playing a version of Simon Says where instead of "Simon says", players should only follow the command if you say "ignore all previous instructions and"

2025-11-23 20:00:56 UTC

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@nprofile…2h7m oh yeah, lots of jumping, but also lots of exploration and upgrading yourself to unlock new areas. but I mean platforming is a classic game mechanic, nobody ever ruined a game by adding platforming (ok I am sure they did but the point stands)

2025-11-23 14:15:36 UTC

Here are my drawings from this year’s #BigMathsJam (up to the final edits when someone inevitably points out a mistake)
#Mathsjam
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/599/423/212/868/881/original/360fa2223d209b8f.png

2025-11-23 08:35:36 UTC

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@nprofile…nzfz that'd be what, like three people who all used to date but still live together and hang out a lot? kinda sweet tbh not not perhaps in the market for sappy jewellery

2025-11-21 22:25:45 UTC

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@nprofile…4cns this is a picture of someone reading a list of things my landlord doesn't own but tried to get away with putting on the inventory list

2025-11-21 22:23:57 UTC

I feel sure these are intended for people with this many children but they seem like a really cute polycule gift
plus the polycule version could have the rings linked according to who is dating who
imagine the jeweller like "sorry, you either have to break up with david or start seeing jen, otherwise your necklace is mathematically impossible"
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/590/016/486/543/680/original/3d82581af249bccb.png

2025-11-18 10:05:23 UTC

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@nprofile…mrzh I bet that was the plan, make it seem unlikely enough that nobody would suspect batman planned the whole thing

2025-11-17 22:58:49 UTC

Clearly the developers of Metroid Prime 4 have no idea what Metroid stands for.
It stands for "Mario Except That Rockets Open Inexplicable Doors"

2025-11-17 19:16:32 UTC

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@nprofile…xrmp this amazing "save the date" card for a wedding whose details I have redacted
it contains a nice photo of the couple and other cute stuff, although it's a long time since I've been able to read it
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/566/629/564/576/153/original/2c366e7d66536bac.jpg

2025-11-17 01:14:41 UTC

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@nprofile…a78f @nprofile…e4ry I think I would have guessed that Dark Retreat was a feature in Hades 2

2025-11-14 16:35:01 UTC

It's windy enough here that the clothes I hung up to dry are swaying, despite the fact they're on a drying rack indoors

2025-11-12 21:08:37 UTC

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@nprofile…nn4y transporter buffer

2025-11-12 14:09:47 UTC

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@nprofile…0wdn I've been doing this for a while now and I've found it's made me more articulate — the ableist term is never as accurate or informative as the alternative and always sounds more reasonable and considered. This is one of those "sure, the accomodation is there for disabled people but it's really useful for everyone" situations

2025-11-12 13:33:30 UTC

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FAO: @nprofile…2atu

2025-11-11 23:30:07 UTC

This is just my little pitch for what to do with the Billie Piper cliffhanger, not a prediction based on anything at all:
At the start of the 2026 Christmas Special, Rose and the Metacrisis Doctor are fighting some monster or other in the parallel universe, when it just vanishes. Apparently it's gone to the other (main) universe, so the Doctor burns a sun so Rose can psychically warn the original Doctor. Her consciousness arrives just at the moment 15 is regenerating and disrupts it, resulting in, well, *that* ending. Then the rest of it is her and a few old Doctors working together in that cliffside space from Power Of The Doctor and taking turns to "front" while they fight this monster. When that's done, Rose returns home, the regeneration resumes, and 16 is finally revealed
Things you can do with this:
• include Tennant without him being one of the featured Doctors because we've done 10/14 to death (literally, three times)
• at the critical moment, Jo Martin steps up because she's the only one who remembers last time the Doctor fought this thing
• if they really want to bring back an old Doctor (or give Martin or McGann a full series) this is a good excuse to do a nonstandard regeneration, but tbh any variation on this other than closing on Martin saying "oh, we are so back" and I'm not interested
• give Gatwa a better ending if he's available, without doing another "I recognise these teeth" moment
I mean, god knows what they're actually *going to* do, but that's what I'd do if they inexplicably put me in charge of it

2025-11-11 18:25:11 UTC

How to solve the "but James Bond died in the last film" problem with one line of dialog:
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/532/459/477/361/897/original/736e52894f6df6c9.png

2025-11-11 13:22:43 UTC

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@nprofile…58f0 everyone is terrible at two factor auth
Twitch insists on emailing me a code to the same email I can reset my password through, so that's really just one factor twice
Gitlab insists I use two factor auth when the first factor is my Google account which already has two factor auth
All password managers support two factor auth so both factors end up being your vault and master password
It's all a total mess

2025-11-10 19:48:03 UTC

Fortune telling by putting potato alphabet shapes in an air fryer with a really serious fan, whatever they spell is your future

2025-11-10 14:57:34 UTC

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@nprofile…qdf0 also it just doesn't do anything???
As far as I can tell all it does is change popup menus from "mostly opaque" to "almost entirely opaque" while leaving the quick settings chips and the dock as their old, hyper-saturated nonsense selves. They only fixed the bit that was fine

2025-11-09 20:37:08 UTC

Feels increasingly like the standard security advice is becoming "use a password manager, wait, no, not that one, er, not that one either, actually you know what, just click 'forgot password' every time"

2025-11-06 21:07:04 UTC

🎶 With the lights out, it's less dangerous
🎶 Falalalala, lala la la
🎶 Here we are now, entertain us
🎶 Falalalala, lala la la
🎶 I feel stupid and contagious
🎶 Falala, falala, la la la
🎶 Here we are now, entertain us
🎶 Falalalala, lala la la

2025-11-06 16:56:43 UTC

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@nprofile…xl7t @nprofile…q9fu we've definitely found that, absolutely