← Feed

Posts

• Post #4480598

  We attended a lovely barbecue this afternoon. One of the guests was complaining that she had to retire later than planned so that the government could give money to immigrants who'd never done a day's work in their lives. She was too thoughtless to notice that the person she was complaining to was A first-generation immigrant from India, and The father of the host, who's a hardworking and successful project manager I fear that people like her are going to hand the country to the F...

• Post #4380231

  I've had another follow request from a dominatrix who has no posts on her account and no sign of interaction with anyone here, just a profile picture and a set of links to other services. I've no interest in the services of a dominatrix, and I don't think I've posted anything to suggest otherwise. I've reported the account as spam. Open question: why is it always dominatrices who do this, rather than other sex workers? Do I give off dominate-me vibes, or is there somethin...

• Post #4362403

  @Aaron_David@universeodon.com What? That's a new low.

• Post #4353487

  This Wikipedia page lists dd as a tool for creating bootable USB devices. That's true in the same way that chopsticks are tools for fishing tea bags out of a Thermos flask: I've done it and it works, but it's hardly the main point of the tool.

• Post #4170465

  Yesterday, Mrs Wife made a cup of tea in a mug I'd used for hot Bovril. She couldn't drink it. As I made Bovril today, I sent her: 🚨🐄☕🚨 Siren, cow drink, siren. She thought we'd run out of milk.

• Post #4144528

  @scottearle@poorlyrendered.com They won't quite tell you this, but the racists want the government to round up asylum seekers with cattle prods and chase them back into the sea. I'm ashamed of what the UK has become. @anon_opin@mastodon.social

• Post #4141684

  @UncleDuke1969@universeodon.com And still rock-hard.

• Post #4045114

  @anon_opin@mastodon.social Not a chance. Honestly — not a chance. I wouldn't do it.

• Post #3958071

  I need to run a couple of #Android #apps I don't trust. I accept that I can't hide from Google, but I want to hide from the makers of the apps. I've factory-reset an old Android tablet for use only with untrusted apps and set up a new Google account. I've covered up the cameras with peel-clean stickers. I use Pi-Hole and Blokada to minimise tracking. Is there anything else I should be doing? Using an alternative OS is not an option, unfortunately, because, AFAICS, no altern...

• Post #3942084

  @Aaron_David@universeodon.com Earlier today — true story — I was pleased with myself for spotting and solving the anagram in the Radio Times crossword and getting writing Plaid Cumry into the grid. Only it's not Plaid Cumry, it's it? It's festering Plaid Cymru. That didn't make the crossword any easier to solve.

• Post #3923070

  @Michigander@toad.social I believe Curious Electric by Jon and Vangelis fits the spec: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ahk-d8oLPY

• Post #3922771

  @Aaron_David@universeodon.com I'm sure it was either Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw.

• Post #3922643

  @Aaron_David@universeodon.com Dammit, was that Oscar or GBS? My memory is letting me down.

• Post #3911635

  Petition not to allow #parakeets to be hunted and shot for sport in the UK: https://38d.gs/j8s1 Yes, they're an invasive species. No, shooting for fun is not a scientific or humane way to control them, and one thing the UK doesn't need is more people running around with guns, taking potshots into the sky.

• Post #3866614

  Last Monday, Mrs Wife took an elderly relative to the GP for a memory assessment. He was asked the current month (March) and year (1965), and was asked to count backwards from 20 and recite the months backwards (which he managed). Apparently, doctors no longer ask who the Prime Minister is. It's not considered a fair question.

• Post #3843703

  Once again, someone in the UK has been arrested for a social media post: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8r2r76vnd1o I try not to post anything I wouldn't want stripped of all context and read out in court by someone whose job was to see me sent to prison.

• Post #3830893

  The dd or Destroy Data command…

• Post #3770527

  So that we can leave our windows open at night, it should be illegal to burgle a house during a heatwave.

• Post #3700220

  Tomorrow morning, a nice man is coming to work on our heat pumps. He will need to turn the heating on. Send help.

• Post #3612337

  @AnachronistJohn@zia.io I don't do any of those three risky things you mentioned, but that doesn't make CPU bugs irrelevant. I believe in defence in depth. #ZeroDay bugs are a fact of life, and, thanks to LLMs, we're seeing more now than ever before. I'd prefer to give the bad guys as little to work with as possible. I don't need persuading about the merits of #AMD: my main machine runs a twelve-core #Threadripper. 😄 When I bought the machine, AMD offered better bang f...

• Post #3610917

  We're heading into the third heatwave of the year. This weekend, I got Mrs Wife to take the clippers to my scalp again. My hair is now 2mm long and, side-on, looks sheer like a pair of stockings. You'd be surprised how much difference it makes on a hot day.

• Post #3610617

  It's not just #Spectre and #Meltdown — dozens of similar CPU bugs have been discovered since 2018, and they're still being found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_execution_CPU_vulnerability The foundations of modern computing are ricketier than we like to imagine. In the past, I've always bought a decent computer and held on to it for years and years: it saves money and it's the green thing you do. My main machine right now is seven years old and still going strong....

• Post #3428383

  I've just posted a slightly grumpy reply to someone who deserved better, and I added the "rant", "grammar" and "nitpick" hashtags. My message was then boosted by three bots that follow those hashtags. Who on earth is setting up all these bots, and why?

• Post #2324818

  I've just misread std::transform as std::transfem. I swear I spend too much time on Fedi. 😄

• Post #2248070

  This page explains the forms of photo ID that UK people need to take to the polling station today: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id/accepted-forms-photo-id You only need one form of ID. It's okay if it's a little out-of-date, provided that the photo still looks like you. UK friends, get out and #vote!

• Post #1949315

  May I have a quick rant about my doctor's surgery? I ordered a repeat prescription from an online pharmacy on Monday evening. The pharmacy emailed the surgery. Because it's still 1997, the admin staff at the surgery printed the email — not on Tuesday, but on Thursday — and left it in the prescribing doctor's in-tray, ready for her to sign. Because she was out, the prescription just sat there, without being authorised. As a result of this fiasco, I'm likely to run out of #pr...

• Post #1907194

  BBC News: Musk's AI told me people were coming to kill me. I grabbed a hammer and prepared for war https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c242pzr1zp2o Here's a link to the Human Line Project mentioned in the story: https://www.thehumanlineproject.org/

• Post #1842100

  Please help me settle a marital disagreement. Honeydew melon tastes faintly of armpits:

• Post #1030509

  Early in the Covid pandemic, I made a donation to folding@home to help them analyse the virus. #WashU started mailing me regularly, as if I were an alumnus. I asked them to stop. Today, out of the blue, they mailed me to ask if I wanted to start receiving mail again. Talk about missing the point! I sent them a #GDPR erasure request and a link to the ICO's Web site. WashU is now obliged to delete my data, not only from live systems but from backups as well. Let's see how they chok...

• Post #721236

  Saw a great car sticker today. It was styled to look like AC⚡DC, but actually said AD⚡HD.