Eric TF Bat

Currently helping an elderly family friend figure out if an email is a scam (which it obviously is) and hey, people who make mobile email apps, it's a dark pattern to not make the email address of the sender visible without needing to click on the little arrow thing.

Just thought you should know.

D.
(Short for "Duh!")

If the final twist is that while everyone was looking at Greenland, Trump's CIA quietly took over the Panama Canal, then everyone will find out (a bit too late) that you're psychic.

Supposing you had the ability to teleport yourself and anybody else to any location instantly, how many ICE operatives would need to be dropped into an Indonesian volcano before the USA became minimally civilised? Ten? A hundred? Every last fucking one of them?

The explanation page jumps away to god knows where before I can read it. Ironic that a page about Python is rendered unreadable by stupid Javascript tricks.

Hang on! SA has a Liberal Party? Since when? Where? Who? And more importantly, why?

Wait - you're saying the world works?

Naah, you're wrong about this one. No way you can support that assertion.

I just want to know: if they don't have fully functional replicator tech in the 23rd century, where did they get so many Idiot Balls for ALL the characters to hold simultaneously?

Ugh. Well, thank the gods that's over. I don't get the praise I'm seeing for that episode: it was a poorly-acted plotless sequence of cliches all wrapped up with the biggest Star Trek cliche of all, the omnipotent glowing super-aliens.

/me is sad.

Good advice though.

⏩ atmosphere is already annoying me, even before we find out that the moon's orbit takes it into the atmosphere of its primary, which has so many things wrong with it that I may weep.

Never mind. Grit teeth. If I can't manage it, I'll read the plot synopsis and skip to the next episode.

Trying for the second time to watch the second-last episode of season 3 of Strange New Worlds. Last time I hit a wall right about the time it became clear it was just a low-effort remake of Enemy Mine. This time I'm not even that far in and the asteroid-like moon with Earth-normal gravity and ⏩

I'd say something like "a couple of women could never fix that, they're far too [some stereotypical personality trait]" but I suspect that such an obvious degree of emotional manipulation would be not unlike pissing on a tsunami. I mean, feel free to tailor and pretend if you think it might help.

We need the TESCREAL true believers to all adopt a single, easily-recognised item of clothing, like the misogynist fedora or the one-digit-IQ racist's red baseball cap, for ease of avoiding. If it could be something that other people don't already enjoy wearing (as with fedoras), that would help.

Now it's just 365 sleeps until Christmas!

And even better, one sleep until hot cross buns are back in the shops!

To be fair, the same thing happens if you start with Les Miserables. No doubt there's a musical out there that's as good as those two, but I can't imagine what it is.

I can't claim that this was because we had strong feelings about never lying to children, because we certainly told them other lies, like "democracy is a functional form of government" or "if you don't go to bed RIGHT NOW, we will still love you". I think we were just too lazy to pretend. ⏹️

Our youngest is 18 now, so I'm not sure I can quite remember how we did the whole Santa Claus/Father Christmas thing. I think we just sort of decided without ever discussing it that we wouldn't bother trying to pretend, so our kids grew up knowing that it was just a sort of cultural running gag. ⏩

From Scarfolk Council, a satirical website at https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/. Appears to be a crumpled government poster from circa 1973, headed "A self-support scheme from HM Government" and "Scarfolk Council Citizens Advice". Text reads: Feel hopeless and abandoned, like you're going mad? Don't worry. Let us reassure you that everything you're feeling is completely justified and proves you have fully comprehended the true severity of your situation. Be proud of your keen insights, but be aware that we cannot offer support to people of inferior value [footnote: To find out your current value in pounds and pence, write to your MP and include a self-addressed stamped envelope, unless your previous evaluation was less than a stamp.] Keep it to yourself. Discontent is contagious. The footer of the poster reads, as is usual with this website, "For more information, please reread."

This will be either oddly comforting or no use at all. For me it's the former, but my Weird may not be the same as your Weird.

The CEO or president or emperor or whatever of the BBC resigned a couple of weeks ago, and one of his alleged sins was apparently not giving enough "equal time" to TERFs in talk shows about the transgender "debate". So there are good people at the Beeb, but mostly not for much longer.

I learned a little while ago that this sort of thing is new(ish) in the US. It's pretty universal in AU, and I believe there was a musician/singer who incorporated our standard walk signal noise into the beat of a song, but I have no memory of which artist and which song.

I would never!

*fakes innocent expression*

It won't matter. The dementia is so advanced now, he can't recall or comprehend events. Might as well hope the asteroid sticks around after the planetary impact to feel remorse. He's no longer a functiong human being, just a bunch of bug-ridden macros looping endlessly inside a disconnected brain.

The lawyers of BlueSky seem to know something we don't, and have applied age verification only to the Chat function of the app, not the whole thing. I'm 90% certain they've misunderstood the "law" on the Australian "ban" on "social media", but meh, whatever. Don't try to chat me; I refuse to verify.

Words 7-27 are technically redundant in that comment, you know.

"Sure, insomnia sucks, but on the up-side, it's only 2 sleeps till Christmas!"

Translators are heroes and legends - no doubt about it. I remain awestruck.

Please locate whoever was roped in to convert all those puns to Japanese and, I don't know, make sure they're feeling OK. It would put a strain on any human mind.

What an interesting unrelated comment. I shall certainly take note of it, for absolutely no reason at all. Thank you!

Oh, our government doesn't lie to us. You need a certain minimum level of brain function to lie. All our government can do is grunt disingenuously.