Iain Roberton

Images of an old silver 1999 Toyota Corolla for sale

You want a car that gets the job done? You want a car that's hassle free? You want a car that literally no one will ever compliment you on? Well look no further. The 1999 Toyota Corolla. Let's talk about features. Bluetooth: nope Sunroof: nope Fancy wheels: nope Rear view camera: nope...but it's got a transparent rear window and you have a fucking neck that can turn. Let me tell you a story. One day my Corolla started making a strange sound. I didn't give a shit and ignored it. It went away. The End. You could take the engine out of this car, drop it off the Golden Gate Bridge, fish it out of the water a thousand years later, put it in the trunk of the car, fill the gas tank up with Nutella, turn the key, and this puppy would fucking start right up. This car will outlive you, it will outlive your children. Things this car is old enough to do: Vote: yes

Consent to sex: yes Rent a car: it IS a car This car's got history. It's seen some shit. People have done straight things in this car. People have done gay things in this car. It's not going to judge you like a fucking Volkswagen would. Interesting facts: This car's exterior color is gray, but it's interior color is grey. In the owner's manual, oil is listed as "optional." When this car was unveiled at the 1998 Detroit Auto Show, it caused all 2,000 attendees to spontaneously yawn. The resulting abrupt change in air pressure inside the building caused a partial collapse of the roof. Four people died. The event is chronicled in the documentary "Bored to Death: The Story of the 1999 Toyota Corolla You wanna know more? Great, I had my car fill out a Facebook survey. Favorite food: spaghetti Favorite tv show: Alf Favorite band: tie between Bush and the Gin Blossoms This car is as practical as a Roth IRA. It's as middle-of-the-

When I ran the CarFax for this car, I got back a single piece of paper that said, "It's a Corolla, It's fine." Let's face the facts, this car isn't going to win any beauty contests, but neither are you. Stop lying to yourself and stop lying to your wife. This isn't the car you want, it's the car you deserve: The fucking 1999 Toyota Corolla. Google map of cars location

Never forget: 8 years ago a random person on Craigslist wrote the most effective ad for the Toyota Corolla, ever.

Mark Zuckerberg presenting his Pervert Glasses for perverts

I'm not sure about this branding but I'm not the billionaire business genius

This afternoon I’ve been packing up the first batch of our brand new subscription service - two books and a signed-by-the-artist tote bag. Feeling like the luckiest indie publisher alive - thanks everyone! #booksky #publishing #subscription

I’d honestly like to know what their view is on this. A while back, their policy was to reduce the term of copyright (from memory, to something completely insane like 15 years from authorship) but that got removed at conference. I haven’t been able to find what their policy is now.

There isn’t a better proof of irrationality in markets than this shit. Every AI feature tech companies introduce is like “We came up with something useless people will hate. We have to pay 20% of our revenue to OpenAI to run it” and they can’t stop doing it and CEOs keep thinking of new ones.

Imagine if all the Dubai tax exiles got blown up.

I'd wank until the top came off.

For something that specifically parodies a specific type of broadcaster at a specific point in their career - long before Dave Nice might have thought twice about taking his computer 'in' - Smashie & Nicey: The End Of An Era really is timelessly funny.

timworthington.org/2024/03/03/l...

‘Everyone is 12’ theory of the US administration chalks up another win.

The show that nearly killed me on a number of occasions, but especially with this:

THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS A Thought Exercise in Financial History, from the Future

I think this is quite a bad piece of thinking www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic?hi... but I understand it has caused a bit of a flutter.

In the opening paragraphs it literally has Nominal GDP soaring AND money velocity cratering ...

Well this is weird AF

You might need to be more specific. There’s one of these a few times a day, now…

Thing with Danny Kruger is he is a right wing intellectual - while this once meant someone with an obsessive interest in skull-measuring and regulating the sexual behaviour of strumpets, there was a brief period where they focused on community and aesthetics before going back to skull-measuring and

Five women authors by whom I've read at least five books:

Octavia E Butler
Ursula K Le Guin
Margaret Atwood
Martha Wells
Ann Leckie

AI will not save us In fact, it's probably going to make our lives much, much worse

In the New Statesman this week, I channel just some of my hatred toward AI Hype into 900 words.

On the grifters and rubes surfing a bubble atop a pyramid, and the economy-shattering fraud the rest of us can no longer escape.

www.newstatesman.com/science-tech...

Fantastic.

Kraftwerk - Roboter - Lemmchen Grundschule YouTube video by Lars Reimers

German primary school kids perform Kraftwerk while dressed as robots. As good as it sounds

Polanski’s Macbeth
Polanski’s Tess
Lord of the Flies
War of the Worlds (the shit 50s one and also the orson Welles radio one)

All books we were reading so, Polanski-blindness aside - it was the olden days - also made sense

I'm gonna repeat my comment.

Talking about nonexistent "super intelligent" machines is like talking about the Cookie Monster rather than corporations creating real things causing harm. A non existent machine god bringing apocalypse or utopia is a framing that is harmful. Period.

Russian Blue cat snoozing on laptop.

This is Juno. Laptop warm. Confess I put it in “high power mode”-fans run a bit louder but she loves it.

anti-AI “credo” I have a religious exemption from using all generative “A.I.” I am not a member of the Silicon Valley sect. Their beliefs and practices are an affront to my sensibilities. The tech is trained on stolen intellectual property. The output is riddled with mistakes, and it is incapable of comprehending the weight of its errors. It is not even an “it.” But sometimes, it is filtered and massaged by unaccountable human sweatshop workers and bad actors. I am not required to use “A.I.” any more than I am required to join Amway, buy black market rhino horn, or attend the Fyre Festival. As a human, I have a duty and right to limit my carbon and water footprint and protect my fellow human. As a union worker, I have a duty and right to oppose tech that is used to threaten workers or cheapen our product. As a tech consumer, I have a duty and right to oppose scams that lower the quality of our tools. As a scholar, I have a duty and right to oppose anti-intellectualism. As a taxpayer, I have a duty and right to oppose the misallocation of public funds and data. As a grown up, I have a duty and right to protect young people from predators. As a person with a conscience, I am appalled at the decadent disregard for user safety, the callous dismissal of responsibility for lives ruined and slaughtered. My religion is related to my identity, geography, and family, making it an irrelevant accident of birth. What matters is that I was born. I have an exemption from their digital rapture, their cultural austerity, their intellectual poverty. I practice wholesome hedonism and First Do No Harm. CS 12/9/2025

i included this in my syllabi this year

Countries that do not use Fritos as currency could be "left behind," says Frito-Lay CEO Ken Biddleman

Once got into a “discussion” with a guy at the cornflake shop (ludicrous hi end hifi shop off Tottenham ct rd). We were listening to an album I had assisted on. I said it was mixed on NS10s connected to studer power amps with twin and earth mains cable. He did not believe me.

In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud — 'The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't,' notes the experiment creator Who knew listening to a banana sounded so good?

In a blind test, audiophiles couldn't tell the difference between audio signals sent through copper wire, a banana, or wet mud

UK migration could be negative this year – how will that hit the economy? Universities, builders and health trusts are feeling the squeeze, as thinktank says effect of zero net migration could be similar to Brexit

"Catastrophically" would be the first word which comes to mind in relation to this headline. All by the way for no political gain for Labour. They are already enacting some of the most draconian anti-immigration policies for decades. It doesn't appease Reform. 1/
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

It’s a shame he “special editioned” it. Added loads of shonky cgi to most of the versions you can buy / rent these days. Still spectacular and the soundtrack (Lalo Schiffrin twisted and warped by Walter Murch) is a masterpiece.

It’s probably the thing I understand least about the super wealthy. Musk could have chosen to be a world-historic hero, funding anti-poverty programmes / medical research / etc. And he decided “shitposting and fascism” was the way to go.