I'm not enjoying, on multiple levels, the fact that I read that while scrolling on a smartphone.

Yeah that makes sense to be fair, depending on terrain at least. Anything which is a quick cheap experiment though is always interesting. Thanks for the Reddit pointer!

Ok, I'm interested, where should I go to learn more about hammock camping, because that sounds like a thru-hiking point of interest...

Full-fat is such an awkward description, especially given that, judging by their actions, the most they've done with the Bible is skimmed it.

I guess if there's an upside to... <gestures vaguely> ...all of this... then at least holidays in Omelas are going to be really cheap this season.

That lighting is making me think the glasses are at a rather swanky evening garden party in the Hamptons.

Oh wow, I didn't realise Ikea had one of those now - that's gone straight on the "pick up one of these next time I'm near an Ikea" list. First time I've seen cheap, simple and relatively inoffensive for one of these. Thanks!

Ooh, that looks like a neat little thing. What device is that? I always think I should pay more attention to CO2, and then never get around to it. I suppose potentially because my brain is addled from too much CO2...

Always so telling when members of the Labour Party refer to The Left as a) some kind of capital-letter coherent entity, and b) "them" rather than "us". If you consider the left as something "other", that really should spark some self-reflection as to whether you're in the appropriate party.

This is so important - we don't talk about this kind of thing, anything like enough. AI/LLMs, etc., are going to make scenarios like this even worse. It takes bravery to talk about it, no doubt - it also takes bravery to try and push back on the system before it eats you. We need to support people.

NB, for anyone expecting productivity from me this weekend:

Due to the general economic climate, I have been forced to sell my mind palace, and am currently residing in a small mind bedsit. I haven't yet unpacked, and I've just stirred a cup of mind tea with a rolled-up mind placemat.

This could open up a new field of mathematics, a bar where every single person you meet is just The Worst, rewriting previous laws of comparative value.

Nobody - nobody - needs a social setting based around "situation monitoring", and anyone who thinks they do should be shunned by polite society.

From mid-April I'll be back on the market looking for work.
- 25+ years professional experience.
- .NET since the start, Node 3+ years.
- See mikehadlow.com/top/about/ for details.
- Contract or perm. Slight preference for contract.
- Must be remote. (I'm UK based).

There's an awful lot wrong with the NHS, but much more that's right about it. Best wishes for a speedy recovery!

On the whole Thiel thing, when you've effectively reached a point where the Pope is saying "whoa, you're taking this religion a bit too literally, there, champ" - that's probably as good a sign as any that you should try and slot in an extra hobby, ideally one that gets you outdoors a bit more.

I, for one, am shocked that Farage will say whatever the hell will make him the next quick buck - if only there were something in his history, behaviour, and utterly obvious character that would have provided some kind of clue.

A blank space would be great - first person to get a new note decides what's on that one. Currency equivalent of the old Smiths Salt and Shake crisps. New notes could come with a special one-time-only pen, perhaps.

Pretty insulting to SEN parents as well, implying that we're credulous, gullible marks who'll listen to some ambulance chaser, rather than being well aware of relevant legislation and when it's not being implemented (which is often).

Ah, I will bow to your experience on that one then. I have a dog where the only way to move him unwillingly is just to hoik him up and put him down where he needs to be, and I suppose a goat might be in a similar category...

Is the animal particularly intent on staying? An elephant which has better places to be would probably only require some basic facilitation; conversely, you'd probably struggle with something like a recalcitrant goat regardless of the size difference. Willingness seems to be a key factor here.

Judging by the evidence so far, there's at least one more than strictly needed.

What's My JND? Find your Just Noticeable Difference in colour perception. How small a colour difference can you actually see?

What's My JND? 0.0029
Can you beat it? www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

I kinda want to clean my monitor now though...

I'm not sure we have a denomination high enough for such an ovine unit. Should we ever suffer some Zimbabwe-style inflation (and who knows, with everything going on), I nominate this sheep for the £10,000,000 note.

Pretty on the nose though really - quite small, rather twee and traditional in appearance, turns out to be a little murderous bastard in nature.

I really wanted to go, but when I asked how much the tickets would be, the operator just sucked their teeth and then started talking about how bad the last festival I went to was.

Isn't she supposedly an engineer of some sort? I assume she was down at the docks volunteering with the spanners to get things seaworthy then, rather than just spouting off meaningless antagonistic bollocks without the required contextual knowledge?

I know I’ve got some Labour local gov’t types following me, so I want to say this clearly so that you can share it internally as appropriate: I will never again vote Labour while these policies, or Wes Streeting, are in place. I will not vote Labour at any level because of this.

It does feel very much like it would slot neatly into his oeuvre, I'm assuming he probably checks the news regularly with his agents number dialled in except for the final digit.

The Submarine of Czechia: Or, The Life of a Spy at Mar-a-Lago A version of this short story was originally published in Flaming Hydra, an art collective I'm proud to be a part of. This is most definitely a work of...

so what happened was, i read nine john le carré books, then i saw the pictures of the preposterous drapery SCIF at mar a lago where the iran war was being conducted, and then i thought about how many spies there must be at that place

and then i wrote a short story

buttondown.com/theswordandt...

This needs to be both a novel, and a brutally dry and dark film, comedy, farce and tragedy rolled together.