I can’t remember the actual radio but pretty sure ours had transistors. I suspect some aspects of this show influenced the movies.

Been listening to the BBC Radio Adaptation of Lord of the Rings. Listened to it as a teenager. Some of it holds up really well. Only just worked out that Bill Nighy played Sam.
(Not so keen on the singing tho.)

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they're the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive-because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about "Western civilization," while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Really powerful, hopeful paragraph from the latest article in the Atlantic by @adamserwer.bsky.social

Not a business. A propaganda outlet for foreign oligarchs who wish to dismantle any institution against Putin and Trump agenda.

Trying out the local Google Gemma LLM on phone. Seems to be a bit off.

A diminished US might be better for the world. But American exceptionalism will want not want to go down quietly. I fear there will be an ongoing problem until there is substantive change to the constitution.

I’ll definitely never visit the US again.

Bit too late. So many of the essential US institutions have been gutted.

an elderly woman is sitting at a table in a restaurant and looking at the camera . ALT: an elderly woman is sitting at a table in a restaurant and looking at the camera .

I’ll have what Hungary’s having.

It’s too expensive to extract. And it becomes more expensive with each additional safety requirement and decommissioning cost.
Solar cost are falling at a geometric rate.

Shameful way to conduct yourself

Populists always say that complex political issues can be solved with simple methods. Often involving strength or cruelty. But when they win power they reveal incompetence and corruption.

Ooh - local gallery is using my Venice painting on their poster.

The cost of “filling-up” an EV using cheap nighttime electricity is about £4.

Yes. And yet still can’t get FSD to drive reliably.

Exactly. If Musk announced they were abandoning motor vehicles to work on matter transporters (even though the technology isn’t invented) - Wall Street would reward it.

He thinks UFOs are actually demons. 🙄

Who would have thought that passing economic sanctions on ourselves would have damaged the economy?

We need to stop using oil. Not just for environmental reasons, but for security and economic stability.

23% for the Donald Trump party! Disappointing.

There’s some phenomenal character stuff. The individual stories often link. There’s stuff like this but never done as well as this.

Restore from iCloud backup and new iPhone is a clone of the old one*

*banking apps need you to reauthorise for obvious reasons

“You have to get to Mars to receive message”. “Lets stop and change direction to assist ship”. Etc.

The science in Hail Mary was well thought-out. Made sense. The science in Ad Astra was so bad I felt insulted. .

Project Hail Mary was a really entertaining movie. So very enjoyable, full of character and wit.
In much the same way that Solo was not. Would have love to see how that movie might have been.

Males cosplaying as manly men because they are profoundly insecure. All the various gender tropes do profound damage to society and to mental health.

If I never see another story about the “royal” family I will be happy.

Burning gasoline to move a vehicle wastes 70% as heat. EVs are so much more efficient.

Not always dumb. But invariably racist.