Famously, disease spreading amongst the troops has never affected the battle-readiness of any army ever.

No, hang on, the other thing. 🤦‍♀️

Ha, cool! Thank you for increasing my porn game knowledge :D

Next Friday is May Morning... folky shenanigans all day :-)

No porn games in the 80s? We had the text-only "Softporn Adventure" on the Apple ][ in 1981! (Reworked with actual graphics as "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards" later in the 80s.) And Strip Poker on the Atari 800XL. Maybe not porny enough to count though?!

I get the point, but we don't want racists in our morris side, thanks! :-) BTW the folk scene in Oxford is huge -- you could easily go to a folk session in a pub every night (if you had the time & no concern for the state of your liver) and there's tons of morris/rapper/etc.

The head of the British Music Hall Society told me that they have warehouses full of bequeathed memorabilia and nothing to do with it, their average member is 80 y/o and their youngest is in their 50s

This is what I think about when I see flag-shaggers pretending to be "defending British culture."

8% of adults in England and Wales faced domestic violence last year. A quarter of those were stalked by the perpetrator.

And the council still insists on publishing names and addresses together on the internet, except for its councillors, due to, you know, the risks

Tweet by Martina Navratilova. "Predator. That is how he should register. A sexual predator…" quote-tweeting a tweet by "Biology Rules OK" about Dr. Beth Upton, a trans woman

This tweet is highly defamatory and Martina Navratilova should be fired from BBC Sport for it.

It demonstrates an horrendous level of hatred for a trans woman (who was cleared of all wrongdoing in a recent tribunal) because she is a trans woman.

This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright Malus, which is a piece of satire but also fully functional, performs a "clean room" clone of open source software, meaning users could then sell software without crediting the original developers.

Malus, which is a piece of satire but also fully functional, performs a "clean room" clone of open source software, meaning users could then sell software without crediting the original developers.

It’s Getting Harder to Spot AI in Contemporary Publishing. And That’s Very, Very Bad. Lately there has been a lot of hand-wringing, and rightly so, about if and how the publishing industry will deal with AI in the wake of the cancelation of the first major book deal due to suspected…

It’s Getting Harder to Spot AI in Contemporary Publishing. And That’s Very, Very Bad. “The word salads that we might identify as AI today may not be the kind of machine-made writing that we will see tomorrow.” [lithub.com]

Can Stonewall Mark II put trans wars behind it? New chair talks of consensus but she’ll have a tough job unpicking charity’s bullying stance Kathleen Stock In the history of gay rights, there have always been fearless souls willing to face down mobs of pitchfork-wielding fanatics, but perhaps none so brave as Kezia Dugdale, incoming chair of trustees at Stonewall. In an interview with The Guardian this weekend, the former Scottish Labour leader did the unthinkable and praised JK Rowling.

If you had any doubts that Stonewall is a danger to trans people, here is Kathleen Stock praisng them in the Times.

"When the gay rights cause first got going, the ideal was toleration"

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.

Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.

(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

Cat Distribution System strikes again

The First WORLD FENCING LEAGUE is happening April 25th!!! I'M GEEKING!!!

Japanese engineers developed this "Sword Tip Visualisation" tracking technology specifically for this event that will make it so much easier for the average person to see what's going on!

I MUST WATCH THIS ENTIRE TOURNAMENT

It definitely feels off somehow, but might just be not a very good website!

I note that in the bit about personalised skill sessions it says "If you want, you can invite four others on your skills session (When COVID restrictions allow)." Which actually suggests to me that it's _not_ ChatGPT-generated, because that wasn't really a thing in 2020...

My teenage Kansas fan laughs, sings "WE WILL FEAST WHEN THEY ARE DONE", and then looks again & says "ohh it's strangle-a-horse man! he's brilliant!"

A newspaper clipping announcing Betty Crocker's plan to update their image to reflect the growing societal diversity

An interesting footnote in food history is that in *1995* Betty Crocker made an explicit, unapologetic attempt to embrace ethnic and racial diversity by updating the look of their fictitious namesake, and the move was warmly and enthusiastically embraced by the media and public

A picture of a rather dilapidated copy of "The picture of Dorian Gray" There is visible water damage to the cover and the plastic cover is yellowing. Obviously, not evident from the picture but there is a truly foul musty smell emanating from it!

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic!
Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

in the early days of the net websites used to have messages like "welcome to my amazing webzone, i hope you enjoy the things i've collected that represent my strange mind." now they're just like "by clicking this box you agree to recieve targeted advertisements in your dreams"

what is this fuckery JUST DO SHEFFIELD STANDS FFS

Funny to recall that this government, mired in scandal, policy u-turns and infighting, won a huge majority a little less than two years ago. And while the fiscal inheritance was bad, the bar for improvement was also set incredibly low. It was just so hard to see how you could end up here so quickly.

Yes but not lick them. That would simply be a step too far.

like to add ® and ’ any time I submit online forms because I know that some developer is going to see it and wonder if they have a bug

the penne opticon

Grey cat sitting in a tree house, with his head emerging from one doorway, tail through another. One paw on the threshold.

Ozzy in his cat condo, with an extra doorway for his tail.

Klaus McForkface, a lifting robot developed by German manufacturer Linde AG, performed a stunning 1200-kilogram (2646 lb) overhead lift in Hamburg, beating the human world record by more than 300%

DWP scheme sending people with ME to coaching organisations for neurodivergence An investigation from the Canary shows the DWP and Access to Work are categorising people with ME as having 'acquired neurodivergence'

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS

#mecfs #pwme

I heard there was a tasty meal
From Mexico, with great appeal
It's quick to make and could be so much harder
A spicy sauce to make you smile
It's topped with cheese and baked a while
The warming and delicious
Enchilada