Tootfinder

About morbid thriftiness (Autism Spectrum Condition)
As you may have noticed, I am morbidly thrifty. Usually I don't buy stuff that I don't need — and if I decide that I actually need something, I am going to ponder about it for a while, look for value products, and for the best price. And with some luck, I'm going to decide I don't need it that bad after all.
One reason for that is probably how I was raised. My parents taught me to be thrifty, so I have to be. It doesn't matter that, from retrospective, I see that their thriftiness was applied rather arbitrarily to some spendings and not others, or that perhaps they were greedy — spending less on individual things so that they could buy more. Well, I can't delude myself like that, so I have to be thrifty for real. And when I fail, when I pay too much, when I get cheated — I feel quite bad about it.
The other reason is that I keep worrying about my future. It doesn't matter how rich I may end up — I'll keep worrying that I'll run out of money in the future. Perhaps I'll lose a job and won't be able to find anything for a long time, Perhaps something terrible will happen and I'm going to need to pay a lot suddenly.
Another thing is that I easily get attached to objects. Well, it's easier to be thrifty when you really don't want to replace stuff. Over time you also learn to avoid getting new stuff at all, since the more stuff you have, the more stuff may break and need to be thrown away.
Finally, there's my environmental responsibility. I admit that I don't do enough — but at least the things I can do, I do.
[EDIT: and yes, I feel bad about how expensive my new phone was, even though it's of much higher quality than the last one. Also, I got a worse deal because I waited too long.]
#ActuallyAutistic

Sam Lynn Ballpark in Bakersfield, where batters face into the setting sun,
is an anomaly in a sport of anomalies.
Or perhaps it is simply
a reminder of what once was.
There’s not one thing about Sam Lynn that makes sense to the modern fan, Wheeler admitted. 
“Is it glitzy? No,” he asked rhetorically.
“Is it entertaining for the people that are there?
Yes. Yes, it is.
Are you going to go blind if you look into the sun?
Yes. But it is wh…

In a saner environment, we’d be having a reasonable conversation about that: in what ways, if any, can a machine that repeats contextual patterns with no sense of meaning augment humans thinking through tricky things? In ways can it mislead? When, if ever, is it worth the tradeoffs? the resource costs? etc etc.
Right now, the off-the-charts money and hype make that reasonable conversation impossible except perhaps in hushed corners. (Please do not have that argument in my replies. I am tired.)
7/

Good idea, perhaps the Commission could put this vision into practice for #EV roaming, so that the #AFIR provisions do not remain a dead letter?
From: @…

European Commission (@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu)
Attached: 1 image 🛬 Plane lands. Flight mode off. 💬 “Welcome to Italy! Use your mobile plan just like at home.” 8 years of free EU roaming – we've come a long way: → 2000s: €0.50–€1/min calls → 2007: roaming caps → 2017: the end of roaming charges → 2022: the improved “Roam like at home” pack extended to 2032, bringing: 🌐 Fast 5G access across the EU 💰 Protection from unexpected charges 🆘 Better access to emergency services Fair for opera…

The combination of pareidolia and clownish but menacing Nazis
It's making me think of the criminally-underrecognized MRS DAVIS
I need to watch this again. Perhaps it should be a Labor Day (US version) ritual
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Davis

Mrs. Davis - Wikipedia

Perhaps this could be made consistent?

Is the fear of potentially being a victim of racism for some perhaps a reason to be racist themselves, in an "attack is the best defence" way?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/15/trump-immigration-stephen…

Bradley's understanding of this is outstanding. We can discount the goal, perhaps, but he was so very good in both directions. He was constantly showing up in places that Salah left for him and his chemistry w/ Mo & Szoboszlai is terrific. Frimpong;s signing asked questions about who might be the starter. In my view, it's Bradley. Frimpong was good. He's certainly fast, but he didn't get to show as much offensively and Bradley is a better defender. I think it's depth/…

Series D, Episode 07 - Assassin
BENOS: One moment, gentlemen. A late addition. Perhaps you'd like to send back a few details to your clients, especially the ladies. Now I know he looks soft, and he talks soft, too, but you can tell the ladies he's strong enough to work all day and still have plenty of energy left over for any little chores you might have for him in the evenings. [laughter] Now, what am I bid?
TOK: Valeria of Prim bids a hundred... [1/2] B7B5

@… @… yes, I agree. I will try to look more carefully at Laffy’s posts coming from Bluesky to see if I see any patterns. I don’t understand the details of bridging, but perhaps I can learn a little, enough to figure somethi…

I've mucked up something with #Jellyfin Television library:
- Recently Added shows only three series, only one of them new.
- MyMedia/Television with no filters shows only one, a different series
- Suggestions shows the R-A 3 plus one more yet still different
- Genres shows a lot, perhaps all?
- Episodes will show 1400 files.
Any ideas on a likely cause/fix?

I noticed that OpenStreetMaps somehow lost Lake Michigan, so I went investigating. Apparently back in April somebody accidentally changed it from a "lake" to a "school" and it's taking months to be fixed across all regions/renderers.
https:/…

While we have the Corsa currently in for investigation into possible OBC failure, my wife's been driving the family estate, and has been complaining about the thickness of the steering wheel[1].
Extrapolating a bit, here's where I think we might be headed:
[1] A 2019 G31. I think subsequent models have got worse, so perhaps this extrapolation isn't far off?
#bmw

Really feels like a keep-the-curtains-drawn-all-day kinda day.
Perhaps if I lie here and ignore it, it'll go away again.

Could Cowboys trade former 2nd-round pick before rookie deal done? https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2025/06/15/cowboys-trade-luke-schoonmaker-consideration/84204653007/

There is little about Scott Jennings,
or the words that come out of his mouth,
that corresponds to reality.
A decade into Trump’s capture of the Republican Party, Jennings is the premier crossover enabler.
He is perhaps CNN’s most recognizable face alongside its primetime anchors,
and he is feted on jokey, tough-talk shows like Bill Maher. 
But Jennings is a representation of our own malady,
a projection of a country whose political culture is now…

Scott Jennings in the Hyperreal and the Myth of the Escape Hatch
Jennings is like a simulation of a Trump enabler.

Perhaps people would be less worried about genetic manipulation of plants, if they knew that people had been using Gout medication to cause genetic modifications in plants since the 1930's:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchicine#Botanical_use_and_se…

Colchicine - Wikipedia

An alternative and more radical reading would be that the US government conquered indigenous nations and the failure of the US government to maintain legitimacy means a default return of authority to those nations. You know, default to #LandBack.
But, again, I don't actually believe in the justification for authority that took the land in the first place so that's an idea for someone else to explore.
Perhaps those #50501movement folks, or people who actually *believe* in America might find value in contemplating some of these ideas as they face down their dictator.

Perhaps we need a new NATO:
National
Anti
trump
Organization

Chilling out outside, perhaps having a solo Karaoke session, rockin it, living the AQI 50 life.
#streetphotography #Vietnam

"Workers who are presented as "undocumented" will be taken to the camps. Perhaps they will work in the camps themselves, as slaves to government projects. But more likely they will be offered to American companies on special terms: a one-time payment to the government, for example, with no need for wages or benefits. In the simplest version, and perhaps the most likely, detained people will be offered back to the companies for which they were just working. "

Concentration Camp Labor
Cannot Become Normal

PSG are a hot mess defensively. Conceded an even-numbered counter to go down 3-0. Perhaps they mentally relaxed, thinking they’d beaten the difficult teams and they’d wax Chelsea.
Massive upset in the works.
#ClubWorldCup #CHEPSG

I know as a developer just how hard it is to actually make it work, but perhaps the lesson of the Liquid Glass public reaction fiasco is for Apple to just give users •much• more control over the UI theme.
Between the retina transition, iOS 7, accessibility improvements like variable text size, dark mode support, and the long migration away from hard-coded layouts, we developers have grown used to making more adaptable UIs. Lots of the building blocks for OS-level theming are there, both in SwiftUI and in UIKit.
If Apple said “Themes are coming!” at WWDC 26, developers would adapt.
Assuming we still have a functioning society at that point.
From @…:
https://mastodon.social/@realmacdan/113792374380828124

Cowboys 1st-round pick has one season to avoid bust label, perhaps one training camp https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2025/07/12/dallas-cowboys-player-profile-no-60-ot-tyler-guyton/848169…

Why Substack Shouldn’t Be the Future of Online Publishing (Torment Nexus, 8 July 2024)
https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/why-substack-shouldnt-be-the-future-of-online-publishing/

I'm currently preparing slides for upcoming workshops that I will hold at @…, AGIT conference. and perhaps a few other places. I am trying to clearly illustrate how out-of-core computation works in #DuckDB ( @…

A glimmer of good news perhaps? Trump's dictator buddy on the brink?
☑️ Putin’s regime is beginning to come apart - The Telegraph
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/putin-regime-beginning-come-apart-100221661.html

Putin’s regime is beginning to come apart
Almost beyond parody, another senior Russian official is found dead. This time it is the transport minister, Roman Starovoit, who apparently shot himself...

There's always a problem of referring to someone who should not be named.
Perhaps iconography might help, such as "🟠💩for 🧠s".
As in "Those who show up at immigration courts are not the dangerous thugs 🟠💩for 🧠s said were the targets"

There's always a problem of referring to someone who should not be named.
Perhaps iconography might help, such as "🟠💩for 🧠s".
As in "Those who show up at immigration courts are not the dangerous thugs 🟠💩for 🧠s said were the targets"

I had my browser set to autotranslate, so I read this piece in English (although ironically I can read German too, but perhaps not well on this topic), but if you don't have this feature, here's an English language piece on the hack.
https://caliber.az/en/po…

Media: Russian hackers target key Bundeswehr suppliers in serious cyberattacks | Caliber.Az
Two suppliers to the German Bundeswehr have recently been subjected to serious cyberattacks, likely carried out by Russian hackers. According to Tagesschau, journalists...

Die pakistanische Frauen- und Kinderrechtsaktivistin Malala Yousafzai wird 28 Jahre.
Sie gründete jüngst eine Investitionsplattform, die sich auf Frauensport konzentriert.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/24/spo

Malala turns her fight for equality to women in sports
Malala Yousafzai is known by millions around the world as an activist and human rights campaigner, a voice of power and inspiration who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban at age 15. Perhaps less well known is her life as a sports fanatic.

Calamus 29 One flitting glimpse
What a sweet poem of quiet love. One of my favorites so far.
The setup is voyeuristic: we're spying on a bar full of men. And we see Whitman in a corner, and then
a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand
It astonishes me that these poems of clear homosexual love were published in 1860!
What's particularly nice is the contrast between the rowdy bar scene
drinking and oath and smutty jest
and the quiet intimacy of Whitman and his lover
we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
The expression of love here is universal. But it is a man writing about a man, in the company of men. And thus it is particularly mine.

“The colossal buildup of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will create the largest domestic police force in the US; its resources will be greater than those of every federal surveillance and carceral agency combined; it will employ more agents than the FBI. Ice will be bigger than the military of many countries. When it runs out of brown and Black people to deport, Ice – perhaps under another name – will be left with the authority and capability to surveil, seize and disappear anyone the administration considers undesirable.”
Ice is about to become the biggest police force in the US | Judith Levine | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/ice-immigration-police-trump-budget-bill

Was speaking to some journalists recently who didn't realise how long a history the use of radar has in measuring ice thickness over glaciers.
The technique was discovered by pilots, who must have had the frankly terrifying experience of landing on the ice sheet with their radars telling them they still had a few thousand metres of descent to reach the surface...
It's not mentioned in this obituary but I wonder if this guy would have seen it? Perhaps he didn't even have radar to assist in landing?
https://flipboard.com/@newyorktimes/obituaries-bq1u22g8z/-/a-gd4LiLY4RbOMXavSDWOBQQ:a:3195393-/0
newyorktimes@flipboard.com - Conrad Shinn, First Pilot to Land at the South Pole, Dies at 102
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/obituaries/conrad-shinn-dead.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Obituaries @obituaries-newyorktimes

Small but rather bright and beautifully structured #NoctilucentCloud display over Bochum, Germany, on 10 July 2025 between 1:15 and 2:00 UTC - so far not two of the major displays this season from here have looked even remotely alike, and this one was perhaps the most attractive. Keep 'em coming ...! More timesteps in https://www.facebook.com/groups/nlcaroundtheworld/posts/1711440259491572/

Read "What went wrong with capitalism" by Ruchir Sharma.
A mildly interesting description of the major events in world an US economics in the last 50 years. Might
be a fair summary for anyone who didn't live through it or has a poor memory.
In short he thinks what went wrong was government bailing out failure leading to massive debts and increa
sed inequality.
Governments took over all the things instead of letting capitalism sort them out, he reckons, and wheneve
r a big industry or company fails you just get socialism for the rich and a bail-out from new printed money.
Easy cheap money, constant bail-outs, government intervention, leading to zombie companies racking up every larger debt to exist, billionaires who can't fail due to government support, and a stock market that's up-only bringing a flood of inefficiently-allocated capital.
Is he right? I mean, maybe, sort of. But when an industry really can't be allowed to fail, say water supply and waterway management, allowing private capital to extract maximum resources from it isn't the best method to manage it in the first place. No wonder they need bail-outs. Capitalism fails here because capitalism isn't the right solution here. We need publicly owned national services, not robber barons without
bailouts.
So, you know, half right. Perhaps these are some of the reasons why capitalism fails, but also we shouldn't even be trying to apply capitalism to every single thing in the first place.
#reading #capitalism #economics #RuchirSharma

Dan Adams, tech lead for Neuralink Blindsight brain implant development, reports that he is at the National Foundation of the Blind annual convention in New Orleans.
For those of you who happen to be there perhaps a great opportunity for a chat. #blind #blindness

Dan Adams (@Dan___Adams) on X
I’m thrilled to be at the annual convention of the National Foundation of the Blind in New Orleans. Learning from this incredible community at the largest gathering of blind people in the world is fascinating and inspiring! https://t.co/l3Ob4FaKBA #NFB_voice #Blindsight

@… And I just remembered to buy your dice app, in case I don’t get a chance. Looking forward to playing with it. 😊
Perhaps you’d like my latest RNG toy:
https://mastodon…

Excerpts of a (real) tutorial page on how to generate a frequency table with percentages in R:
contingency_table <- table(values)
proportion_table <- prop.table(contingency_table)
percentage_table <- proportion_table * 100
Equivalent in Stata:
tab values
This is why every time I consider using R with novices (or Python, or Julia) my enthusiasm quickly peters out.
Better perhaps with dplyr but you have to teach a whole cognitive framework firs…

72 years later, this image still seems to resonate.
'In America - At This Restaurant Only One Person Is Served' (Krokodil # 4, 1953) by Yuliy Ganf. The solider at the table being well fed is labeled “war” and the neglected tables are labeled 'Education', 'Health Care', 'Libraries' and 'Art'.
#USpol

The #Chicago Tribune Tower 100 year anniversary. Excerpt from Sunday's Tribune story.

Rather pessimistic table of countries on these new Nightjet carriages. Only space for one more country. One would hope that approval for France, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and perhaps Denmark would be nice to have for future needs.
Or are these tables actually obsolete and will be changed to some “goes everywhere” marking in the future, like what I think is the case for freight wagons?

Series D, Episode 05 - Animals
JUSTIN: If you keep it simple, yes. He can't speak, naturally. He's programmed to obey, not argue.
DAYNA: Yet he ran away.
JUSTIN: That was his animal instinct.
DAYNA: Look, if he won't trust you, perhaps he'll trust me.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/405/235

The question of who will succeed the Dalai Lama remains important.
But perhaps the more pressing question is:
how can each of us carry forward his legacy?
The answer, I believe, lies not in politics, power, or headlines.
It lies in compassion. In action. In choosing kindness, again and again.

Who Will Succeed The Dalai Lama? - The Dalai Lama Turns 90
As the Dalai Lama turns 90, his legacy of compassion and humility invites us all to carry his teachings forward in a divided world.

@… I wrote one that was published online. Don’t know if it went into a print edition.
I tried (hopelessly perhaps, but that’s all the more reason why it’s so important) to debunk the rhetoric that asylum seekers are getting voter registrations at the border.
As an immigrant myself, and someone proud to now be afforded the right to vote, I just c…

This document from 249 years ago seems remarkably relevant today https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
If someone wants some slogans perhaps for signage, there's some good stuff in there to quote.
Maybe quote it along with…

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.

Trump really seems to prefer misinformation to actual facts. Why else would he have abruptly cancelled thousands of research grants (throwing perhaps 10,000 scientists and their families on the streets).
https://www.

Here Are the Nearly 2,500 Medical Research Grants Canceled or Delayed by Trump
Some cuts have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye.

Genghis Khan lay on his side, towel across his back like a funeral sash. His face was stiff with dried cheese - gruyère now, or perhaps something worse. He blinked slowly. One crusted lash fell into the folds of a nearby flannel.
“She’s been folding towels in threes,” he muttered. “That’s why everything is jagged.”
A single tissue slipped from the box and fluttered to the floor like a condemned moth. I dared not move. My knees were numb beneath me, half-buried in damp hand towels…

US political contradictions; knowledge systems
As Trump at least partially succeeds in constructing an alternate reality for his most ardent followers, it's tempting to think of his dogma as false, in contrast to some imagined "truth" which his non-followers are smart enough to believe in. But a more nuanced view of knowledge would admit that different groups of people have different shared truths, constituting different knowledge systems which each deviate from what's objectively measurable in different ways, and in fact they each accept different standards of what is objective, so there's not really a single "ground truth" we can even compare to to determine which of these knowledge systems is "more correct" (similar problems arise even if we only care about "more useful").
To make this more concrete, we can see that e.g., competing quantum physics theories, or likewise competing religious beliefs, have no reasonable basis on which to judge between them, either in terms of "truth" or "utility." So the Trump-dogma knowledge system, although bad, morally repugnant, etc., can't so easily be dismissed as "false" in my view. "Distorted" or "malignant" or "evil" or "contradictory" are better monikers, in my opinion.
But what I'm even more interested in thinking about is: in what ways does the current American liberal "common sense" knowledge system already bear the scars of past fascist lies & contradictions? I can think of a few:
"Columbus was an explorer."
This is "factually accurate" in the same way some of Trump's propaganda is, but it's also a cruel distortion of "Columbus was a child murderer," and it's a misrepresentation that serves an evil purpose, yet which is widely taught in elementary schools today.
Another: "dropping atomic bombs on civilians in Japan was necessary to end WWII."
Perhaps in the future we'll have "family separation & the 2025 ICE crackdowns were necessary to end the immigration crisis," although I dearly hope not.
"Reparations for slavery aren't reasonable," is yet another...
I'll close this rambling with a question: what other fascist lies have you noticed that are normalized in America right now from past Trump-like leaders (or even from less overtly fascist institutions)?

My daughter spotted this eastern box turtle transiting the backyard this morning. It was, perhaps, a little camera shy. 🐢
#turtle #WildLife

Feature-free regression kriging
Peng Luo, Yilong Wu, Yongze Song
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07382 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07382

Feature-free regression kriging
Spatial interpolation is a crucial task in geography. As perhaps the most widely used interpolation methods, geostatistical models -- such as Ordinary Kriging (OK) -- assume spatial stationarity, which makes it difficult to capture the nonstationary characteristics of geographic variables. A common solution is trend surface modeling (e.g., Regression Kriging, RK), which relies on external explanatory variables to model the trend and then applies geostatistical interpolation to the residuals. Ho…

@… Yeah, I guess this article is less well known. IEEE Spectrum is perhaps not where you’d expect to find such articles…

@… Yeah, I guess this article is less well known. IEEE Spectrum is perhaps not where you’d expect to find such articles…

Calamus 28 When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes
My surface reading is this is a celebration of the common man, perhaps soldiers, over the more famous generals and presidents. But this commentary encourages me to dig deeper.
First, to highlight the gay text...
the brotherhood of lovers ... Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were
Very homoromantic language! Male lovers who stay together through their whole lives, affectionate.
The last fillip here is Whitman's own stance: "pensive... filled with the bitterest envy". Whitman admires these lovers and envies them. That's a striking feeling to disclose!

"Hello, yummy."
Should I perhaps not open the conversation with an attractive stranger this way?
Is it any different from someone opening the conversation to me, "Hello, handsome."?

#NowPlaying ❝This attention begs the question, why Japan and why noise? Perhaps the most simple answer is Japan is a very noisy place indeed.❞
From “Oh! Moro Volume 5” (1992) Kansai new art video magazine with scene report and interviews by David Hopkins/Public Bath.

Is AI the end of the English Paper?
Recently I read an article in the New Yorker entitled, “What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?” by Hua Hsu, who teaches at Bard College. The demise of the college essay, especially in its five-paragraph format, has been predicted or even advocated for years. However, this time around, the threat is not just to the essay, but to all First Year Writing courses, and perhaps all courses that assign reading and writing.

Spent a little while photographing an AKL-PT5 production sample to get some beauty shots for the Digikey page etc when I start making them in volume.
I'll probably downsample... The SEL90M28G macro lens did perhaps too good a job. You can see every little dust speck here lol.

Perhaps we need a Campaign for Natural Intelligence. Dang, the acronym's already taken ("Critical National Infrastructure")
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15q5qzdjqxo
Wasn't some sort of rebellion or campaign against machine cognition a thing in a 60…

It has been suggested that during FFOTUS dictatorial parade that on the south side of the National Mall, perhaps near the Lincoln Monument, that a number of well known rock stars (such as Taylor Swift, Beyonce, etc) put on an impromptu free show to pull the people away from watching the tanks roll by.

Perhaps the song we all need right now?
https://youtu.be/SxPZF_LWJaU?si=MmtVPjRgvjgFgNtI

I noticed this yesterday on the steps going down to the shed. With the amount of large seeds clumped in a dark medium it's done fruit eating animal; perhaps a fox, not a badger as they tend to use scrapes and latrines, marginally a Pine Martin but I've never heard of them here.
I guess it's a fox, we have both foxes and badgers close by and they've been seen in the early hours.
There's muntjac as well but it won't be that.
Other ideas or confirmati…

Generalizing while preserving monotonicity in comparison-based preference learning models
Julien Fageot, Peva Blanchard, Gilles Bareilles, L\^e-Nguy\^en Hoang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08616

Generalizing while preserving monotonicity in comparison-based preference learning models
If you tell a learning model that you prefer an alternative $a$ over another alternative $b$, then you probably expect the model to be monotone, that is, the valuation of $a$ increases, and that of $b$ decreases. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, many widely deployed comparison-based preference learning models, including large language models, fail to have this guarantee. Until now, the only comparison-based preference learning algorithms that were proved to be monotone are the Generalized Bradley-Ter…

Series A, Episode 03 - Cygnus Alpha
GAN: As long as the door doesn't break.
VILA: Did you see? They killed Arco.
BLAKE: I don't understand. There's no response from the ship.
VILA: Perhaps these bracelets don't work any more.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/103/543

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

And if you're wondering what happened to those three Fast Cats.
In January 2024 someone tried to get someone to buy them by putting them up on Facebook Marketplace (yep!) for $15 Million for all three. (98% off original price lol). They were, and likely still are, sitting tied up in Alexandria, Egypt. They were last owned by the Egyptian Government.
At least one of them was essentially unchanged inside since the 1990s. (a Nanaimo Bar for $1.5!)
#BCPoli #BCNDP #FastFerry #Shipbuilding

Finally finished #Andor and I say it without a doubt: it is the most important (perhaps the best) Star Wars content since the original trilogy. I'm so happy that I got to see it but at the same time it's a shame that (probably) nothing like this would be made ever again.
Some more deep thoughts here:

A ★★★★★ review of Andor: A Disney+ Day Special Look (2022)
There is no other way to put this: Andor is the most important and most significant Star Wars content ever since the original trilogy. Perhaps even better. At it's core, the original Star Wars trilogy it's about the fight against an authoritarian regime. Certainly influenced by the impact of the Vietnam War and WWII. Although presented in a way that it's suitable for all audiences. Andor takes this premise and takes it to the extreme, to the brutality of war and rebellion, and to the hope and h…

“Siloviki” is perhaps the most borrowed word in Russian studies
— probably because it explains so much about Putin’s Russia.
Its members are the police, the border control, the army, the security services, the spies.
For their service to the regime, they are rewarded with early pensions,
plenty of cash and almost total immunity from investigation for corruption or brutality.
In truth, the American security state, with its qualified immunity, surveillance appar…

Opinion | Here’s What’s Happening in America, in Six (Mostly) Russian Terms
To help Americans name their new reality, we wrote a phrase book of authoritarianism.

Looks like this headline was constructed to violate @…’s law…
https://apple.news/AxKolRBihRpy493vkr7KB2Q

Is being bilingual good for your brain? — The Economist
Perhaps. Learning languages offers other, more concrete benefits

It has been reported before, but perhaps there now is more reliable information that direct day trains between Prague and Copenhagen really will happen. Only from May 2026, though, not from the timetable change in December.
https://eisenbahn.blog/neue-direktverb

Neue Direktverbindung von Prag über Berlin nach Kopenhagen
Ab Mai 2026 verbindet eine neue grenzüberschreitende Zugverbindung drei europäische Hauptstädte – ohne Umstieg. Die Kooperation zwischen DB, ČD und DSB

Did I go to Świebodzice, and take an easy trail? Perhaps.
Did I suffer from acrophobia all the time? Definitely.

@… @… I’d love to attend, but perhaps next year! I’m still very limited in what time I can contribute.
If you’re here all weekend, can I pick your brain about it?

Well, duh - Elon (age 53) will still be alive (preserved by drugs, perhaps) while FFOTUS (age 78) is decomposing in a box. Musk has time on his side.
"Who holds the cards in Trump vs. Musk?"
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/politics/repu…

Who holds the cards in Trump vs. Musk? Trump, but …
It remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump and Elon Musk can patch things up after their ugly break-up this week – as many around them are hoping.

It seems to me that it's not just Trump, but also – perhaps foremost – the #Repugnians in Congress that are destroying American democracy.

I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, very close to where Roger Williams landed. Perhaps he is a person we ought to celebrate - a firm believe in individual rights, especially in faith; a firm believer in treating everyone (including the indigenous peoples) honestly and fairly.
"Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood; Thy brother Indian is by birth as Good. Of one blood God made Him, and Thee and All, As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal."
"...…

I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, very close to where Roger Williams landed. Perhaps he is a person we ought to celebrate - a firm believe in individual rights, especially in faith; a firm believer in treating everyone (including the indigenous peoples) honestly and fairly.
"Boast not proud English, of thy birth & blood; Thy brother Indian is by birth as Good. Of one blood God made Him, and Thee and All, As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal."
"...…

Trump and Republicans in Congress will do their part to damage the American economy, at a moment of fear and instability.
In the broadest terms, their Big Bad Budget bill is an enormous upward transfer of wealth
— perhaps the largest in history
— taking from those with lower incomes and giving to the rich.
And in its details there are dozens if not hundreds of blows to the economy.

The Republican budget is an attack on the American economy
Everywhere you look, it delivers blows to America's economic future.

"""
The barbarian role of cultural demolition crew is especially important when you consider how often cultural reconstruction is needed. Many of Rome’s glaring defects — exploitation, authoritarianism, corrupt self-aggrandizement — flow from deeply human tendencies. Time and again they’ve transformed promising civilizations into decaying, oppressive monstrosities. Time and again, history seems to cry out: Bring on the demolition crew! And time and again barbarians cheerfully respond to the call. Their previous massive wreaking of destruction, near the end of the second millennium B.C., had come after civilization went through centuries of apparent ossification.
In a way, barbarians are just a special case of that general and potent zero-sum dynamic in cultural evolution: brutal competition among neighboring societies. This rivalry renders ossified cultures vulnerable to a makeover, minor or major. They may be taken over by a vast neighboring civilization, which will revamp them in its image. Or they may be infiltrated and perhaps even disassembled by barbarians, paving the way for future reassembly. Or they may revive and prevail — an example of the “challenge and response” dynamic stressed by Arnold Toynbee. In any event, the point remains the same: however deeply human the tendencies of exploitation, authoritarianism, and self-aggrandizement, cultures that surrender to them may not be long for this world.
"""
(Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny)
Is it time for the barbarians now? Or perhaps we — here on Fedi — are the barbarians.

Notice scientists aren't exactly beating down Canada's door either.
Perhaps if we funded post-secondary and research. 🧐
or maybe even provded tuition some or all free education like most of those in this list
#braindrain #education https://mas.to/@mikegalsworthy/114584609202908831

Series B, Episode 13 - Star One
VILA: Minefield, what minefield?
AVON: Perhaps the intergalactic drive has been developed. Question is, by whom.
BLAKE: A defence zone to keep mankind in, or something else out.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/213/231 B7B5

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The gargantuan budget bill Republicans passed through Congress will do its part to damage the American economy, at a moment of fear and instability.
In the broadest terms, the bill is an enormous upward transfer of wealth — perhaps the largest in history — taking from those with lower incomes and giving to the rich. And in its details there are dozens

The Republican budget is an attack on the American economy
Everywhere you look, it delivers blows to America's economic future.

@… Perhaps #PNWPåDansk? 😅 To address your specific request, phrases in Danish similar to your request could be: #NærNatur

The % of GDP spent on Defence isn't necessarily a measure that makes sense. Estonia is spending over a billion Euros a year which is whereabouts 3% is, and that makes sense for the size of Estonia's overall GDP.
The UK spend currently about £52B, spending 3% would take it to £76.8B, aside from spending more than the £20B what greater amount of defence would it actually provide a year?
An extra 10B and perhaps it would provide for missiles and ammunition. Greater manpow…

The loss of the #SSMIS satellite dataset as warned by @… will presumably also affect the #Greenland today melt maps over on NSIDC - I think we have AMSR2 for those somewhere too, but not exactly sure where..
Perhaps I should write that blog post I was talking abotu earlier 🤔
https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/community/stories/implications-end-ssmis-data-osi-saf-products

ICE in MacArthur park in LA.
ICE has become the new Gestapo Stasi SS. They even wear brown clothing (at least when they are uniform.)
It is a serious situation - our government has gone mad. And our Constitutional "separation of powers" has failed.
But to add a bit of humor - perhaps inappropriate - one might wonder about that cake that was left out in the rain in MacArthur park.

@… What happens if you call it twice?
Or call `read_to_end` afterwards, to check if there’s anything left?
Perhaps, because the shell is responsible for piping data, your program is too fast, and `Ok(0)` means “not ready” rather than “EOF” in this context.

AI is coming for entry-level jobs. Everybody needs to get ready.
CEOs are saying that AI is coming for a lot of jobs, and soon
— perhaps as many as half of all white-collar workers.
That’s likely to show up first in entry-level jobs, where the basic skills required are the easiest to replicate,
and in tech, where the ability to rapidly adapt the latest software tools is itself an entry-level job requirement.
Sure enough, in recent years unemployment has risen…

AI is coming for entry-level jobs. Everybody needs to get ready.
AI may replace a lot of entry-level skills. So how will workers acquire more advanced ones?

A while ago the media reported that most of the long-distance "suburban" trains between #Wrocław and #Poznań will be discontinued, and instead one will have to change trains midway. Irrespective of whether it's actually going to happen, let's consider it.
As you can probably tell by now, I'm not a stranger to changing trains. In fact, there are some direct connections that I do criticize. For example:
• Poznań — Szczecin — Świnoujście, where arriving at Szczecin Główny and turning back to leave the city is a waste of time. It's better to change trains at Szczecin Dąbie.
• Poznań — Krzyż — Kostrzyn, where instead of using a single railbus, you can use a larger EMU for the Poznań — Krzyż segment, and a smaller DMU for Krzyż — Kostrzyn (in fact, only recently the "direct" Poznań — Kostrzyn train involved just that, but it was supposed to be temporary).
However, good matches are the key. Say:
1. Max 10 minutes (when there are no delays) from one train to the other.
2. "Door-to-door" transfer — without having to carry all your luggage across platforms.
3. Reliable connection — if one train is delayed, the other train waits for it (or there are so many alternatives that it doesn't have to).
Can such a thing happen on Poznań — Wrocław route? I have my doubts.
I've been using these trains for years, and I can say this: there is no effort to match train from/to Poznań with other trains in Wrocław. Sometimes the trains depart 10 minutes before the first train from Poznań arrives, sometimes I need to transfer in 10 minutes, and sometimes I have to wait over an hour. And the same in the other direction.
Perhaps things would actually improve if the route is split. Perhaps people would actually care. Maybe even the trains would be fitted better to the timetable in Wrocław. But I find it hard to believe.
EDIT: One final thought — since there is no real reason to split these connections (except for profiteering), why make travellers' lives harder?
#rail

I visited the Ludwig Museum. (Modern and contemporary art.) Perhaps not that impressive. Sure, a couple of Picassos, a Liechtenstein, a Warhol, a Haring, etc. This was my favourite, though.

Gusto has what looks like the winner, and it was perhaps deflected very slightly, but the keeper does not cover himself in glory. Really poor reaction which looked a bit match-fixy…
#ClubWorldCup #SEPCHE #fedifc

Well, this seems stupid - New Jersey is forcing the removal of many working NACS charging centers and replacing them with CCS charging.
That's already stupid. But it moves from stupid to destructive in that it NJ wants to expand the moribund CCS charge system while automobile makers are shifting away from CCS to NACS.
Perhaps we ought to remember that New Jersey is a major oil refining/gasoline producing state and thus there are political forces in NJ who abhor EVs.

#Blakes7 Series D, Episode 02 - Power
VILA: A sort of academy, when I was a boy. They chose me as technical advisor for the escape.
PELLA: Escape? From an academy?
VILA: Perhaps academy was the wrong word.
https://

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@… Mage Hand is pretty cool. My first thoughts were Shocking Grasp or Fire Bolt, but perhaps those are a bit *too* impressive.

Did I just submerge my feet in the lake? Perhaps.
Did I enjoy a short relief? Surely.
And now to toil my way to the train station.

#Blakes7 Series A, Episode 05 - The Web
BLAKE: Perhaps.
NOVARA: In that case, we apologize.
BLAKE: You communicated with us through another member of my crew.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/105/331

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@… It talks about how it is wrong, but not in the most important way.
It was written in 2016, so perhaps that’s forgiveable.

Perhaps the #USMNT will now be forced to play more aggressively. In prior games, they played so safely as to be practically inert.

Did I just remove over 20 ticks? Perhaps.
I was too absorbed to count.

Jimmy Swaggart was perhaps the most divisive of the broadcast preachers.
He attacked Catholicism as a “false cult”
and suggested that Jews, by rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, brought the Holocaust upon themselves.
Alone among the major televangelists, he leveled searing attacks on other preachers for alleged heresies and
— until his own troubles emerged
— for alleged sexual misdeeds.
Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist felled by sex scandal, dies at 90

Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist felled by sex scandal, dies at 90
The Louisiana preacher became one of the most popular and polarizing Christian televangelists of his generation.

Did I just criticize the man exiting the toilet that he "can't smoke there" loud enough for the train conductor to hear? Perhaps.
Am I deeply satisfied with myself? Definitely.
If only it didn't stench that much.

I see Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a good man doing bad things,
but perhaps he thinks even worse of me: He recently suggested that I was a liar.
While testifying before Congress, Rubio claimed that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development had not cost any lives.
“No children are dying on my watch,” he asserted.
At another point in the hearing, he broadened his statement to include adults as well: “No one has d…

Opinion | Really, Secretary Rubio? I’m Lying About the Kids Dying Under Trump?
Many thousands of children are dying because of cuts in American humanitarian aid, and denials by Elon Musk and Marco Rubio don’t change that reality.