Tom Ritchford

.uk ➡️ .at ➡️.ca ➡️ .nyc ➡️ .nl

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Last Notes

2024-07-30 13:12:47

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@npub1rhr…gh5p I mean, I see a ton of bias on other platforms and I've been told this is the best platform for LGBTQ+ people, by trans people.
What other platform would you suggest? I'm very open to suggestions.

2024-06-24 10:10:17

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 Why would they have cost him politically?
He could have released MAGA masks, and his base would have been all over them.

2024-06-14 15:19:42

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@npub1grx…uxfe Does insulting voters actually work?
It didn't work for Americans in 2016, and the results were very very bad.

2024-06-06 17:52:13

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@npub1the…k9sg Most of which no doubt got thrown in the garbage.
Very few of these sea creatures are going to survive humanity's relentless onslaught.

2024-06-06 14:53:08

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@npub1typ…c8hh I would describe this article as "completely horrifying".

2024-05-25 16:08:48

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@npub1typ…c8hh typo: t's Norman Mailer... :-)
very entertaining!

2024-03-29 11:13:15

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 Very charming! I note also Barry Malzberg's Phase IV as a little easter egg in the first image. 😀

2024-03-18 16:13:17

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@npub1tra…npqw
This seems like very good news, but in my heart, I fear that Elon Musk or some similar rich psychopath will just step in and pay the fines, in exchange for "undisclosed considerations".
(Paywall-free link: https://archive.is/TPmvM
I haven't given the NYT a penny since the Iraq War.)

2024-03-18 10:26:16

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@npub1eqs…5dh6 I believe a lot of it is simply not being reminded.
There's a bot that tells you when you put up an image without text: but I almost never put up images, and it flagged when I boosted other people's posts with images without text, even though there's no way to add alt-text during a boost.
The basic Mastodon UI should simply ask you to enter alt-text whenever you attach an image.
For me, the chance to speak right to a non-sighted person with a tiny effort is just huge.

2024-03-11 11:01:07

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@npub1kqh…8fse Wenn ein 83-jähriger Autofahrer zwei Menschen tötet, ist das kein „Unfall“, sondern die logische Konsequenz einer Gesellschaft, die das Recht auf Autofahren über das Recht auf Leben stellt. (Und das ist nicht nur ein deutsches Problem, es passiert auch in den USA, Kanada, Australien und zweifellos auch an anderen Orten, mit denen ich weniger vertraut bin.)

2024-02-24 17:58:17

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@npub1c9e…zhes Ah, he just died. 😕

2024-02-20 20:46:49

Man, I am so sick of #Apple and its trufans!
I upgraded to Sonoma, and immediately all my disk accesses to exFAT are 20 times slower.
The answer? Move to a proprietary Apple filesystem!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255488168?cid=em-com-apple_watches_email_thread_owner-view_the_full_discussion-en-us-11282023&sortBy=best&answerId=260194958022

2024-02-16 11:03:15

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@npub1jqc…3mpt Just a note: "CP" or "child pornography" is a word that many people are moving away from, because seeing children sexually abused is horrifying and not pornographic for the vast majority of humanity.
Another term is CSAM, "child sexual abuse materials", and I tend to use that now.

2024-01-27 18:51:12

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@npub12ze…hunm @npub1gg3…u87n Many, many years ago I set up a newsgroup for the Butthole Surfers. About a decade later, I got to meet them - King Coffey immediately remembered me, and they were generally extremely friendly.
The next day as I was waiting to go into the show, Coffey came up to me in the line and said, "Hey, Tom, how great to see you here!", and I could feel the envy from others. Petty, I know.
I did a long set with Gibby about 15 years ago, here's a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvL6EnUQU6U

2023-12-26 09:11:14

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@npub1p5l…tqn2 I ain't clicking on that. Why encourage them?

2023-12-23 21:03:18

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@npub1gha…ffp5 Hydrogen is not an energy source unless you are given gaseous hydrogen for free, but that simply doesn't exist on Earth.
But as an energy transportation medium, it sucks, because it has very low energy density as it's a gas, even compressed it's got a lot lower energy density that evil gasoline, and it's far more explosive.
We need renewable energy sources, sources!!!!, and we need nuclear too if we are to have any hope of beating the climate demon.

2023-12-22 09:22:20

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@npub1ue4…4fgq I mean, "kill process" is very standard in *nix, but in, gah, 40 years or so working with various Unix and Unix-like systems I have yet to see "sacrifice child".

2023-12-21 20:28:56

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@npub1jac…vzvc @npub1hvd…9sq9 No, giving people calling for the extermination of others not just a platform but money is completely and utterly morally unacceptable.
I would note, too, that Substack has a strict ban on pornography, even written porn.
> it is genuinely easy to switch providers,
What is your argument exactly? "It's OK to give money to literal Nazis because you can switch providers"?
Honest flabbergasted.

2023-12-21 20:26:22

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@npub1hvd…9sq9 Here's what I just sent https://substack.com/contact?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer
Subject: Glad to know where you stand on Nazis!
So Nazis calling for mass extermination are OK, and porn isn't?
I'll be certain never to use your services in future.
God, you're worthless, morally empty individuals. You should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. I was thisclose to giving you money, too.
----
You can tell my temper is frayed, because I am so fucking sick of Nazis I could scream.

2023-12-20 18:56:32

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@npub1kpw…xzz4 @npub1xg6…e6jt "A bad thing happens, so this justifies other bad things happening to others."
No.

2023-12-18 23:27:42

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@npub1y7x…jrl4 I've seen the context - it makes it worse, because he interrupts a panel of women to mansplain to them that they're all stupid and naïve for hoping we won't kill the planet.
If every time one of our Lords and Masters mocked us for our pathetic hopes, something unspeakably awful happened to that person, we might see some actual change. As it is, we stand around begging psychopaths not to kill our entire ecosystem while they laugh at us.

2023-12-18 15:51:30

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@npub17nv…96rn Because people like bass, and believe that more bass makes the speakers sound more "expensive".
Me, I'm listening on a pair of Genelec near-fields, with a matching subwoofer turned down a little bit. I am their third owner, I've had them for 15 years.
People who spend good money on "hifi" have claim my listening setup is "flat", "lacks warmth" and (best accidental compliment ever) "clinical".
NYC has several venues with transparent sound, National Sawdust being particularly fine.

2023-12-18 13:28:57

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@npub17nv…96rn He was.
Oh, as a radio guy, you will appreciate that he had a variety show on the BBC World Service in, IIRC, Bulgarian for several years in the 1960s.
Dad spoke a large number of languages, which is why I am not sure what it was in and unfortunately, the BBC hasn't exposed records of this time to the internet.
It was popular (for the World Service), and the only reason he left was that London's air was killing him as an asthmatic.

2023-12-18 13:07:00

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@npub17nv…96rn My father took me walking in some of the world's great graveyards as a child, but now I'm closer to the grave than the cradle, I find them a bit less peaceful and a bit more "it's coming for you, too".
😀

2023-12-18 13:01:20

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@npub17nv…96rn Green-Wood cemetery is where Houdini is buried, who I am a real fan of, and also Bernstein, Henry Ward Beecher, Boss Tweed and Basquiat, and that's just the Bs.
More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-Wood_Cemetery

2023-12-11 21:22:56

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@npub1typ…c8hh I wonder if it's moving away from incandescent lights... somehow? That's the big change I remember from around that time but I can't see how the connection would work.
OK, suppose people, pedestrians or drivers, lose their night vision due to these new crop of blinding white lights and make mistakes...?

2023-12-10 10:29:28

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@npub1wpj…7m4z It's still going to kill every single creative worker's job.
If I write an ad, I don't care if it's copyrightable or not. More, I can just tweak the AI's output, and then it is copyrightable.

2023-12-09 22:49:24

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@npub1wpj…7m4z #NoAI. It's a heist from all of us to the benefit of a few big evil companies.

2023-12-01 22:42:18

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@npub1y7x…jrl4 Pete Seeger clearly sings "redesigned" and then the chorus repeats it. I just checked again, and here's a link to the exact moment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhaXBcLmxiE&t=20s

2023-12-01 16:27:26

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@npub1y7x…jrl4 Ah, sorry, it's just such a familiar lyric. If you talked about "Another Brick On the Wall," you'd get even more complaints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhaXBcLmxiE
(Also "designed" doesn't make sense...)

2023-11-28 08:37:24

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@npub1g0l…vtqa To be blunt... your code is really very good though I am going to make a bunch of suggestions. 😀
I've been writing Python for twenty years, and programs for almost 50 years now and your code is better than 90% of what's out there.
Number one thing - you should do this in numpy. It's a stellar matrix library in Python. Your code will be shorter, faster and more performant.
1/

2023-11-13 10:59:54

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@npub1tfx…n4hu @npub1ccn…czwu
"Religion, noun: the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods."
Mahayana Buddhism is the usual example people give, but the Buddha actually refuses to commit as to the existence or non-existence of Gods and supernatural entities.

2023-11-12 13:48:20

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@npub1ccn…czwu Thank you, but is by no means original with me! I was too lazy to look it up so I put in in quotes... 🙂

2023-11-05 09:28:13

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@npub1mhp…6t73 @npub1tps…9rmt The .cz suicide rate and the .us suicide rate are practically identical.
Perhaps it's the language barrier, but it seems like you are gloating and mocking over this poor man's death. Please desist, it's very very unpleasant.

2023-10-26 07:55:03

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@npub1g0l…vtqa Even if you have a small codebase, ruff is great.
But if you have a big codebase, Ruff is an order of magnitude faster than any other Python linter or formatter I am aware of.
It will save you many minutes, each day, every day, and is almost trivial to drop in.
Ruff went from "brand new" to "indispensable" in a a couple of years. Well done!

2023-10-21 08:10:52

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@npub1g0l…vtqa But this page is essentially blank and has no links that provide reference code or docs...?

2023-10-21 07:53:41

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@npub1yyx…qa5g That made me actually cry. It was really nice that it had a happy resolution, where the subject transforms from "miserable loner" to "larger-than-life mentor".

2023-10-17 09:20:31

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@npub1437…ranm @npub1scr…teus In no sense at all is the idea that we are profligately wasting our limited resources "tired".
It is not logical to claim that because we are already wasteful in one thing, we can't ever talk about wastefulness in new things.
And by 2027, AI is expected to use ten to twenty times as much energy as Christmas lights do.
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00365-3

2023-10-02 16:38:30

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@npub1ddp…2tax @npub1spp…s0wq
> Rationally, losing by 2 points is still better than losing by 15 points. Because unlike in curling, losing by 2 points is only losing a little.
And here we are in the endgame of that - where if one guy looks sick in public in the next year, Fascism.
As a mathematician who has studied game theory, rationally it's better to risk some of those 15 point losses to convince the Ds to give you positive values.
1/

2023-10-02 16:24:19

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@npub1ddp…2tax @npub1spp…s0wq These people are not right, but they are expressing a very sad truth.
Here's a metaphor:
Every R administration America loses, say, 15 points, and each D administration America only loses 2 points.
Rationally, D is far better than R, but America's total score steadily decreases.
When I was young, a single factory worker could buy a nice house, support a spouse, send the kids to a good school, retire free of debt.

2023-10-02 07:23:52

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@npub1spp…s0wq @npub1ddp…2tax Oh, they probably didn't delete their posts, you just can't see them.
Dozens of people have banned me here: 2 climate deniers, 4 or 5 Putinists, all the rest Democrats.
There is no way to express my political beliefs in a way that I will not get blocked by Democrats:
* Democrats should nominate a younger candidate
* Obama actually achieved very little
* Fossil fuel subsidies are $20 billion. Spending 4% of that on the climate crisis is a sop

2023-09-09 11:57:47

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@npub189n…satx You at least have a chance of persuading a pedant with logic, facts, reasoning, or wit.
It's the screamy delusionals that really boil my piss.

2023-09-09 11:27:48

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@npub189n…satx @npub1p85…deg5 Meanwhile here in the Netherlands: https://nltimes.nl/2023/09/07/warmest-ever-september-7-smog-warning-much-netherlands
"Don't think of this as the hottest summer so far: think of this as the coolest summer of the rest of your life." -Some cynical wit.

2023-09-07 20:45:44

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@npub1p90…5svf
We are literally destroying our ecosystem with our obsessive consumption, and this is the best you can do? This incoherent, self-aggrandizing spew about the evil vegans?
You want to eat meat because it tastes good, period. Get over yourself.

2023-09-06 18:17:37

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@npub1psd…9sr7 @npub18yl…pegw The end game is Amtrak.
I was once nine hours later on an eight our trip with them. It was the winter, and they ran out of coffee within the first hour, and everything else soon. The heating was failing in the carriages - they put us outside for 40 minutes, then we tromped back into the cars and one car's worth of people had to stand in the aisles.
And when we got to the destination, everything was closed and the train crew literally ran from us...

2023-09-06 15:45:03

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@npub1k7q…3lrw The distinction between functional and organic mental illness is not something I made up, it's standard medical science,
Sorry to have been a pain in your posterior though. 😕 The difference is only academic to you...

2023-09-06 15:25:24

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@npub1k7q…3lrw That article is just a single image, which does not contradict my claims.
I was using for example this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3586775/
As I pointed out, it's highly unclear whether the change is a symptom or a cause.
Function illnesses like (a lot of) depression and anxiety, and organic mental illnesses like schizophrenia, appear to be different: https://www.differencebetween.com/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-and-functional-mental-disorders/
More work is needed.

2023-09-06 14:39:20

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@npub1k7q…3lrw
It would be nice to see some actual study backing this up, because that's not how I understood it.
Mental illnesses are horribly real, but the most common ones like depression and anxiety are not an illness of the brain like meningitis.
For most non-organic mental illness, a standard brain scan shows nothing, scientific studies show small abnormalities which seem more likely to be caused by the mental illness than causing it.

2023-09-03 15:30:50

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@npub1m29…khl9 @npub19uy…0n85 I note that you haven't, in fact, refuted any of the counter-arguments provided by me or anyone else. Why is this?
You are spreading falsehoods about the climate catastrophe. it is unconscionable.
They have been pointed out by multiple commenters, and your response is to scream, and to send me a rude and incoherent private message about how my parents would be ashamed of me.

2023-09-03 15:02:38

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@npub1m29…khl9 @npub19uy…0n85
Your graph shows the number of deaths from disasters. Most climate deaths do not come from disasters. (And many floods come from dam breaks and not climate.)
This is also a graph sourced to Facebook, and supposedly from the notorious climate liar Bjørn Lomborg.
And finally, even that deceptive graph doesn't show a 99% decrease.
Your underlying idea, "All of climate science is in a conspiracy", is not sane. See a therapist for your delusional beliefs.

2023-08-27 19:55:08

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@npub189n…satx I was only a kilometer away for the bombing, there was a power glitch, it was loud, I thought our HVAC had gone out for a moment and then broken.
Who knew it would get worse?

2023-08-26 12:08:04

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@npub18ap…6gs8 @npub189n…satx I suppose digging up Reagan or Nixon is out of the question? Pity.

2023-08-26 07:17:35

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@npub1ddp…2tax @npub1p83…v48v @npub1g2d…83a0 When R wins, America scores -25; when D wins, America scores -3.
D is clearly much better than R, but you cannot add negative numbers to get a positive.
90% of Americans do not live in a swing state. For you, your best voting power is third party, and you can do it without risk.

2023-08-23 10:51:48

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@npub1psd…9sr7 @npub1qg4…augv @npub1zw6…xkku I worked as a programmer at Google for five years, 2004-2009, in the "Don't Be Evil" days.
I had just been baffled by the fairly rapid degradation of their search, but @npub1hyk…3p33 clued me in: https://doctorow.medium.com/microincentives-and-enshittification-574290ea196f
It's disgraceful. It shows how the addictive power of money destroys everyone's integrity.

2023-08-23 10:24:47

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@npub1zw6…xkku @npub1psd…9sr7 F&SF is the most radically left-wing print science fiction magazine left.
The editor is a woman of color who publishes all sorts of non-binary people, people from developing countries, and that sort of thing.
I've been reading F&SF for over 40 years, and I like these new changes.
I suspect it's simply that the American editor has no idea who the British writer was.

2023-08-19 08:20:23

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@npub1qjr…kgt0 @npub1ah0…370v
This book is relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails
In this case, a lot of people wised up but a significant majority did not.
A sad and beautiful book. Apparently, this sort of research is considered unethical these days, even though the researchers only watched.

2023-08-19 08:18:46

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@npub1ah0…370v @npub1qjr…kgt0 Man, I keep calling my friends in the Deep State, asking when they are going to get off their asses and use their their ricin pellets and shellfish toxin, but these mofos are the laziest people in the world.
(Background to one of these jokes: https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2020/sep/09/georgi-markov-killed-poisoned-umbrella-london-1978
(My father worked in the same department as Markov in the 1960s.)

2023-08-18 09:12:16

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@npub18ue…x887 Every marginal new dollar created by society consumes some number of joules of energy, so you are totally right.
We should be measuring by, well, I'd like to call it happiness, but let's call it security, measured like this:
* how often you miss a meal
* how likely you are to experience violence
* how likely you are to die young
* how much work you do each week
(lower values are better)
and self-reported happiness scores.

2023-08-18 06:16:45

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@npub1ah0…370v @npub1qjr…kgt0 "Trump flees to Russia" is also on my bingo card because I can't imagine that bag of weakness having the guts to take his logical consequences.
I'm not sure how I'd feel about it. In earlier years I'd have expected R supporters to feel shame. Now I'd expect they'd be rooting for a Russian takeover of the US...

2023-08-16 06:44:42

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@npub1t5e…nx96 While I am completely against Russia in this stupid, stupid war, the ability for companies to prevent you from maintaining a product you purchased is immoral and destructive to the environment.

2023-08-14 06:20:28

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@npub1sat…8vnx @npub1e0a…eww0 Totally disagree: a Google search is much better.

2023-08-11 08:07:41

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@npub189n…satx My rage and hatred toward people who fight on the side of climate catastrophe and against the future of the human race FOR MONEY is so great that the only suggestions I can come up with involve violence.

2023-08-08 06:28:46

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@npub1na9…cy4w For over ten years, we took care of two rescue dogs. One of them, Mia, was crippled, and could barely walk - she outlived all predictions and made it to 18 years old, we had to say goodbye just recently (we are still not recovered).
Despite her medical problems problems, she was little work, very relaxed and excellent company. I carried her everywhere in a little bag and she stared at everything with the greatest interest.
Luckily, we still have the other one to take care of us.

2023-08-07 07:00:29

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@npub1qjr…kgt0 I just want to tell you that you get the award for "best attitude" and "most positive use of stoicism" as well as the famed "Trippiest Knitting Cup".

2023-08-03 09:25:50

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@npub1g0t…tvm4 A friend of mine cleverly got an accent coach (in the US!) to get rid of his LSEB accent, and seriously improved his career.
I totally admire him for doing the right thing to sustain himself, while decrying the need for it.

2023-07-15 06:49:15

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@npub189n…satx The depravity of kidnapping tens of millions of people and then systematically abusing and exploiting them for centuries cannot be overstated.
Shutting up the witnesses is just part of this Great crime.

2023-07-13 13:02:31

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@npub189n…satx
The usual number given for how much ground you need to support yourself is 3 to 5 acres.
By using labor-intensive methods, it's possible to get this as low as 1 acre, maybe - 43,560 square feet.
A 7x7 foot plot would be about 50 sq ft, about 0.1% of what you need to eat - one third of a meal for ten meals a year, if you eat three meals a day.
You should be doing this as a fun hobby if it gives you pleasure but it won't reduce your dependency on external food. 💔

2023-07-09 09:00:56

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@npub1llz…08cq I feel like I'm cheating here, I knew all the answers except (of course) the last one.
The EU is really one of the best things to happen to humanity, which is why I left the US in 2016 for the Netherlands, never to return.
Keep up the good work! More people should know the benefits of being in the EU.

2023-07-07 12:06:16

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@npub13y6…dylg I guess smashing them all and leaving the pieces hanging from trees for all to see is just out of the question? 😄

2023-07-07 11:48:31

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@npub13y6…dylg The metaphor is very strained. It's not "exactly" like this at all.
Imagine I launched a commercial software program which answers questions, but actually used big chunks of other people's copyrighted work, sometimes slightly changed, sometimes verbatim, but never with credit to the original author.
Also, the whole idea of "fair use" was for writers to use small amounts of other people's works in critical writing, not to vacuum up all the works of humanity and resell them.

2023-07-03 07:29:02

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@npub16mz…uzxf Just chiming in to say that the few pennies I spend supporting these poorly-constructed facts are some of my best entertainment value.

2023-07-03 07:11:32

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@npub1w30…dh68
How about saying that the Slavic people of the world suffered and died more than any other group in WW2? That's true, and it does unite .ua and .ru.

2023-06-27 19:16:06

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@npub1v7w…2s4p @npub1shp…v9ff @npub1wd0…nf8j Sent you a few bucks! Good luck.

2023-06-20 15:08:16

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@npub1zdp…vqv8 If voting weren't effective, then why does one party spend so much time attempting to suppress the vote?
(Inexplicably, the other party doesn't really push back on that.)
(Yes, it's weird that I, a Briton living in the Netherlands, talk about the "other party" but you know what I mean... 🙂 )

2023-05-24 07:37:31

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@npub1eeu…u43z 57! Dammit, that's awful!
It sounds like incompetence, but without more information, it's hard to be sure.
In my limited experience of Alzheimer's, sometimes people's bodies just stop functioning when their minds drift away, but other times their bodies stay in good shape, which is pretty awful.
I'm so sorry this is happening to you. Strength!

2023-04-24 16:00:08

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#[0] #[1] Gah, probably preparing for a presidential run, or a session of kitten torture.