Mark Goody @marramgrass@nitech.online

Today I went to the ATM machine and entered my PIN number to get money for a DC comic book (I knew the ISBN number). The clerk scanned the UPC code and I paid the amount shown on the LCD display. On my drive home I listened to NPR radio where they talked about the value of opening an IRA account, and the latest scores from the MLB baseball playoffs.

I’m increasingly convinced that all services and most jobs would be improved with more staff. Literally, just more people.

More people sitting around getting paid with nothing to do, until there is in fact something to do.

Pay people to staff all those windows at the post office and bank and then celebrate no lines. Pay people to bus the tables, and other people to seat the guests, and still more people to take the orders and run the food.

I’m so tired of seeing one person doing it all

YouTube really wants to radicalize you.

I just watch guitar, fitness and space science videos there. That's it - and I police my feed and watch history judiciously.

And it still suggests Jordan Peterson, Crypto Tech bros, Joe Rogan, white guys ranting in trucks about immigrants and communists, Koch funded professors, and weird white supremacy guys with caliper mindsets non-stop. I click "Do Not Recommend This Channel" twenty times a day but the stream keeps flowing.

Is mowing down wee kids at 30mph and killing them (when you could have driven at 20mph and they'd survive) a true reflection of "British values"? 🤔

https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2023-09-28/what-the-prime-minister-thinks-about-wales-new-default-20mph-speed-limit

#Wales #RishiSunak #UKPol

If you folks have never seen the original 1970 film "The Andromeda Strain" - you should go watch it.

Because this is basically the whole setup of the film.

As you can imagine, hilarity ensues. *blood curdling screams*

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/nasa-spacecraft-returns-to-earth-with-pieces-of-an-asteroid/

Doctors can be arrogant. It’s not hard to understand why. Sometimes nuance can feel as it is backfiring. Often there simply is not enough time or resources to communicate clearly. In public health the dangers of over complicating advisories, recommendations & mandates with exceptions & conditions only multiplies.

The public simultaneously wants simple clear rules that don’t waffle or change, but the public will also punish those who make such rules for their lack of transparency and nuance. 1/

Oh sure, of course NFTs aren't worth anything - but the AI is still real, right?

right?

"Three Bins for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to recycle,
One for the Tory Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Britain where the Gammons lie.
One Bin to recycle it all, One Bin to place them,
One Bin to sling them all and in the darkness burn them
In the Land of Britain where the Gammons lie."

-- The Bins of Power

What's fun is if something terrible happens and you point to what caused it, you're ruining someone's morning because the polite thing is to say "Oh, that's awful" and then change nothing, do nothing, forget it as soon as the words leave your lips.

Rishi Sunak’s lazy daily-mail-pleasing tactic of backing away from green energy commitments is a first-class example of how our current politicians are utterly incapable of looking after our long-term futures. It’s pathetic, lazy and incredibly shortsighted. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/20/uk-net-zero-policies-scrapped-what-do-changes-mean

It’s infuriating listening to Sunak kick the climate change can down the road, in a tone of voice better suited to talking to a primary school age audience.

deep space nine