Only 116 days until Towel Day

[he wrote] a sequel to 1984.

I didn’t know this bit of his story. Anyone read it? I’m assuming it’s not very good/coherent but perhaps he was as gifted a writer as he was a coder.

Element Effects

Zodiac sign elements create elemental affinities and oppositions:

Boosted Combinations (tasks thrive under compatible elements):

• 🔥 Fire (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) × CPU tasks: 1.5x boost
• 🌬️ Air (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) × Network tasks: 1.5x boost
• 🌍 Earth (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) × System tasks: 1.4x boost
• 💧 Water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces) × Memory tasks: 1.3x boost

Hang on - Aquarius, the water-bearer, is an air element? I’m beginning to think this astrology stuff doesn’t make much sense.

I like that water is responsible for memory, like how homeopathic medicine works.

That’s really interesting, I guess I’d assumed it was a universal thing.

I know some people who are known by various versions of their names in their different circles, e.g. Robert/Bob to their family, Rob to their school friends, Bobby to their uni mates and Robert at work.

That argument only works if you’re expecting Google to move youtube.com to youtube.google, which I can’t see happening. If a brand’s a household name and can be found at brand.com, then it stands to reason that they’d leave it like that.

For Google/Microsoft budgets, domain name registration is irrelevant as a cost. Besides, even if they did move the domains, they’d still keep the old ones alive for forwarding and to stop anyone else taking them. For example, Google still has googleplus.com, despite that that was never the official address (they used a subdomain: plus.google.com).

The UK had a history of rhyming nicknames for shortened versions, like William -> Will -> Bill, and most of those are still common in English speaking countries. Richard -> Dick, Robert -> Bob (also Hob, Dob and Nob but these didn’t survive).

These shortened versions can then get extended: Edward -> Ed -> Ted -> Teddy, Margaret -> Meg -> Peg -> Peggy, Anne -> Nan -> Nancy

In the middle ages it was common to make a diminutive name by adding -kin, -in, or -cock, which gave us John -> Jankin/Jenkin -> Jakin -> Jack. Also, Robert -> Robin, Henry -> Hank

It’s very much not mesh networked, self-hosted*, or subscription-free, but there is the tin can phone which seems a really good solution for kids. To anyone looking for a project, please make an open version of this!

* the service couldn’t cope with demand over Christmas, for instance.

Equally, you can only allow *.google.com as easily as *.google, so I still don’t think that makes much sense.

You can block *.google.com as easily as *.google, so I don’t think that makes much sense.

The two most populous countries are moving in the right direction, which is good news. I really wish you guys wouldn’t insist on bringing your country into every single conversation - we know what’s happening, you don’t need to constantly remind us.

What’s the point then?

If you read the article, you learn that the authorities never properly searched any of these freighters - that’s probably a more sensible place to start.

Our local wizard who casts these spells is @[email protected]

  // this is bollocks, delete it

That’s almost certainly from a Brit.

  // this looks like I'm being a fancy arsehole, but this is all because  
  // the window shows up white for some reason when first opened, and this  
  // disguises it.

Could be either.

chefkiss.png

And then the other guy reverted that… eatingpopcorn.gif

Recently while troubleshooting I’ve found a lot of deleted comments with dozens of people saying thanks, often for years afterwards. Reddit annoyed their most valuable posters and we’re all paying for it.

We know this as the Caravan Game.

Anal Buccaneer
Anal Xplore
Anal Freedom
Anal Cavalier

Thanks, I knew I’d seen it before somewhere.

Then the UK’s equally dumb: it was 10:04 pm BST (GMT+1) cos daylight savings is a thing in most of Europe too. At least it’s synchronised across Europe^[1] so you just need to remember that most^[2] of North America changes a few weeks earlier.

Also, the UK says GMT/BST which is nice and clear - calling both EST and EDT “Eastern Time” makes even more of a mess!

And yes, I’ve just rediscovered you can use footnotes, why do you ask?

The duplicate content thing is kinda impossible to solve perfectly. Some people will tell you it’s a feature, and it can be interesting to see the different instances’ comment sections (especially after moderation), but yeah it can be annoying to have your feed dominated by a few stories.

The default web front-end will merge crossposts, but won’t if they’re multiple posts to the same URL. I think some of the apps do have that deduplication as a feature, but I couldn’t tell you which.

I remember the same problem from my Reddit days, but there wasn’t generally so many similar, overlapping communities.