About
Dalliance.net is Pre’s homepage, index of his projects, updates on his blog. That sort of thing. You can subscribe in various ways.
Projects
Blog
My blog, mostly monthly summaries of the Fediverse Account.
Visit at dalliance.net/blog
Or check out the categories index
Starship Schrödinger’s Destiny
Ongoing: An Interactive Sci-Fi story for Virtual Reality about the adventures of the crew of a flying saucer.
Visit at starshipsd.com
Wordcloud Tarot
Ongoing: My tarot decks have the meanings of the cards written on the card in a world-cloud. There’s also a video show with a reading about politics most weeks.
Visit at wordcloudtarot.com
Exocortex Log
Ongoing: A life-logging app, built as a progressive web app with all data stored on your local machine. Party for privacy, partly so I don’t have to run any servers. If you are interested in logging graphing and analysing your time as you spend it, this might be for you! But mostly it’s for me, I don’t care if you use it or not.
See the app at exocortexlog.com, or read the latest news blog.
Tentacles, After The End
A 30 minute animated movie about the last woman alive on a planet ravaged by tentacle monsters from outer space.
Tentacles is complete, visit the archive at tentacles.org.uk
Book: Do Dream Sheep Bleat?
A short story book about magic and memes and reality.
Dreamsheep is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/dreamsheep
Book: Yes, The Conspiracy Really Exists, And Furthermore It’s All Your Fault.
A long rant about how stupid humans screw up humanity.
The book is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/yes
Loopy
After the band broke up, I took to playing with myself via a loop pedal. Sometimes, very rarely, even in public.
Bookshelf
An album of songs inspired by some of the best books on my bookshelf.
The album is complete, you can listen to the songs at dalliance.net/bookshelf
Handsome Jack’s Showband
My punk cover’s band.
Despite some online-only gigs, the band didn’t make it though the pandemic, you can watch some old gig videos online at handsomejacks.co.uk
Joust Adventure
A little web-game I made back in 2011 with the hope people might pay me to make level 2.
I don’t think anyone ever finished level 1. Too hard.
Can you do it?
The project is abandoned, you can still play level one at dalliance.net/joustadventure. So far as I know, I’m the only person to ever complete the level. Let me know if you do!
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Diary
My diary from the Fediverse.Status at - Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:34:41 +0000
My pitch if I ran a TV production company would be something like:
Twelve episodes a year of 3-episode serials: That keeps the number of sets you have to construct down. It gives each story the complexity of a movie and time to breath without the frantic pace. You can have one every season of the year.
You gotta remember to focus on the companion. This isn't really a story about The Doctor, it's about the companions asking the question, Doctor Who?
Episodes should generally start with a companion's face or escapade coz they're the ones we're identifying with as we figure out who the doctor is.
At some point in 2027 you'll cast and announce a new doctor.
This is when you call Billie Piper in to film and release a webisode which is just the regeneration into Billie so far: her going "Oh, hello?" Then shaking her head and saying "oh hell no" and shaking harder until she shakes the face off into the new man or woman you picked who says "Oh, that was close".
That change into the Bad Wolf Doctor was just bad without a capstone xmas episode. So a one minute tik-tokable short to announce the newbie frees you of it.
Then you can start ep1 filming and released nearly a year later on the 65th anniversary with a story that focuses on the companion getting into trouble and meeting The Doctor.
Cast nobody famous. The production is about making stars not finding them I don't want anyone having preconceived notions about the character from seeing the actor in that other show even it it was a really good one and they're great.
Earthbound cross-time time-travel story for serial one to pick up new companion, intervene in an aliens vs aliens space-war in serial two, go screw up history and fix it for the third and aliens endangering companion's family for the fourth.
When they're 3-episode serials you only need four a year. Different writer for each.
Cliff-hangers between episodes in each serial of course, with stories about the nature of time and space and getting along with other cultures and running up and down corridors and scary monsters and of course the question "who is The Doctor and how can they fix this without guns or violence with just a screwdriver and two hearts worth of compassion".
The Doctor is some weird looking older dude, more importantly vivid and strange and scholarly than handsome. He has a big coat and no question marks. Then he can change clothes but with the same coat always have the same look. He needs to be able to do a good arrogant rant at himself while he thinks.
The companion is curious and brave and young enough to be naive and surprised and energetic. Doesn't do what she's told. Wonders off against orders. Maybe sometimes bombs things.
Obviously you keep the blue box and the tune and make a new style screwdriver.
You need to do the behind the scenes shows too. Not sure if they make or cost money but they are brilliant for the geeky fandom. That may be why it came back last time.
Anyway. Sadly I don't own a production company.
I cancelled the TV license in the mean time. Give the money to Big Finish instead. These audio things are expensive. I've bought bundles before. Anyone have favorites? I lose track of which one's I've heard.
Status at - Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:06:13 +0000
Summer Social with work, which is more than two dozen people now. So much bigger than it used to be.
Enjoyable enough. The boss picks pretty good people, all of whom I'd otherwise not meet at all really being remote. Beats working for a day.
This time a painting session. Drawing a picture. Here's how we draw this particular picture.
Everyone's painting ends up much the same, within a pretty tight variance. All end up with something that's not displeasing, even though hardly anyone paints normally, even the graphics people.
The key here I think is the subject of the image. Something easy to draw is key. Very few curves, mostly straight lines, easy vivid colors. Easily identifiable subject even if it's drawn badly.
If your lines and form are wobbly and weirdly angled then yeah, that's indeed what these trees are like. You just draw a slightly different tree.
Sky, haze, and ground in acrylic. Then chalk up the tree-trunks for some reason, before painting 'em white. Add some trunk-shade and flecks, do grass then flowers.
Easy recipe. Everyone gets a passing grade. Nobody's embarrassed coz they can't draw a nose.
Good first painting session since school. Maybe I'll do another one in another 30 years.
Status at - Wed, 10 Jun 2026 21:05:29 +0000
So it sounds like the tendering process is basically a charter requirement if they break up with the existing production team, thanks to free-market private-ownership tory wankers who can't bare there being a thing they can't bid to own.
Seems it usually takes about six months to a year, and most of the time BBC Studios themselves end up winning the tendering process because they frankly have the skills and equipment and expertise to do these things at scale on a budget that few others can muster.
So there's a far chance we get to next spring and they say okay then, we'll make it ourselves with BBC money and BBC staff after all.
And then, yeah, target date 2028 for the 65th anniversary seems most likely coz it'd be a rush to do it in six months even for the BBC and they'll want something on that day.
Status at - Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:35:04 +0000
People are sad and lashing out saying RTD and Disney killed it with money and razzmatazz and glitz taking the focus away from the story.
But of course it wasn't cancelled on account of how it was too glitzy.
It was cancelled because the CEO of Disney changed and the new guy doesn't get it so he rug-pulled the production 2/3rds of the way through.
RTD did an emergency edit that tried to promise a xmas special show with Billie Piper, in the hope of cornering the BBC into commissioning more.
He had a few vague ideas about how to bridge to a new show, nothing concrete. Murray misremembers and says there's "multiple scripts" when RTD just said many ideas. So then RTD gets accused of lying and gas-lighting.
Anyway, the BBC and Bad Wolf failed to come to agreement for more shows. The script was never written because the show was never commissioned even though there were multiple different ideas and pitches.
Bad Wolf is just too expensive now since they're used to Disney money.
I guess Bad Wolf studios shuts down now? Maybe then can do a Blakes-7 remake or something.
So what killed the BBC-Wales/RTD/Bad-Wolf doctor who is becoming reliant upon Disney money and Disney CEO changing.
October 2027 is the earliest imaginable date for new shows now.
Xmas 2027 seems more likely.
More likely still is October 2028, by which time it'll have been over 3 years since new TV episodes and the show will be celebrating its 65th birthday.
Thanks for bringing it back RTD. It was fantastic. What a great two decade run.
Here's hoping someone else does at least as well.
Status at - Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:39:03 +0000
If they're not doing the Xmas special then I wonder if anyone will address The Bad Wolf Doctor at all?
Could be that the Billie Piper Doctor never happens. Just completely ignore those final few seconds where her face appears after the regeneration?
Would have been better not to have those few seconds of film in the final show if they'd known it'd be a total reboot next up. Just end with the regeneration energy and no clues for next season's Doctor Who?
Probably wouldn't want to open the new rebooted show with a regeneration scene. Focus on new companion till she meets new Doctor.
I think it needs a special to join the edges really. Hopefully whoever wins the tender will want to do a short Bad Wolf Doctor episode as a prequel to the new seasons.
Hopefully in October 2027? A long wait indeed without that xmas episode. Already been more than a year.
I should cancel my BBC license and give the money to Big Finish until the new show is in place maybe.
Status at - Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:05:47 +0000
No Xmas episode for Doctor Who, and indeed it sounds like nobody has any ideas for it's future at all, so it's up for grabs to anyone who puts in the best tender.
Can we crowd-fund some way for Charlie Brooker to run it for a couple of years? Make Philomena Cunk or Barry Shitpeas be the doctor?
https://news.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/bbc-puts-doctor-who-out-to-competitive-tender/
Status at - Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:21:09 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol kids and images and tech
Signal's reply:
The UK government's demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the UK be scanned on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning, will not safeguard children. It endangers us all, whilst strengthening Apple, Google, and Microsoft's market dominance and their control over our most personal information.
https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/2026-06-08-uk-surveillance-is-not-safety.pdf
Status at - Mon, 08 Jun 2026 12:52:46 +0000
Content warning:UKPol kids and images and tech
I see the prime minister and home secretary are lying, just blatantly lying, about the existence of technology which can tell how old someone is and whether an image is porn or not.
They claim this technology already exists in phones and just needs to be turned on.
I mean, judges at trials haven't been able to describe what is or isn't pornography, but apparently I guess they should have just turned on the software switch in their phones! Easy!
No phone can know it's operator's age. Even if the phone's owner is registered, it can't know if it's being operated by it's owner or not.
The PM and Home Sec are lying that they think there's no reporting, no data-collection, no spying, no monitoring, involved in their impossible imaginary tech they demand must be implemented in 3 months.
They are lying that adults can turn it off without having to register the owner of the phone and it's ID with a central database.
Never head anyone even mention the environmental consequences of burning power to pass every image a camera takes through a large neural network to have it be classified as porn or not, so at least they haven't had to lie about it being free and easy and not burning energy to classify every image taken in the UK.
Good thing they have little chance of being in power when their deadline hits and the tech companies have failed to turn on the imaginary software switch to do impossible things.
Sadly, Burnham's government will probably do much the same.
Status at - Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:14:18 +0000
This month's digest/newsletter is on the way to the mailbox of all those rich lovely insider traders who know how to play the newsletter markets.
The rest of you poor bag-holding index investor scum being ripped off can get it here:
https://dalliance.net/blog/may26/Featuring rants and card-readings about SpaceX and AI stock offerings, commentary on Labour's collapse and Burnham's offer, descriptions of gigs and the building of a table, plus a new Observers cartoon.
Status at - Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:15:53 +0000
The fact that we are having our political conversations on shitposting troll sites is a strange quirk of the modern age.
Some kind of online house-of-people's state-owned state-forum seems like a more sensible place if you were designing from scratch.
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Bookmarks
Things I have bookmarked lately.Price of Eggs by Carsie Blanton and The Burning Hell - YouTube - Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:29:08 +0000
Nice little revolutionary song with puppets: "What are we gonna do about these elites? / We’ll all get together and hit the streets. / We’re never gonna break! / We’re never gonna bend! / That’s what we’re gonna do about them."
No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious - The Atlantic - Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:01:01 +0000
The Atlantic's argument that AI isn't conscious has the right conclusion and is mostly good but some of it's arguments are pretty poor. "So, given that Claude is not conscious, what are we to make of Claude’s
constitution? Perhaps the most fruitful way to think about it is as an
84-page character sheet for a role-playing game. LLMs can generate
dialogue for Julius Caesar because many books about him exist in the
training data those models used. Claude’s constitution serves a similar
role for delineating the helpful-chatbot character that customers
interact with when they’re using Anthropic’s products. To do this
effectively, Anthropic does not simply add the document to the training
data, or include it as part of the hidden stage directions that preface
each conversation a user has. The company says it uses the document when
fine-tuning the model; this involves an automated process where the
sentences emitted by the model are checked for consistency with the
document and the model is u…
Media Myopia As We Hurtle Towards Climate Oblivion – Media Lens - Sun, 31 May 2026 11:02:20 +0000
Our media continues to report on bullshit while ignoring the story: "Imagine that, instead of focusing on
short-term melodramas, leading news organisations rigorously probed
politicians, day in and day out, about the climate crisis.
Imagine that news editors and journalists
relentlessly challenged the government about current policies that are
bringing us closer to the brink of climate chaos.
Imagine that reporters investigated and
exposed the deep reluctance and state-corporate obstacles, including the
establishment media, that are blocking alternatives to climate
Armageddon.
Imagine, in other words, that we had a
sane media system. That could just mean the difference between human
survival and human erasure."
The economist billionaires fear: this is how we get a wealth tax - YouTube - Mon, 25 May 2026 13:45:19 +0000
Gary interviewing Gabriel Zucman on wealth taxes and the distribution of the tax burden between the mage rich and the poor.
Nobody Wants To Come To America, Mate - Mon, 18 May 2026 10:31:52 +0000
Professor Jiang Xueqin let Keen do the heavy lifting on the empire
question, then came in with the kill shot dressed up as polite analysis: “If you’re going to see regime change to stop this war, forget about seeing it in Iran. You need to see it in America.” --Pause on that for a second.That
is a Chinese academic, on British television, telling Piers Morgan that
the path to global stability runs not through Tehran but through
Washington. That the bloke in the Oval Office, the geriatric grift
artist with the Diet Coke button and the nuclear codes, is the
destabilising force. Not the Ayatollah. Not Xi. Not Putin. Not Kim. The
bankrupt steak salesman from Queens.And what’s wild is, he’s not wrong.
The Boring Internet | Terry Godier - Thu, 14 May 2026 22:31:51 +0000
Nobody can sell it. Nobody can pivot it. Nobody can take it public and
gut it for shareholders. Nobody can call an all-hands meeting and
explain that, going forward, the protocol will prioritize video.
You’re about to feel the AI money squeeze | The Verge - Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:02:17 +0000
Gartner forecasts that large AI companies would need to earn cumulatively close to $7 trillion in AI-driven revenue through 2029, which is close to $2 trillion per year by the end of the period. In order to achieve “historic returns,” the providers would need to earn nearly $8.2 trillion in the same period.
Nuclear Genocide – The Threat And The Ceasefire – Media Lens - Sun, 19 Apr 2026 23:27:59 +0000
"Despite all the madness, horror and killing, Trump’s genocidal threat
provoked a display of deep-seated solidarity and compassion that defied
decades of propaganda demonising the Iranian people as ‘animals’,
‘savages’ and ‘primitives’. Clearly, very few of us are willing to
tolerate the threat of nuclear genocide. In these grim times, when it
sometimes feels like humanity has completely lost its way, that is
something to celebrate."
Reading is magic - by Sam Kriss - Numb at the Lodge - Sun, 12 Apr 2026 18:24:15 +0000
Sam Kriss writing on the coming illiteracy might affect politics. It's long so you know only people who read a bit will get to the end, and they prone to agree: "This is not a world we’re prepared for. All democratic politics
assume a literate population; people who are willing to think in
abstract terms about the kind of world they want to live in. Without
that, democracy becomes a kind of tribal headcount, or a struggle for
state resources between competing patronage networks. This is what lies
behind a lot of the growing liberal panic over the decline of literacy.
For a growing chorus of people who write in the Atlantic,
we’re recoiling into pre-Enlightenment conditions of absolute
domination. A population that can no longer think for itself will end up
voluntarily ceding power to strongmen or demagogues. The end of
literacy is the end of public reason. A post-literate world will be
unreasonable, irrational, full of anger and madness, and people eating
each other in the streets."