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 - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:59:54 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
Then finally we have to remember that the reason he's quitting is as much to do with political posturing and rats leaving a sinking ship as Starmer's government generally collapses.
Andy Burnham will solve pretty much none of those actual defense issues.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:59:35 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
So the UK ought to be reducing to almost zero spending on buying arms from abroad, nuclear arms, tanks, warship.
The defense spending should be on UK capacity to build drones and anti-drone tech. Which means British chip-fabrication plants, british motor -factories. British metals and plastic and screw factories and I dunno what else it takes to build a drone but some of that.
In-UK spending on UK workers to boost UK economy. Not abroad.
Whether building all that costs more or less than the wasted money we give mostly to our competitors now is hard to say, but none of it is really about what proportion of GDP the country gives to the defense.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:59:21 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
Much defense spending is justified by a kind of Keynesian investment. The spending is supposed to grow the economy as well as defending the nation. But this only works if you use the money to build local factories and employ local workers and advance local capacity. If you just buy planes from the EU or America, you get none of that. You're spending to boost your competitor's economy instead.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:59:09 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
Next remember that tank warfare is last century's warfare. Tanks last like a day in the battlefield now before they're blown up by drones. To the extent you're spending on tanks, you're wasting money. Especially if you aren't even building the tank and so building sovereign expertise, just buying it.
Likewise warships really.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:58:47 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
Next you gotta look at the amount of money the UK spends to host America's nuclear missiles while lying that they are an 'independent' nuclear 'deterrent'.
Not independent, and likely not a deterrent. Certainly unusable in pretty much any conceivable circumstance other than 'UK has gone bad and thinks mass murdering millions of people is okay'.
Doesn't even leave us able to actually build these things if, say, America goes rogue and starts wars of aggression for oil rights.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:58:27 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
Then you gotta look at what defense spending actually buys.
To the extent you buy missiles and airplanes and guns and ammo and drones from your so-called allies or so-called adversaries you fund their war machine to no real benefit in security or national ability for yourself.
Sending the nation's wealth abroad in return for a more dangerous world with more battles to fight.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:58:13 +0000
Content warning:re: UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
First we should note that quite some of the danger in this new dangerous world is caused by 'defense' spending by the UK's so-called allies like America and Israel and their attacks abroad, and so-called adversaries like Russia and their wild plundering and war crimes.
Adding more weapons the UK can use to support and extend all those battles ain't making the nation safe or secure at all. Quite the reverse.
Status at - Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:57:59 +0000
Content warning:UKPol Defense Budget Resignation
The guy in charge of the UK's defense has quit, saying he can't do the job in this dangerous world with these budgetary constraints.
🧵
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.
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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."