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 - Wed, 20 May 2026 20:32:46 +0000
Went down the pub for a couple of hours to celebrate the Green victories in the borough.
Despite the victory only being about a third of the seats, they seemed pretty jubilant. This council was pretty much 100 percent Labour till now so taking a third is still quite a victory.
Some people surprised they won and now have to to be a councilor when they didn't really expect to have to be a councilor.
Would be good to get more involved with the party in the abstract. In actual practice though I'm always either busy or unwilling to really get dressed and leave the flat.
Should at least try and keep more of an eye on what's going on. See if there's things I can do to help out.
Sounds like that's mostly on Whatsapp groups though, and I ain't installing no Zuckerberg spyware for it for sure.
Status at - Wed, 20 May 2026 11:37:48 +0000
It becomes ever more important that you stop using Google.
It's been important for a long time, since they removed 'don't be evil' from their tag-line and decided that they had to be a big evil corporation instead.
They're giving up on being a search engine now too by the sounds of it.
You can use startpage or duckduckgo or something if you still want search.
There are lots of different email providers.
There is GrapheneOS and lineageos and others for your phone and tablet operating systems.
There is Peertube and Rumble and others for uploading your videos.
You don't have to remove it all at once, just make a continuing effort to move away from Google, one step at a time.
I'm almost completely degoogled now. Its taken years. It was a good move. Google only gets worse from here.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/19/google-search-as-you-know-it-is-over/
Status at - Tue, 19 May 2026 12:12:46 +0000
The old bedroom settling in nicely. Haven't had to re-glue any LED strips for a while.
Today made some progress on a card/dining table. Getting these curves of pine cut cost was stupidly expensive. They're bigger than post pine panels. But at least the wood stain and the varnish is already around from doing all the cupboards.
Stain done. Gonna need, what, at least three layers of varnish? Something of that order.
Status at - Tue, 19 May 2026 09:05:06 +0000
Content warning:UKPol burnham
What is it Burnham is even offering to change? He talks a talk about public control over water companies and rail and power or whatever.
But does he even mean actual public ownership? Or just the kind of franchise systems he's so proud of running the local Manchester busses under.
He'll stick to the austerity, the fiscal rules, these artificial limits on government investment.
And if he loses the seat? Someone else in the party will surely stand up and say basically that. Raynor maybe, Milliband.
There is nothing to gain from standing back and helping Labour put their most popular candidate in place when their most popular candidate is still very shit.
Look, here's Richard Murphy on it:
Status at - Mon, 18 May 2026 18:42:43 +0000
I don't remember ever disagreeing much with Caroline Lucas before.
But I disagree with her here entirely.
urged the Greens not to stand against the Manchester Mayor if he is selected
Andy Burnham is NOT good. He is the least bad of a bad set of candidates the Labour party is scrambling for.
When will the Labour party, even Burnham's Labour Party, step aside for the Greens? Nowhere and never. They will never reciprocate and they will always slander and lie about our Green party.
Burnham has nothing to offer. He can't offer PR, he can't offer reversing Brexit, he can't offer even to get Labour to stand down a single seat at the next election.
The most important by election in the century, with the focus of the world's media concentrated on one tiny contest and Caroline thinks we should sit down and stand back and shut up?
Bollocks to that.
We need to stand, fight hard, and present the Green case to that assembled world media and local voters.
If Burnham wins or doesn't win, so what? Labour will still be shit. Burnham is shit. The country will not be saved.
Burnham is a blairite neoliberal brexiter.
I could see a stand-down for Clive Lewis or Corbyn or something but for Burnham?
No. Burnham sucks and we must fight him as hard as we can. Get the green case out in front of people in this unique incredible opportunity to get in front of the media spotlight.
Pick a good candidate and push them hard.
Status at - Fri, 15 May 2026 18:46:48 +0000
Content warning:re: ukpol
You know, I sometimes wonder if an electoral parliamentary system which can swing wildly based on the votes of 30,000 people in a particular district in a northern town is fit for purpose.
Depending on how 10,000 swing voters act, maybe the whole government changes course.
I'm sure it's fine though, our ancestors wouldn't have left us a system entirely unfit the the modern age would they?
Status at - Wed, 13 May 2026 13:01:56 +0000
I do not want to "move from an operating system to an intelligence system" thanks Google.
I still want my computer to operate, not to intelligent.
I do not want a popup every time I wriggle my mouse to see where the cursor is.
Also "google books" is already a thing you maniacs. Google, the search engine company, has made a product which is unserchable because of a name clash with another thing from the same company already called that.
/slow-clap.
This is intelligence apparently. We're going to need a new word for actually clever things given all this crap branded intelligent nowadays.
Status at - Wed, 13 May 2026 11:26:57 +0000
Content warning:re: ukpol
Sounds like Streeting is likely to resign and make a move on the leadership. Leaked during the King's speech, which is interesting timing.
What's the funniest possible outcome?
Perhaps a four way contest without Burnham coz he can't get a seat in time, won on 26% of the votes by Starmer.
Making it obvious Starmer only holds like a quarter of the MPs in support, we keep the same lame duck now even lamer, all the challengers are rebuked, and even if Andy gets a seat later the contest is over and nobody has the stomach for another one.
Not a prediction, just musing on the most hilarious thing. Which is probably also the worst thing for the country.
Status at - Mon, 11 May 2026 17:26:56 +0000
Content warning:re: ukpol
I wonder if any PM will last a full term ever again? The proportion of actually-elected PMs is dropping fast. Only one of the last few, and maybe more unelected prime ministers to follow this month.
Status at - Mon, 11 May 2026 14:44:47 +0000
This month's late newsletter is on the way to all the beautiful human folks who subscribed to want it in their inbox.
The rest of you scum and AI bots can read it here:
https://dalliance.net/blog/apr26/Featuring DevWord Amsterdam report, UK election ranting, Strait closure commentary and continuing to track the private corporate enclosure of the public web.
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Bookmarks
Things I have bookmarked lately.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."
The Last Quiet Thing | Terry Godier - Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:47:46 +0000
Your thermostat has opinions now. Your television requires a login. Your
car updates itself overnight, and sometimes when you start it in the
morning, the interface has rearranged itself, as if someone broke in and
reorganized your dashboard while you slept.
Shameless Guesses, Not Hallucinations - Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:01:58 +0000
I hate the term “hallucinations” for when AIs say false things. It’s perfectly calculated to mislead the reader - to make them think AIs are crazy, or maybe just have incomprehensible failure modes.
AIs say false things for the same reason you do.
At least, I did. In school, I would take multiple choice tests. When I didn’t know the answer to a question, I would guess.
Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation & Institutional Capture - Mon, 16 Mar 2026 21:59:20 +0000
This investigation documents a national lobbying operation spanning corporate spending, think tank infrastructure, dark money networks, and competing model legislation templates. Meta spent a record $26.3 million on federal lobbying in 2025, deployed 86+ lobbyists across 45 states, and covertly funded a group called the Digital Childhood Alliance (DCA) to advocate for the App Store Accountability Act (ASAA). But the operation extends beyond Meta.
Pluralistic: AI “journalists” prove that media bosses don’t give a shit (11 Mar 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow - Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:11:59 +0000
"If the purpose of a customer service department is to tell people to go
fuck themselves, then a chatbot is obviously the most efficient way of
delivering the service. It's not just that a chatbot charges less to
tell people to go fuck themselves than a human being – the chatbot
itself means "go fuck yourself." A chatbot is basically a "go fuck yourself" emoji. Perhaps this is why every AI icon looks like a butthole"