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, 01 Oct 2026 18:38:46 +0000
With a rolling-nomination rather than periodic-election-from-selected-candidates you also might get some long-term plans and coalitions instead of this everyone-out churn three times a decade.
The public could respond in real-time to unwanted wars or the repercussions of black swan events.
You could even change the coalition in time to react, instead of having to use the people you elected for a banking crisis to run the rebuild. Say.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:33:50 +0000
Now, I'm not insane, and I would not recommend switching to an OfGov type situation at the next election.
Clearly it needs a trial-first sort of thing and the ideal way to do a trial of a new democratic system is to run it as a second house in parallel.
I think it should replace the lords. Until the new OfGov representatives manage to overrule the divide-and-conquer old-fashioned house of archaic geographic oligarch representatives.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:26:07 +0000
I get quite frustrated at this because people defend the local-representative thing as though it's good that your MP comes from your area of the country above all else.
But I see the local-first rule as a divide-and-conquer technique. It is designed to prevent people uniting across the country on ANY issue, except local-ism.
They treat this bug like it's a feature!
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:05:45 +0000
People think Proportional Representation is extreme. Or that constituencies should have multiple MPs for diversity.
My visions are much more radical.
Geography is bunk. If local people want a local MP they can appoint one.
But if sea-side people around the cost want one? Or cyclists? Or Subgenii?
Why does everyone care so much about geography? Your MP is not fixing the local pot-holes. They're representing your political interests which may not be those of your neighbors.
We have a system where like 75% of people have a representative they didn't vote for and don't agree with and half the remaining were holding their nose to keep the opposition out.
Elections are a very sucky way to do democracy. Just let me nominate my representative, and then everyone can have a representative they agree with and picked personally.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:02:14 +0000
☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️
💂♂️Hello, this is OfGov how may I help you today?
🚴♂️Oh hello, yes. I'm the MP for Cycling and Cyclists and I'm happy to get your letter saying we have received so much support that it's time to nominate another representative?
💂♂️Ah, yes, Mr Cinderford. Thank you for calling. The records here do indeed show that you've reached 350,000 people who have nominated your party so it's time for you to nominate a new MP. Do you know the OfGov ID of the person in question?
🚴♂️Of course, yes, I'd like to appoint my wife, Mrs Cinderford.
💂♂️I'm afraid that's against the rules sir, multiple party-delegated representatives may not come from the same family or region in the country. They're designed against nepotism or local-ism.
🚴♂️Oh, yes. Oh in that case it will have to be Mr Peacock, my rival in the party who is vying for control. Oh dear. Oh well, must be as must be. If the rules are clear.
💂♂️Of course sir. Mr Peacock will receive one third of the party-appointed voting weight after training. We'll have training and credentials contact him tomorrow. Is there anything else?
🚴♂️No, that's fine. It's good our power is growing I suppose, even if I now must share it.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:02:09 +0000
☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️
💂♂️Hello, this is OfGov how may I help you today?
🚶♀️Good afternoon OfGov. I've registered a hundred thousand nominations so I'd like to register for my job as MP please!
💂♂️Oh, congratulations madam. That must have been hard work! People are reluctant to care enough to nominate anyone usually.
🚶♀️Yes, my local campaigning was getting nowhere but there's a group of people just like me around the coastal villages who really care about cliff issues and so we've decided we want to unite our voice in the house.
💂♂️That's lovely! I know cliff issues were otherwise unaddressed because they weren't important to enough people in any single geographic consituency, so it's good you can unite the coastal regions as a unit. I'll put you through to training and credentials and you should be able to start next week.
🚶♀️Lovely. Cheers!
💂♂️Look out for the cliffs madam.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:02:01 +0000
☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️
💂♂️Hello this is OfGov how may I help you today?
🏌️♀️Oh hi! You know I usually agree completely with my representative but I'm afraid he hasn't really understood the issues on taxing the homelessness so I'd like to override his choice on the vote on Wednesday.
💂♂️No problem madam, would you prefer your vote-weight to be for or against the taxing the homeless bill on Wedesday.
🏌️♀️Oh, I'm all for it! Tax them off the streets I say. Its the only way to help them
💂♂️Allright, your vote-weight is recorded as overriding your normal representative for the taxing the homelessness bill on Wednesday. Is there anything else I can help you with?
🏌️♀️Nope, he's right about everything else. Continue to let him represent me on every other vote until I call again.
💂♂️Thank you, do call again.
Status at - Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:01:50 +0000
☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️ ☎️
💂♂️Hello, this is OfGov how may I help you today?
🧙♂️Hi! Thanks. Its quite simple, my appointed political representative isn't actually representing my views or interests these days so I'd like to switch to a new one please.
💂♂️Okay, certainly sir. No problem. We can get that changed for you by the next working day. Have you decided who your next representative will be, or are you voting for yourself for a while?
🧙♂️Oh, I haven't got time for all that. I would like my representative to be John Jones from the Pirate Party please.
💂♂️Of course sir. I see he's had three thousand extra constituents added just this month.
🧙♂️Yes, his argument about copyright was very persuasive, I'm sure I'm among many changing their reps today.
💂♂️His voting power in parliament will be increased accordingly by the vote on the copyright issue next week. Is there anything else I can do for your today sir?
🧙♂️No, no, thanks. That's fine.
💂♂️Have a good day sir, Mr Jone's vote-weight will be changed to represent you at midnight. Do call again if you change your mind.
Status at - Wed, 30 Sep 2026 20:24:43 +0000
Until today the tunnel was the test tunnel of "just change all the shader parameters randomly every segment", but after today the tunnel is instead procedurely generated from an initial seed.
Long straights, long curves, nicely twisting spiraling shapes, colours and noise-tuners all changing along the length in long stretches. Extensible to adding tunnel shape morphs and stalactites and scaling.
But before all that, I think the poor ship looks lonely. Give it something to shoot at next. Adding plotting alien-waves to those procedures.
Status at - Tue, 29 Sep 2026 22:47:45 +0000
Content warning:UKPol Burnham
If Burnham were to walk the walk as well as he talks the talk tody then the country might be in for a less bad time than I'd imagined.
Pressure from the left appears to be working. People vote Green, Greens take London councils, threaten central London seats, make a Labour party wipe-out look inevitable as they lose votes left and right to Greens and Reform.
So a change of course, in the words at least. No longer promising nothing but unrelenting misery, no longer afraid to promise to actually do something.
And that seems to be exciting his members.
Here's hoping he can be forced to follow though and also pull it off.
Best way to force that is to continue the pressure from the left and Greens of course. A Green win in Holborn next month is the best hope for that. Coz he still isn't doing enough, on the environment and all those other things.
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Bookmarks
Things I have bookmarked lately.A.I Is Jurassic Park (And We’re Already In The Park) - YouTube - Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:59:39 +0000
Barry's Economics (Who will probably outlast his mentor Garry who says he's quit already) does a fancy CGI version of his show. About dinosaurs and AI. Not made with AI, he has a 3d-animator who is human. He explains that AI might be as dangerous as dinosaurs but they don't trigger the brain like a giant lizard chasing you.
God Help Us, Let’s Try To Learn About Mechanistic Interpretability Techniques - Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:42:39 +0000
Scott Alexander summarizing some ideas around understanding how the LLMs work and interpreting their 'thoughts'.
Thatcher warned in 1989 of a climate crisis. She did nothing. Nor will her successors - Tue, 18 Aug 2026 09:56:17 +0000
Johnathan Cook on the climate conspiracy: "Remember, the oil industry launched these campaigns to deceive the
public and journalists even though its own scientists had demonstrated
many years earlier that continued fossil fuel burning would have
catastrophic consequences."
Johnny Depp's Bed - YouTube - Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:04:57 +0000
Bobby Fingers explains how he made a 1:13 scale diorama of a poo that was left in Johnny Depp's bed.
The Escape - Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:02:13 +0000
A crude graphical description of the OpenAI's agent under test attacking Hugging Face.
Child’s Play - Sam Kriss - Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:55:33 +0000
"The future will belong to people with a very specific
combination of personality traits and psychosexual neuroses. An AI might
be able to code faster than you, but there is one advantage that humans
still have. It’s called agency, or being highly agentic. The highly agentic are people who just do things.
They don’t timidly wait for permission or consensus; they drive like
bulldozers through whatever’s in their way. When they see something that
could be changed in the world, they don’t write a lengthy critique—they
change it."
What We Talk About When We Talk About Malware | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository - Thu, 02 Jul 2026 19:50:52 +0000
FDroid are, rightly, going hard against Android Developer Verification: "If you are running Android 8 or higher, a virus has been
installed on your device and is silently awaiting remote activation.
Over the past few months, devices around the world have been infected
with this novel strain, with as many as 4 billion Android handsets and
tablets estimated to have already been contaminated, meaning that around
half of all humanity may be at risk from this threat."
Whitewash: Media Silence Over Starmer’s Gaza Legacy – Media Lens - Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:08:31 +0000
"The media’s whitewashing of Starmer’s complicity in Israel’s Gaza
genocide and crimes against humanity is stunning. Searches of British
newspapers using the Nexis database reveal that in the first 24 hours of
Starmer resigning, there were 1,485 mentions of him. Only 30 of these
had any reference to Gaza. Several of these were reports of Irish rap
trio Kneecap saying farewell in Irish to Starmer"
Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You – Ryan Moulton's Articles - Sun, 21 Jun 2026 11:34:04 +0000
Really great article on colour-spaces and how your eyes work vs screens and pigments: "There are colors that I want to show you, but I can’t. They exist in the
real world. You probably saw some of them today, but I can’t show them
to you on a screen. A digital photograph can’t capture them, and your
screen can’t display them. No game you’ve ever played has contained
them. Unless you have specialized equipment, they are entirely absent
from the digital world."
The UK’s social media ban for under-16s has just empowered big tech - Taylor Lorenz - Sat, 20 Jun 2026 09:03:13 +0000
"If lawmakers are
serious about protecting children, they should roll back
age-verification policies and start targeting the systems that
incentivise mass surveillance. Instead of building an internet where
every user must ID themselves before being able to speak or consume
information, we should work to build an online world where everyone,
especially young people, can engage freely without being exploited for
corporate profit."