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
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!
-
Diary
My diary from the Fediverse.Status at - Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:04:54 +0000
Content warning:UKPol, Palestine Action, Email to my MP
Dear Emily Thornberry,
I don't usually bother to write to you on most issues because I figure there is pretty much no point communicating with a whipped MP in a safe seat under first past the post. Such an MP has no reason to listen to their constituents at all, and is entirely a tool of the party leadership.
I make an exception today since I hear your government is about to classify Palestine Action as a terrorist group. Despite them being peaceful, non-violent, and dedicated entirely to preventing the greater crime of the ongoing genocide of Gazan Palestinians.
This is obviously a gross overreaction and a completely unjustifiable act designed not to prevent domestic terrorism but to cover up British forces and UK government involvement and collaboration with the genocide in Gaza.
If we are taking suggestions for groups to ban as terrorists even though they aren't terrorists, I would like to suggest the Labour Party! The party has helped facilitate a genocide abroad, and continues to supply the perpetrators with arms and intelligence to aid their actions.
I don't expect you to take that suggestion seriously, but maybe Reform will take it seriously when they get elected in a few years and I suggest it again to them. After all, a precedent will have been set that groups which aren't terrorists can be banned under anti-terror legislation anyway. Democracy will have already been eroded.
I was ready to be disappointed by this Labour government, but I confess that the level of gut-wrenching visceral disgust I am experiencing at them surpassed all my wildest expectations. Taking money from the disabled to buy new war-planes from a fascist US president while abetting a genocide in Gaza makes me wonder if Reform wouldn't be better in the end anyway. At least they might do electoral reform and nationalize the water companies.
Labour's only hope, the country's only hope, is to remove Starmer. I wish you had won that leadership election instead of him.
Anyway, as I say, I don't expect it to make any difference at all because under this election system even MPs in safe seats are nothing but tools of the party leadership and the party leadership seems determined. But I thought I'd let you know that I see you. I see what you are doing.
I support Palestine Action more than I support this government. Let me know where I should hand myself in for my "crime".
Yours sincerely,
Adam
Status at - Wed, 25 Jun 2025 09:22:02 +0000
Update on the watch that wouldn't charge and then came back from the dead 3 days later like Jesus.
I guess it's in heaven now. Charging worked for about 2 days then stopped working again and now it's been flat and dead in the cradle for quite a few more days.
☹️
Oh well.
Status at - Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:52:31 +0000
Humm, some downsides to that new lighting render as well as the upsides. Need to adjust where the spotlights shine slightly for the next one I guess. Comes out overall darker, with less ambient light, some shots here far too dark.
Status at - Mon, 23 Jun 2025 23:01:15 +0000
Look at the crowds shadows there under the yellow spotlight, and the flare off the stage spot, and the reflections off of the floor and catwalk.
It never looked this good in 4.0
Well done #blender3d , I dunno what you did between V4.0 and V4.4 but it looks great.
Status at - Mon, 23 Jun 2025 22:44:30 +0000
Interesting thing about tomorrow's tarot show, rendering now, is that I upgraded from Blender 4.0 to blender 4.4 and it's quite a bit nicer to look at the timeline editor.
Was sad to find that the render time was up though. From about 3 seconds per frame usually to more like 12!?
Trying it with an old version I see that the lights and textures look way better with 4.4 than 4.0 though. A substantial step up in the way the show looks without me even doing anything other than waiting four times longer per frame.
Seems to be heavily dependent upon lighting now. The slow frames are like 12 seconds but the fast frames with minimal lighting and close up on the video are more like 2.
Looks too beautiful now to go back though. Upgraded my cloud-remote render machines too. We will render on four machines tonight. FOUR! The power of it all.
g3.4xlarge is no faster than g3.large but g6.xlarge seems to be twice the speed.
But hard to be sure really coz of the massive variance in time depending on the lighting.
Anyway, great show coming tomorrow. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm trying to do with it but tomorrow's show is the answer. Hide the angry bitter political rant behind a strange CGI tarot show. When the rant comes together well I like it.
https://wordcloudtarot.com/@wordcloudtarot/statuses/01JYFF0GQV1680Z0VG0YTFZDTP
Status at - Mon, 23 Jun 2025 14:17:12 +0000
I support Palestine Action more than I support this terrible genocide-enabling so-called "labour" government.
Does that mean I'm going to go to jail? Will I have to hand myself in?
Status at - Sun, 22 Jun 2025 21:57:45 +0000
Content warning:Severance S1/2
Watched Severance, both seasons over the course of a week or so. Late to the party there I'm sure.
Wiping your memory when you walk into another room and wondering why you are in there is just a part of getting old I'm afraid 😆
You'd think the innie work personas would object and rebel more really, more like Hellany than the rest. Innies don't get paid, don't get to spend the wages. Pretty easy to get fired from a job really, just don't do the work.
Interesting that nobody was a different sexuality inside vs out, guess that's just fixed by biology huh? No transgender innies either. Maybe that's for season three.
Don't really get Helen's motivation for getting severed at all. Can't go under cover if you wipe your own memory. Can surely do a better job of it all from the outside.
Anyway. Gripping and stylish show, good fun. Nearly as good as everyone says it is.
Status at - Sun, 22 Jun 2025 10:19:09 +0000
Content warning:UKPol MidEast
I see Sir Kier Starmer thinks that it's "inappropriate" for a music festival to have a band that campaigns for peace and an end to genocide, but that it's perfectly appropriate and may "alleviate" a "grave threat” for a country to bomb nuclear sites in a another country!
He thinks daubing some paint on airplanes as a protest is terrorism, but that using those planes in reconnaissance to support an ongoing genocide by Israel is a good and normal use of them.
What a fucking weasel, absolute death worshiping fuck-knuckle.
Goddamn Labour party loves them some illegal wars of aggression in the middle east. Can't get enough of it.
Please fuck off Sir Starmer.
Status at - Fri, 20 Jun 2025 22:54:36 +0000
Content warning:Doctor Who - Future, why Billie?
There's a woman I know who, when she was pregnant, was very keen to hear the opinions of crystal diviners and homeopath medics on what sex her new baby would be but wouldn't let the ultrasound-scan technician that actually knows tells her because Spoilers.
On that note, I'm happy to watch Ellie's summary of fan theories about Doctor Who just so long as I'm sure she doesn't actually have any idea what she's talking about. 😆
The main theories are:
1) Billie is not the doctorI want Billie to be the Doctor. I want to see her David Tennant impression. I don't want any nonsense about her being outside the line like the War Doctor. I want her to be the sixteenth Doctor and whoever is next to be Seventeenth.
Doing otherwise is sexism.
2) She is the tardis.
No, bad enough that the Tardis was embodied once already. No talking tardis.
3) She is Rose, pulled from the alternate universe she was trapped in.
I miss Rose like crazy, and want Rose back as much as anyone but she'd have to be Rose in her Forties not Rose in her Twenties and it's sad enough watching all my friends age and die without Rose doing it too. So hope not.
4) She is The Bad Wolf.
Sure, in some sense inevitable. The Bad Wolf is more important to time than Rose Tyler. This new entity that regenerated into the tardis is not a girl who got a geography a-level, she's a timelord who sees all of time and space. Not a mere human, even a really great mere human.
5) She is the doctor.
Ellie says "She is the doctor but there needs to be a deeper exploration of that"
You mean, like in a show that's been asking one question for 65 years: "Doctor who?"
If there isn't an exploration of who exactly is this strange "Doctor" it isn't even doing the show title justice.
6) Revisit old face
Nah. It's not just the Doctor in Rose's face, it is surely part Bad Wolf.
Ellie wasn't overjoyed to see Rose's face, but I was. It's Rose! Back, in some sense. I love Rose.
Ellie wants just one movie or a couple of specials.
Here's what I want:
The Doctor has regenerated into the Bad Wolf because there's an urgent need for five times one hour long specials to cover a year or two without Disney Funding.
In the first special, The Bad Wolf Doctor needs to team up with Nine, to save the universe.
And then in special episode two she has to team up with Ten.
And then in special three she has to team up with Eleven, then Twelve and Thirteen, Fourteen, then a big old xmas special in 2027 that is the first eight-doctor adventure in the canon.
Ending with a regeneration into some middle aged weird looking character actor that's never really done anything before and certainly I've never seen in anything except maybe that one 1980s episode of Who when he or she was a monster in latex, and he or she is brilliant and we finally get an actual run of five years of more than ten episodes a year.
In truth, I don't think even RTD knows yet, depends on contract negotiations innit.
Status at - Thu, 19 Jun 2025 08:40:30 +0000
Meridith is so cool. It's unfathomable that so many people prefer Zuckerberg's surveillance software.
Here the Signal president talks about privacy and ai and data sovereignty.
-
Bookmarks
Things I have bookmarked lately.You Cannot Negotiate with the Zionist West - Craig Murray - Mon, 23 Jun 2025 10:37:39 +0000
"Israel attacked Iran during negotiations between Iran and the US, with the next scheduled meeting just three days away – including assassinating the lead negotiator.
Trump then gave Iran a two-week ultimatum
to agree a peace deal. Iran held one foreign-minister-level meeting
with the UK, Germany and France and scheduled a second meeting. Trump
then attacked Iran with 11 days of the ultimatum still to run.
Plainly the Zionist West not only has zero interest in peace, it is
engaging in morally abhorrent levels of dishonesty and deception,
attacking under a false flag of truce. The idea that Iran should now
return to “negotiation” with such appallingly deceitful interlocutors is
risible."
She Won. They Didn't Just Change the Machines. They Rewired the Election. - Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:24:24 +0000
evidence of election rigging?
Sales Pitch: Give Us Your Ad Business or We’ll Sue - Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:15:06 +0000
musk sues his customers to get them to spend.
📺 Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media - Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:37:30 +0000
Four minute fedi explainer
Trump's Relationship With Musk Collapses in Nasty War of Words | TIME - Thu, 05 Jun 2025 22:57:44 +0000
Time sums up the word's first global Forum Admin Spat in it's full glory.
CD / Blur - YouTube - Thu, 22 May 2025 18:44:34 +0000
Captain Disillusion looks at unblurring, inverse fast furry transforms and convolutions.
Thank God for immigrants - by Ian Dunt - Striking 13 - Fri, 16 May 2025 17:56:32 +0000
A third of my friends are immigrants of one kind or another and they are all great. Wish I could deport all those who want to stop immigration. It enriches us. We are better because of immigrants. I am better because of immigrants. Here's Ian Dunt: "Imagine how much poorer the world would be without British
Asians in general. I'm not talking about the subcontinent. I'm not
talking about Britain. I'm talking about British Asians themselves, as a
distinct group, quite apart from their other loyalties or their other
identities. Imagine how much more impoverished we would be, in food and
music and literary life, in social habits and intellectual and political
history. Imagine how poor we would be, the vast riches which would have been taken away from us."
The Misconception that Almost Stopped AI - YouTube - Sun, 11 May 2025 10:54:59 +0000
Some interesting visualizations and good explanation in this video about why training a neural network by gradient descent doesn't get stuck in local minima as you train. We tend to find it hard to visualize a higher dimensional landscape, let alone one with billions of dimensions. What loos like a local minima when mapped into a 3d visualization of a 2d landscape has all sorts of escape routes in the higher dimensions. It has a good visual on the way the landscape mapping can change as a result of changes to the other parameters, creating new "wormholes" as they change. Great video.
Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast - Wed, 07 May 2025 14:42:02 +0000
NYMag has a good essay on using AI in education: "In
January 2023, just two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a survey
of 1,000 college students found that nearly 90 percent of them had used
the chatbot to help with homework assignments." -- I guess all marks have to be in exam conditions with pen on paper in future?
OpenAI Is A Systemic Risk To The Tech Industry - Mon, 05 May 2025 11:41:05 +0000
"OpenAI currently requires more money and more compute than is reasonable to acquire. Nobody
has ever raised as much as OpenAI needs to, and based on the sheer
amount of difficulty that SoftBank is having in raising the funds to
meet the lower tranche ($10bn) of its commitment, it may simply not be possible for this company to continue."