February 2022 Digest
Me
Some stuff from my microblog on the fediverse:
I wrote a few paragraphs on web3 and identity and Moxie’s web3 post.
I found out how to turn of the annoying web-search in the windows11 task-bar
My drains got blocked and I did a tarot reading about it before actually managing to fix it myself by getting dirty with a drain-snake all afternoon.
I noted that the government intend to spend half a million pounds on brainwashing into not protecting ourselves with encryption.
I built a pretty LED-strewn ventilation window for my server cupboard.
As Twitter enabled NFT avatars, I pointed out that NFTs aren’t images so can’t be set as avatars at all. It’s a category error.
Welcoming the new wave of Fediverse users repelled by Twitter’s decision.
The biggest liars in the world are asking me to believe them about Ukraine and our media rarely question them about their history of lying to get us into wars.
Rolling commentary on Spofity/Joe-Rogan as it happened.
I reckon Proof Of Work may be greener than Tesla.
My puppet wears my mask.
The annual post about my tree blossoming earlier every year. One day I’ll check if it’s even true.
Risshi’s energy-bill plan is insane
Remember folks, trump is going to win the next election and use the precedents for censorship, and calling protestors terrorists, and political theft of funds, for his own ends.
more…
That’s just the highlights this month, you can always follow the full feed on the fediverse though at @pre@boing.world or join the telegram group or subscribe to the RSS feed.
Releases
This month’s new cartoon is “Party”, in which The Observers discover a planet where the ruling classes don’t have to follow their own rules.
https://starshipsd.com/observers/party/
As usual, there’s a flat-screen version and a 3d Virtual Reality version.
Reading
Hitch 22
I listened to Christopher Hitchen reading his autobiography “Hitch 22”
Very nice to hear his voice again ten years after his death but also sad and poignant to hear him describe his life from after the end of it. Sorely miss his voice wondering what he’d make of this crazy chaotic world.
Watching
The Tourist
Watched The Tourist, from the BBC and partners. A memory-loss thriller.
Thing about memory loss stuff is, well, he remembers what a phone is and what an address is but not what Simon and Garfunkle are and if I were a character in the show I’d spend so long asking him what he didn’t and didn’t remember we’d still be doing it by episode six.
Do you know what a Light Saber is? Do you know what Star Wars is? You seem to remember what a gun is, do you remember seeing that scene in Pulp Fiction, and could you stop pointing a gun at me as we drive along this bumpy road please.
Good fun show though.
The Day Shall Come
Also watched Chris Morris’s “The Day Shall Come” which was an amazing film. Hilarious and revealing and truthy.
Everyone setting up everyone else, a filmmic farce exposing the real federal farce.
Everyone ought to watch that.
It’s particularly poignant to have watched it in the week when we learned Spanish “jihaddi” attacks in 2017 were possibly performed by dupes entrapped by the secret police.
Links
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Craig Murray is out of jail, and writes about what it was like inside jail. Not very nice by the sounds of it.
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Charlie Stross maps some possible futures. “we get hit by a new wave every 6 months, and all of us get it sooner or later, and each time you roll 1d6 and if you come up with a 1 you get organ damage, cognitive impairment, and chronic fatigue lasting for years: after a decade, half of humanity are walking wounded.”
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Hilarious power metal song about the tooth fairy. Their tooth-purchasing policy is causing inflationary pressures. Wiping out the wealth of the middle-class. Stop it! In the name of the Phillips Curve!
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Media lens on what is the point of trying to save the BBC BBC pundits pleading with the left to back them after a half decade campaign smearing us as antisemites
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Armando Iannucci on Downing Street “They really do drink while strategising tax tapers. They really do snog under a portrait of Henry Campbell-Bannerman. They actually did wheel a booze fridge in by the Downing Street back door”
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Concept Creep and why it feels like the world is getting worse. “The safer you generally feel, the easier it is to see milder events and trends as harmful, and this is the key to understanding why concept creep happen”
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That three hour video on how stupid NFTs are Was excellent, and pretty much entirely correct other than it’s completely ignoring the fact Lighting makes Bitcoin scale, and lacking any exploration of the economics of proof of work subsidizing new energy projects lower the cost of energy and build a renewable grid.
NFTs are very stupid though.
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Stephen Fry voicing a Pindex video on quantum computers and the future of tech. His voice is very soothing, even if he’s talking about things which could be alarming.
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Bryce Greene reminds us of the things the corporate media has forgotten in order to drum up war in Ukraine The US helped the far-right overthrow the democratic government of Ukraine in 2014.
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Ari Paul looks at the way the media studiously ignore the latest Amnesty International report. The hostile media responses to Amnesty’s report barely bother to refute the findings. Criticism of Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ rights is deemed a threat to the country’s ability to be an explicitly Jewish state
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Economist Robin Hanson’s does a 20 minute video presentation on prediction markets And how you could use predication markets to govern by speculators betting on conditional outcomes. Which sounds like it might be better than the Lords but probably I prefer me some well run democracy.
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Johnathan Pie’s great sweary rant about liar Johnson in the for the New York Times. Encore! Good work Tom.
more…
That’s just the highlights this month, remember you can always see my full public bookmarks at my website and/or follow my link-bot on the fediverse or my RSS feed of interesting links