DJDarren @ DJDarren @beehaw.org

Eternal shitposter who probably has something more important he should be d

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I'm in the UK, so our planning snafus aren't anywhere near as egregious as those in other places, but one that endlessly bugs me in my town is how there are two parallel high streets that are one way - in the same direction.

From a motoring perspective it makes sense, but if I cycle to work, the only (legal) way to get back home is along the busy main road that runs along side the town centre, or to go waaaay out of my way to circumvent the one way roads through a housing estate. So mostly I ride back against the flow of traffic, because the high streets aren't busy and I'd prefer to do that than tackle the main road. Makes me feel like a prick every time though.

When I joined Mastodon in the November migration, I wondered why media organisations weren’t spinning up their own servers. Give all the journos an account on that server and there’s your verification right away.

In this thread, I guess 😊

We're all Team Shennant in here.

It's just so exhausting being a lefty these days. I swear to god, these cunts in Westminster make their decisions on what will most piss off the people who'll never vote for them.

I love Michael Sheen in anything. Have you seen Staged?

It’s funny really. When the iPhone 7 came out, without a headphone jack, I’d been using Bluetooth headphones for years with iPhones 5/6 for a few years, so the lack of a jack in my next phone didn’t bother me at all.

My last couple of iPhones haven’t had a port, and instead of using a dongle, I’ve wandered back to using an iPod instead, so the lack of a port still doesn’t bother me. I have used a dongle, but only occasionally.

The simple answer is that it makes a regular phone smaller. A bit fatter, sure, but a smaller footprint. And it protects the screen when not in use.

Perfect for your need to replace it and add to the bank balance of the phone makers then.

Hope Falls All Year, Queef Team

I think for me it's Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic'. Not because of that book in particular, but because of it being a gateway to the Discworld as a whole.

As much as I enjoy those books, and have read almost all of them at this point, it's more that they taught me how to be a thoughtful, empathetic person when I was a thoughtless, selfish teenager. Almost on the sly, Terry instilled values in me simply by virtue of the heroes of his stories being mostly good people who just want to have a positive impact, even if they're flawed in different ways.

Like, Sam Vimes is undoubtedly a hero. Night Watch shows us that he strongly believes in the power of good, and that people can - and should - band together to limit the tyranny of power. But he's also distrusting and curmudgeonly. Nanny Ogg is foul-mouthed bon viveur who places a lot of emphasis on living her best life, but she always puts her family and friends before her if she needs to. Even the Nac Mac Feegle work together for the greater good, even if, in their case, that means being able to get more drunk and fight more violently.

GNU Terry Pratchett

"...genitals"?

Also, we have a constant stream of news telling us all the bad things. It's hard to detach from it.

Saw some thick trout on Twitter the other day, saying that the endless drizzling rain here in the UK this summer is a sign that climate change isn't real, and, like, it's cool and raining in July, and apparently that isn't climate change.

These people are so dense light bends around them.

“We expect profit levels to fall back significantly moving forward to the reasonable and modest levels allowed for in the price cap,”

Forgive me for believing with all my heart that there shouldn't be a profit motive when it comes to essential energy.

Oil the guillotines, chaps, prepare them well.

It's not just politicians, it's so many of the older people running the companies and pulling the strings.

My own boss is an absolute nightmare for not understanding that technology that could make our jobs here so, so much easier - and crucially much much more efficient. And yeah, I get that we could endlessly chase the promises of tech, but I'm forever being told to wind back my reliance on online tech because the boss won't spend the money needed on some computers and would rather do things on paper. I just nod, agree, then carry on doing things my way, because it has proven results. There's a bunch of us here who rely on Google Docs for collaboration software, because the boss refuses to spend any money on anything better suited. He didn't need it back when he set up the company 20 years ago, so he doesn't need it now!

Drives me fucking mad.

As to your point on experts; our government ministers actively reject experts who actually know about the issues, choosing instead to listen to people who'll tell them what they want to hear.

"Once we were young and we were crass enough to care" hit me like a hammer when I first heard it. It pairs perfectly with the line from Once We Were Anarchists from his previous album;

Young enough to be all pissed off, old enough to be jaded

It's very much the thoughts of a young man in flux, growing into adulthood and figuring out that it doesn't matter how much you shout and scream, changing society is really fucking hard.

The Weakerthans - This Is A Fire Door, Never Leave Open

I still hear trains at night when the wind is right I remember everything Lick and thread this string

That will never mend you or tailor more Than a memory of a kitchen floor Or the fire door that we kept propping open

And I love this place: the enormous sky And the faces, hands that I'm haunted by So why can't I forgive these buildings These frameworks labeled home?

There's something so incredibly evocative about the lyrics to this track, of which I've just posted a few because otherwise no one will read an entire block of song lyrics.

John K. Samson is, in my opinion, one of the finest poets and songwriters of his generation. He's loved by those who know him, but otherwise completely unknown, and I consider that a tragedy.

I mean, ffs, he wrote four songs about a cat, and they're one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. There's a line in the second song, 'Virtute The Cat Explains Her Departure';

I can't remember the sound you found for me

which is Virtute admitting that she can't remember her name, and doesn't know how to get home. That makes me well up every damn time.

Thank you for saying so! I enjoyed doing that show.

Oh, this is poor news indeed.

She had a tough life, and was routinely treated incredibly unkindly for daring to voice her opinions the truth.

RIP

I once did an entire 2 hour radio show on this very subject.

There were some genuine surprises to me when I was doing the research for this one.