Remember that time that techbros and major corporations told us jpgs of terrible monkey art were going to change the world, people were like "Nah pal, I'm good", and within just a few years it all fell apart spectacularly? That was rad. Let's do that again.

“A clarinet player was arrested after playing her instrument to the tune of the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme song outside of a Portland ICE facility…”

It’s the 111th anniversary today of the birth of Harry Rée, who was a teacher and conscientious objector when the Second World War broke out, and by the time it ended, when he was 31, had invented ‘blackmail sabotage’ and got a DSO, an OBE, a Croix de Guerre, and a Medaille de la Resistance

My first word was apparently "hello" because everyone kept saying that to me, but there's a story of me as a baby being woken up by birds outside and my parents heard me over the baby monitor saying "Fucking birds..."

Who could've predicted such a thing

I once gave a few British friends a "Life in the UK" test as I was required to do for British citizenship.

Not one of them passed.

Inevitably the two breaches UK Labour are fighting with the Council of Europe about involve trans people and Gaza.

They're losing supporters to the LDs, Greens, SNP and Plaid at over 2.5x the rate that they are to Farage/Tories, but evidently they think they can boost that to 3x.

kids teacher just sent this home as part of an assignment he's doing and i want to smash every computer at the school

That’s hilarious.

My postviral condition is from a flu in 2011. I don't get into it when people try to deny the reality of long covid by asserting that flu "doesn't do that" because what is the point. But yeah.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the UK countryside is full of interdimensional portals. You just have to know where to look.

The answer to "how does [author] hold up?" is always "for whom?" Bester holds up fine to me, but I'm a 56-year-old white dude who has a vested interest in the genre. My take on his hold-uppedness will be different than, say, a 15-year-old BIPOC girl approaching science fiction for the first time.

His ear? I had his balls in my grasp for most of his reign!

www.youtube.com/shorts/kzI0a...

Your belief system* dictates how you live your life? No problem.

Your belief system tells me how to live my life?

Big problem.

*Also, it strikes me as more likely that these bampots worship at the altar of Tommy Yaxley-Lennon Not-A-Journalist Robinson than at the kirk.

For those of us not in the UK, here's the worst of their recommendations.

WHAT.
THE.
ACTUAL.
FUCK.

I know it was a legal thing but everyone is probably going to just keep calling it W.H. Smith anyway or ‘oh you do know it, it was W.H. Smith but it’s got some other stupid name now’.

We honor the legacy of Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a fierce protector of our collective freedom. Our hearts are with her loved ones and all who carry her vision forward.

"We will honor Miss Major forever." - @imarajones.bsky.social

ACTUALLY, I have a theory that most books enter a cultural "uncanny valley" 20-25 years after release, where the culture has shifted just enough they're not contemporary anymore, so new readers can't directly relate, and they stay in the valley for about 50 years until they're clearly historical

Most "classics" are boring as fuck to a modern reader in no small part because the context of the story is not understood by them and so many of the allusions and "inside jokes" known to then-contemporary readers have been lost in time and in translation

Not very unhinged, but: Stop reading a book if you're bouncing off of it. Stop "powering through." You're just wasting your time. You don't get a gold star for finishing books you're not enjoying reading.

A lot of comments on Mars rovers or Moon landings, but it's important to remember that the planet NASA studies most is Earth. This is less about cutting flashy things like moonwalks and more about keeping communities in the dark on climate, weather, agriculture, pollution, natural hazards, and more.

Gothic novels are not my area of expertise but Charles’ love of the genre shines through. The main character is a delightful ADHD chaos merchant doing his very best and you get a real sense of how being in this sort of gothic situation would actually be increasingly unnerving. Loved it.

A mom in Houston reported her 15-year-old son with autism missing. She spent 6 days terrified, searching for him. The whole time, Houston police knew exactly where he was since they helped ICE place him in a refugee facility.

This is beyond cruel.
www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

some of these fuckos would plainly rather stand shoulder to shoulder with a dapper, erudite fascist than someone who agrees with them 97% but seems cringe

a term which can mean anything from “having fun” to “has not read Marx” to “is a mom”