Ben Taylor @VoxDei@qoto.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
Arachnophobia, hornets
Cats chasing a hornet around the kitchen just now. Caught it before the idiot cats got stung, let it out the front where it promptly flew into a spider's web.
Can I just point out that a hornet attempting to escape a spider's web close to a light in the dark has a shadow that is the stuff of nightmares?
@freemo @allstartrek I may have been joking. I'm pretty sure the cause is that the writers didn't want to have to deal with the issue. 😂
@freemo @allstartrek
Computer: "Specify, Smith"
Captain: (Sighs) *Lieutenant* Smith
Computer: "Specify, Lieutenant Smith"
Captain: "Dammit, Lieutenant Steven Smith"
Computer: "There is no Lieutenant Dammit Smith on the crew manifest."
Can you imagine the first week at Starfleet Academy? Or a starship with a disproportionately Welsh crew so there are like ten each called Williams or Jones?
@xris @allstartrek Exactly!
I was watching DS9 just now and it occurred to me: apparently in the future they have solved the problem of people having the same name. When talking via communicator you never hear "Sisko to Smith" and two different people try and respond. We've all worked in the place with two Bens or three Steves and there is confusion, but not in Starfleet.
The only logical conclusion is that the Federation assigns everyone a unique forename and surname at birth. Either that or you cannot be admitted to Starfleet if they have someone with your surname already.
Ben Taylor
boosted
TIL that sharks (a group of fish) are an order of magnitude older than Polaris (literally a star)
Sharks: 419 - 359 million years
Polaris (α UMi Aa): 45 - 67 million years
I’ll need to sit down, stare at a wall for a bit, and process this.
I actually rather like Keir Starmer. I think he's largely aiming for the right things, even if getting there involves hard choices, and I think he's actually thinking about how to deliver over the longer term in a way the Tories haven't for years, if at all. But this is too good not to share. 😂
@freemo Badum-ting!
My kids did this for our recent anniversary. My kids are unreasonably cute sometimes.
@cstross Hey, I'm not stale! Um. *Realises he's now mid-forties*. Ok. Damn. This is presumably why I don't understand the position as described. If you don't like the book, find another one. If there aren't any, write your own. Neither the world nor the author owes any deference to your personal biases.
You're saying kids these days don't get that?
I don't know, maybe it's just me. But I find something enraging about the sight of this man giggling about spending four months ruining the gaming time of people who couldn't fight back.
So, a poll then. Griefing* in online games: OK, or not?
*Define griefing how you like. For me, anything where the point is to ruin the experience of other players who cannot effectively fight back without gaining you anything significant, especially where the people you're disrupting need to pass what you're doing to progress. So this is griefing, but eg. camping a gate in null-sec in Eve would not be, because you'd get loot out of it and because you expect pirates behind every gate in null sec.
https://twitter.com/pcgamer/status/1825986159518036328
(With apologies for hellsite link)
#gaming #griefing #ganking #onlinegaming #pcgamer
@helenczerski I had completely forgotten that game. I loved it when I was like eight!
Ben Taylor
boosted
is inordinately proud of this booklet that @rose_alibi and I wrote, designed, & printed ourselves as part of a series we're launching called Other Networks for Everyone. we'll mail off copies to everyone who signed up in the coming weeks and also will release a pdf soon on https://othernetworks.net/#othernetworks
Sorry, an *ethnic minority*? I really don't think you can become an ethnic minority by taking up a hobby. No matter how offended your privilege is at being stopped from doing the hobby.
"Gold medals are actually mostly silver with a gold coating. Bronze medals are usually a mix of copper, zinc and tin."
So, um... they're made of bronze then?
Ben Taylor
boosted
Little bit of Telco trivia: you can't call Guyana. Okay, you CAN, but it's remarkably hard to do. Most carriers won't connect. Why?
Well, most ppl know about Guyana b/c of the Jim Jones massacre. But it was also a hotbed of telephone scams - even moreso than Nigeria is now - to the extent that most carriers simply blocked the country altogether.
Locales which tolerate fraud can and do get cancelled, and the effects of that can last for generations.
Ben Taylor
boosted
Please. Don't "lock him up".
Try him. Convict him. Sentence him.
Baby, their slogans are part of what makes them so creepy and evil.
Don't adopt them.
You want, I get it, to pick up the badguy weapons. I get it.
And that is the first little step towards becoming them.
Resist hate.
Ben Taylor
boosted
(Harris campaign calling Vance "weird" and "creepy")
"I tell women this whenever I get a chance because it can be a useful tool: Men detest being called creepy. I have had entire groups of men change their tune mid-argument when I say something like “I don’t know; I just think it’s kinda creepy.” I have used it to get men to stop defending rapists, or their buddy who just dumped “a crazy bitch,” or their coworker who got a complaint against him for sexual harassment. You deploy “creepy” and suddenly they rethink their behavior. They hate that label so very, very much. Use it and watch the backpedaling in real time. "
https://www.tumblr.com/seananmcguire/757168480179093504
Ben Taylor
boosted
Okay, this is part of my contribution to the idea of a monoculture on mastodon.
I'm Nigerian. Nigeria is about to go on a huge public strike, and I haven't heard anything about it here. Now, I don't blame anyone for that, obviously, but I think it shows the fact that perhaps there aren't as many Africans as I'd like.
@paulrickards I could imagine coming across that in a computer game and going "Pffft. They don't work like that. Who wrote this?" 😆
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
