@robinwhittleton @jonty this has reminded me of an early job which involved training people who barely knew what a computer was how to do the basics. I was once asked why the mouse wasn’t working right. I rotated it 180 degrees so the cable was coming from the top rather than the bottom and all was well after that.
There's always chefs on telly around this time giving their top tips on making Christmas dinner. Here's mine.... don't worry about it. Do your prep. Listen to some banging tunes, dance and sing. Make a list. Check it twice. Do your timings. They'll all be wrong. You'll probably forget something. At least one thing will go wrong. Noone will notice or care so don't mention it. Get your potatoes right. They're all anyone cares about. You could serve a bunch of rubbish but the whole thing hinges on your potatoes. Love your potatoes. Make sure at least one is really terrific then take a photo of it and send it to your family and friends as a power play. If anyone responds with a better potato, ghost that person forever. You are the superior potato person now.
Reminder to open and setup any gift gaming consoles before Christmas morning. Switch2 took 23 agonizing minutes to transfer data over from the first switch and several hours to download and install old games. #gaming #switch #christmas
I have to go get a blood pressure test tomorrow (nothing to worry about, I’m fine) and it’s dawning on me now that Christmas week was maybe a bad time to schedule that.
Tesco, good, occasionally busy later. Sainsbury’s, moderate to good, rough in toilet roll aisle.
Asda, light to moderate, heavy crowds by evening.
M&S and Co-Op, fair.
Waitrose, fair to moderate.
Lidl, rough at first, easing later.
And that’s the end of the Shopping Forecast.
I’ve worked out what’s been going on with all these Cloudflare outages lately.
https://mastodon.social/users/simple_sabotage/statuses/115759707567428478
I’ve realised why CEOs are all so into LLMs - it’s because they all have the same energy as a CEO, spouting complete bullshit based on half remembered think pieces, but in a way that comes across like they know what they’re talking about.
The boy’s gaming laptop has decided the week before Christmas is the time to self-destruct. Mostly it does nothing but turn the power LED on. Occasionally it’ll crank all the fans to full power while doing so.
I hadn’t really planned on tomorrow’s holiday activity being to remove every part from a laptop one by one, but here we are.
It’s usually fine but days like today I wish I had a car. I’d like to go climb but the gym is a 25 minute walk away and it’s pissing down with rain and will be for some time.
For your collective delectation this holiday season:
Quite possibly the silliest thing I've ever written (and definitely the most ridiculous graph I’ve ever made)!
https://loreandordure.com/2025/12/16/jingle-bells/
[And If you've enjoyed this piece of seasonal silliness (and, critically, have a few quid to spare) I'd be grateful if you popped them in the hat:
https://ko-fi.com/loreandordure
(Support for the blog is a big part of how I fund my PhD expenses!)]
There’s a genre of “I learned/did [thing] in [n] hours” YouTube video which always includes a picture of the creator looking miserable in the thumbnail and it’s such a turnoff. Why would I want to watch someone have a terrible time learning something new?
Deeply amused by Google trying to upsell me on More Security while I look at last year’s Christmas dinner spreadsheet to remember what needs ordering.
Ugh. Once again realised I have to work out content moderation if I ever want to release my silly game to the world at large because a core element is users posting photos.
Watching a video on Blender, I feel the need to admit I made an “oop” noise when the guy popped the roof of this little building like it was tipping its hat.
"We need to be more fascist to defend us from fascism".
Nazi dipshits in 1941:
“Today the Führer […] decided that roman is from now on to be designated as the standard letter. All printed products will be progressively changed over to this standard letter. The use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease”.
Nazi dipshits in 2025:
“To restore decorum and professionalism […] and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/trump-times-new-roman-font-return-state-department
![Nazi edict banning blackletter as “Judenlettern” 1941 [as shown in ‘Blackletter: Type and National Identity’, with English translation by Robin Kinross]:
“
Circular letter (not for publication)
For general notice on behalf of the Führer:
It is false to regard or to describe the so-called gothic script as a German script. In reality the so-called gothic script consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as they later took possession of newspapers, so the Jews living in Germany owned the printing offices at the introduction of printing and thus there came about the strong influx into Germany of Schwabacher-Jewish letters.
Today the Führer, in a discussion with Herr Reichsleiter Amann and the printer Herr Adolf Müller, decided that roman is from now on to be designated as the standard letter. All printed products will be progressively changed over to this standard letter. As soon as is feasible, only the standard script will be taught in schools.
The use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease; certificates of appointment for officials, street-name signs, and the like, will in future only be produced in standard lettering.
By order of the Führer, Herr Reichsleiter
Amann will first change over to the standard script those newspapers and magazines that already have a foreign distribution or whose foreign circulation is desired.
On behalf of M. Bormann
“](/proxy/post_attachment/641898/9f4e64bc4a.jpeg "Nazi edict banning blackletter as “Judenlettern” 1941 [as shown in ‘Blackletter: Type and National Identity’, with English translation by Robin Kinross]:
“
Circular letter (not for publication)
For general notice on behalf of the Führer:
It is false to regard or to describe the so-called gothic script as a German script. In reality the so-called gothic script consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as they later took possession of newspapers, so the Jews living in Germany owned the printing offices at the introduction of printing and thus there came about the strong influx into Germany of Schwabacher-Jewish letters.
Today the Führer, in a discussion with Herr Reichsleiter Amann and the printer Herr Adolf Müller, decided that roman is from now on to be designated as the standard letter. All printed products will be progressively changed over to this standard letter. As soon as is feasible, only the standard script will be taught in schools.
The use of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease; certificates of appointment for officials, street-name signs, and the like, will in future only be produced in standard lettering.
By order of the Führer, Herr Reichsleiter
Amann will first change over to the standard script those newspapers and magazines that already have a foreign distribution or whose foreign circulation is desired.
On behalf of M. Bormann
“")
The platform announcer at Southampton Central this morning was giving information about trains with all the enthusiasm and lack of coherence I’d expect from someone commentating a horse race.
Someone new in a Discord I’m on spent some of this evening doing emoji anthropology and now I want to make an exhibit of different community’s favourite reaction emoji and what they mean.
@janamarie @HouseOfTea @idnorton I’m sometimes surprised more people don’t get questioned going to hacker conferences about these sheets of curious looking images being taken across borders.
I couldn’t remember the name of Sunshine and ended up searching for “film space sun trip”. My first attempt was “film sun out” which was less successful.
@pikesley_ebooks @pikesley that’s the plot of a Bond film isn’t it?