Joe Thompson

10h

...Why is USA Network running ads for Scientology?

You have been visited by the Arabian Sand Boa of Encouragement. He's doing his best, and he knows you are too.

Me, to one of the dogs: "You know my entire existence isn't just to pet you, right?" Dog, while I'm sitting on the couch letting her stretch up and lay across my shoulder: "Disagree."

Pic for pet tax:

Apropos of nothing but my own flash of memory, let me relate my personal tale of Generations Divided By a Common Tongue:

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So anyway, it wasn't until (I believe) I got curious about where in the UK *specifically* Billy Joel was from, that I discovered my decades-long error on interpreting "Piano Man".

(It is still an open question to my mind why a man born in NYC and raised on Long Island sings a song specifically about a place called "Allentown". But if I had to guess, it clearly involves a man named Allen in the real-estate business...)

Apropos of nothing but my own flash of memory, let me relate my personal tale of Generations Divided By a Common Tongue:

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How and when did such a practice arise? Well, my guess was, probably after World War I, with lots of orphans, widows, and men unable to make their old living due to war injuries around. Community efforts at not just letting them die in the gutters must have arisen, I supposed.

(Now, before any Brits reading this laugh too hard about silly things Americans believe about British pubs: have you looked at some of the silly things you lot *actually do in them*, lately? Michael Bentine's sendup of pub sports, the hilarious "Drats", is only just *barely* a work of fiction.)

Apropos of nothing but my own flash of memory, let me relate my personal tale of Generations Divided By a Common Tongue:

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I also was not familiar with the slang term "bread" meaning "money" until, let us say, my late 20s. As a result of the foregoing, I had a very... unique interpretation of the song "Piano Man":

Clearly this song was about a musician fallen on hard times, reduced to performing in pubs, where some quaint British custom regarding the poor has been invoked: to keep him from starving, the customers of the pub ensure his jar is filled with (literal) bread by the time he goes home for the night.

Apropos of nothing but my own flash of memory, let me relate my personal tale of Generations Divided By a Common Tongue:

Now, you need to know that in my younger days I often had only the haziest idea where any given celebrity was from. E.g. I was certain (for years!) that Mick Jagger was from backwoods North Carolina (until in my late teens I found out about the British Invasion and that the Stones were part of it).

So it's important to understand that for whatever reason, I thought for a long stretch of my life (my early teens until say, my early 30s) that Billy Joel was British, possibly from the same general area as the Beatles.

22 Sept

This was literally my first thought (well, I guess I should now say "my forebrain's first thought"...) when I saw this article.

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21 Sept

Boy, for a publication that traditionally considers itself the media avatar of the Internet age, Wired's own website sucks absolute ass at really basic stuff like "I want to change my subscription address so the print magazine still gets to me after I just moved".

10 Sept

Why, indeed?

Joe Thompson reposted

Justin Garrison

@justingarrison.com

30 Aug

It's always fun to run software you created until the API changes and the CVEs hit

29 Aug

Just read about a proposed Soviet "nuclear train" design that, instead of the usual "put a steam turbine and a reactor on a locomotive" plans, went for a more direct use of nuclear forces: opposed pistons in cylinders filled with just-subcritical UF6 gas.

Never built, sadly. And just to give you an idea of what *American* engineers in that time were willing to build, the intentionally-radiation-spewing SLAM nuclear cruise missile was actively developed and made it to prototypes of individual components...

29 Aug

...and at one point beryllium fuel + fluorine oxidizer was proposed as a propellant combo for American missiles, with mercury potentially added as a working fluid component for extra thrust.

The compression stroke would made the gas go critical, resulting in the power stroke. (Apparently it was a two-stroke design -- you don't need an intake stroke and you really don't *want* an exhaust stroke...)

28 Aug

"We're in engineering, and something's fucked up because Wesley was too horny..." -- @andrewti.bsky.social describing a scene in ST:TNG "The Dauphin", and really, weren't the "because Wesley was too horny" episodes (there were more than one!), retrospectively, some of the best in TNG?

28 Aug

Seriously, Starter Trek should do a "things go sideways because somebody was too horny" batch, and for TNG I nominate S1's "Justice".

28 Aug

(If you've never read Wil Wheaton's episode recaps for TV Squad from back in the day, they are hilarious, and the one for Justice is one of the funniest. I would post a Wayback link but I'm getting 429 errors from it right now.)

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• At some point we will be getting a new dishwasher because while the one here works fine, it has approximately the same sound profile as a 747 departing Dulles with a full complement of passengers for a transatlantic flight while taking ground fire

• This was a cross-state move so at some point we either have to get the cars legal with the new state or start reenacting _Smokey and the Bandit_

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• Several of the walls in this house are painted aqua and I'm still not sure if I like it or if it is slowly burning my soul

• Sunday I will aggressively do nothing save maybe new-TV shopping (they simply do not make dumb TVs any more and I hate this, the worst technology timeline. We were supposed to have FLYING CARS! JETPACKS! not TVs I have to REBOOT WEEKLY for critical security updates, who do I strangle about this)

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• Two nights in a row of takeout (pizza last night, vindaloo tonight)

• When did we buy all this stuff?? What is this generic-branded wall-wart even for?! Do you think these vegetables look OK after sitting in the cooler all day? Did anyone see where the box with all the dishes ended up?

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• First day back to school for youngest is Tuesday

• Trash pickup when...? (TBD)

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• The movers tomorrow will need to rearrange my office area because in the absence of my direct guidance, today's movers by random chance put every single thing on the opposite side of the room from where I want it

• Blizzard of address-change web forms (ongoing...)

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• Storage move-in tomorrow AM

• Internet should turn on in the new house sometime tomorrow

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• Two house closings completed yesterday • House move-out/move-in completed today

• Casualties so far: one broken TV (our fault, not the movers')

We're moving the same week our oldest started college. How it's going so far:

• Oldest's college move-in: successful. Hamilton College has a crack crew of box-schleppers. "Which room number?" and they were off in a string with the entire carload of stuff.

10 Aug

Oh for fuck's sake.

Kathryn Tewson@kathryntewson.bsky.social

So, this is real, I just checked

6 Aug

"I have no notes or record of what you're referring to." People sometimes forget damnatio memoriae wasn't only done to the record of a malfeasant sovereign, but a punishment given even to lesser people who went above and beyond the call of ordinary asshattery. It's richly deserved in this case.

Abby Vesoulis@abbyvesoulis.bsky.social

NEW: Regarding the claims that Rep. Max Miller withheld his toddler's "blue bunny," I have some new screenshots suggesting there was a pattern of Miller not giving the bunny back. There were pleas from multiple people on multiple dates. (Thread: 1/8)

6 Aug

Civiliter mortuus also used to be practiced much more severely, and I would find its old style appropriate here as well. Let him lose *all* his civil rights, including the right to own property or enjoy the protection of the law. Distribute his estate to his heirs and let him live at hazard.

4 Aug

I mean this is less funny and more "hmmmm...." when you wonder just how many Silicon Valley VC-backed-startup leaders are regularly using mind-altering substances and basically in a cult already.

Regime Accountant, CPA ☠️🎢@regimecpa.bsky.social

I’m going to meet an ancient and terrible god who is going to unlock my soul so I can get $5 million in EBITDA

Joe Thompson reposted

austin (eeek!/ackkk! 👻)

@thebadcode.com

28 June

look if you’re in the target demo for an apple tv show, it will come to you in an impossible dream

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25 July

"...there were like some Star Trek episodes where [...] it's like 'hey, I made this weird little alien freak' and then Gene Coon would take a bunch of cocaine, go into a room and not come out for four days, and then come out with an episode. That's how you do sci-fi back in the day."