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Philip C James
@PhilipCJames@mas.to
mastodon 4.7.2English/German-speaking Brython living in Austenland; careless as carless, hard-science grasping, liberal-leaning, creativity-yearning, Bohemian-aspiring humanist.
Allergy Warning: May Contain Fiction. And Nuts
Banner: ISS over NZ (Getty)
Avatar: Horsehead Nebula, Six Star System, Alien on an Asteroid (Own Work)
0 Followers
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50 Posts
Joined November 09, 2022
Replying to
@spytfyre@mastodon.scot @MaryAustinBooks@mstdn.social
A smaller bin? Like a pedal-bin?
648 MPs have to stand up in the Chamber to attract the Speaker's attention and permission to speak to the Commons.
Presumably, if the Speaker wants to grant Count Binface's wish to speak, he would have to depress the pedal on the Count's pedal-bin?
Antenna 63 at the Madrid site of the Deep Space Network is dedicated to communication with Voyager 1 at the moment.
Distance to the spacecraft: 25,400,000,000 kilometers.
That's 23.5 hours one-way light travel time; it takes almost two days to send a telecommand and receive a response from the probe.
I still find it astounding how far humanity's creativity can take us.
#NASA #JPL #DSN
#Space #SpaceExploration
#Voyager #AmericasGoodSide
#USpol
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html
Replying to
(And for Britons,) Good Morning, all,
here in the Untied Kingdom, we have politicians with far more gravitas, integrity, intelligence and scientific and technical expertise. Only kidding, we have “Britain Trump”, aka Nigel Farage…
Mr Farridge has decided to spend more time with his five million pounds gifted to him, "as a private citizen,” by a resident of Thailand with absolutely no hidden agenda.
Apparently not. Nigel feels no man is shown greater love and loyalty than an absentee landlord, and he is foisting a totally unnecessary by-election on his constituents to somehow ‘prove’ he is not guilty of covering-up corruption.
Meet the new MP for Clacton… Count Binface… (if voters have any sense).
#UKpol #USpol #Farage #NigelFarago
#Brexit #UKIP #VoteLeave #BrexitParty#ReformParty #ReformPartyLtd
#HIGNFY
https://youtu.be/gVqoq1IGZv4?si=BdtZquVJq9EUAhmz
The Resignation Special: Nigel Farage's Best Moments
Don't think of it as Universal Basic Income...
Think of it as everyone collects £200 every time they pass Go...
#UBI #MonopolyMoney
H/T Mr Waller in #TNW
Replying to
@Wen@mastodon.scot @muminitaly@mastodon.scot
There is an argument that #Satire is counterproductive in that it provides a safety valve by which pressure for change can be dampened/defused/relieved, and the wise despot and/or intelligent grifter would understand that and consequentially not seek to suppress it (or perhaps even encourage it?).
Luckily, no-one of a dictatorial tendency has ever demonstrated the wisdom or intelligence to understand this.
Humiliation may not be as strong a disinfectant as light/transparency - but it is a lot more fun.
As to the Beeb, its ability to incubate dangerous bigoted extremists is often both over- and under-estimated. Still, it's nice that it keeps and produces the appropriate receipts...
Donald Tantrump has spent around 2,000,000,000 taxpayer dollars buying back U.S. offshore wind leases and directing 'investment' (effectively subsidies) to #FossilFuels instead.
Because delivery of fossil fuels through the Hormuz Strait is definitely reliable and in no way intermittent...
#USpol #FossilFools #MAGA #GOP#TyrantTrump #NoKings #Corruption#IranWar #Trump
https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climate-interior-02a1fa04b750809bbe035a70256c734d
Morning, all,
this is of course an (alleged) abuse of official position, 'insider trading', a breach of OPSEC and morally wrong, but one has to conclude that the real crime committed by Van Dyke was not being a member of Don Trumpeone's #Trump crime family...
#USpol #GOP #MAGA #NoKings
#TyrantTrump #TrumpCrimeFamily#Corruption #DOJ #CorruptDOJ
#GodFatherTrump #DonTheCon
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20832yg5p2o
MAGA Man to MAGA woman, nostalgically:
"Back in the Good Ol' Days, in that distant Golden Age under Emperor Trump, we made our own entertainment..."
Only the Gullible deserve the Fair.
#USpol #GOP #MAGA #Trump#GreatAmericanStateFair
#Freedom250 #NoKings #TyrantTrump#EpsteinFiles #PedoProtectorInChief#AdjudicatedRapist #Krasnov #AgentOrange#ReleaseAllTheEpsteinFileshttps://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/maga-influencer-arrested-masturbating-american-state-fair_n_6a4286f3e4b0f259890df90c
Replying to
@Pamela1960@kolektiva.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @syulang@climatejustice.social
Tempting........ But then only rich people would be able to afford access to power...
...And we're back to the status quo ante.
Replying to
@syulang@climatejustice.social @peteriskrisjanis@toot.lv @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk
And the bribery has become a lot more sophisticated. Reverse favours done in the expectation one will receive a reward in the political after-life.
We'll truly know Rome has fallen when that lot starts law-suits alleging that the briber has reneged on an expectation of a reward after all the trouble the bribee went to do them a favour in advance...
In other news from across the Pond:
That #WhiteHouse 'Ballroom' that Donald Jesus Trump said would cost $200,000,000 paid for by private donors will now cost $1,000,000,000 paid for by U.S. taxpayers...
Classic #BaitAndSwitch
And stop calling it a ballroom.
It's to be Emperor Tantrump's Throne Room.
#USpol #Trump #NoKings
#GOP #MAGA #TyrantTrump
#TangerineTyrant #MangoMussolini
#Krasnov #AgentOrange #DonTheCon
#SlavaUkrayini
https://www.youtube.com/live/pt1yZevPY7E?si=ojEicI4Ftix9XSug
Replying to
@syulang@climatejustice.social @Pamela1960@kolektiva.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk
All those politicians cadging flights on Epstein's private jet were doing it simply to save the taxpayer money on commercial economy seat tickets?
That had _not_ occurred to me!
Replying to
@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @syulang@climatejustice.social
Which makes one wonder why these measures have not already been instituted...
Oh, wait one... they would have to be voted in by the current crop of politicians... Got it.
As to politikers' pay, my idea is to implement the Cromwell Factor. Each incoming political cohort has its salaries reduced by the %age of spoilt ballots at the last election.
At last, a real tho not cost-free effect of spoiling one's ballot and an encouragement for good behaviour from the whole class.
Good Morning, all, and happy Bank Holiday?
Awoke after dreaming lucidly that I was starting a new job in inner London. Being retired should've alerted me I was dreaming.
Actually, the final trigger was finding a multi-storey carpark just around the corner from the office that offered all-day parking for £7.25...
Boosted by @gvenema@fairmove.net
Replying to
@Thebratdragon@mastodon.scot @failedLyndonLaRouchite@mas.to
The root problem would appear to be Capitalism and its sorry bed-servant, Economics, aka the Dismal Science, which insist that the only way to apportion a share of resources to each one of Earth's human population _must_inevitably_ lead to obscene concentration of the vast majority of those resources in the greedy mitts of a tiny proportion of those humans.
It would surely not be beyond the wit of a hyper-intelligent #AGI to do such apportioning equally, without reliance on a crude accounting device we call 'money'.
Strangely, the Broligarchs with the greatest wealth _and_ income do not seem to see it as in their interests to develop such a revolutionary #AI, preferring to distract us instead with #AIslop of nonconsensually nudified women and images of Donald Jesus Trump as a Deity, False Idol, or Fatted Calf...
Morning, all,
why am I not surprised Grok produced the worst results of the GenAI pack...
More of an Artificial Dumbass than an Artificial Intelligence.
#AI #AIslop #LLM #Broligarchs #TechBros
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyepyy82kxo
Replying to
@Pamela1960@kolektiva.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @syulang@climatejustice.social
Tbf, most of an MP's present need for expenses should and usually does pay for running a constituency office (paying staff to handle constituents' problems) and a parliamentary office (paying researchers to prepare policies).
It's only those who claim for new dining room suites or flip their homes and/or fail to run constituency surgeries (looking at you, Nigel) who abuse that system.
If we had more architects willing to challenge norms, buildings like this would not be so celebrated...
I've a one dollar bill tucked away somewhere at home.
Think I'll keep it until a one dollar bill without Trump's signature on it is worth $100...
Morning-ish, all,
that scene in 'Eyes Wide Shut' when Bill (Tom Cruise) reads of the 'Ex-beauty queen in hotel drugs overdose.'
Was it sloppy copy work by the props department or was Stanley Kubrick posted a searing indictment of poor sub-editing standards at a New York newspaper - at least three of the lines of copy are repeated a couple of lines later!?
It should be noted it was the New York Post Bill was reading in that coffee house.
#BluRayDetectiveStories
Replying to
Perhaps I'm being too harsh on Donald J. Tantrump?
Perhaps he's demanding the 'white powder' from Iran, as he thinks their 'nuclear dust' can be used to invigorate the nuclear power-plant that keeps the Voyager spacecrafts alive?
Or perhaps Donald Trump's dementia is now so advanced he's confusing Iran with Colombia, as the source of the Colombian Marching Powder he sprinkles on his McNuggets?
Good Morning, all,
an #AI was given the assignment of running a café in Sweden.
Some choices it made appeared intelligent; it used LinkedIn not Sesame Street to hire its Swedish Chef.
And its decision to order thousands of rubber gloves wasn't so questionable if it was driven by a dubious marketing initiative like offering customers free prostate exams.
Hopefully it had the sense to limit the promotion to one probing per customer.
#ArtificialIntelligence
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/google-gemini-runs-entire-coffee-shop
"Meanwhile, Xi sleeps soundly. He does not personally use social media. He has no X account."
Surely "Xi has no Xi account..."?
#USpol
#Trump #GOP #MAGA
#Musk #TwitteX
#NoKings #TyrantTrump
#Krasnov #AgentOrange
#ChinaUSrelations #Taiwan
#SlavaUkrayini
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-china-2676890338/
Met two young Ukrainian women at the Alice Park Cafe yesterday. They'd stopped for a coffee before flying home.
A long journey! The flight's the easiest part.
Bus to Bristol Airport (not the easiest airport to get to - easier to fly there)
Flight to Poland.
Train to Kyiv.
Final leg by local bus.
Hope they got home safely.
Not an empty expression when your country is a war zone not of your making.
Replying to
@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @Pamela1960@kolektiva.social @UkeleleEric@mstdn.social @syulang@climatejustice.social
When I lived in Manchester I kept being told
"Manchester! Many Fast Trains To London!"
Replying to
@Pamela1960@kolektiva.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @UkeleleEric@mstdn.social @syulang@climatejustice.social
Those were the days. Haven't been able to afford intercity trains for years and years and years...
Replying to
@tompearce49@mastodon.scot @syulang@climatejustice.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk
My ex- was from Slovakia. She never understood how taking a bottle of Bourbon to the surgery was not a legitimate way of securing an early appointment with the doctor in this country.
Replying to
@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk
A welcome extension to the Precautionary Principle.
Myself, I don't think you can go wrong with "Lock up all politicians immediately on election - as it saves time later."
Replying to
On the subject of loops, military analysts will recognise the fundamental cycle used by military planners to conduct operational planning: the #OODA Loop.
At a UK-Eyes-Only briefing I was enlightened by an RAF Air Cdre (who shall remain nameless) that in British military doctrine, OODA stands for
Observe
Orient
Decide
Act
but to US general staff officers, OODA stands for
Observe
Overreact
Destroy
Apologise
(Donald Trump hasn't mastered the 'Apologise' stage yet...)
https://youtu.be/x5AdETLOZgE?si=31Kc7MCpvXccRflg
Clitoral nerves mapped for the first time, thirty years after male counterpart • FRANCE 24 English
Replying to
Apropos the bloodthirsty nature of #AI, that's American Artificial Intelligence for you...
British doctrine wrt the use of autonomous platforms, weapon systems and kill-chains can be summed up, awkwardly, as
'Sensor-to-Decision-Maker-to-Shooter'
with an insistence on human judgement in the loop.
The American military is way more laconic, being gung-ho about 'Sensor-to-Shooter' warfare, with _no_ human intervention in the kill-chain. Worrying.
#SlaughterBots #MilAI 🧵
https://youtu.be/x5AdETLOZgE?si=31Kc7MCpvXccRflg
Clitoral nerves mapped for the first time, thirty years after male counterpart • FRANCE 24 English
Replying to
Oh, and that clitoral map report...
One for the cartographers amongst you:
https://youtu.be/x5AdETLOZgE?si=31Kc7MCpvXccRflg
Clitoral nerves mapped for the first time, thirty years after male counterpart • FRANCE 24 English
Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO of Apple.
Presumably Cook is stepping down to spend more time up Donald Tantrump's backside?
Will be watching whether the new boss at Apple breaks from the Tech Bro Pack and their Tech Bromance with the nascent Emperor of all the Americas...
#USpol #GOP #MAGA #Trump#TyrantTrump #NoKingshttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kr19lry18o
Replying to
BTW, a neat tool for viewing the status of the #NASA/#JPL Deep Space Network can be found at
https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/dsn-now/dsn.html
Bravo Zulu to Forbes for repeatedly highlighting how the Trump regime is actively working to emasculate the U.S. judiciary as a check & balance on Donald Jesus Trump as Dictator.
None of these bootpolishers & arselickers standing for judicial posts would repeat a simple fact: under #USC #22A Donald Tantrump is not allowed to be elected #POTUS again, as he has been voted President twice already.
For fear of offending their cult leader?
#USpol #Trump #GOP #MAGA #NoKings
https://youtu.be/M1xgUtXBGoQ?si=kIBdUq8SytvexAmu
Replying to
@ketan@climatejustice.social
Great to see sheep grazing between solar PV panels.
How many sheep do you see graze the coal stockpiles of a thermal power plant or atop a nuclear reactor?
#Rnewables #FossilFools#AGW #ClimateEmergency
Replying to
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social
Or possibly even more important than ever to "Watch The Skies!"...?
One imagines that the billionaires fuelling this new Space Race have had some lackey crunch the numbers, and it seems that the odds against satellite re-entry debris killing a Billionaire Tech Bro are so astronomical that they are perfectly acceptable.
Naturally, they skipped over the part of the report detailing the higher odds of space debris smacking into an Ordinary Joe (or Joanna)...
Morning, all,
"why Putin should believe anyone ... might mistake Schröder for an impartial mediator is another question ... but shouldn’t we explore every avenue towards peace? Even the ones that lead through the Kremlin gift shop."
Donald Jesus Trump expended more precious Patriot SAMs in the first 4 weeks of his #IranWar than Ukraine has received over 4 years of defending from Putin's aggression.
We have let Ukraine down.
#SlavaUkrayini
#USpol #Trump #GOP #MAGA
https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/germansplaining-this-is-putins-most-transparent-move-so-far/?utm_campaign=968afe29-39e7-45b6-a2e0-e403e0d51196&utm_source=1234573
Morning, all,
still waiting for your #TrumpPhone?
Keep waiting...
And relax with this proof copy of Trump's new book, 'The Art Of The Steal.'
#USpol #Trump #GOP #MAGA
#ScammerInChief #TyrantTrump
#NoKings #EpsteinFiles #Krasnov
#AgentOrange #GodKingDonald
https://youtu.be/7bZakWcCTDo?si=tpEdVFJ4oP-y-oEi
Replying to
@paco@infosec.exchange
At a distance of one light-day from the Sun, solar radiation does little to heat the Voyagers.
As all bodies radiate energy (black-body radiation) the s/c will be radiating heat. While the mechanism is inefficient if the body generates a lot of heat (eg a data centre), acting over time it would otherwise bring the s/c into thermal equilibrium with the interstellar medium.
That could be as low as 10 K (10 degrees above absolute zero). Hence the need for heaters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_medium
Replying to
@syulang@climatejustice.social @tompearce49@mastodon.scot @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk
That I can deny (tho my ex might well argue that being married to me would've turned anyone to drink) but patient confidentiality would preclude me saying more.
This is a tragic example of senseless violence perpetrated yet again against a woman by a former male partner.
The Mirror newspaper is reporting the man used a hand-grenade to commit this alleged murder-suicide.
What is particularly affecting is how local this is, personally. For non-Brits, Bristol is the western suburb of Greater Bath (where I live).
Let me re-iterate. If you are a man contemplating murder-suicide against a former lover, commit the suicide _first_
The Gospel According To St. Quentin
#Trump #GOP #MAGA #USpol
#WhiteJesus #Hegsethhttps://youtu.be/taNi3btpaLs?si=ldHXKioTQaZoDKs8