Jon Hancock

Spectacular moment there as I almost dropped my reading glasses into a bowl of soup.

Photo of a page of a book. Some text is highlighted: “ Once, some acquaintances called on Liu Ling at home and found him drinking naked. When they expressed their shock, he retorted: ‘I take heaven and earth for my pillars and roof, and my house with its rooms as my pants and jacket. What are you gentlemen doing in my pants?’”

Across continents and millennia, what truly unites humanity is our need to be left the fuck alone at home.
From “The shortest history of China” by Linda Jaivin.

The Microsoft Smurface I wish Tom Warren was joking: Microsoft rarely does limited editions of its Surface products, but it has quietly launched a “Smurface Edition” in time for the Smurfs movie. I was expecting it to be a totally blue design, but instead Microsoft has laser-etched the Smurfs to the front, alongside a blue Surface logo.

Microsoft does limited edition punnery:

The inexplicably not-blue Microsoft Smurface.

https://512pixels.net/2025/07/the-microsoft-smurface/

Ars Technica (@arstechnica@mastodon.social) Attached: 1 image Radioactive wasp nests spring up in decadesold nuclear site in South Carolina Officials say there are no leaks and hazardous nests are from legacy contamination. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/08/radioactive-wasp-nests-spring-up-in-decadesold-nuclear-site-in-south-carolina/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm;_social-type=owned&utm;_source=mastodon&utm;_medium=social

New superhero origin story awaits suitable candidate.

From: @arstechnica
https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/114971232351296448

“Professors who murdered dwarves were not an everyday phenomenon; the trial would draw an immense amount of publicity; and Walden Yapp was an eminent man and highly regarded in those progressive circles which hadn’t actually met him”

– Tom Sharpe, "Ancestral Vices" (1980)

#Books #Fiction

Current Status: Rectitudinous Gazelle.

A plastic toy in blister-card packaging, based on the animated cartoon version of The Tick and made by the Bandai company. The card is largely yellow with a big illustration of the blue-costumed Tick grinning. Transparent plastic blister is yellowed with age. The enclosed action figure is "Man Eating Cow," a brown bovine crime fighter.

@juergen_hubert

A cartoon T-Rex, holding two of those long grabber tools in its hands, with the caption "HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?"

#dinosaurs #cartoons #humour

@RantyHighwayman Try some white gloss on the rear rack, put a hole in the tin and make your own cycle lanes.

Dash cam fitted to the car. Never has so much cable been so haphazardly hidden by man.

YouTube video by SpinalTapVEVO Spinal Tap - Stonehenge ft. Elton John (Official Video)

I am beyond excited that Spinal Tap have reformed. This is utterly brilliant 🤩
youtu.be/2WWTzQ-mRFw?...

If superheroes were real they'd spend most of their time chatting to each other about their torn ligaments, broken ribs, multiple concussions and slipped discs.

How the mystery of Winston Churchill's dead platypus was finally solved The mystery of a dead platypus, a Nazi submarine and a 45-day voyage has long remained unsolved - until now.

"The mystery of a dead platypus, a Nazi submarine and a 45-day voyage has long remained unsolved - until now."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglzl1ez283o

Full plan here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/bomb

#smbc

@cybergoths Nah, they're all pussycats at the Tavern 😁

There are some depressingly belligerent people on gaming forums ☹️

Screenshot of The Guardian website. Headline: London – Bishop who shut down London choir in his dressing gown issues apology.

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.”

Current Status: Lassitudinous Blesmol.

Spent a little time this afternoon organising some of my rather chaotic game files, starting with the one for the Hero System. After clearing out some of the duplicates and grouping things more clearly with the games they are for, I set it to upload a copy to Dropbox.

Apparently this will take […]

Nowhere This is charming somehow: a detailed portrait of a place that doesn’t exist. During the Cold War, U.S Army cryptologist Lambros D. Callimahos devised a “Republic of Zendia” to use in a wargame for codebreakers simulating the invasion of Cuba. (Callimahos’ maps of the Zendian province of Loreno are below; click to enlarge.) The Zendia map now hangs on the wall of the library at the National Cryptologic Museum. The “Zendian problem,” in which cryptanalysts students were asked to interpret intercepted Zendian radio messages, formed part of an advanced course that Callimahos taught to NSA cryptanalysts in the 1950s. Graduates of the course were admitted to the “Dundee Society,” named for an empty marmalade jar in which Callimahos kept his pencils.

Futility Closet: "Nowhere"

'During the Cold War, U.S Army cryptologist Lambros D. Callimahos devised a “Republic of Zendia” to use in a wargame for codebreakers simulating the invasion of Cuba.'

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2025/08/01/nowhere/

Never thought it could happen, but after all these years I have lived to see the old Marvel ROM and Micronauts comics reprinted. Some of my favourites when I was a lad, utterly bonkers in the way that only Bill Mantlo could pull off.

Can't afford them, mind. I'm sure the omnibus collections are […]

A cute baby elephant

Elephants are born weighing 250 lbs. They are the biggest babies on earth except for motorists when they see a bike lane

Happy Yorkshire Day! (you bastard)

https://youtu.be/tE8d-uGmIWk

#Yorkshire

@lordof1 @DarkestKale I think the Beatles made the right choice by not using that line.

'Turner complained there was no song about his home town of Schenectady. Lehrer replied that there was, and sang: “The toe bone Schenectady the foot bone, the foot bone Schenectady the ankle bone…”'

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/29/wit-of-tom-lehrer-by-those-who-knew-him

#TomLehrer

Part of a restaurant menu. Text: Extra / 附加. 小笼包 Pork Xiao Long Bao. 椒盐薯条 Salt & Pepper Chips. 薯条 Chips.

I'm typically wary about ordering anything with the words "long" and "pork" in the name.

Spent a bit of time tinkering with this online combat tracker for the Hero System. Seems to be a work in progress, but it did a pretty smooth job with the sample characters I imported (a couple of pre-gens from Darren Watts’s Golden Age Champions supplement). I hope the designer keeps working on […]

An ID badge sitting on an orange iPad case. The laminated card purports to be for "Human Bartender Jackie Daytona" and features a barcode alongside a photograph of actor Matt Berry in his role in the comedy series "What We Do in the Shadows". The ID states that it is from "Jackie Daytona's Lucky Brew's Bar & Grill".

I'm all set for age verification under the UK Online Safety Act.

Futility Closet: "Marchetti's Constant"

"Here’s a depressing idea: In 1994, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti suggested that people have always endured commutes of an hour a day, half an hour each way, on average. Improvements in urban planning and transportation haven’t shortened our travel […]

"I was always wet, I was in my underwear, and every 20 minutes, the prop guy was spraying me down with ice-cold water, because they apparently didn’t know how to heat up water in England at the time" […]