ambrosen

Heh, I have to confess I was thinking you were talking of the ballpoint Safari, which I have a soft spot for, but don't currently own because I'm umm-ing and ahh-ing about getting a combi one that writes on my tablet, too.
www.lamy.com/en-gb/p/lamy...
www.lamy.com/en-gb/p/lamy...

Did yall see the finish to the 2026 LA Marathon?

SATAN: So what makes you want to work here? Isn’t it a bit of a sideways move for you?
ME: Well, sideways and down, haha
SATAN: Haha
ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is
SATAN: Your most recent role was…
ME: Cinema website designer
SATAN: Sweet

One member of the Clerk of Works’ team used to carry an angel’s foot around with her. Said foot fell from the heavens (aka ceiling) and she hoped this concrete example would demonstrate the urgency of repairs.

Didn’t help.

And also that that’s the only reason anyone’s actually paying attention to your work inside the organisation.

I think there’s also the intelligence limiting thing that happens when you feel that you’re going to get it in the neck if you write the wrong thing but it’s not very clear what that is.

Supermarket Sweep, I imagine

Union street fire: support Haus of Hair Last month, my wonderful hairdresser and friend Gemma left her job to fulfil her dream of starting her own salon with fellow stylist Aimee. 'Haus of Hair' opened last week. I visited on Friday and wa...

My hairdresser and friend opened her business last week. Tonight it burned to the ground. This is devastating.

I’ve set up a fundraiser. If you haven’t done anything for international women’s day yet, here’s a chance to support a women-run business in need: www.paypal.com/pools/c/9nhn...

As ever, all hail the building inspectors, the planners, the electricians, the people who check evacuation routes, the cleaners and worriers and fixers.
Tie red tape around that monument to heroes, because whilst we grumble at you for making us do tedious tasks, you also save lives.

I have been meaning to find out if there's anywhere where fossil gas networks have been replaced by heat networks. It seems like a synergy, but on the other hand, I don't think we're at the stage of decommissioning yet, either.

Left behind: can anyone save the towns the UK economy forgot? Soaring antidepressant usage, falling life expectancy: Blackpool embodies much of what is going wrong on the fringes of Britain

It does attribute the phrase Shit Life Syndrome to the GPs. An absolutely essential article, though.
www.ft.com/blackpool

AI written personal software isn't going to replace enterprise SaaS any time soon but I hope to god it replaces that one macro-laden excel spreadsheet that someone made in 2005, only one person knows how to use without breaking completely, and the whole business somehow depends on.

It's worth repeating @ketanjoshi.co that this is not an energy crisis - it is a fossil fuel crisis and for Europe it is different from 2022.

In 2022 we had a convergence of a gas shortage with a nuclear shortage in France and historically low hydro levels - all hitting as we entered winter.

like, my language skills are so much better now in at least three languages (Italian, French and Hebrew) because I can just *access so much more material, so much more easily* than I could when I was 17. Even eg: popping a podcast on at 0.7 speed is REVOLUTIONARY.

Yep, gone straight back to find my latest abandoned one, and now it's so much more straightforward.

Thank you to my wise and wonderful friends for bringing me along for this ride!! I had so much fun digging into this book and I hope that comes through on the episode.

Bonus joke: if DWJ was writing today about R. Venables, wizard and game developer, he would definitely be working in Unreal Engine.

“eg: popping a podcast on at 0.7 speed is REVOLUTIONARY”

I am now feeling very stupid because I have simply never slowed down a foreign language podcast or video, despite preferring English at 1.5x

Co-signing: my takeaway from their work, comedy or drama, is that their stories are typically about how you can go astray trying to live your own idealized life when the people with power over you are either ruthlessly malevolent or narcissistically inept; not misanthropy but challenged idealism

I mean, maybe they tried but the Grange Hill chorus just couldn’t hold the harmony that long.

…where I would condemn it.

(My communication skills still haven’t improved much, I see)

Stating this opinion in 2003 was — as I, a person with no tact skills found out — the wrong way to start an answer to someone non-British asking the question “what do you think of the situation with Iraq?” in a way which would let you state the next sentence.

Email: We are paying people to be hermits. Yes, really.

I just got an email for the weirdest website.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here?

hermithire.com

In that case, that shouldn’t be a main route because there’s people living there

This is the wrong post to make a reply complaining about mandatory bioethanol and biodiesel admixtures, right?

I've been listening to an audiobook about airships (zeppelins, dirigibles, or blimps, depending on locale), and how they NEVER really worked, but governments had invested so much in them that they were determined to MAKE them work, wasting fortunes & years & lives

This post is not about airships

When men's workload is automated, it's genius; when women's workload is automated it's a character flaw and morally questionable.

Two scientists walk through a cluttered old-fashioned science laboratory. The female scientist says “Analogue instruments! Paper records! Chalk boards! I thought you'd agreed to modernise the laboratory?” The male scientist replies “That's what i'm so excited about: we have moved to cloud-based storage for our data!” They step out onto a balcony. She says: “Please tell me you haven't built a library zeppelin” This is exactly what he has done. It floats across the sky and he adds “It's got a fax machine!”

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com

An old screenshot talking about Google on top. It says "Google is a pure search engine — no weather, no news feed, no links to sponsors, no ads, no distractions, no portal litter. Nothing but a fast-loading search site. Reward them with a visit. Below is a screenshot from The Phantom Menace, where Anakin Skywalker is walking next to a building and behind him you see the shadow of Darth Vader.

Rebecca Solnit Says the Left’s Next Hero Is Already Here

This happened. The print interview was edited in ways that feel very jumpy, but I got to say some things. Like: Maybe changing the world is more like caregiving than it is like war. Too many people still expect it to look like war. [and then there's a crazy jump-cut w/out transition.]

I just love the fact that these were in a villa somewhere in the 13th century. Like ‘Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus’ but 700 years earlier.