BBC News - Saudi employee charged with planting recording device in OpenAI office
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwg5jq4vlddzo
"OpenAI said they were able to use their AI models "to understand the device and where it had come from"
So, they plugged an unknown, presumed malicious, device into a machine which was part of an experimental ('cos they're developers) AI system.
Well, that's a whole new attack surface there. OK, you burn an asset getting it plugged in, but that's only a human. Disposable.

Another incremental step towards sanity and away from Thatcherite (hawk, spit!) dogmatic stupidity.
BBC News - Chiltern Railways renationalised after 30 years as private company
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c68xk701d975o

RE: https://spore.social/@minouette/117297751387909042

@minouette ohh, a mineralogical point for @Remittancegirl to play with for her glazes. And safer than the lovely reds and yellows of arsenic salts.

2/n
My industry has mythology about phenolpthalein, an acid-base indicator chemical which is allegedly a strong diuretic and which we always have in the chemical cupboard. There've been a good number of people whose coffee I've *considered* spiking.
Never done it - the mental image of them desperate to piss was sufficient relief for however they'd irked me - but the thought has crossed my mind. Followed by "What dosage? I have a 250g bottle."

Now I'm wondering if they'd piss pink in overdose.

I shouldn't laugh, it's clearly a very distressing situation for the victims. (Plus I got woken up by my bladder a short while ago.)
But reading "It's the Ministry of Culture. It's not possible." does prompt the response

"It's the FRENCH Ministry of Culture - it's not just possible, it's très très Francaise."

BBC News - French civil servant drugged us to make us urinate on ourselves, say accusers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrv48lenwgo

1/n

BBC News - Was Married at First Sight UK an 'accident waiting to happen'?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c172x2vkxl5o

Only if you can read the title, and realise that it refers to self-selected human egotists wanting "15 minutes of fame".

Well, "Doh!"

BBC News - 'Pretty miraculous' - 11 rescued after pilot ditches plane in Atlantic
There's something pretty odd here. According to the map, the plane flew nearly twice it's planned distance. Which doesn't sound like an engine fault.
If he was carrying passengers, he had a second navigation system (or the plane was unfit for commerce).
An aviation literature should be stocked for 7 days occupation. 5 hours is a training exercise.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgpj0m3wr2o

I'm sure the SS shot defectors, and those who showed reluctance where enthusiasm was demanded too.
As Voltaire put it, after the execution of Admiral Byng, "pour encourager les autres".

You can't win ; you can't break even ; you can't stop playing. Isn't fascism lovely?

BBC News - Former counter-terrorism head investigated by FBI over alleged leaks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33j3gxvgmro

A question for people with gun experience.
BBC News - Lithuania declares emergency situation over Belarus balloons
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39pr3d10wlo

Is a bullet with tracer combined with a, say, 1s delay and a bursting charge to limit range-to-landing feasible? Or necessary - would firing at say 45° up result in safely-low landing bullet speeds?

@cstross
d'oh.
There's an airport, too.

@cstross a conversation in "another" place
https://x.com/MrTimDunn/status/1967979564342415622?t=UgUFOZwd4c2AoL3MroD2cQ&s=19

You're a tail not a dog in this, but if (say) your work, some Rebus, and ... Walter Scott? were in a vending machine at Waverley?

Rebus sells tourist walking tours etc. Would Reekie's tourist board like the idea?

"Well, now is the time to peel back the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire
brush of enlightenment"
Wot, no Dettol?

(Iron Sunrise, by @cstross )

And Menhit the murder cat hasn't even unsheathed her (calico : her) claws.

(Anihillation Score, Proms scene) "an iPhone in a brass-and-leather case connected to his fob chain" on "John Bull".

Tell us, your audience, straight-faced, that you didn't spend TOO LONG searching for this accessory. And, since you published it, you didn't find one.

Damn, I forget the name of the Babbage++ steam-punker I read a while ago. But their steam didn't do much radiotelegraphy.

"Two tribes trying to drown each other out. Or given the weather, trying to peovoke the other side into opening their mouths wide enough to drown in the rain."
Ohh, @cstross , you Northerner, you.

Reading 'The Annihilation Score', (2015, so written ~2013?).
"models herself on Margaret Thatcher [hawk, spit] but without the warmth and compassion."
That is a suspiciously early, pre-emptive even, description of PM-wannabe Suella, MP from 2015

Are we sure @cstross doesn't have arcane tie-ups, but just cynical world-weariness and precognition?

Five pages into re-reading @cstross 's "Annihilation Score"
If I finish this, again, am I excused from ever having to read a "Brigit Jones?

Oh, finally! @cstross

Despite never having exposure except via Disney (Mauswictz is *never* a good guide!), I finally figured that "Dead Lies Dreaming" is a Peter Pan Pastische.
Now, who is Cap'n Hook, and who the Ticktok O'Dile? Since I never stayed awake through the Mauswictz version, I'm still struggling.

'Peter Pan, with Wendy getting les-laid' - I can see that selling in Peroria.

@cstross
Picking scabs (it's that sort of night) ...
Elizabeth went to sleep with a razor-edge letter opener under her pillow, and had to explain a shredded pillow (minor) and mattress (much more expensive) next morning.
She maybe had it in a sheath?

[When I'm feeling paranoid, I keep a runguu (skull piercing mace) beside my bed. Also makes joints multidirectional.]

@cstross
Re-reading "Dark State".
Ch. "Learning Exercises", you use the simile "like a jaw without a tongue" - which experience few of your readers will have.

A "jaw missing a tooth" or even "several teeth" would be a *much* more relatable simile. The "extraction of [teeth, protagonists ...]" being an available parallel.

Say "sssshhht' to Menhit from me.

How's His Charlene's @cstross doing on this day of Gunfight at the Pilton Corral?