Oh Goddess!

A friend from my college days just got me on a Whatsapp thing, in a group, and invited me to her <whatever> birthday party in a couple of weeks. On a little boat, moored in a wharf not far from where I live.

I walk with a cane, I have a blue badge for my car, etc, etc. I properly really want to go, but a big chunk of me is going, wait? Clamber over several boats to get to hers? And then get drunk and probably stoned at a party , and then *clamber back to land*?!

I can see me drowning in the harbour before the night is out!

Is there a socially acceptable way of getting out of this?!

Hey @alice ,

I've had my regular picks for a while now, plus some dimple picks and shims etc.

But just got a small set of comb-picks. I'll see how this goes...

Ooo oo, where should one direct feature requests for the Mastodon standard WebUI?

What I would *love* is that when I click on 'bookmark' for a post, it asked me to choose or create a folder to put it in.

Basically, what I want to be able to do is organise my Masto bookmarks, like I can in my browser.

@FediTips
#FediTips

Good grief. I've loved my maths and sciency vids for a long time, but how have I never heard of this bloke before? He sounds like a total legend that I'd quite like to have a glass of wine with!

https://youtu.be/48c3w4WnQyk

Edited to say, I did check their YT channel and while the audio might be auto-thing, the content appears to be their own.

You know those times when you learn a thing that you feel you should probably have always known, but were never told? There are many stories like that in relation to the code-breaking efforts during the wars, but how have I never heard of this lady before? She sounds amazing.

https://youtu.be/24m_OQ5ib3k

We literally just talked about this. And who says YouTube doesn't track you and your posts, even when you're not on their site? Why else would this exact thing have popped up right now?!

https://youtu.be/dpLG3DpfSlM

This is a fairly old one, and (fess-up) I have not yet seen/watched/read the actual thingie of this particular iteration.

But yes, for a decade or so, there has been this thing about "you always end up at 'Philosophy' if you do <blah>" where <blah> is "click the first link on any Wiki page that is not a pronunciation guide, and keep doing the same on each successive page".

The myth is that within a <small number of links/clicks> you will end on the page for 'Philosophy'.

It does actually work in my experience, and I think the last time, I started off from "The Hindenburg" and ended up on "Philosophy" in about eight clicks.

1. Nice sunny Saturday.
2. Bath v Exeter on the Rugby. (C'mon Exeter!)
3. Fresh pint on the table.

#ThreeGoodThings

Geeky Linux question, which is probably almost a newbie question but in years, I've never had the need to try this, so forgive me!

On my little local network, there's a laptop called 'garuda' and a laptop called 'server'.

Of course I can ssh from one to the other.

How would I get, on the 'garuda' machine, a proper 'remote desktop' window looking at the 'server' machine, so that I can open windows/apps on that, within this remote desktop?

My search foo is rubbish and only really came up with different tools for doing ssh, which is not what I'm after.

Anyone here in the 'entertainment game'?

I'm just wondering, watching a old-ish TV adaptation of an ancient series of sf novels, what the af two co-executive producers, and... count them... seven executive producers, actually do or contribute to the 'production'?

@JdeBP

Dear person. I think recently we spoke about my possibly chasing down the B5 rabbit hole. As mentioned, that was a bit 'lightweight' for me, and I have yet to revisit, although 'everyone' says "start with season 2!"

Another friend this evening has recommended the 'Foundation' series. Now, I loved the original Asimov books, brilliant-and-flawed as they were, but I truly had no idea that someone had turned those into a TV thing.

Let's see how far I get!

@JdeBP

Was it you recently, when I was banging on about Trek and stuff that recommended Babylon5? Watching the first one now and it's a bit 'lightweight', but not terrrible. If it gets better, I might stick with this one?

OK, clever people who are good at people!

What's the 'socially acceptable way' of dealing with this one, do we think?

I'm sort of knocking on a bit (68 now) and there's a lovely older lady (maybe early to mid-70s?) who, every couple of weeks, brings me down the hill from where she lives, an allegedly nice bowl of whatever food, to give to me in the pub.

Now, I may be an old git, but I can organise that stuff, so I usually have two or three meals sorted out for the next couple of days.

When she says, "Well I made it last weekend, it's been frozen, and is probably thawing in the pub fridge as we speak" I'm hearing "You need to cook and eat this TODAY!". The last couple of times, her probably lovely food has gone straight in the bin, as I do not want to miss the stuff I actually planned.

Is there a 'nice way' to say to here "erm, please don't! do that any more"?

I was speculating with a friend last night (Ob. fess: we were a tad refreshed!) about how I seem to have lost the attention span to watch a movie. The first third is action and story setup, and the last third is drama and conclusion, and the middle is just meh. His take was 'Many films now basically have NO STORY anymore. The wizz-bang at the front and back are IT. The stuff in the middle is to satisfy the product placement deals"

This seems plausible. Or perhaps I'm just ready for my dementia assessment!

No idea where I'm going with this, but has anyone watched the movie "Ideocracy"? Short film, maybe 90 mins or so? I've never yet made it past about 32 minutes, because it is sooo 'stupid', (or should that be 'stoopid'?), but that is the exact point of the movie. It's like watching any US TV channel from anywhere other than the US right now.

if you haven't seen the Virtual OS Museum yet - check it out, it's genuinely remarkable.

this is *not* the kind of work that is within our mission, but it is adjacent to what we do and we appreciate it so, so much. it's the combination of everyone doing their individual things that leads to an incredible variety of ways to understand and access this history https://virtualosmuseum.org/

OK, so I'm fishing for advice about this, which is largely going to boil down to 'a matter of opinion', so no fighting at the back there.

I'm old enough to have enjoyed the original Star Trek stuff, and I've watched most of the actual movies they made way back when.

Which of the TV series would you recommend for a dive down, one evening? I've got 'ST Voyager' which seems to have some good stuff ('Fun will now commence' was one gem I'd missed!) Which others might be worth a watch, do we think?

Do any of you somewhat older geeks remember the original 'lunar lander' text game from the 1970s? You tell it how much fuel to burn on each iteration, hoping to get it on the moon in one piece.

Anyway, I found the FORTRAN source, and if you are using the GNU compilers, you can normally just go
"gfortran -o lander lander.f90"
or whatever.

Here's the source:
https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZAWriZ9r6CcIrr4XYXrFcbOLPzA4oQ1cy7

The attached is what normally happens to me.

Interesting article. I'm not a Labour member anymore, but he'd be sooooo much better than what we have currently. And Streeting can get in the sea.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/12/andy-burnham-labour-reform-prime-minister-greater-manchester-mayor-westminster

Wordle 1,788 4/6

🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩