Legend. Happy birthday Brian Blessed!

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/oct/08/brian-blessed-90-emma-thompson-adrian-lester-derek-jacobi-brian-may

@joeress #xfce is going to make you very sad today, I’m afraid.

Do you think that Evangelicals actually wilfully ignore climate change or in fact welcome it as they think it’s just the approach of The Rapture so the sooner, the better?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y9B75hH26yU

One for #ianbetteridge@vivaldi.net I shouldn’t wonder.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/03/can-autonomous-ai-powered-killer-drones-take-morality-onboard

[UPDATE} having discussed this complicated issue with experts we have all agreed that Free-Will does not exist, that bad thing you just did was not your fault, so give yourself a break.
If they come back and call me a fucking liar then that is also preordained.

Hello all. I do not want to trigger some kind of flame-war but I am just interested in peoples' thoughts. Not that this post will have much reach but I just wondered how many of you out there believe in "Free Will"? I myself do not but seem to be in a stark minority. All my discussions on the subject have been amicable but I'd love to hear more voices.

I was listening to an audiobook and casually googled, from the address bar "why are strike-breakers called 'scabs'" on my work computer from which I only access boring, vanilla websites and I get these predictive search terms after "why are...". I assume this is due to global trends rather than someone accessing my workstation after I knock-off shift? I have no profile loaded, it's just standard corporate Edge. Can someone else try it?
(Obviously boost for reach)

I’m struggling to blame this on Chat GPT, for once.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04064-7

I know The Guardian is not everyone’s cup of tea but their “Kindness of Strangers” section is really uplifting and worth a look.

Has anyone else late at night and bit tipsy become obsessed with improving their cybersecurity, made heroic improvements only to wake hungover the next day locked out of their systems?
No just me then. Stick to green tea kids.

I’m not an expert on #Linguistics although I am fascinated by it and I think as a Brit, albeit now living abroad, there is no phrase that so quintessentially typifies British understatement more than the phrase “a spot of bother” as it almost always refers to a catastrophe of biblical proportions. I would love to hear about equivalents in other languages; I am sure British English does not have a monopoly on staid understatement.

@bookstodon Anyone know if #TheDarkTower by #StephenKing is any good?

Didn't win the lottery again over the weekend so my pension plan remains "keel over dead at work".

What the hell is going on at #fosstodon ? Most of the people I know on there are really nice. Is it some noisy fash minority trashing the instance’s reputation? I hope that the mods get given time to take out the trash as it would be a shame if the whole thing went to hell. I’m low-information on this so accurate, balanced information on this would be appreciated.

Admiral Akhbar lands his spaceship in a Terran desert. Suddenly a guy on a horse comes up to him and says. "I am sorry but this is Persia and I am the local representative of Emperor Xerxes to whom you owe fealty."

"Oh no! It's Satrap!"

Looks like today is yet another "Fuck the News" day.