Paid job at UKGE in Birmingham. Get in touch with @missmerc.bsky.social for more Info. Demo excellent small games at @itten-games.bsky.social booth.

My friend came over, long time away. We started with Big Boggle, my final score was 50% insufficient. Lean pickings, barely anything over 6 letters.

May 8, 1926: Fred Glimes, an instructor at the Homestead golf course in Hot Springs, Va., tees off the head of his young caddy, who is left unidentified.

The Rhönrad, the German gymnastics wheel, was patented in 1925. It looks so modern, but of course, modernism starts in the 1920s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_g...

Most things may be terrible, but humanity really is on the cusp of being able to power its societies with clean power, and doing so at lower cost than the expensive and polluting fossil fuels that are controlled by some of the worst people in the world. www.businessgreen.com/news/4529259...

These shorts from Bungu Store about JPN are endlessly fascinating. So many stories they are expounding, it's an amazing record of JPN social and commercial history. youtube.com/shorts/0Zxgr...

May 4, 1926: Farmers of southwest Minnesota and eastern South Dakota suffer severe losses from a dust storm that strips away nearly an inch of topsoil and darkens the sky in daytime. This is among the first big erosion events to strike the Plains states before the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

May 3, 1926: British unions declare the first general strike in the country's history. A minute before midnight all organized workers in heavy industry, transportation and printing walk off the job to support locked-out coal miners. The construction and utility trades will join in the strike. 1/6

Ooo barracuda!!! #barracuda #shiny #ooobarracuda #heart #coralcitycamera

New video time! I got to try EFS a fun party deduction game by @ex1stgames.bsky.social 🤗 Play as an alien or hide as a human to vote on things you found on earth 🌏🤫 👇Watch it here👇 📺Video : youtu.be/IwHqKRtNauM www.kickstarter.com/projects/ex1... #boardgames #Japan #tabletopgames #brettspiel

Nigel Farage asked on BBC news this morning if he'd debate with me. Says he's too busy with the local elections & it will just be a "big row." I've been asking him for months. Someone's running scared? Vote Green.

Nooooo... now Middlesborough will be playing for the win! Disaster.

JPN publisher @itten-games.bsky.social is going to the UKGE in Birmingham. They need part time staff to work their booth. Get in touch with @missmerc.bsky.social if you can help them. Please repost this if you can.

JPN publisher @itten-games.bsky.social is going to the UKGE in Birmingham. They need part time staff to work their booth. Get in touch with @missmerc.bsky.social if you can help them. @timclare.bsky.social @jacksonpope.bsky.social #UKGE #UKGamesExpo

Do you have a Pixel 8 phone? Is there a simple way to move (not copy) photos from the phone to an external folder like a thumbdrive in the USB port? I cannot do it with annoying multiple steps... Move to Download folder. Then move to another internal folder. Then move to the external folder.

#OTD 93 years ago 📡 An engineer named Karl Jansky gave a 12-min presentation at the US National Committee for the International Union for Radio Science to a small group of people. It marked a significant turning point in our understanding of the Universe. #RadioAstronomy 📸 NRAO/AUI/NSF

The Daily Mail aren't even trying to pretend to be normal anymore. Lower bills & invest in our communities. Join.greenparty.org.uk

Gas Plant Cost Up 66%! Average project expense for a gas power plant with combined-cycle turbines rose 66% to $2,157 per kilowatt in 2025 from less than $1,500 in 2023! Gas burning also is a huge climate polluter. Dirty and expensive. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

Petrol is 25% of oil industry and requires economies of scale. As filling stations close, so will refineries. They won't be built back. Dirty carbon fuels are 40% of global shipping. That'll go too. Plus the $5 trillion annual subsidies. In return, cleaner air, safer roads, global warming lessens.

From the towering three-storied pagoda to the intricate eaves of the main hall, everything is wrapped in a sea of fresh greenery. It is the perfect moment to witness where ancient wood meets the vibrant energy of the new season.

Queueing in the shop, I saw this magazine. Oh, the Archers*! Oh, Phil Silvers! Oh, Klaatu! This looks really fuck it's for old people yearning for their youth in the 80s. Totally aimed at me. Fuck. *Powell & Pressburger, not R4.

Soooo I happened to see this Mercedes in the Wye Valley yesterday, and ... you don't do this by accident, do you? This is the Reichsadler, gripping the Benz logo.

Just checking on how the Invisible Hand of the Market is doing

There's a temporary Japanese Indie Games exhibit up at the Strong National Museum of Play.

Do you remember when it was all Oh that's been photoshopped, you can tell by the pixels. Then it was Oh that photo is AI, look at the hands and he's got three legs. Now we are at Oh that's highly realistic video, looks a little cartoony but still. Give it another year or two. You will not know.

April 17, 1926: Emir Ghazi, the 14-year-old son and heir of Iraqi King Faisal, drives a 30/98 Vauxhall sports car he just bought in London. (Age limits won’t be enacted on driving in the U.K. until 1930.)

78% of UK drivers have off street parking at home. Those that don't charge at home instead charge at work. Noticed all the commercial BEVs around? Vast majority of UK drivers can switch to BEVs now. You can even get Kerbocharge for terraces. This bollocks is made up all the time BEVs are promoted.

A HUGE, narrative-breaking moment for the UK car market New EVs are now cheaper than petrol cars on average, says Autotrader Last yr CCC said price parity was due by 2028 – and it's already here And EVs are already MUCH cheaper to run than petrol

Little wrigglers wriggling. They are definitely eating the algae off the side of the pot. I hope they like broccoli.

🆕A new game is joining our CUBE Series soon! Pack-Back Robot🤖 Control the cute robot that chomps on energy cubes! Collect and charge it up! You'll need a keen eye & good coordination to collect the right color combination! #GameMarket #ゲームマーケット2026春 #boardgames #brettspiel #tabletopgames

I'm so excited for this one! It's one of my favourites in the Cube series 🤗

Wait, there's more... much more!

Really hoping for 3 more backers before it ends on Sunday 🤞🤞

New games are coming soon from itten 🤗 #GameMarket #ゲームマーケット

Claims and ideas which happen to favour the ruling class don't dominate public life by accident. They're paid for by oligarchs and corporations then promoted by media outlets other oligarchs and corporations own. Once they've been drummed into our ears enough, they're internalised as "common sense".

Saudi Aramco is owned by Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who you know as the king of Saudi Arabia (the part of Arabia owned by the Saud family). Saudi Aramco is a 3 trillion dollar oil company. I think the bloke who owns the 3 trillion dollar company is probably the actual richest person on Earth.

Nice. Warming up more. Starting to have the windows open a crack.

Testing my first Kuru Toga mechanical pencils and the Uni Smudge Proof 2B lead. Spoiler: it is not. Here's all the test and then the Kuru Toga with the supplied lead, one assumes HB. It writes well but did not rotate until I pressed much harder between strokes. Not my writing style though. Okay.

My testing the waters order from aliexpress has arrived. Mixed results. The 30m LED lights arrived as 1m. But checking, that's what I appeared to have ordered by mistake. The alcohol wipes are alcohol pads. Otherwise.... it all looks right...

My friends came up to see me and play games. We started with Atlantis, an old favourite I recently bought off BGG for 15 quid. So pleased with this. Lovely game, lovely production, long out of print, regretted not getting my own copy for years. My friends go to Essen but could never find it for me.

Tadpoles! Currently boiling broccoli to mush to feed them (after it has cooled). Advice welcome please.

TOTO has stopped taking orders for system and unit baths - their popular modular bathroom - because restricted shipments of naphtha through the Strait of Hormuz means the firm cannot guarantee sufficient supplies of raw materials. www.yomiuri.co.jp/economy/2026...

When I get a new follower

A very interesting pair of interviews from Bungu: youtu.be/nvOfmNter5Y Chika Takahashi from Touch & Flow and the artist Yuko Kurihara.

The enshitification of everything.

This is new to me: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavli

This video about Focus Tools was beneficial to me. It explains and demonstrates a lot, and helps me reconsider my approach to people and distraction. youtu.be/9rH3fBXSFCU

@leraffl.bsky.social as BEVs increase their share of the fleet, and so ICEVs decline in the fleet, there must be a decline in retail of petrol/diesel. In short, filling stations will close, which will drive the switch to BEVs faster. Is there any data tracking on retail petrol? On sales volumes and

i panic everywhere, not just at the disco

No -#CraftWednesday from me this week - I’m on holiday! Share each other’s projects!