Watching Trump try to get into the World Cup photo, then shuffle off because no-one was paying attention to him, was the perfect ending to this evening.

Imagine being such a preening self-obssesed narcissistic cunt that you make Infantino look graceful.

One of the tipoffs that make it extremely easy for me to brush aside the current brigade of people who insist that I CW all my posts is that they overwhelming lead with over-the-top personal attacks. Not a single one has said "here's a post of yours that caused me distress because it lacked a […]

Gosh I have so much work to do... but I'm too angry because the engineer who built the fucking space mirror for Reflect Orbital and then quit openly admits that it won't actually provide solar power and that it's just for "Maybe there's some, you know, grand party in the desert" But they're […]

Ofcom Rejected More Effective Method of Blocking UK Messaging Scams https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/07/ofcom-rejected-more-effective-method-of-blocking-uk-messaging-scams.html

The End of Ground-based Astronomy – UK Gov Responds to Broadband Satellite Fears https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/07/the-end-of-ground-based-astronomy-uk-gov-responds-to-broadband-satellite-fears.html

So, in all, these documents do not support Trump's assertion that large numbers of non-citizens are voting (and certainly not in sufficient numbers to alter an election), that election systems are being tampered with to alter election outcomes, or that China or any other country is "rigging" our […]

I've now read through (but not with a fine-tooth comb) all the docs in the WH elections tranche. The majority of them are actually interesting, and relatively few appear to have been "cooked" to support the president's election policy agenda. Which is probably why they overwhelmingly DON'T in […]

it's hard to spot slop in this stuff cos futurepop EBM has long favoured the style that slop loves, e.g. this looks like slop in 2026 but it was released in 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi3quFD0AbI GAN output looked very cool and futuristic in the 2010s when it was a toy, and hadn't […]

The Linux-dot-org Story https://www.linux.org/threads/the-linux-org-story.68810/ « Linux-dot-org has been online in some form since 1994, making it one of the earliest sites built around the Linux community. »

I generalise because we had precisely the same fuckers in blockchain they'd start as previously normal humans of reasonable decent opinions, they'd take some of the blockchain promises at face value (and not as coded techfash dog whistles) and you could watch them transmute into shitcoiners in […]

To the people complaining about the choice of subject matter for my posts: I have not been receiving your checks. Please verify that you are sending your monthly payments to the correct address. Thanks.

this is comedy gold, if you're me https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-16/spacexai-identity-crisis-at-elon-musk-s-chatbot-company (no archive sorry)

An abandoned Falcon 9 stage will hit the Moon in a few weeks New paper discussing planned observations arxiv.org/abs/2607.14625

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Pixies (23) NTS RADIO (12) New Radiant Storm King (11) The Police (11) Curve (10). #myweekcounted 297 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lfm_blue

archive today being down is most annoying

There's only so much being told what a monster one is that one can take, and I'm getting close to my limit.

Fuck cancer! https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/l7-jennifer-finch-dead-obituary-1235595523/ #rock #grunge #punk #l7

Oh no Anyway, https://apnews.com/article/tate-brothers-social-influencers-arrest-82b6638219839dcf653c09309da66f16

"An Oxfordshire village is to hold a historic UK independence vote amid the government’s plan to put up to 1,250 asylum seekers nearby." https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26279377.oxfordshire-village-hold-historic-uk-independence-vote "Held on Saturday, July 4, to coincide with the 250th […]

Space Force orbit data shows the expected three objects from the Vikram-1 launch in a 441 x 451 km x 59.9 deg orbit, independently confirming success of the launch.

I need help identifying a vintage connector.. does anyone have an idea what this 12-pin plug is called, or can provide me with a link to the appropriate counterpart (or even have one at hand to sell me)? This is on a Siemens paper tape reader, ca. 1960 […] [Original post on chaosfurs.social]

I thought that, in a free market, the absence of supply of portable air conditioner units combined with huge demand would cause a factory to open in Europe, but apparently not […]

My desktop picture makes me laugh every time I see it.

Governments like to give the flock some meaningless make-work to distract them from the reality of impending war. Back in 1939 it was building shelters in the back garden and slaughtering all the dogs to stop them eating survivors after the much-feared strategic bombing.

Boots just rang me to cancel my #COVID #Vaccination tomorrow. Apparently that branch never has vaccinators available on Sundays, so I asked why the website lets you book appointments on Sundays. This comes after days and days of endless email and text reminders from #boots to make sure that I […]

Chris Foss artist statement https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WgkSBiUGFzI #chrisfoss #sf #sciencefiction #Art #Guernsey

CelloDad: "Well he IS called "Burn 'Em".

RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/116942088189695613 The techbros who thought they could "control" Trump are as stupid as the industrialists who thought they could tame Hitler.

What is it about the English media that sends them into absolute hysterics when the English Men's football team lose?

In summary, nothing I've seen alters my general assessment (which is fairly mainstream): - US election systems do have technical vulnerabilities, and we should definitely continue to work to make these systems better. - There is, fortunately, no credible evidence thus far that technical […]

I want to clarify something, which may not be well understood. The federation of instances from which people post are autonomous. They’re run by different people, and have different rules. Posters are governed by the rules of the server they post from, not by the rules of every instance on […]

This seems to upset some people, who probably are themselves hosted on instances with different rules and who don’t understand why I “get away” with flagrantly violating rules that I took great care to ensure don’t apply where I post. But that’s the nature of a federated system. People pick the […]

Is Fast Charging Actually Killing Your Phone's Battery? Here’s the Truth https://uk.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/166221/is-fast-charging-actually-killing-your-phones-battery-heres-the-truth Is the device in your pocket just one fast charge away from exploding? Probably not, but there are some […]

Can giant space mirrors boost green energy on Earth? A start-up aims to find out https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02218-9 Astronomers are deeply worried that a planned array of 50,000 mirror-bearing satellites in orbit will severely compromise telescopes. Another dumb idea, which […]

Today’s stupid prompt injection: just write like the AI (from Pivot to AI) https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/07/16/todays-stupid-prompt-injection-just-write-like-the-ai/ <- oh, this is good: some trivially easy reverse-engineering of how chatbots work lets you exploit them & bypass safeguards.

ICYMI: What is five years x £1 million? How much did Farage receive from a Thai multi-billionaire?

[possible GOATSE in The Economist] "Can Andy Burnham keep his own MPs under control? Britain’s prime-minister-to-be faces a big task to maintain his authority" […]

“When Carter revealed he was working on an R-rated cut of I Want to Believe, he mentioned that he had made the original version of the film too scary. Distributor Fox wanted a PG-13 movie and so Carter was forced to cut material, and further cuts were made to appease censors. I Want to Believe […]

Burnham is more of the same, but he will also try to squeeze the depleted North Sea for more oil and gas. "Incoming prime minister likely to reverse manifesto pledge and allow new North Sea licences, reports say. The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, a Burnham ally who is tipped for a senior role […]

Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail https://fabiensanglard.net/jurrasic_park_computers/index.html After I mentioned a Jurassic Park anecdote the other day, I watched the movie again. I must have seen it at least ten times now. This time, I researched every computer/software I […]

I'm not gay but it might be just a phase Did my part as an ally for #iwpride today and brought along a solar powered sound system #isleofwight #CargoBike

Blocking a bunch of accounts that have very much failed to spark joy.

I find UK politics pleasantly incomprehensible.

RE: https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/116939614764592845 by the way, they're pivoting from humanoid fuck dolls, cos Real Doll gets headlines but not so many actual sales. they tried making them robot sex dolls, but had even less demand. it turns out ~nobody *actually* wants this shit. i wrote […]

If you can’t figure out that this is not a great time to pitch me your ideas about content warnings, I’m not sure what I could say that could make that clearer for you.

We have to use a large chunk of the carbon emissions that we put into the atmosphere to bootstrap ourselves into a zero-carbon economy. That isn't negotiable. If we end up using it on fripperies like bigger SUVs then we really are toast

Infrastructure requires a big carbon budget in order to actually create it. This means that whatever we use in terms of carbon emissions has to be dedicated to the creation of that infrastructure.

The thing that often isn't understood is that in order to make the transition to a zero-carbon economy, we have to invest an enormous amount of energy in things like building infrastructure.

The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway. https://www.theocharis.dev/blog/llm-critics-are-right-i-use-llms-anyway/ <- A horrifying post, to me. Like a smoker trying to explaining why they do it. And billions smoke.