@cstross@wandering.shop
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cstross

@cstross@wandering.shop

Scottish resident SF/F author (he/him/they/them). Three times Hugo Award winner. Does not play well with Nazis. Abolish the monarchy!

@cstross.bsky.social on Bluesky

blog at: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/

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cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Post Office deceived barrister reviewing Horizon conviction, inquiry hears

Simon Clarke, who advised postal firm to stop prosecutions decade ago, says key document was ‘deliberately withheld’ from him

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/09/post-office-deceived-barrister-reviewing-horizon-conviction-inquiry-hears

(The Post Office midden just keeps getting stinkier and deeper, doesn't it?)

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Prediction: this is going to go down like a head shot in a neonatal ward.

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Daveosaurus @tony A sabra is a prickly pear. Name got picked up for other things decades ago—a neighbourhood in Beirut, Jewish settlers in Palestine before 1948, etcetera. This is a third or fourth derivation, I guess. (Still totally tone-deaf of the movie studio.)

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@oneiros @tony They should, if they have the wits Cthulhu gave a Pacific Tree Octopus.

AnthonyFStevens, to random
@AnthonyFStevens@mastodon.online avatar

#Tories #CONservatives #GE2024 #Tory

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨

In a crushing blow to Rishi #Sunak, former Tory Chancellor Nadim Zahawi has announced he too is stepping down at the next election.

At the last count, he's the 61st Tory MP to announce they won't run again. More rats leaving the sinking ship... 🐀

https://news.sky.com/story/nadhim-zahawi-former-chancellor-and-vaccines-minister-will-stand-down-at-general-election-13132008?dcmp=whatsapp

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@AnthonyFStevens @BonehouseWasps Nadim Zahawi is 56. He's got a safe constituency seat but he's now too old to have any prospect of party leadership, especially after being sacked as a result of an ethics probe. Shat the bed by backing Truss but isn't looney enough to appeal to the Party Faithful in his own right.

revolvermann, to random German
@revolvermann@chaos.social avatar

Ich so "Bombay Dub Orchestra" klingt nach was für mich.
Ähem.
"Bombay Dub Orchestra are not from Bombay, nor are they really a dub act, either, or even an actual orchestra"

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@revolvermann Similarly, the Yellow Magic Orchestra are not yellow, not magical, and not an orchestra!

lauren, to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Questions for presidential candidates and VP hopefuls:

  1. Have you ever shot a puppy?
  2. Have you ever had sex with a porn star behind your wife's back?
  3. Have you ever had worms in your brain?
cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@lauren I'd rephrase (2): have you ever cheated on your wife with a porn star who reminded you of your beautiful daughter?

cstross,
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@fdr @lauren I imagine that's probably Trump's usual motivation (for rape).

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Question for election psephologists: is Elpicke likely to win re-election in her own constituency as a Labour candidate?

(Genuine Q, I have no idea how popular/unpopular she is locally.)

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@ben I have no idea; if that's the case, then that puts a different (and interesting) spin on her defection. (It's Starmer signalling to right wing voters rather than Labour actively embracing a far rigt MP as a long-term prospect.) Still shitty, though, while Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot remain excluded.

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@JdeBP @emmatonkin @rzeta0 A good point: if they're thinking long term Starmer's strategic thinkers will be targeting Reform UK (as the logical bolt-hole for ideological enemies, assuming Labour plan to occupy the centre-right ground for a generation).

Lazarou, to random
@Lazarou@mastodon.social avatar

Could this mean an ending to animal testing?

Is it a hustle?

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Lazarou Spoiler: it's a hustle (Betteridge's law applies)

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Vote Brain Worm for President in 2024!

Why settle for the brighter evil?
https://mastodon.social/@michelestrider/112406171370948983

tko, to random

@cstross I noticed amazon are listing Accelerando as book 3 in Singularity Sky series.
is correct? I think not?
does it matter? probably not. 🤷

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074CGZ5HR

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@tko Amazon's database is crap, populated with stuff scraped from publishers' DBs, and in this case from a publisher I'm no longer with and don't have an editor at so can't correct.

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@tko Self-publishing and trad-publishing have different failure modes wrt. Amazon. The real problem? Amazon itself.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

RIP Steve Albini, dammit.

viticci, to random
@viticci@macstories.net avatar

ah yes, post-iPad event bad takes. One of my favorite moments that occurs once every 18 months, like an eclipse of Apple pundits

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@viticci Obviously you can do nothing on an iPad Pro that you can't equally well do on a Kindle Fire Max 11! /s

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

TBH learning the RFK Jr. is suffering from the after-effects of mercury poisoning and being munched on by brain worms makes me feel a LOT better about him. The poor dear is obviously doing the best he can under the circumstances …

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Hey_Beth @darwinwoodka Everything I learn about RFK Jr. makes him look shittier and shittier (and he was already starting out as a human fecostalagmite).

Lazarou, to random
@Lazarou@mastodon.social avatar

Boeing again, wheels this time.
Watch those sparks fly and know that the Shareholders are getting their cut and that makes everything ok on Planet Earth

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/watch-this/boeing-767-crashes-into-runway-during-emergency-landing-4620876

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Lazarou That's not a crash per IATA definitions: it's a landing the crew walked away from and the plane will fly again. (They're designed to survive a gear-up landing because landing gear sometimes jams.) Also, the 767 first flew in 1981: it's Old Boeing and fairly safe (unlike the 787 and MAX, the latest news of which is genuinely alarming—factory personnel skipping essential QA checks).

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@mark @Lazarou It was already an item on the Aviation Herald yesterday. Landing gear is under a lot of stress during take-off and touchdown. Per AVHerald the pilots aborted their initial approach when they got a warning that the gear wasn't down and locked: they followed the checklist for a gear-up landing, which looks a lot more dramatic than it is. (Some replacement skin panels and new nose gear doors, plus a fix for whatever jammed or broke, and it'll be flying again.)

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Lazarou @mark It's a common enough situation there's a checklist for it.

Lazarou, to space
@Lazarou@mastodon.social avatar

Oh to be a space probe to visit this world in person, something utterly unlike anything in our Solar System

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-diamond-super-earth-exoplanet-atmosphere

#55Cancrie #Exoplanets #Space

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@Lazarou I wouldn't put any credit in that press release that clearly hasn't been fact-checked—no planet orbiting within one point blah "miles" of its primary has an orbital period of 17 hours! I mean, this is pablum aimed at the scientifically illiterate. Who do they take their readers for?

Hcobb, to random
@Hcobb@spacey.space avatar

@nyrath The reason the Enterprise would plunge into the planet within a few minutes of losing power is that they were using the engines to hover directly overhead to minimize terrain interference with line of sight communications.
It's not like Kirk had to pay for the antimatter himself.

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@SkipHuffman @Hcobb @nyrath Enterprise is a carrier's name, so it's obviously the high value asset of a carrier battle group. So make that half a dozen frigates and destroyers and a couple of cruisers? Plus supply ships and whatever the Starfleet equivalent of a couple of hunter-killer submarines are?

cstross,
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

@SkipHuffman @Hcobb @nyrath And a space dock to catch fire and slowly topple over in.

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