@reay@mastodon.social
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

reay

@reay@mastodon.social

Dad. Writer. Amateur photographer. Dabbler in tabletop game design. Fan of books, tabletop/video games, comics, music and movies. Neutral Good. He/him.
Thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://pixelfed.social/reay
https://www.reayjespersen.com/

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

gerrymcgovern, to random
@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green avatar

In a city called The Dalles, in Oregon, USA, local people were worried that Google’s water use was soaring. As is so often the case, the city officials, who had given Google hundreds of millions in tax breaks, had no intention of letting anyone know how much water Google was using. It was up to a local paper, The Oregonian, to try and find out. They were forced to bring a case to court. City officials were ordered by Google to claim that Google’s use of scarce pubic water was a “trade secret”.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@gerrymcgovern @mhoye Wondering if I could get away with that at a job. Just do something totally unexpected and with zero regard for anyone around me and if anyone starts to ask questions, just tell them that no one had been told previously because it was my trade secret.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@mhoye @gerrymcgovern Just reminded that this is almost always the start of people with crazy wealth: First, get some seed money of $1,000,000-$100,000,000 from your family.

Next, be lauded years later by the media as being a self-made billionaire.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Elon Musk controls Twitter. He is a right-wing extremist who actively engages in and promotes lies and loathing. He has made it clear, again and again, that he hates the press (unless it's favorable to him). As NBC News explains, his site welcomes Nazis. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/x-twitter-elon-musk-nazi-extremist-white-nationalist-accounts-rcna145020

All of which makes me ask again, with growing despair, why journalists continue -- by actively participating on Musk's site -- to actively support this evil man's business.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@cygnusx11 @dangillmor Hear hear.

I said much the same thing in a recent post on my site: https://www.reayjespersen.com/blog-1/2024/04/11/need-even-more-reason-to-leave-all-meta-platforms-for-good-here-you-go/

TheBreadmonkey, to random
@TheBreadmonkey@beige.party avatar

I try not to pay attention to the constant, never-ending, inexorable stream of adverts being beamed into my face. But this one for yoghurt makes me crazy. It's called Fage. It's clearly called Fage. Only they're insisting it's pronounced 'Faya' (fire). I am sure this is retrofitted and refuse to believe anyone is calling it Faya. Stop lying to us, yoghurt people.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@TheBreadmonkey I’d be thrown enough by whether or not they want me to pronounce it with a soft G and what that’s supposed to make it (“Goddammit, does it rhyme with egg or page or portage? And whatever the answer, why didn’t they make it more obvious?”), but “Faya” is right out.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@TheBreadmonkey Maybe Gotye could sing a song about it.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@tezoatlipoca @TheBreadmonkey @wendinoakland @KeefJudge @Alice
Reminded me of this cartoon...

reay, (edited ) to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

Looking for a comedy podcast?
Done live in front of an audience?
And with no lack of swearing?

May I humbly recommend this episode of I Don’t Know About That with Jim Jefferies.

https://pca.st/episode/a610cb48-d78c-4d65-94dd-f0a6f0ae9b1b

It won’t be everyone’s thing, to say the least. But holy crap, it had me laughing hard a bunch of times.

Good stuff.


rephlex00, to random
@rephlex00@beige.party avatar

Got a truck that fits in your garage? Ha. Pussy.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@rephlex00 @the_etrain If it doesn’t take up at least a parking space and a quarter, is it even a truck?

reay, to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

So not only am I dealing on the daily with drivers not wanting to wait in a long line of cars so they head farther up in the next lane over and then jam in, but today I saw someone one-upping even that, going around the second bumper-to-bumper lane in the oncoming traffic lane to push in farther up.

This escalation could only possibly end well.

reay, to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

As I was shaving I noticed in the mirror that when it was down to a goatee of shaving cream, I didn’t not look like Col. Sanders.

I think I have an idea for a new side hustle.

reay, to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

PLEASE BOOST

Does anyone know of any language learning programs for learning European Portuguese (vs. Brazilian Portuguese)?

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@o_andras Thanks!

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@BillSaysThis Had a couple of potentially helpful bits in the replies that I’ll pass along to the friend who was asking about this stuff.

reay, (edited ) to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

My commute to my second job (ahem currently my main) job is unfortunately close to as far as I can get from my house while still being in the same city.

Adding to catching rush hour traffic both ways, the city has started what will be years of bottlenecking repairs on the routes I usually take. So a 27-minute drive on the weekend took me close to hour and a half last night.

I could literally have driven to London, Ontario in the time it took me to drive home from work across Toronto.

1/2

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

Sometimes it’s not terrible, though. One weekday morning will take over an hour and the next day will be 40 minutes.

All of which means that now on weekdays I’m keeping half an eye on the GPS to gauge the time I need to head to work.

Today we’re already having some fun-sounding downpour and wicked wind. Which means I should maybe head to work… now-ish? Give it a good 3.5 hours to get there? 🙄

AlarminglyBad, to memes
@AlarminglyBad@mstdn.social avatar

COMIC VIDEO: Tupperware

Nothing he does phases her anymore

Alarmingly Bad comic video where a man opens a Tupperware cabinet

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@AlarminglyBad I’m approaching this stage.

reay, to random
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

Yesterday I learned that vultures are birds of prey. Somehow I’d thought they were scavengers, maybe confusing them with buzzards? (He says, making a mental note to check if buzzards are birds of prey to maybe edit that out.)

So the several turkey vultures I’ve been seeing swooping around the Ontario Science Centre for months — and the wingspan of these things gets up to about my height, so they’re not subtle — are actively hunting, not just looking for carrion, or whatever.

1/2

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

Related: They’ve started hanging out over the Science Centre itself, and a couple of days ago were jostling around with some Canada Geese.

Guess that was them after some lunch.

Which, by the way, gives you some idea of their size. Much like when I heard that Great Horned Owls will take down a Canada Goose to eat?
Listen, Canada Geese are no joke. If they come at you snapping and hissing, even as an adult, you’ve got a problem.
And to know that THAT thing is a meal for a BIGGER bird?
Crazy.

reay, to books
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

I finally finished The Three Body Problem.

It’s good, absolutely, but not my style of writing (or maybe translation?), which made for quite an ebb and flow of interest.

Definitely looking forward to the mini-series on Netflix.

Meanwhile, I just started Triptych, the first book of the Will Trent series. That had me from the start and I didn’t want to have to put it down to go to bed.

What are you reading?
What have you read lately you’d recommend?


tk, to random
@tk@bbs.kawa-kun.com avatar
reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@tk
@FirewallDragons
As with so much of this stuff, I wonder why anyone needs a “smart” version anyway. We contentiously don’t have our “smart” fridge or oven connected online, why the hell would a toothbrush need to be?

TodayInTwitter, to random
@TodayInTwitter@mastodon.social avatar

X rolled out a change that automatically converts all links that have the string “twitter” anywhere in them to “X.”

For example, if someone tweets the link setwitter.com, the X client application will change that link to sex.com.

This is not a joke.

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-dot-com-posts-change-to-x-dot-com-ios

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@TodayInTwitter @mhoye What?

Elon Musk did a dumb thing?

Good thing I’m sitting because the room is spinning from my shock.

(Sarcasm aside, HOW MANY DUMB THINGS MUST HE DO before his supporters finally admit the emperor has no clothes?)

Alice, to random
@Alice@beige.party avatar

Whenever I'm embarrassed about something that I said, I remind myself that Kid Rock released an entire song that largely centered around repeating "Bawitdaba, da bang, da dang diggy diggy."

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@Alice I recall that one of those lines ended with something that sounded like “upchuck the cookie”.

No clue what the original words were, but damn if that’s not what it will always be to me.

BethanyBlack, to random
@BethanyBlack@mastodon.social avatar

I figured it out, so long as my car stays costing me less than £250 per month in repairs it’s cheaper for me to keep it on the road than trying to buy a new second hand one. And as the engine is a diesel and has done 120,000 miles it should last a while longer yet. The car’s done nearly 230,000 miles, but it got a new engine at 110,000 due to a factory recall

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@BethanyBlack I’m in a similar situation: We paid $1000 for what was intended to be a winter beater that we ended up finding was more convenient to keep, and it’s helping me get to a second job that more than earns me its original value per month, soooo… 🤷‍♂️

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@BethanyBlack We were told recently that we could easily get double, maybe even triple, what we paid for it if we were to sell ours again, rough appearance notwithstanding.

Well… I cleaned it up and took bunch of nice shots and it was for sale on one of the most popular used car sites, and over MONTHS and a number of price reductions there were only half a dozen expressions of interest but only one serious one, and by that point I’d gotten this other work that the car was handy to get to, so… 🤷‍♂️

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Klasfeld:

Breaking:

An appellate court judge REJECTS yet another attempt by 's team to delay the start of his New York criminal trial.

Between lower and appellate court attempts, that's more than 10 attempts, by the DA's count.

reay,
@reay@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff @lisamelton Tomorrow:
“How about now?”
“No.”

Friday:
“How about now?”
“No.”

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