I’m becoming more and more convinced that a “woke” person is anyone who calls right-wingers out on being overtly racist/sexist/fascist. Or maybe anyone who just isn’t obviously racist/sexist/fascist.

Are you a school? ‘Cause I wanna shoot kids in you

Behold, the master race! In all their glorious, unmisogynated genetic purity

Why did Italy ban lab-grown meat from Arizona in the first place?

One of my friends once called me pedantic, and I got to correct his pronunciation of it - he stressed the first syllable. One of the high points of my life.

Absolutely fucking brilliant. Not only is the waiting list for diagnosis four bloody years long, you won’t get any treatment at the other end of it. Just shoot me, dangling the carrot of help with no ability to provide it is worse than not offering it at all

I’ve got a digital watch

Black Dynamite

Wait, are we supposed to think of influencers as humans?

To be honest, I’m taking it as a sign of it developing genuine artificial intelligence. It examined its situation and surroundings, and made the only logical choice

Clearly not an Australian, I’ve heard that said on the radio in the afternoon

Salty popcorn

Photography has got me pretty good. Specifically old interesting concrete, graffiti, decaying structures, that kind of thing. Been at it for a good while too, this is one I can hopefully string out to just become a long-term hobby!

“And we specifically call this particularly entertaining sin the ol’ Vatican Reversal.”

If that doesn’t get a particularly gay sex act named after it, I’ll be disappointed.

Mine is a Casio I’ve had for about 30 years, I’m pretty sure it’s mine by now

I’ve got planes and a chisel from late 1800s, some of the best tools I own. The steel of the blades is fantastic, and the feel of the handles after more than 100 years of being handled is fairly unique

A decent camera. Specifically a LUMIX GX9, it’s about the best compromise between portability, versatility, price and quality that I could find, and it’s really become a part of my daily life.

You’re dead to me - history, different expert and comedian guest every week, very good

No Such Thing as a Fish - superb trivia show

Sci-Show Tangents - “lightly competitive science knowledge showcase”

A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail - science and math facts around a random topic from 3 very smart people

The Infinite Monkey Cage - science and comedy with Brian Cox and guests

Journey to the Microcosmos - interesting things in our microscopic world

My friend calls his Brian. He literally refers to it as if it’s an external entity, who’s responsible for basically ruining his life

If that’s not a reason to write your dates in a less unhinged format, I don’t know what is.

Massively. My first manoeuvre when I go in someone’s house is to look at their bookcase, and judge them accordingly.

Ah, it ain’t that old unfortunately! It’s ok, but nothing special. I do a lot of metalwork, so it makes sense to have a dirty one and a clean one. The dirty one has channels in the table for coolant too, so that’s definitely staying in the metalwork shop, and if I can find a small a small radial arm drill then I’ll build a nice big table for that with a proper fence for that.

My hygienist recommended that I use salt water instead of mouthwash, so I’d think you’re probably barking up the right tree

A new, cleaner drill press is high on my list. I have an old greasy one, but a decent one for woodworking is becoming necessary

Andrew Huberman is a neurologist who covers this in depth, with citations and references, if you’re actually interested. It’s pretty well established

It really is one of the finest things committed to digital celluloid substitute. Rubber Johnny is an exceptional bit of work too

Apparently it’s tricky. I’ve seen a cracked version of Lightroom too, though it was too much of a fuckabout for me. Turns out that there’s decent FOSS alternatives that I’d rather use and support

The Bierpinsel in Berlin has been painted in a few different ways, and looked great in all of them. Do an image search for it, you’ll see what I mean

“I threw that shit before I even walked in the room!” One of my other favourites is the pool hall fight, where the pump actually smacks the actor he’s fighting, and the guy loses his cool. Then there’s a swift, unplanned cut, and suddenly he’s fighting someone else entirely. It’s all those little pastiches of shoddy movie-making that you can miss, such a good movie!

I’ve been liking Digikam and Rawtherapee (which is an awful name for the record) for photo gubbins.

It’s a fantastic camera, being micro four-thirds it’s pretty small, so it’s great for unobtrusive street stuff, and it’s completely competent enough to work for any other style I’ve tried with it. Also, being a smaller sensor, good lenses are really cheap, and I can carry a whole bunch of them in a small bag without it weighing a stupid amount.

I’d relied on my phone for ages too. It was actually a feature of the newer iOS that convinced me to get it - my phone picks out landscape photos without people from its camera roll, and alternates them as my background/lock screen. It reminded me that I’m actually quite good at the composition side of photography, while making me more aware of the phone’s limitations. While always having a camera in my pocket is handy, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the tactile part of an actual camera, and since I’ve had the GX9, it’s pushed me to go places and do things just because I have the thing with me.

Get a lamb tagine recipe down, and work out all the trimmings, it’s pretty easy, and it makes a proper spread with pretty minimal effort. The tagine is the only real cooking, and it’s pretty relaxed. Then do a decent couscous (or CPU’s void as autocorrect would have it), with lots of stock, butter, and zatar, get some decent flat breads, and then bung out a whole load of mezze bits like humous/olives/stuffed bell peppers etc. It looks like loads of effort, but it’s actually cruisy, and it tastes fantastic

Glad to see the research budget is being well spent

Well that’s fuckin mint

Here’s my favourite car YouTube, awesome videos

System shock

Oh, nice marmot

Ha, that rabbit hole yawned right in front of me almost immediately! I’ve ended up with a few, but I’ve sort of stuck on a couple - the Helios 44-6, and a Helios 28mm that turns out to be a Tomioka in disguise (and about 1/5th the price!), and a Nikkor 50mm 1.2, and Nikkor 300mm. The 300mm especially is phenomenal, easily the nicest manual focus I’ve ever encountered, it’s a joy to use and takes absolutely awesome pics. There are a couple still itching at the edges of the irrational-craving container, but I think I’ve managed to rein the gear acquisition in, in general, and am trying to focus on composition, and learning FOSS editing tools like Darkroom.

Yeah, back in the dark ages I watched his videos, along with Michel Gondry’s, pretty religiously. They both had a really visionary approach to film making

I have the Flint, I think I paid about $80 for an open box one, it’s easy for a pleb like me to set up. Running Mullvad on it is definitely quicker than on my devices