Interesting Links for 25-10-2025

[andrewducker]

1. The nerdiest music video of all time

(tags:wargames video music history uk france )

2. The Reform Backlash: Caerphilly By-Election Result Shows Nigel Farage's Party Is Much Weaker Than It Looks

(tags:politics uk wales )

3. 'Mind-boggling' poker fraud used X-ray tables, high-tech glasses and NBA players

(tags:poker fraud mafia )

4. Armed police surround teen after AI mistakes crisp packet for gun

(tags:ai guns epicfail )

5. Bad therapy is causing 'emotional Thatcherism'

(tags:therapy counselling society )

6. What the new Northern Cyprus election result means

(tags:Cyprus turkey )

7. ChatGPT's Atlas: The Browser That's Anti-Web

(tags:viaPatrickHadfield browser OhForFucksSake ai )

8. Bosses of Dungeons & Dragons club in £150k court fight sparked by alleged 'dungeonmaster cuddle'

(tags:roleplaying business law UK )

Comments

[kerk_hiraeth]

That Northern Cyprus story is the first hopeful sign I have seen out of Cyprus for eons.

I used to have a Turkish acquaintance, who lived quite close to me in Paignton, but who I interacted with mostly in Plymouth.

If I remember correctly; we are talking over thirty years ago now, his family moved from central Anatolia to Northern Cyprus in 1976 or 1977; didn't like it and, because of family connections, moved to a part of Essex that had relatively recently been absorbed into London. He had gone to college in Plymouth and had stayed in Devon.

He told me once that he was sure his mother knew he drank beer and had bacon sandwiches occasionally; both of which he eschewed when he visited his family for Eid, and that he had Jewish friends.

But, and apologies for taking so long to get to this, he also said she would explode if she found out two of his closest friends were Greek Cypriots.

I have no idea where he is, or how he's doing now, but if he's following that news he would be hopeful too.

kerk

[andrewducker]

I hope that he has hope. And I hope that some kind of compromise can be found that brings hope and peace to more people.

[calimac]

2) So in a Welsh Assembly by-election, you have a practical and not just a protest option to the despised traditional parties because the PC could actually form the government. But what would one do in an English by-election to the Westminster parliament if you've given up on Lab and Con and despise Ref? LD ain't going to cut it as more than a protest vote, so how are you going to keep all of the other three out of office? This problem has come up before: in 2005 in particular, Labour didn't win, they just lost less badly than anybody else. Because there weren't any other options.

7) Oh man, the arguments here about how people hated command line interfaces only reminds me how much I preferred command line interfaces and hated the advent of graphical ones. Fury of a thousand suns level of hate. There were two solutions, both easily implemented, to the problem described of knowing what to type. 1) Actually knowing it. This was easy in days of few programs with few commands. 2) WordPerfect had automatic pulldown menus listing commands. What I hated about graphical interfaces was having to take my hands off the keyboard and use the mouse for something that wasn't actually graphical. Still don't like it, but after 30 years (I was a late adopter, still used DOS after everyone else had switched to Windows) I've gotten used to it, also at that time I found the trackball, which I far prefer to the mouse.

[channelpenguin]

Whereas I'm on the fence. I've got a good memory, but even after 30+ years as a professional programmer, I can't touch type (and a broken right hand means I couldn't now anyway as my pinky won't come in far enough).

BUT, I use the mouse left-handed and the majority of keyboard shortcuts suck if they need to interact or interleave with mouse actions.

[andrewducker]

Lib-Dems have been scooping up council seats in ex-Conservative areas in the South-East. Greens have had their membership double since their new leader came in. It's going to vary from area to area, would be my guess, and be a mess. It'd be much less of a mess with a better voting system, of course.

[mountainkiss]

I am not sure that the article on Reform's lack of strength is right, sadly. It reads as wishcasting. I think this is likely to be a more accurate picture.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure what you see as the major disagreements between those two pieces?

The most salient bits from each of them on Reform seem (to me) to be:
"It’s far too early to suggest that we’ve reached peak Reform...National opinion poll averages still show the party well ahead...

However, what last night’s result also shows is that far from being the unstoppable force they are often portrayed as by the press, Farage’s party still has a very long way to go until it can be confident of winning power at the next general election.
...
More importantly, while they have so far been successful at mobilising right-of-centre voters, the result shows that Reform now risk also mobilising even more left of centre voters in the opposite direction."

compared to

"Reform has risen to new heights in Wales... Yet the Caerphilly result also underlines that Reform cannot take it for granted that a fragmented field will lower the bar for victory. The strong consolidation of the vote behind two contenders last week suggests Welsh voters opposed to Reform were both motivated to unite behind one anti-Reform candidate and capable of figuring out which party was best placed...
Paradoxically, the more Reform look like a clear and present danger, the harder it may become for them to win locally in many seats, if sufficient voters decide opposing Farage is a more urgent priority than supporting their favoured party."

Both seem to be saying that Reform are doing well, have taken the Conservatives position as the party of The Right, but have also brought out people to oppose them, and sufficient tactical voting is likely to do a good job of keeping them out.

[mountainkiss]

I think the main difference is in the inference drawn: specifically whether "Nigel Farage’s Party Is Much Weaker Than It Looks".

[andrewducker]

Depends on what your starting point is for how "It Looks".

As they say "far from being the unstoppable force they are often portrayed as by the press" - I assume they're meaning is "They're much weaker than 'Unstoppable'"

Whereas if you think they only look "Quite strong" then I agree that they aren't much weaker than *that*.

[mountainkiss]

I don’t think this data suggests that Reform is much weaker than anywhere on this spectrum. Maybe slightly weaker. Still really pretty strong.

6. What the new Northern Cyprus election result means

[anef]

This is encouraging, but as the writer points out there is a long way to go.