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You can find more info on my userinfo page - but this is just here to say that I'm very happy to be friended by anyone that wants to read me. I rarely post friends-only, and that only tends to be about things that mention work, so if I don't friend you back you're not actually missing much...
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A note on correcting people's grammar in the comments.
Official Spoiler Policy.
Entry tags:
Life with two children: Renting realms
About a month ago Gideon watched a bunch of videos about Minecraft, asked if he could play it on her tablet, got a few pointers from me to get him going and then dove in and started building stuff. At an impressive rate considering that he can't read any word more than 4 letters long.
Yesterday I mentioned Minecraft to Sophia, and she showed interest, so I set her up on my desktop and she got stuck in. She's asked for more help than Gideon has, but has been happily building herself an underground house. And just now I wanderd into my office to see her on the desktop and Gideon sitting on the floor with his tablet, with the two of them intermittently showing each other cool things that they'd found.
So tonight, after they're asleep, I'm going to set them both up for online play, and rent a realm*, so that they can be in the same world with each other.
*I am totally willing to pay £3.99 per month to not have to maintain my own server.
Yesterday I mentioned Minecraft to Sophia, and she showed interest, so I set her up on my desktop and she got stuck in. She's asked for more help than Gideon has, but has been happily building herself an underground house. And just now I wanderd into my office to see her on the desktop and Gideon sitting on the floor with his tablet, with the two of them intermittently showing each other cool things that they'd found.
So tonight, after they're asleep, I'm going to set them both up for online play, and rent a realm*, so that they can be in the same world with each other.
*I am totally willing to pay £3.99 per month to not have to maintain my own server.
Interesting Links for 13-12-2025
- 1. How Screen Time Affects Childhood Brain Development
- (tags:brain children funny screens )
- 2. Four reasons why the UK is already at war with Russia
- (tags:Russia UK war )
- 3. Looking Back at the Work of John Varley, 1947-2025
- (tags:scifi obituary )
- 4. Dating a man who's most likely autistic
- (tags:autism relationships )
Entry tags:
- ai,
- business,
- citizenship,
- clothing,
- disney,
- economics,
- funny,
- history,
- language,
- links,
- maps,
- ohforfuckssake,
- punctuation,
- regulation,
- school,
- uk,
- writing
Interesting Links for 12-12-2025
- 1. The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations
- (tags:punctuation language writing ai funny )
- 2. Where Are School Uniforms Common?
- (tags:school clothing regulation maps )
- 3. Disney making $1 billion investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI video generator
- (tags:ai Disney )
- 4. Revealed: UK's 'racist' system of stripping citizenship (more people than any other country other than Bahrain and Nicaragua)
- (tags:uk citizenship OhForFucksSake )
- 5. Are economic bubbles good, actually?
- (tags:economics business history )
Timeline of a new phase in my life.
About two months ago, I had a nasty respiratory infection. And while I was lying awake one night, I could hear my heart beating quite loudly.
Having had multiple friends go to the doctor to check on something and then have the doctor tell them that they urgently needed medication before their high blood pressure did them serious damage/killed them, I thought I should pop in to the doctor for a chat.
They checked me on the spot, said my blood pressure was a little high, but nothing terrible, and told me to join the queue to borrow a blood pressure device.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
danieldwilliam gave me his old one, and I spent a couple of weeks taking results. Which mostly showed that my pressure is fine in the morning, but that after I've spent 90 minutes shouting at Gideon to stop bloody well mucking about and go to sleep, it's a fair chunk higher than it should be. They also sent me for an ECG (which showed I have Right Bundle Branch Block, a harmless and untreatable condition that affects 15% of the population), an eye test (which found nothing), and a fasting blood test (which showed I'm still not diabetic, even though I can't have sugar in my diet even slightly any more).
They then had a phone call with me to chat it through, said that I'm a little high (on average), and a little young for it to be a major worry, but if I was up for it they could put me on some pills for hypertension.. I agreed that it sounded sensible, and the doctor sounded positively relieved that she hadn't had to bully me into it.
The weird feeling is that this is the first time I've been put on to a medicine that I will have to take for the rest of my life. There is now "The time I didn't have to take medicine every day" and "The time where I had to take medicine every day". Which definitely feels like an inflection point in my life. (Endless sympathy, of course, for people I know who have to take much worse things than a tiny tasteless pill with very few side-effects.)
So all-in-all, nothing major. Just the next step. I'm just very glad for the existence of modern medicine.
Having had multiple friends go to the doctor to check on something and then have the doctor tell them that they urgently needed medication before their high blood pressure did them serious damage/killed them, I thought I should pop in to the doctor for a chat.
They checked me on the spot, said my blood pressure was a little high, but nothing terrible, and told me to join the queue to borrow a blood pressure device.
danieldwilliam gave me his old one, and I spent a couple of weeks taking results. Which mostly showed that my pressure is fine in the morning, but that after I've spent 90 minutes shouting at Gideon to stop bloody well mucking about and go to sleep, it's a fair chunk higher than it should be. They also sent me for an ECG (which showed I have Right Bundle Branch Block, a harmless and untreatable condition that affects 15% of the population), an eye test (which found nothing), and a fasting blood test (which showed I'm still not diabetic, even though I can't have sugar in my diet even slightly any more).They then had a phone call with me to chat it through, said that I'm a little high (on average), and a little young for it to be a major worry, but if I was up for it they could put me on some pills for hypertension.. I agreed that it sounded sensible, and the doctor sounded positively relieved that she hadn't had to bully me into it.
The weird feeling is that this is the first time I've been put on to a medicine that I will have to take for the rest of my life. There is now "The time I didn't have to take medicine every day" and "The time where I had to take medicine every day". Which definitely feels like an inflection point in my life. (Endless sympathy, of course, for people I know who have to take much worse things than a tiny tasteless pill with very few side-effects.)
So all-in-all, nothing major. Just the next step. I'm just very glad for the existence of modern medicine.
Entry tags:
- archeology,
- asylum,
- government,
- history,
- incompetence,
- links,
- news,
- prehistory,
- satire,
- uk,
- usa,
- youtube
Interesting Links for 11-12-2025
- 1. Study Finds Young People Now Watch More YouTube Content Than Zoetropes Of Galloping Horses
- (tags:satire news history youtube )
- 2. The real asylum scandal is our hysterical politicians
- (tags:uk asylum government incompetence )
- 3. Reminder that there is very old architecture in America
- (tags:USA prehistory archeology )
Entry tags:
- ai,
- behaviour,
- cancer,
- children,
- disinformation,
- food,
- goodnews,
- healthcare,
- heavymetal,
- horses,
- law,
- liberal,
- links,
- music,
- ohforfuckssake,
- photography,
- politics,
- pollution,
- psychology,
- religion,
- russia,
- satire,
- socialmedia,
- transgender,
- uk,
- usa,
- video
Links (Interesting) for 2025-12-10 (just 15 days to Christmas!)
- 1. Who wants some Indian rap-metal about cooking?
- (tags:food music video HeavyMetal )
- 2. A short summary of the Sandie Peggie V. Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton employment tribunal judgment
- (tags:transgender law UK GoodNews )
- 3. Did Nano Banana Pro Kill Photography or Just Photo Editing?
- (tags:ai photography video )
- 4. Clinic Closures Force More Rural Americans To Rely On Horse Who Stomps Twice When Patient Has Cancer
- (tags:USA healthcare horses cancer satire )
- 5. Study: Leaving Religion May Make You More Liberal
- (tags:politics liberal religion psychology )
- 6. UK issues sanctions against Russia amid accusations of information warfare
- (tags:uk russia disinformation )
- 7. Prenatal phenol exposure linked to child behaviour
- (tags:pollution behaviour children )
- 8. US to ask tourists for five-year social media history before entry
- (tags:socialmedia usa OhForFucksSake )
Entry tags:
- doom,
- goodnews,
- heart,
- history,
- immune_system,
- law,
- lgbt,
- links,
- nhs,
- pandemic,
- patriarchy,
- science,
- transgender,
- uk,
- women
Interesting Links for 09-12-2025
- 1. Tribunal dismisses Sandie Peggie's claims against trans doctor (but finds NHS Fife did harass her)
- (tags:transgender LGBT law UK NHS GoodNews )
- 2. "The Matilda Effect": How Pioneering Women Scientists Have Been Written Out of Science History
- (tags:science women history patriarchy )
- 3. SARS-CoV-2 Leaves a Lasting Mark on the Immune System
- (tags:immune_system Pandemic doom heart )
Interesting Links for 08-12-2025
- 1. mRNA Vaccinated individuals had a 74% lower risk of death from severe COVID-19 and a 25% lower risk of all-cause mortality over 4 years
- (tags:death health vaccine pandemic )
- 2. All the ways Russia is waging 'grey war' on the UK - from drones to local agents
- (tags:russia war uk )
- 3. Saving Japan's exceptionally rare 'snow monsters'
- (tags:Japan snow monsters )
- 4. Is anyone surprised that US tech billionaires want to fund fascist city states?
- (tags:fascism technology USA )
- 5. Vintage Photographs of People Reading Newspapers Before the Invention of That Grossly Antisocial Device: The Smartphone
- (tags:photos newspapers reading society history )
- 6. Impacts of working from home on mental health tracked in study of 16,000 Australians
- (tags:australia work homes mentalhealth )
Interesting Links for 07-12-2025
- 1. Tides are weirder than you think
- (tags:tides gravity moon sun mathematics history )
- 2. Zuckerberg Basically Giving Up on Metaverse... After Renaming Entire Company "Meta"
- (tags:Facebook VirtualReality )
- 3. Reminder that the UK just had independent ADHD investigation which found it was under diagnosed and under supported.
- (tags:UK ADHD healthcare NHS )
- 4. Trans Holocaust History
- (tags:history LGBT transgender holocaust Germany Nazis )
- 5. America has identified its greatest enemy: Western Europe
- (tags:USA politics racism Europe )
- 6. Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image
- (tags:trains ai fraud photos )
Entry tags:
Interesting Links for 06-12-2025
- 1. Netflix announces deal to buy Warner Bros. and HBO
- (tags:WarnerBrothers HBO netflix )
- 2. Did Rachel Reeves mislead the public ahead of the Budget?
- (tags:budget UK FactCheck politics )
- 3. Visualising Klotski (fantastic 3d visualisations of possibilities)
- (tags:video game viaSwampers visualisation )
- 4. 'Forks Out': A Benoit Blanc Sesame Street Mystery
- (tags:muppets mysteries video satire )
- 5. Wall Street races to protect itself from AI bubble
- (tags:AI investment insurance )
- 6. Original version of Star Wars Returns to Theaters for 50th Anniversary
- (tags:StarWars movies )
- 7. Several teams of female gamers have dropped out of the Dead by Daylight Women's World Cup after trans women were banned.
- (tags:LGBT bigotry transgender gaming women )
- 8. Adenosine as the metabolic common path of rapid antidepressant action: The coffee paradox
- (tags:depression )
- 9. The USA is officially removing itself from positive engagement in world affairs.
- (tags:USA politics diplomacy NATO )
- 10. Edinburgh confirms Visitor Levy affordable housing spend
- (tags:Edinburgh housing GoodNews )
Interesting Links for 04-12-2025
- 1. Abolishing trial by jury: why is the government overlooking the obvious?
- (tags:law UK )
- 2. Drunk raccoon found passed out on liquor store floor after breaking in
- (tags:alcohol animals )
- 3. Arguments about simulated universes
- (tags:simulation philosophy argument funny comic )
- 4. Americans being ignorant about other countries
- (tags:countries USA ignorance funny )
- 5. Sasha the Christmas tiger
- (tags:tiger Christmas )
Entry tags:
Life with two kids: Christmas monitoring
Opening up my YouTube Recap so I can find out what nonsense Gideon has been watching this year.
(Sophia is on her own account, but for technical reasons Gideon can't be yet.)
(Sophia is on her own account, but for technical reasons Gideon can't be yet.)
Entry tags:
- austerity,
- charity,
- comics,
- dementia,
- fail,
- language,
- law,
- links,
- ohforfuckssake,
- organisation,
- resolution,
- scotland,
- tv,
- uk,
- vaccine
Interesting Links for 03-12-2025
- 1. Humble Comic Bundle: Image Comics in the '10s (175 trade paperbacks, many of them awesome, for cheap)
- (tags:comics charity )
- 2. Gaelic and Scots gain official status on St Andrew's Day
- (tags:Scotland language )
- 3. Shingles vaccination caused a 29.5% reduction in deaths due to dementia
- (tags:dementia vaccine )
- 4. The real reasons why courts have a massive backlog
- (tags:UK law austerity organisation OhForFucksSake )
- 5. HBO Max's 'Mad Men' Vomit Scene Proves 'Remastered' Doesn't Mean 'Better'
- (tags:TV resolution fail )
Interesting Links for 02-12-2025
- 1. Cattle tuberculosis; badgers finally in the clear
- (tags:Badgers disease cows UK )
- 2. After 40 years of adventure games, Ron Gilbert pivots to outrunning Death
- (tags:games )
- 3. There are many more weight-loss drugs coming.
- (tags:weight medication )
- 4. Tales From The Multiverse (An animated short film by Tumblehead)
- (tags:video viaKenny funny dinosaurs religion creationism )
- 5. "We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers - here's what it reveals"
- (tags:war military history viaZornhau )
- 6. Large surge in Scottish flu cases as new strain takes hold
- (tags:scotland flu )
- 7. Sleeping Beauty Vs the Planet of the Insomniacs
- (tags:fairytale video sleep EpicWTF )
- 8. The People Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI
- (tags:ai thinking doom )
Entry tags:
- cities,
- goodnews,
- headline,
- israel,
- kazakhstan,
- lgbt,
- links,
- palestine,
- patriarchy,
- polls,
- prehistory,
- psilocybin,
- religion,
- research,
- torture,
- unitednations,
- women,
- wtf
Interesting Links for 30-11-2025
- 1. Grimes DJing Immortality Influencer's Shroom Trip With Special Guest Mr. Beast (is certainly a sentence describing events in the world)
- (tags:wtf headline psilocybin )
- 2. UN panel says Israel operating 'de facto policy of torture'
- (tags:torture UnitedNations israel palestine )
- 3. Bronze Age mega-settlement in Kazakhstan reveals advanced urban planning and metallurgy
- (tags:cities prehistory kazakhstan )
- 4. Exploring the link between religion and acceptance of homosexuality across different countries
- (tags:religion polls lgbt )
- 5. Scientists are finally studying women's bodies. This is what we're learning.
- (tags:women research patriarchy GoodNews )
Entry tags:
- accounting,
- cloud,
- dataprotection,
- disease,
- doom,
- economics,
- facebook,
- funny,
- goodnews,
- immune_system,
- law,
- links,
- mistake,
- movies,
- poverty,
- satire,
- switzerland,
- true,
- usa,
- viakenny
Interesting Links for 29-11-2025
- 1. Switzerland: Data Protection Officers Impose Broad Cloud Ban for Authorities
- (tags:Switzerland dataprotection cloud )
- 2. Credit Report Shows Meta Keeping $27 Billion Off Its Books Through Advanced Geometry
- (tags:satire law accounting Facebook true )
- 3. I think there's a teeny tiny error in the data here on the Bridget Jones movies
- (tags:movies mistake funny )
- 4. 'They don't have symptoms': CAR-T therapies send autoimmune diseases into remission
- (tags:immune_system disease GoodNews viaKenny )
- 5. How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America (The level at which the US measures poverty is wrong)
- (tags:usa poverty economics doom )
Interesting Links for 28-11-2025
- 1. Two-thirds of Scots support independent pupil opt-out for religious observance
- (tags:religion Scotland children school )
- 2. Valve block Steam game with queer art in Russia after state censor attacks it for "promoting non-traditional sexualities"
- (tags:censorship bigotry lgbt russia games valve )
- 3. How the UK's property taxes compare to other countries
- (tags:property housing tax )
- 4. Tick bites can cause red meat allergy
- (tags:meat allergies insects )
- 5. Tech firms battle for undersea dominance with submarine drones
- (tags:drone ocean submarine military russia )
- 6. 250MWh 'Sand Battery' to start construction in Finland, for both heating and ancillary services
- (tags:sand electricity heat batteries )
- 7. Keir Starmer's shock at homophobia is absurd and ignorant
- (tags:gay LGBT bigotry UK labour )
