I tried reading them as a kid and thought they were shit then. I realise now the biggest problems I had with it were the total absence of brick jokes (or whatever the literary equivalent is), the utter refusal to engage in foreshadowing, and the lack of character development.
Harry Potter was the best person but everyone else was a dick. "Gosh I wish something fun would happen" said Harry. Then Magic Headteacher turned up and it turns out that Harry is famous and rich and amazing! "Come and learn to be wizard and a celebrity" said Haggis, "you are amazing and have no choice". And he did. And his stepbrother was fat. Then Harry learned to play Quitit. Albino McVillain said "I've been playing my who life. You'll never be as good as me". And Albino was correct, Harry could only win if he was given a broomstick called a Plonko 9000. Then, Harry got a mystery package. It was a Plonko 9000 and he won. "I am a wizard!" whispered Harry, "but I will still share my chocolates because he is a good person". And he was. "Special people are born special and that's why they're special," said everyone.
My local library gives me access to newspapers and magazines delivered to my devices electronically every morning; movie streaming services; audiobook accessibe on my phone and - my favourite - they even have equipment loan, so if you want to borrow a hedge strimmer, rice cooker, embroidery machine, car jack, wallpaper steamer, etc, you can. That's to say nothing of the services I don't use, like arts classes, training courses, yoga sessions, etc. People pay hundreds every month for services freely available at the library.
Oh fuck right off with this bullshit. I suppose you think the attractive secretary's remarkable physique as exposed by their tight cardigan is just going to ogle itself? Presumably by the same magical fairytale critter that smokes all those cigarettes while knocking back a liquid lunch? And I suppose this wonderful creature takes care of water-cooler conversation as well, recounting golfing bon-mots, making sexist jokes and espousing low-grade racism while the man just does "nothing"? Get a grip.
Would a red light camera have saved her from a speeding car? No. Would a red light camera have stopped the speeding car from being a factor at all? Maybe.
Cars have to interact with pedestrians at some point. For every reckless act by a selfish driver that results in a child being murdered, there will be hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of similar reckless acts carried out by similarly selfish drivers that - purely by chance - don't cause a child to be killed. If drivers were caught and punished acting like this the majority of the times it doesn't result in a death, they'd be less likely to be in a position to slaughter pedestrians on the unlucky days in the first place.
Fucking hell, so much this. They're so goddamn proud of their ignorance. This is why I enforce a very strict "we're mechanics, not chauffeurs" policy in my team. We've got no duty - either literal or moral - to make up for incompetence.
Holy shit, cheques (as we spell it in the UK). I'd not seen one in decades, my bank stopped issueing chequebooks more than 20 years ago but they'll still print a one-off cheque for you if you ask. Then I spent some time in France and they still use the goddamn things and it is an absolute ordeal - I swear they spend two solid minutes passing the thing back and forth between the customer and cashier, taking turns to make little amendments. I understand that in France a cheque has a lot more legal clout than in the UK.
I agree. I think the problem with it is that it was just too complicated. With most Nintendo system what you see is what you get - with the Wii, those people having a good time swinging around their little Toblerones really are playing a game; the Switch really is a home console grade portable handheld thing; the WiiU manages to look like both those things without being either.
I have a bunch of mid-century Roberts radios that I've convert to smart speakers (using the original speakers and, where possible, the amplifiers) if that counts.
Microsoft changing Outlook from gold to yet another blue blob. Google changing every single goddamn app to use the same red/yellow/green/blue pallet. And now this bullshit.
A boomer coworker recently said something that made a lot of sense to me: Netflix is for 2020s TV what Motown was for 1960s music. They've turned the artform into a production line, constantly optimising to shovel out as much content as possible, hunting the minimum viable product, and occasionally, very rarely, producing something good almost by chance. L
rmuk @ rmuk @feddit.uk Posts 9Comments 1,316Joined 2 yr. ago
Don't WINE.