@Landa @acb @gerikson @cstross Maybe he thinks his Aunt Tillie should fix it?

@db0 u wot m8

@gerikson Or an Italian.

@dazzlepansy @dgerard knoing mi luck it would be the tale of SIGISMUND the mad maths master and his xperiences in the boudoir of a RHOMBUS hem hem

@dazzlepansy @dgerard Brief moment of apprehension when I noticed where it's hosted but phew, it's not actually n molesworth slash hem hem.

@mountainriver (Another great example is Churchill - went to Harrow and his father had decided he was joining the army so he was put in the “army form”, which existed solely to prepare them for the Sandhurst entrance exams. Still took the old racist three tries to pass)

@mountainriver Uh, yeah, no. It’s more that it’s a massive university which is seen as a very prestigious place for various people with money to splash it about funding research institutions or whatever and because government funding for higher education and research is in a dire state they’re very enthusiastic about taking the cash. It’s also got a whole lot of weird little colleges and private halls. The military types who did the colonialising wouldn’t have dreamed of wasting time on higher education - straight from Eton or Harrow to Sandhurst and a commission in their father’s old regiment. Orwell went straight from Eton to the colonial police in Burma.

@froztbyte Oh, I missed that. So, boring people thinking they can make themselves less boring through pharmaceutical means. 15 years ago it was smart drugs (which weren’t, but that didn’t stop the Bay Area jumping onto that bandwagon with both feet).

@dgerard I’m probably missing something but what is it about these folk and Adderall? They can’t all have self-diagnosed ADHD.. (having an actual psychiatric diagnosis thereof means that I’m just a mean-spirited gatekeeper who thinks people shouldn’t just decide for themselves that they have a serious mental condition and start popping random pills)

@gerikson His parents lived long but they probably didn’t live on a diet composed mostly of saturated fat and ketchup scraped off the walls. He doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol (and loves Diet Coke) but that in itself isn’t a ticket to longevity. Biden is a lot fitter than Trump (and also teetotal) and he isn’t the subject of multiple criminal proceedings (his son is, but he isn’t). Trump’s levels of stress and anger seem off the scale. If I had to bet on one of them keeling over it wouldn’t be a tough decision.

@Evinceo @dgerard The name Alice automatically makes me assume this is some kind of cryptographic problem statement. "Alice is polyamorous and wishes to enter into a casual romantic relationship with Bob."

@gerikson It’s all about experiencing the beauty of nature and appreciating the fragility of our planet by driving thousands of miles in air-conditioned gas guzzlers before burning even more fossil fuels and a small rainforest of wood you get there. But it’s okay because you have to take your trash home with you.