On a course i was once given the statistic that at 30mph 90% of pedestrians die, and at 20mph 90% live.

Now consider (from the same course) that breaking isn’t linear and most stopping happens at the end. So if you’re going 30 and would stop at point x during an emergency stop, then if you start an emergency stop at the same point while doing 40 you’ll reach point x doing 30.

Yeah. I don’t speed, especially in areas with pedestrians.

Thank God someone said it. I feel like I’m living in an alternative universe that this amazing series never even gets mentioned.

It feels like loving The Americans did back in the day -one of the best things on TV, and nobody seems to have even heard of it.

I dunno. I felt like series 1 was pretty much flawless, 2 was good with some missteps, and 3 had some good moments.

For example:

I’ll watch series 4, but I don’t have high hopes.

If you like facts then you should know that “Autist” Is a rather controversial term in the autistic community, with many finding it dehumanising, and with a significant proportion of those who use it themselves doing so to “reclaim” it in an n-word-like “it’s okay when i say it, but not when you say it” way.

And if you really do have an autistic daughter, then you might want to do some internal reflection on why you think being “surrounded by […] autists” Is negative enough to use as an insult. Those kinds of attitudes can have negative impacts on children and can lead to internalised ableism. And if it’s not the kind of attitude you would show around her, then it’s worth asking yourself why not.

Outer Wilds. Easily the most profoundly moving experience I’ve ever had from playing a video game. And it does such a good job of starting off - and even remaining, to a degree - a fun, light-hearted story.

If there’s anybody reading this who’s interested in the game, let me say a couple of things.

1. Go in as spoiler-free as possible. The entire progression system is based on acquiring knowledge, and a lot of the power of the game comes from discovering everything for yourself, in your own way.

2. Don’t treat it like a game. Instead put yourselves in the shoes of your character. See something that you think looks cool? Go and look at it. Don’t think “well, I should probably finish this area first…” Explore. Learn. Decide for yourself what your priority is.

Loads of games call themselves open world, but are actually quite on rails. One trigger at the beginning of the game aside, Outer Wilds really is open world. One reason why watching other people play it is so much fun is that everybody really does have a completely different experience while playing it. One person will do something as the first thing they do, then someone else will do the same thing when they’re 80% of the way through. And the game is so well-designed that both ways is equally rewarding.

Sorry, I tend to evangelise for this game a lot because it is, as I said above, a genuinely profound and moving experience.

I think society has long established that we give inanimate objects and constructs gender. Bart Simpson is a he, despite being a cartoon voiced by a woman. He‘s often written by a woman, too, and the animation team will be mixed (although probably leaning male). Yet he remains a he in popular parlance.

Perhaps more akin to this situation, there’s a long tradition of referring to animated singers by the gender they present as. Gem & the Holograms are referred to as female, as are Josie & the Pussycats. Hatsune Miku - possibly the most direct comparison, being the first and most well-known “virtual singer” - is always a “she”. None of these are real people or based on real people.

The first AI band that I was aware of was The Velvet Sundown, which made the news for doing well on Spotify before people realised that they weren‘t real. They‘re very MOR AOR type stuff, at least from what I‘ve heard.

Just checked Outer Wilds, which is deemed „slighly woke“ because the race of aliens to which you belong all use they/them pronouns. They do note that the race of aliens you‘re studying all use he/him/she/her pronouns.

Here‘s the thing - your race has evolved from amphibians. Hermaphroditism and spontaneous sex-change is a well-established trait in some species of amphibians. The other race are mammals, where such examples are much rarer.

For it to actually be a „woke“ thing, rather than world-building, you‘d have to have one of the mammals be referred to as „they“. Or, perhaps, one of your race referred to as „he“ or „she“. As it is, it suggests that gender is either non-existent or fluid amongst your species and therefore it makes no sense to use that as an identifier, and gender exists amongst the other species and therefore it does make sense to use that as an identifier.

And, truthfully, we don‘t know, because other than a couple of references to people „flirting“ with each other (in both species) and you being referred to as „hatchling“ rather than being given a name, sex gender, reproduction, etc. doesn‘t come up at all.

Yeah, I feel like there‘s a fascinating study into how indoctrination and radicalisation works in there somewhere. He‘s lost everything because he can‘t stop hating on a marginalised group. Cost him not just his career, but also his family, and recently saw him arrested.

It‘s horrible, but also kind of fascinating.

One of the hopes for a Labour government was that they would roll back the restrictions on our right to protest…

Same kind of thing happened with That 70s Show. There was a British remake which used the same scripts, and it was awful. Really terrible.

It‘s the cast that made the original work. Just a shame that almost all of them turned out to be huge pieces of shit

I don’t think that is a unique position

I think it‘s weirder, TBH. He‘s a breeder and a misogynist. He wants to do the world a favour by spreading his superior genes as widely as possible so that the next generation is blessed with his amazing intelligence. And of course that has to happen via boy-childs, because girl-childs are inferior and only fit for breeding.

And his public transphobia started in earnest when his daughter came out. Because how dare she take a boy-child away from him and replace them with an icky girl?

I don‘t know what‘s going on inside his head. But my belief is that that‘s what it‘s really about.

That, and there‘s a more directly personal element. When his daughter filed to legally change her name she said that he was a neglectful father and that she no longer wanted to be associated with him. It was at this point that his anti-trans rhetoric took off. Bear in mind that he consented to her gender-affirming care when she was too young to not need a parent‘s permission. He claims he was „tricked“ but she says that he understood fully what he was consenting to. Again, I can‘t know the truth, but I have a million reasons to consider Musk a liar and none to consider her one.

I think he genuinely hates trans people, but I think that he wouldn‘t have had he not had a trans daughter who bruised his fragile ego. And I think that his breeding kink, scientific racism, narcissism, and misogyny feed in to it nicely.

Again, I don‘t know what‘s going on inside his head, but I am strongly of the opinion that had his daughter never a) transitioned or b) brused his ego, he would not be anti-trans in the way that he is now. He‘d probably still be anti-trans because that‘s one of the key right-wing lines of attack, but I don‘t think it would be a particularly big issue for him.

I have 0% of an idea whether this film will be good or not. I have 100% certainty that I will watch it.

Yeah, Irfanview is what I use too. Easy to set up, quick & light, and it‘s actually my go-to for converting a picture into a different format.

Maybe Musk should ask them for some tips on how to do this effectively?

I mean, it‘d be a little weird if they were still born in the 60s, had kids in their teens/20s, and those kids were still kids in 2025. I don‘t really know what anybody complaining is expecting.