MouldyCat
@MouldyCat@feddit.uk
- Comment on Russell Brand found guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault 6 days ago:
This one here from 3 years ago I think - channel4.com/…/russell-brand-in-plain-sight-dispa…
- Comment on Is time up for backyard fireworks? UK ministers weigh partial ban over noise concerns 1 week ago:
Ahh you’re talking about fire crackers, aka bangers! Alright that makes more sense, yes those might be thrown around and they’re not really dangerous. I remember buying a ton of them as a kid while on a trip to France, and then busying myself for the next month blowing up my old model planes. They are a type of firework of course, and they might be loud, but that’s not what OP’s article is about - it’s about display fireworks, rockets. Throwing those around and letting them off in the street is a whole nother ball game.
- Comment on Is time up for backyard fireworks? UK ministers weigh partial ban over noise concerns 1 week ago:
OK so you are talking Europe-wide then, if I’m understanding you right, and not just one small village festival somewhere that you went to one time with your family and didn’t see anyone get hurt.
And I just want to point out that that’s not actually right. The UK isn’t some reckless outlier amongst a sea of responsible European countries. Every major urban area where there are events where the public freely throw fireworks in the street has a massive injury problem and property damage associated with it.
Germany is where I have most experience with, having lived there for several years. They go absolutely mental with fireworks every new year. From about 6pm until 2am, in most major cities, fireworks are set off willy-nilly. People launch them from empty beer bottles, which not surprisingly often fall over. I’ve seen countless fireworks exploding in crowds, one time a firework skittered across the street and blew up right underneath a baby buggy. Needless to say, the baby was distraught. I’ve also seen someone run into the middle of a crossroads, put a large drum thing on the road and light it, it exploded with the most stupendous bang right as a car went past it. I was drinking outside one time when a firework went through an upstairs window down the street and set the apartment on fire. It is absolutely crazy and there is nothing responsible about it.
It’s the same deal in the Netherlands, although I’ve only experienced that first hand one time.
I simply don’t believe it’s any different anywhere this happens. Either the public do not routinely let off fireworks in the street of large cities - like in the UK for instance - or they do, and it’s absolute chaos and
- Comment on Is time up for backyard fireworks? UK ministers weigh partial ban over noise concerns 1 week ago:
That sounds like you’re talking about one small place that’s not well known, which is fine and everything, but you said “places all over Europe manage to successfully allow people to throw fireworks”. That was just an exaggeration then?
- Comment on Is time up for backyard fireworks? UK ministers weigh partial ban over noise concerns 1 week ago:
Where is this fabled golden land of responsible firework use you speak of? I know you’re not talking about Germany, where the streets transform into a warzone every New Year’s Eve. It is the most irresponsible and reckless thing I have ever experienced. Fireworks careen over the street at head height, bounce off buildings, smash through windows. They have special hospital tents set up for all the casualties and the fire service is stretched to its limits.
- Comment on Is time up for backyard fireworks? UK ministers weigh partial ban over noise concerns 1 week ago:
34% of London residents reported noise levels increased
29% average across England and Wales
TBH that doesn’t seem like a lot higher the average, given that it’s London. Presumably you didn’t choose to live in London for the peace and quiet.
Anyway, maybe you could try launching fireworks into the aeroplanes’ flight path. If you cause a serious enough crash, you could get the airport shut down *and* fireworks banned.
- Comment on The myth of "consensual" choking 1 week ago:
that’s *exactly* what I said, last time me and my partner did this!
- Comment on How cocaine conquered the UK: in pubs, festivals and workplaces the drug has become an everyday habit 2 weeks ago:
ah fair enough! good for you for pulling yourself out of the hole before you got further in there.
- Comment on How cocaine conquered the UK: in pubs, festivals and workplaces the drug has become an everyday habit 2 weeks ago:
started doing casual coke about 15 years ago
Coke free 15 years
Not wanting to belittle your accomplishment at all, but if my stoner maths is holding up, doesn’t this mean you had a coke habit for like 7 weeks? Must’ve been a fun 7 weeks at least 😁
- Comment on No politik here 2 weeks ago:
they might be just taking cover. children are dangerous and will bite without warning.
- Comment on What demos have you been playing in the Steam Next Fest? 2 weeks ago:
Just tried one so far - Hela: of Mice & Magic store.steampowered.com/app/…/Hela_of_Mice_Magic/
I felt like something low stress with a beautiful environment, and this is certainly that. You are a mouse and wander around a forest completing a couple of simple quests.
- Comment on Horrified children look on as lollipop man in his 70s struck by car on school crossing 1 month ago:
Unlike in the US, where they carry a gun, and are authorised to use deadly force if anyone attempts to inconvenience car drivers by crossing the road.
- Comment on Horrified children look on as lollipop man in his 70s struck by car on school crossing 1 month ago:
A lemon tree, my dear Sherlock.
- Comment on Horrified children look on as lollipop man in his 70s struck by car on school crossing 1 month ago:
Couldn’t find much more info about the crash than is this article. The driver was charged with driving dangerously while under the influence of illegal drugs (two separate charges). I was initially curious to know how serious it really was, given that a 70 year old chap was hit and was left with a “suspected broken leg”. Just seemed anomalous is all.
Older folk are known for having bones as brittle as chipsticks, so how did he get away with only a suspected fracture? I’m no expert but that must mean the fracture was not dislocated, as that surely would be immediately beyond suspicion. Even with greater pedestrian survivability these days thanks to better car design, this would seem a lot.
What I did find from the few articles out there about this does indicate it was indeed a really serious crash, as the road was closed off for about an hour. The police language used also seems more consistent with a high speed incident rather than a low speed nudge into the lollipop man. So how did he get away so lightly?
I did find one extra detail - two vehicles were involved. Yet only one person has been charged. I’m thinking that what might have happened is our kindly lollipop-wielding friend walked onto the crossing to allow kids to cross, and one car duly came to a stop, but then the drugged-up participant in the proceedings who was too preoccupied snorting lines off the dashboard to notice, walloped into the back of the first car at speed, shunting it forward into said lollipop geezer.
Well it’s all I could think of that would explain it all.
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 1 month ago:
ya … I might have been trolling a little bit 😁
- Comment on I'm right and the other vegans are wrong 2 months ago:
You are smart enough to suffer
Not disagreeing with your overall point, just want to say that being smart is not a prerequisite for suffering. I don’t even think it’s possible to have a “primitive consciousness”, or a “sophisticated consciousness”. A being is either conscious or, well, it simply is not - it doesn’t exist. As an individual, you either exist independently or… you just don’t - not even blackness.
Let’s say that bees are conscious. Each individual bee has a unique internal existence just as you or I have. If you are a human (actually I’m assuming you are) then your experience certainly differs from the experience that a bee has, but that consciousness, that isolated spark of being, that is the same. If you were to shut your eyes and still your mind, and we imagine a bee could also do that (just give them imaginary eyelids for this thought experiment) then both of you would be experiencing the same thing, for that brief time you are both in that state of wordless shapeless existence.
You could perhaps wake up from this meditative state as the bee, coming to with a shake of your head, and fly off away from the flower you’d been resting on. “Woah what a weird dream” you’d think in bee language, then a new enticing fragrance from another flower fills your olfactory glands and you are drawn irresistibly towards it, quickly forgetting that funny dream of being a great big thing stuck heavily to the ground with two arms and legs hanging off your body.
- Comment on I'm right and the other vegans are wrong 2 months ago:
Gay space communist here. I’m not vegan, not even vegetarian - I do however only eat vegetarian at home, and most of the time vegan, but I’ll eat non-vegetarian food when visiting carnivorous friends or even in restaurants, if the veggie options are unappealing.
Honey is something I stopped buying after hearing from vegans about the cruelty in its production - from what I recall, and I did also watch a video or two of the process, queen bees routinely have their legs pulled off to trigger a hive to be built, and while I don’t know if bees are conscious, I know I would never pull the legs off an insect, so I can no longer in good conscience put a pot of honey in my basket as I walk around a supermarket.
Similar logic should also apply to cheese and ice cream, the non-vegan items that I still buy a lot of, but I did try giving up these items for a couple of months, and man I’m sorry baby calves but I just love those things too much.
- Comment on KytyPS5 (PS5 Emulator) can now run GTA V at 60fps for few minutes before crashing 2 months ago:
Beats me. If the USSR had won the Cold War and taken over the world, we’d all have way better games consoles AND they’d be given out for free to everyone who asked.
- Comment on Police seize £200k Lamborghini under tightened antisocial driving laws 2 months ago:
I’d be on your side if I went out of my way to be an asshole.
I sympathise with your unease - it doesn’t seem ideal to allow the police such wide discretionary power, but we don’t live in the ideal world and the fact is there are plenty of arseholes who are not as gracious and accommodating to their local communities as you would be, if you were to choose to be one. These people *do* go out of their way to be arseholes, it’s how they show off to their mates. They deliberately push things as far as they can and they are a fucking nightmare to have as neighbours.
Back in the day, the police would have a quiet word with their fathers at the gentlemen’s club who would then threaten to cut them off - or, if they were working class oiks, they’d shove them in the back of the black Maria, beat them black and blue and drop them off outside town without their shoes.
Something needs to be done. Maybe that means allowing loud brash vehicles to be seized merely after a few complaints are made by the community that the police reasonably believe to be well-founded.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
mmm yeah the messy real world in which we live, the one that has no built-in justice or fairness, in fact the only unchanging law is that the strong have dominion over the weak. That real world, yes. It seems you are acquainted with it.
We are not masters of it. We are very much at its mercy just like all the other creatures on the planet. Care and thoughtfulness is needed when attempting to design and implement public systems that deliver justice and fairness and are sustainable over the long-term.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
yes sorry, I didn’t mean to say you did. I was just saying that a practical solution could be to make water and energy cost more the more of it you use. Right now, there is a tendency for the opposite to happen, mainly for companies, where they are offered better prices per unit the more they use.
I also know people who are somewhat cavalier with their own water and energy use, while others who are less well off are scrimping and saving in order to keep bills low. It seems fine to me that the former are charged double per unit (say). It subsidises the usage of less well-off people and at the same time encourages people to be more economical.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
Why “reasonable”?
Because we live in the real world unfortunately, so compromises are necessary if you want sustainable long-term solutions. Regarding water, desalination has come a long way in the last few years, but extracting drinkable water from the sea is still very energy intensive and it still makes far more sense to collect rain and spring water.
You also mentioned food and energy, and right now these things take human labour to produce and deliver, which ultimately means you’re going to have to pay those workers. The government’s supply of money is limited, and it would not be cheap to nationalise water companies, farms, supermarkets and energy companies in order to allow domestic users free access to those resources.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
Making all domestic usage free sounds great but we do have to encourage reasonable water use. (And energy use.)
Getting rid of the standing charge is an important first step IMO. At the moment it effectively means people with low water usage are subsidising those who use lots of water.
I’d like to see pricing that gets more expensive the more you use. So if you only use what you need for your particular household, you pay a very low price per unit, if not entirely free, and the price per unit keeps increasing the more a household uses per person.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
pumps are cheap enough but they probably increase the chance of blockage due to hair and so on. if you could get it using just gravity it would prob be better from a minimum maintenance viewpoint.
- Comment on Water companies in England and Wales explore ‘surge pricing’ during drought 2 months ago:
I also looked at this recently as I thought that soap would be harmful to plants and/or microbes and the Royal Horticultural Society has done some investigation of their own into the use of greywater, and their advice is “plants can be watered with shower, bath, kitchen and washing machine water (from rinse cycles)”, finding that “soil and potting composts are effective at filtering out” the soap/detergent.
I’m just echoing what @Denjin@feddit.uk with the RHS link, and I didn’t read the articles he linked but it wouldn’t surprise me if the RHS guidance is the source of those.
- Comment on Shopworker sacked for tackling suspected bacon thief 4 months ago:
mate people selling stolen food (and any other goods) at a lower price than the producers themselves has been a thing since forever, it doesn’t say anything about anything.
- Comment on 'A significant moment': UK's latest floating solar farm powers up at Cheshire quarry 5 months ago:
tldr: it’s a private installation which produces power for its owners, Bathgate Silica Sand. It is a 400kW floating photovoltaic (FPV) array of 650 floating solar panels on North Arclid Lake, an artificial lake at the Arclid Quarry in Cheshire.
- Comment on Nearly 500 seriously injured in e-scooter collisions in Great Britain last year 5 months ago:
I’ve driven a little around Portugal, and their roads were the worst I’ve ever driven on. Not just potholes, but the roads were often wonky and/or not flat (think like undulations like waves as you’re driving along), missing road markings etc. The quality drop was really noticeable when you drove from Spain into Portugal. It was about 8 years ago so it’s possible they’ve really got their act together since then, but I’m skeptical about how reliable their data is if Portugal is listed as the country with the 5th best roads in the world…
- Comment on Steam :: About the New York Attorney General lawsuit against Valve 8 months ago:
stop it in physical games as well
I think the connection to physical cards is pretty weak really - the crucial difference being that if you want to get some physical cards, you go out and buy them (or stay in and buy them I guess). You start with nothing except some cash, and you end up with some random cards, which may or may not be valuable.
Loot boxes in F2P games are not like that - you play a free game, have fun and then end up with this “loot box” without having done anything to ask for it. It’s just there in your inventory, and it stays there until you fork over some cash and see what’s inside.
It’s way more of a temptation than physical cards that you won’t encounter until you buy them.
- Comment on The Anatomy of an Impossible Port: Bringing Dead Cells to the R36S 8 months ago:
yes indeed - I had a go at decompilation a little while (wanted to get a mod working on linux) and while it was hella geeky fun, it was very slow and I could tell I didn’t really have a hope of achieving my goal. I can really see how an LLM could turbo-charge that process.
