David F Porteous

No idea why the web pulls that image. I don't really understand internets, I've been faking it since '96.

Saw a message - "ChatGPT is down. Now I have to use my brian."

Chef's kiss, no notes.

Clearly I've lobbed a hand grenade here. As usual - I apologise for nothing.

Sure. But before you get too impressed, remember anything you build in layers with pasta sheets is a "lasagne" by default, and anything you build in layers can be either or both a "lasagne" or a "trifle" - and this is essentially "an ecumenical matter". Hope that's useful.

I feel like there's a physics-based solution for this. A heat exchange between the "beer jacket" and some "piss trousers" that works to keep your legs warm and your beer cold. Patent pending.

Phan confirmation is the best, least surprising news of the week.

Yeah. I hear that. Perfection is the thing that aborted every diary I ever tried to write.

A square-faced Scottish man in a shirt, tie, and dark suit looks to the right and ponders the fate of the world as he stands in a black void.

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Thinking about this. I'd bleep the names and let people guess.

A figure of Kamille Bidan from Zeta Gundam holding a handgun, accompanied by the text: I'm joining the war on autism on the side of the autism

Outrageous baiting.

It decidedly was not. It also made me realise I do not have the kind of lips that lipstick likes.

This happens to everyone, right?

This is the weight loss plan we need. Not 10,000 steps, but 50 kicks, 50 punches, 1 hand grenade.

Passed 70,000 words in the book today. Is this half way? Unclear. It's part of my approach to writing that I know how the book finishes, but I don't know everything that needs to happen between here and there.

Like a week ago "After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young crept into my head. Delightful, honkily-twanky song with a name and context I don't understand. It's very much like an owl that somehow got trapped in a banjo.

Continuously harassing Abbott about these remarks does no-one any good. And - frankly - none of the people who are harassing her have done a fraction of the work she has on antiracism over decades.

The comments of Diane Abbott on the fact that visual minorities experience discrimination in different ways than other minorities are *obviously* true. It isn't antisemitic to say that you can see a black person half a mile away, but you can't tell if someone is Jewish just by looking at them.

Also beside the point - but full tab indents? Abomination.

Do you think - in all seriousness - sex work would be seen differently if it was all "hand stuff"? Like massage and hairdressing are.

I agree. In which case the arguments for prohibiting it are even worse. If someone is genuinely choosing sex work over a variety of other work choices, it's very difficult (~impossible) to demonstrate social harm.

And frankly, shouldn't people be allowed to sell sex? We're clearly *not* fixing poverty, income equality, housing costs, tertiary education costs, childcare costs. Let's have the morality machine guns pointed at root problems rather than intermediate/poor solutions.

I think the initial premise appeals to people - punish men who buy sex - but that's a political solution. It doesn't actually make women who sell sex any safer, or discourage or disincentivise women selling sex. (Also, a lot of men sell sex, but the discussion is always around heteronormative roles)

...on-street prostitution declined massively in (this is all from memory, I encourage you not to cite me) Denmark between 1994 and 2020 after they introduced a similar law. Because of course it did. Everyone got a mobile phone. It all went online.

Prostitution is "legal" in Scotland for a given value of legal. Regan has been pushing for a bill which would criminalise paying for sex, but not receiving money for sex. It's based on total nonsense - the consultation on the bill was launched with evidence that said that...

Sorry I'm coming to this late. As you might expect, she's an idiot. Hope that helps.

I really wish I remembered anything we talked about. Racist fish sounds great :)

The AI revolution's greatest achievement might be to help us realise what rubbish we've spent our time on until now - compliance that nobody reads, reports with no effect, a continuous email churn. But so far, we're only learning to pretend to excel at thing that don't matter.

With alcohol and drug abuse and associated criminality, the root problem is often (I'd even say usually) despair rather than chemical addiction. So perhaps they should try banning people from feeling worthless, lonely, hopeless, etc. Just ban "being sad" in the county.

This is a monstrosity.