Dave T-W @davoloid@social.cleverlibre.org

@Free_Press Dude thinks he's Keith from The Prodigy.

@neil Also seems to be a ridiculous effort considering the balance of harm, risk and penalty. The aim is to stop youngsters getting fags, knives and booze, for which there's an accepted harm, and a penalty for the retailer. But given that ID and human judgement is probably right most of the time, the risk of the retailer getting it wrong is probably low, and such errors are not going to massively reduce the attempts by a determined miscreant.

[Citations needed] but I wouldn't have thought the risk to the retailer and society was high enough to warrant this dystopian BS and all the infrastructure and energy costs that go into it.

It was definitely a snub. The creativity, weaving a complex story, honouring Hollywood classics, the sheer joy that exudes from the cast and crew is a testament to Gerwig's skill and confidence as a Director.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/24/barbie-ryan-gosling-margot-robbie-greta-gerwig-oscars-snub
#Oscars #Barbie

"I came across a cache of old photos and invitations to teenage parties..." - Pet Shop Boys, Being Boring.

One aspect of getting older is realising you have to get rid of lots of stuff. Events and memories that we marked at the time, but friends who have moved on, acquaintances on a fun weekend. For me a reminder of good times in my youth, but meaningless to my kids who will one day have to soft through and discard, as my own parents are doing.

So thanks to Matt, Annette, Richard, Maeve, Aoife, Alex and the rest I have forgotten the names of. These were good times, and that's all my kids need to know. It was 1999 and we did party hard in Ireland.

@fulelo Brace yourselves. Don't see this ending positively. :(

Academic colleague telling me yesterday of one of his students that used ChatGPT in an assignment, which referenced a set of non-existent papers. He asked student to provide links as he didn't recognise the authors and was having trouble finding them. Student provided a completely different, unrelated set, and claimed the first batch were "placeholders".
Hmm.

@Free_Press Trolling us with that old map which shows the UK still an active part of the EU. :(

@wellingtonrock My Veblen claxon is sounding. "There is no need of pointing out how prone the men of today are to revert to the spiritual attitude of mastery and of personal subservience... the case of the American colonies might be cited as an example of such a reversion on an unusually large scale."

By sheer coincidence spotted this today. Kettle shut off due to bimetallic strip, not kettle boiling sentience.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1mJYli-aNrI

Er, that's all I have time for 3/3 :)

Chapter 8: Theory of the Leisure Class:
"Since conservatism is a characteristic of the wealthier and therefore more reputable portion of the community, it has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar.
...
The difference in this respect between the wealthy and the common run of mankind lies not so much in the motive which prompts to conservatism as in the degree of exposure to the economic forces that urge a change. The members of the wealthy class do not yield to the demand for innovation as readily as other men because they are not constrained to do so."

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/833/pg833-images.html#link2HCH0008

There's also some great points about how societal changes (e.g. female suffrage, taxes) are framed as to raise fear of chaos and disorder, but also that institutions need to adapt or they will either and die by a process similar to biological evolution.

I will try to assemble these thoughts but I'm still trawling through an economic classic from 1899 which is not my usual bedtime reading.

Once again, I am drawn to Veblen's explanation that conservatism arises as a result of people and institutions largely being unaffected and removed from the consequences of economic change.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/22/england-conservative-politics-tories-labour 1/n