almostwitty

1. Only 3% of people post toxic messages online. But they produce 1/3 of the messages.

(tags:discussion psychology harrassment )

2. Grima Wormtongue's links to Saruman the White 'didn't raise alarms' during vetting process

(tags:lotr politics uk satire )

3. Epstein Backed 'Billionaires' Dinner' Network of Prominent Anti-Trans Figures

(tags:LGBT transgender bigotry OhForFucksSake )

1998: Geoffrey Robinson loan affair

Peter Mandelson accepted a £373,000 unsecured interest-free loan from businessman and fellow minister Geoffrey Robinson to buy a house. He did not declare this loan or inform Prime Minister Tony Blair about it, or his permanent secretary. As the story emerged, he gave false and misleading statements to the Commons Committee.
This led to his resignation as Trade and Industry Secretary.

2001: The Hinduja passports affair

Peter Mandelson, then a government minister with responsibility for the Millennium Dome, denied any personal involvement in supporting successful UK passport applications made by Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, super-wealthy businessmen brothers, who had expressed an interest in contributing to the costs of the Dome after their initial passport applications had been refused.
Mandelson is revealed to have lied, and is forced to resign for misleading conduct.

2009-10: Epstein relationship

Peter Mandelson downplays and minimises his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in ways that were shown to be false around 2019-20, when press investigations revealed that he had had multiple meetings with Epstein, had stayed at his home, and had been introduced by Epstein to major figures in global finance. This relationship was shown to have continued after Epstein’s conviction.

2024: Keir Starmer appoints Peter Mandelson as British Ambassador to the United States.

2026: Keir Starmer expresses shock and outrage that Peter Mandelson lied to him.

1. From Crisis to Comeback: The Aral Sea's Recovery

(tags:kazakhstan sea GoodNews )

2. Some good news about writing.

(tags:writing ai comic funny )

3. 'Lord Of The Rings' Reader Can't Believe How Long It Taking Sam And Frodo To Fuck

(tags:satire slash lotr funny )

4. If I was as terrible a person as this, I don't think I'd tell the world about it.

(tags:relationships OhForFucksSake )

5. Epstein celebrated Brexit and 'return to tribalism'

(tags:conspiracy uk europe OhForFucksSake )

I came in the front door to find Sophia lying there waiting for me.

(She leapt up, gave me a hug, demanded to know what was for dinner, and then lay back down to watch videos.)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. Vitamin D cuts heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

(tags:vitaminD heart )

2. Democrats flip Texas state Senate seat in shock upset

(tags:politics USA )

3. Evidence beats ideology: What Hampstead Ponds tells us about trans inclusion

(tags:LGBT transgender UK )

4. Who Goes Nazi? (A newspaper article from 1941)

(tags:nazis history viaKenny )

5. Why was the Puppet Masters movie so bad?

(tags:movies heinlein scripts writing )

6. I have no mouth and I must scream at Black people: Scott Adams, 1957-2026

(tags:dilbert history politics obituary )

7. Following the link about a "running a bookshop" holiday, I was recommended the game "Tiny Bookshop"

(tags:games books shops )

8. A Crisis comes to Wordle: Reusing old words! |

(tags:words game doom )

9. Did people drink water in the Middle Ages?

One of the oddest myths about the Middle Ages is that people did not drink water.
(tags:water history )

10. Inside the Salford secondary school where every pupil gets a job when they leave (because they're properly supported)

(tags:school children )

There's been a bit of a fuss today about the unveiling of a third Edinburgh tram line route. And my thoughts about it aren't simple enough to stick into a link title, so I thought I'd ramble a little.

Firstly, it seems to me that this is not a council announcement of anything. The map is plastered with the repeated word "concept". It contains both Picardy Place and York Place (Picardy Place was created when York Place was removed, when the tram extension was carried out in 2023). I've seen discussions that it's based on an old version of the existing routes taken from Wikipedia.

The source is a Scotsman article, rather than a council publication. And even then the coverage is mostly taken from a speech given at the Rail in Scotland conference - where the council's transport convener said he "was excited at taking a closer look" - but it's not the main priority. Certainly there's nothing on the council's news page mentioning it.

So I'm not convinced that this is more than a "Here's an interesting possibility"

Secondly, I'm not convinced it's viable financially. Which isn't to say that trams, in general, can't be worthwhile. If Edinburgh hadn't badly botched the construction of the first tram line then it would be well in profit now. But that tram line runs from one of the most densely populated parts of the city (Leith Walk) to one of the business hubs (Gyle and Gogar), through some of the most touristy stretches (Princes Street).

Much though I love the idea of a tram that literally stops in my road and goes to both the airport and Portobello, nearly the whole route is low-density. The bus route that is closest to it is the 38, which is so low-use outside of rush hour that it's a single-decker that has to be subsidised.

Admittedly, it's cheaper to build than a new tram line, as it's mostly a question of re-using the old train line. But I'd like to see a concrete business case for it, that checked that the number of potential users would support running tram-trains along that route.

Fairly sure that this used to be a bath.

Before Sophia watched a video on how to make the perfect comfy hideaway.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Nature is looking particularly fractal this morning.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. The behavioral cost of personalized pricing

(tags:business psychology shopping )

2. Television is 100 years old today

(tags:TV history technology )

3. More Brits now watch YouTube than the BBC

(tags:BBC YouTube )

4. Elden Ring! Vs! Nietzsche!

(tags:games video )

5. A judge has ruled that RuneScape gold pieces are real property, which is bad news for the ex-dev accused of stealing 705 billion of them

(tags:crime law intellectual_property UK games )

6. The mountain that weighed the Earth

(tags:history physics mountains earth )

7. Nobody Likes Ice (as told by meteorologists)

(tags:usa politics fascism video funny viaKalimac weather ice )

8. How they fix potholes in Cambridgeshire

(tags:roads cambridge )

In a slightly more sensible world this would be a perfect time for the One Nation/Moderate Conservatives to say "Thank goodness all of the far right monsters have left the party, time to pull the party back towards the center".

But I'm not convinced there are more than a few of them left.