Chris in the weeds
@chrisintheweeds.bsky.social
Gardener, dad, language geek, programmer, sinister leftie (🙌), rat-adjacent, permanently bemused. Open to friendly discussion about most things. He/him/any.
If you consider social media bans or censorship without age verification to be authoritarian, then I think most Anglophone countries are doing them or thinking about it, including some US states.
December 11, 2025 at 7:38 AM
If you consider social media bans or censorship without age verification to be authoritarian, then I think most Anglophone countries are doing them or thinking about it, including some US states.
If there's an audience for Bakeoff, it'll still happen even if the state stops forcing people to fund it.
December 10, 2025 at 9:46 PM
If there's an audience for Bakeoff, it'll still happen even if the state stops forcing people to fund it.
And in terms of entertainment, it's not obvious to me why we should subsidise it. If the point is just to keep British content, either just mandate a percentage of local content on all networks like I believe France does, subsidise the producers by competitive tender, not the broadcaster.
December 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM
And in terms of entertainment, it's not obvious to me why we should subsidise it. If the point is just to keep British content, either just mandate a percentage of local content on all networks like I believe France does, subsidise the producers by competitive tender, not the broadcaster.
We already have Fox (GB News), plus the BBC busy promoting Reform. I don't really see how we don't already have the US problem.
December 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM
We already have Fox (GB News), plus the BBC busy promoting Reform. I don't really see how we don't already have the US problem.
That’s fine, if you want the Beeb you can keep paying for it without taxing the rest of us.
December 10, 2025 at 10:56 AM
That’s fine, if you want the Beeb you can keep paying for it without taxing the rest of us.
At this stage I‘d be happy if we could just abolish the TV license fee and let the Beeb fend for itself.
December 9, 2025 at 11:24 PM
At this stage I‘d be happy if we could just abolish the TV license fee and let the Beeb fend for itself.
I stopped reading and watching it some time ago because a mixture of bland triangulation seasoned with random spikes of propaganda is not my cup of tea.
December 9, 2025 at 11:22 PM
I stopped reading and watching it some time ago because a mixture of bland triangulation seasoned with random spikes of propaganda is not my cup of tea.
BBC News is worthless nowadays. It’s unwilling to tell the truth or delve into anything controversial if it might upset current or future governments, and it is blatantly biased on certain topics that either favour the government or that it knows it won’t be punished for (pro Israel, pro Reform...).
December 9, 2025 at 11:21 PM
BBC News is worthless nowadays. It’s unwilling to tell the truth or delve into anything controversial if it might upset current or future governments, and it is blatantly biased on certain topics that either favour the government or that it knows it won’t be punished for (pro Israel, pro Reform...).
I didn't get out early enough in the first Trump crash when he started doing all his tariff grandpa stuff, but I'm going to sit out the second Trump market crash.
December 8, 2025 at 11:27 PM
I didn't get out early enough in the first Trump crash when he started doing all his tariff grandpa stuff, but I'm going to sit out the second Trump market crash.
I never really got past that stage when I rolled my own a few times. Design HTML templates, write server side code to render posts into templates, write code for admin page, burn out, never add any more features.
December 8, 2025 at 11:24 PM
I never really got past that stage when I rolled my own a few times. Design HTML templates, write server side code to render posts into templates, write code for admin page, burn out, never add any more features.
Sadly it's not loading right now... but doing a blogging platform well is a surprisingly big investment of time, if you want something with all the flashy features instead of just rendering more or less static content from a database as HTML and having an admin section to add new posts.
December 8, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Sadly it's not loading right now... but doing a blogging platform well is a surprisingly big investment of time, if you want something with all the flashy features instead of just rendering more or less static content from a database as HTML and having an admin section to add new posts.
What are you using? Or is it a custom build?
December 8, 2025 at 8:05 PM
What are you using? Or is it a custom build?
Honestly, the RR / web serial doesn't really work for me that well. I like the idea of a big, self-contained lump of content.
December 6, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Honestly, the RR / web serial doesn't really work for me that well. I like the idea of a big, self-contained lump of content.
It's a long one! I sometimes read things on RR, but I won't start unless there's about a book's worth of content usually. Because otherwise the dribble gets annoying and I eventually forget/lose interest.
December 6, 2025 at 11:19 AM
It's a long one! I sometimes read things on RR, but I won't start unless there's about a book's worth of content usually. Because otherwise the dribble gets annoying and I eventually forget/lose interest.
Casanova must have been really depressed (I have not read what he wrote about his own life, but it sounds like he wasted too much of it on pointless games).
December 6, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Casanova must have been really depressed (I have not read what he wrote about his own life, but it sounds like he wasted too much of it on pointless games).
Not saying all men are naturally monogamous, and I'm sure there's plenty of guys who enjoy wife + mistress type setups, but the serial one night stand or casual hookup type version of this is pointless massive investment for a few moments of empty pleasure.
December 6, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Not saying all men are naturally monogamous, and I'm sure there's plenty of guys who enjoy wife + mistress type setups, but the serial one night stand or casual hookup type version of this is pointless massive investment for a few moments of empty pleasure.
This is true. I think a somewhat typical male arc is starting off thinking you want lots of sex because that's just the default cultural assumption, and if you ever achieve it at any point in your life outside the context of some kind of ongoing connection, realising it's empty and depressing.
December 6, 2025 at 11:09 AM
This is true. I think a somewhat typical male arc is starting off thinking you want lots of sex because that's just the default cultural assumption, and if you ever achieve it at any point in your life outside the context of some kind of ongoing connection, realising it's empty and depressing.
One very critical factor in building and maintaining a deep relationship is ongoing major investment of time and interest.
December 6, 2025 at 11:02 AM
One very critical factor in building and maintaining a deep relationship is ongoing major investment of time and interest.
Tfw the world forces you to made trade-offs. You can go for breadth, but then you sacrifice on depth. It's pretty hard to have a "deep committed love" person and a separate "amazing sex person I want to spend sweaty weekends with".
December 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Tfw the world forces you to made trade-offs. You can go for breadth, but then you sacrifice on depth. It's pretty hard to have a "deep committed love" person and a separate "amazing sex person I want to spend sweaty weekends with".
The original inspiration was this diagram from Foley's grammar of Yimas, which is kind of impressionistic where newer grammars would probably just include a more precise scatter chart of measured vowel qualities or something.
December 6, 2025 at 10:54 AM
The original inspiration was this diagram from Foley's grammar of Yimas, which is kind of impressionistic where newer grammars would probably just include a more precise scatter chart of measured vowel qualities or something.
and getting it to do all the adjustments without unwinding past improvements accidentally is also painful to impossible.
I can never get TikZ to do anything without either a lot of experimentation or getting an LLM to produce a prototype that's 50% of the way. It is not an easy library to use.
I can never get TikZ to do anything without either a lot of experimentation or getting an LLM to produce a prototype that's 50% of the way. It is not an easy library to use.
December 6, 2025 at 10:54 AM
and getting it to do all the adjustments without unwinding past improvements accidentally is also painful to impossible.
I can never get TikZ to do anything without either a lot of experimentation or getting an LLM to produce a prototype that's 50% of the way. It is not an easy library to use.
I can never get TikZ to do anything without either a lot of experimentation or getting an LLM to produce a prototype that's 50% of the way. It is not an easy library to use.