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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

The exception being disappearing polymorphs, which kind of do work like that - a single molecule of a novel compound can make an old compound impossible to produce.

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Reposted by Richard

Senior PowerPoint Engineer @ryxcommar.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

A friendly reminder as Nobel season approaches, the Nobel Prizes are not real Sveriges Riksbank Prizes in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I saw that post and thought it must be the old chestnut of comparing market cap to GDP. The correct comparison is GDP to GW's gross value added, which is basically profits + wage bill.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Imagined victimhood and manufactured grievance are the central pillars of modern conservatism.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's a classic bias seen in the foreign policy of authoritarian states - they're used to the idea that political leaders can order around private entities (even though they pantomime about being independent), and they assume that everywhere else is the same (though maybe to different degrees).

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This was Paul McMullan, of the News of the World, and the woman was Jennifer Elliot. He didn't just take topless pictures, he paid her for sex (which she'd never done before). She did indeed kill herself.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That people drank alcoholic drinks because water wasn't safe is also a myth! Medieval people drank water all the time, and invested a lot in ensuring that safe sources were available. They drank a lot of wine and beer too, but that's because they enjoyed it. www.medievalists.net/2026/05/did-...

medievalists.net

Did Medieval People Drink Water? - Medievalists.net

Did medieval people drink water? Explore the myth that people in the Middle Ages avoided water, and discover what medieval texts, city records, and religious writings reveal about drinking habits.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yep - Ofcom carefully limits what the BBC can offer on iPlayer, to stop it becoming so good that nobody would subscribe to rival streaming services. Here's an example (of the rules being softened, to be fair): www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and...

ofcom.org.uk

Public funding and commercial investment: BBC iPlayer case study

Our next Economics Insights article explains how we assessed the impact of the BBC’s iPlayer proposals on rivals’ investment, balanced against their likely public value.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

We already had a word for that - "gullible"

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I remember this! The story was in late December, the cult made a specific point of the mother being a virgin, and nobody in the media wondered if it was a bit sus.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I don't disagree with you and Stancil on the merits, but I think there's a more important reason to not anthropomorphise - accountability. Language which gives LLMs agency makes it more difficult to ascribe blame to their (human) builders and users for any harm caused.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Ah yes, they mean price signals set arbitrarily by central government. Just like Hayek dreamed of.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Nope, they're being used for a lot of the strikes on Iran, not just as testing/targets. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-cos...

en.wikipedia.org

Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System - Wikipedia

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The reason they all bid the maximum, is because to do otherwise would be to signal that they are lower quality than their peers, which would become self-fulfilling very fast. Kind of the glaring problem in their "price signals" idea.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The current system was never intended to be a uniform rate! They had this whole system planned where all the unis would bid their planned fees, then the DoE would scale them down to hit a target for the average. Everyone just bid the maximum and this was all forgotten.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

About to go on one of the first public tours ever of Lloyd's of London. #openhouse

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This also has the consequence (that I'm sure they're very upset about) of making Israeli/Palestinian intermarriage impossible within the country.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This was the original plot! Before the studio meddled with the script to make it more accessible.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

There's also this SL1 stop on the North Circular in Enfield. Need to cross two lanes of traffic coming off the main road, no crossings or lights at all.

Streetview photo with a bus stop marooned between many busy lanes of fast traffic

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This reminds me of that time that Ronald Reagan claimed to the Israel ambassador that he was present at the liberation of Auschwitz (he never left California during WW2, and spent the war making military training films).

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I believe that it's only an outer layer of bricks, with sandbags and wood and things inside.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Does DD2 keep the thing from DD1 where at night it's actually pitch black? I loved that - made me realise how rare real darkness is in games.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Or just make the bounties really big. The SEC offers a 10-30% cut of the fines paid to whistleblowers. Biggest bounty ever paid to an individual was $279m, with multiple others over $100m.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

This stuff is often the fault of the university comms departments writing press releases. Doesn't make the reporters any less lazy though.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

That's the neat thing - he doesn't.

FT screenshot

All were concerned that James Orr’s increasing political workload leaves him little time to attend to his educational duties. As an Associate Professor, Orr holds full-time research, teaching, and pastoral obligations to students. But his Reform role is also full-time.According to sources, Orr has “hardly ever” been present on campus since the Reform policy appointment, and is making negligible research contributions – both unheard of for such an academic role.On at least one occasion, Orr unilaterally delegated his university lecture obligations to one of his own graduate students. The student, a foreign national, was asked to deliver material which Orr had been contracted by the university to teach. The student was unpaid and carried out the work without a contract. Although formal complaints were raised with the faculty, no disciplinary action was taken against Orr.When Orr does attend lectures, undergraduates have characterised his style as veering between “rambling” and florid, reading long passages of text in their original Greek, Latin, French, and German without translating them for students.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I like how it implies that most people are scared of people who own lots of books.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Was it gluten free bread? That's the only rational explanation I can think of.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Then I'm not too late! Go to the private equity firm on the corner, and buy the fattest P/E ratio public company they have in the window. Be quick and there will be a shiny sixpence in your bonus this year!

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Strength is harder in games made in the past decade though! Slightly mistime the windup for your enormous hammer and you get wrecked.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

It feels important to note, as it's not the case that Jews enjoy greater protection from racism than other minorities in the UK. Anti-Semitism is widespread in UK media and politics, and isn't taken seriously except for being used as a tool for beating up random leftists and brown people.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

He very much did say that about the Jewish community.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The pool itself functions as a long-duration energy storage system, to a large extent.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Ever been to the dunes which cover a huge amount of the Dutch coastline? Not big peaks, but constantly up and down for hours at a time on a bike.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

There's a reason that car adverts always show the car being driven down a deserted road, with no other cars in sight.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

His wife killed a guy by running a stop sign. I don't think she was drunk though (she was never charged, and probably never breathalysed though, so I guess we'll never know).

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I think that's kid of the point. ULEZ is a very mild policy - only covering part of London, only impacting a tiny minority of car owners, imposing a fee rather than a ban. And it still led to massive controversy.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

You're right - the quoted section he posted is from JKR's notorious blog post, not from Parton.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

The "Prices" knob is actually in the Fed building.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Largely agreed, though their support of Nguema in Equatorial Guinea is a bit of a stain on that whole operation.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I can see an alternative timeline where the exact same people are outraged about people not saying "UK" as they're trying to delete the word "King" from our identity.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The original Grainger judgment is actually quite well-written, and specifically rebuts many of the more recent judgments supposedly based on it. www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKE...

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

... The rest was done by overactive courts. The original guidance issued alongside the legislation gave racism as an extreme example of a belief obviously not protected by law. And now here we are.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Have you done the deep dive into how "philosophical beliefs" ended up in this absurd legal situation? The law originally only protected religious beliefs, including atheism/agnosticism, then a pedantic lord pointed out those aren't religions and the wording changed last-minute...

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Near me there's endless confusion caused by a cycle lane with multiple pedestrian crossings with lights on the road. Some have white stop lines on the cycle lane, some don't.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

There's a fun Mr Bean bit where he sees a cyclist dismount and push his bike past a red light, so he gets out of his car and pushes it through the junction.

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Richard @folkparanoia.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Due to the incremental nature of advances in AI, any eventual basilisk will be the stupidist possible basilisk. The MVB.

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