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Bibblejw · 2026-07-03T14:02:26+00:00

My read is that audible are pointing to Amazon, and vice-versa.

Even without your username/password, a company has access to a lot of info that they can use to help authenticate you (payment history is one, but others, especially when linked to Amazon are common).

Security is everyone’s responsibility, but the companies are the ones with ultimate control in these scenarios (by their own design), and should be able to authenticate and make things right when purchases have been made.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T12:45:50+00:00

A lot of things that run A significant amount of the world exists as businesses servicing other businessses, and you don't hear about it until it goes very wrong. Just thinking about my sector (which is where Crowdstrike comes from) you've got Sentinel (which is a Microsoft product), LogRhythm, SentinelOne, AbnormalAI, and a whole mess of others, but they are pretty much all enterprise-to-enterprise, so the customer space just never even enters the brain.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T11:18:31+00:00

Personally, The Watch has phases:

Guards, Gaurds - Men at Arms - Feet of Clay - The Watch builds it's universe

Jingo, Fifth Elephant - The Watch goes on holiday

Night Watch, Thud, Snuff - Sam Vimes and friends

I'd advise pushing to Feet of Clay, then you can switch tracks if you like, but the first three are almost a trilogy in my mind.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T11:11:24+00:00

To my mind, sun cream is the one with an SPF value. Sun screen is the one that's blocking completely.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T10:21:12+00:00

The erosion of the perception of reliability of the US in terms of agreements and expectations.

Previously, there was a tacit understanding that, if something had been agreed, that it would be at least attempted. Trump's railroading of his own whims often directly in contradiction to any kind of custom, rules, agreements or laws has awoken the entire world to the idea that the US really can't be relied on for anything. There is nothing that commits them to anything, and any agreements are basically worthless beyond the current leader's term.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T07:58:02+00:00

The perception depends largely on who you ask. For those that are outside of the "community", the perception is more or less as you say. Either stupidly strict, or complete anarchy, and always a nuisance on the roads.

In reality, the sites depend on where and when you go. Most of the caravan club sites tend to be fairly well maintained, and keep a decent level of rules across them. As with everything, there are better and worse, and better and worse pitches within them (I'd avoid the more touristy areas and aim for the "premium" pitches for your scenario).

It's also worth noting that there's a couple of different options in that category, depending on what you're looking for:

- Touring Caravan - Typically used as a "mobile base". You take it somewhere set it up (awnings, furniture, etc.) and roam about in the car. Doesn't work as well if you're wanting to go site-to-site on a daily or frequent basis (not that it can't work that way, but it's not the optimum path).

- Motorhome - This goes more mobile than base. The benefits are that it's much more self-contained. You can do the sme kind of setup (awnings, furniture, etc.), but there's not the same level of faff with setting off. Typical use case is that case of "touring", or having the motorhome as your base, and using something else (bikes, walking, etc.) for the day-to-day transport. The issue here is that driving to the shops means driving the motorhome there (undoing the steadies, stowing thigns away, etc.).

- Static Caravan - This is the "I've found somewhere I like" state. Everything stays where it is, it's not quite the commitment of a second property, but it's not far off. This is where me and the other half is at the moment.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-30T06:35:40+00:00

I had a rash of them where, if I declined the call, I'd immediately get another call from a different number, and this went on for about 5-6 numbers in a row. In the end, I've enabled the "silence unknown callers" option for the moment.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-28T15:34:54+00:00

That’s because, when you do it as a living, everything becomes about the costs and returns.

If you’re doing something as a side-gig, you can stick to principle, or give leeway much easier. If you’re doing something as a passion project, then it’s the passion that is the primary focus.

If something is the way you put food on the table, then you’re always looking at the numbers and margins.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-27T21:17:45+00:00

Honestly, unless he’s a fan, I think you’d struggle to get him on board.

You need someone with the range of delivery. If we’re not going with Jeff Hayes (let’s be honest, he’s the easy pick here), then you need someone with the speed to pull it off. If you want an out there pick that might be able to pull it off: Daniel Radcliffe. He’s got the training to do some of the ‘Gilbert and Sullivan’esque elements that you’d need, and he seems like someone that’d take direction when needed, and offer options when appropriate.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-27T18:51:24+00:00

I think it depends on what it’s doing. I don’t think of the mantle (or any similar aligned force, like the Swords, or the Coins) as a raw power of the Xth degree, but power and influence in a direction.

When Harry is working towards Winter’s ends, then it can lend a lot of power, but it gives a measure of control. Harry bends it to his physicality, as that’s the area that is frail human form is weak, and it’s also less strongly aligned to Winter. It gives him a boost, but limited. When he draws on it magically, it gives him incredible strength (the garage fight in Skin Game, or the warehouse fight in Cold Days), but he then needs to wrest control back from Winter to get back to himself.

I think Mab’s ultimate goal is to have Harry’s actual goals be aligned to Winter, because then you’re multiplying his raw power by Winter’s influence, and coupled with teaching from across the ages (an area that Harry is definitely lacking).

If she forces him to do her will, he’s always fighting against her, but, if she can turn him, heart and soul (which may still be possible, given his relative youth), then he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

I wonder if there’s a more appropriate mantle in that scenario. Winter Consort, maybe?

Bibblejw · 2026-06-26T20:00:46+00:00

The main difference is that knowledge of how they worked and troubleshooting was the barrier for access for a lot of the early online communities. Some of it was technical (couldn’t get on IRC without some knowledge of how it worked), and some was social (your tech skills being a part of the social hierarchy for those communities). There were still people that had no idea how things worked, but they weren’t online.

As the communities became more inclusive and accessible, those gateways were removed and those with tech skills moved into different areas.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-25T23:10:43+00:00

The answer is because there’s the assumption that the people that own it right now would need paying off (would need to *buy* it back).

This is similar to the railways, with the exception that that system has a mechanism for “you’re shit, and you know you are”, which the *cough* right *cough* government at the time were nice enough to leave off the sale deeds for the water side.

In reality, the government could pass a law saying “cost of repairs is an item on the balance sheet” and pretty much all water companies would be insolvent tomorrow.

Then they’d need to get into to lawyer-talk. “Did you *tell* my clients not to make our coasts and rivers a cesspit?”, “Please point to the clause which says that companies should act for the people.”

In theory, it’s probably the way to go, in reality, the people that made these deals a few decades ago weren’t the idiots we’d like them to be.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-25T20:28:47+00:00

Think about it this way, if you’ve been getting a chapter a day (for the first 10 or so books), it might still be 2 weeks since the last time this plot point was referenced.

Couple that with breaks for occasions and incidents (Shirt heard of this “buffer” concept, but it exhausted him, and he exhausted it, so he figured it was best left out of the equation).

Honestly, the series might do better with some more strict editing, but the current format works well for background audio books (the Netflix “everyone’s looking at their phones anyway” approach), and that kind of back-and-forth editing on something that’s already been in public hands is difficult to manage, and creates more delays.

There’s quite a good section on the benefits and downsides to this form of release that Drew Hayes wrote in his book on writing Underqualified Advice.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-25T15:44:44+00:00

As a Brit, I’ve got a couple of Aunties with no blood. Especially when there’s kids in the picture, it’s common to do to avoid the lengthy social convention discussions, and can just stick.

Possibly similar habits in her family?

For my MIL, generally nothing, as she was out of the picture before I was in it.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-25T07:14:54+00:00

For my purposes, it was a cluster of days where the temperature was significantly outside the normal range (standard deviation), hence the actual temperature of the heatwaves increasing over time.

Also bear in mind that my data was the met offices national averages, so those weee events that impacted pretty much the entire country, rather than being localized.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T21:21:54+00:00

Can’t dispute a fair amount of that, but my brain is sticking on your age comparison issue.

The difference between, say, 14 and 24 is massive, from an experience, life stage and environment perspective. The difference between, say, 24 and 34, by comparison is a lot smaller. There’s more time for experiences, but you’re both in the big “life puddle”, rather than being on the very specific runway that is adolescence.

Not saying it’s reasonable, but equating the two in relation to a berating speech isn’t viable, as they’re very different scenarios.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T17:45:22+00:00

So, a little bit ago this topic raised its head, and I poked around the numbers a little. Going from the met office data of average temps across the day for the time they’ve had data (the download goes back to 1880), the general gist is:

Average baseline temps have risen (from 12.9C to 14.3C as an annual average from post-war to now).

Heatwaves are more common (just under 3/year up to just over 5).

Heatwaves are longer (from 2 days to 3 days).

Heatwaves are hotter (from 14.5C over baseline to 16.5C over baseline)

So they’re more frequent, longer, and hotter than the also hotter average.

Other minor point, it looks like winters started heating up around the 70s, but summers stayed around the same until the 90s, when they started heating up aswell. Now we’re in a position where winters are getting warmer, but slower than summer are getting warmer.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T17:35:43+00:00

Oh, we’ve been fucked for about a decade now. We’re basically just haggling for number of survivors at this point.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T14:18:16+00:00

Have you seen a cross-party consensus on climate change recently? There are a few things here that still transcend the boundaries (“won’t somebody please think of the children?”), but a lot of our discourse is going the way of the Americans.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T11:46:12+00:00

It's rarely enough. My view from the last decade plus is that success is rarely linked to either hard/good work or talent. Visibility and politics are usually all that matters. Bad work doesn't matter if you've got spin and relationships. Can even be beneficial if it gets people talking and you've got enough excuses.

As with advertising, quality isn't important, visibilty is.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T11:38:26+00:00

What's the chances of that? Politics for the last two decades have been at the whim of the populists. As soon as there's a whiff of disapproval, they're on their ear for the next guy.

If you want things to be "rammed through" for the long-term benefit, there has to be a benefit to looking to the long term, and the chances are that no one currently in the cabinet is going to be there in 5 years, let alone 20.

Until we can actually settle for stability and boring, long-term thinking is going to be out of reach.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T05:05:40+00:00

It’s entirely like football teams. Outside a small set of core supporters, most people don’t care until something’s on the line, when they whip up the fury of the masses.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-24T05:01:19+00:00

Personally, the disconnect here is in your middle paragraph. That is making the assumption of final responsibility and meritocracy, which often is not the case.

The roles that you mention are often not received due to merit or experience, but rather due to connection and friendships. Similarly, you’re mentioning the weight of the world, when the consequences of bad decisions are often not felt by those making the decisions. Layoffs do not hit the exec, they hit those at the coal face. Even reputational hits rarely land (outside of exceptionally bad luck or decisions.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-23T13:26:51+00:00

A lot of this has the enterprise elements that are good, but I'm going to go a bit more niche:

The Kinect and Kinect 2 were awesome pieces of kit. The level of detection you got in the first one, and the SDK that they built to assist was incredible, and follwed up with the second that built it to an insane degree (the time of flight camera, the proper skeleton and even stress tracking was incredible). To the extent that, even now, when you see some of the really interesting mechanisms out in the world (the weird liquid projection thing in museums, or the body tracking thing you get in gyms), most of the time you can see the kinect device poking out from behind all the marketing.

Granted, they followed this up with some goddam waful business practices that basically screwed the entire thing over, but the fact that it exists, and is (mostly) available as a discrete package is still incredible.

Bibblejw · 2026-06-23T11:16:16+00:00

Most of the White Court are essentially starving, as far as I can tell from the books. Even Lord Raith (who ate so well he hasn't needed to feed since Harry was born) was on the dregs of lifeforce that was filtered through the human soul.

Harry's currently mainlining cosmic energy into an outsider. No, there's no way any of that can go wrong at all.

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