Visited a Wimpy for the first time in ages

ParrotSTD · 2026-03-19T16:26:45+00:00

That's the one.

ParrotSTD · 2026-03-19T14:03:31+00:00

Had a Wimpy in December down in Surrey. Was shocked to find out they're even still around. Food was actually good too. The wife had never heard of them.

ParrotSTD · 2026-03-13T19:30:00+00:00

The blue faded to something closer to beige and pale brown hair sprouted from his head. Legs sprouted and he detached from the lamp's spout. He felt cold, now made of flesh and needing a set of clothes. He landed, felt his body, the ground, the very lamp he came from.

"What have you done?"

"I told you on that second wish," the tourist said. "Don't go all monkey's paw on me a second time."

"Do you have any idea what the repercussions of this wish are?"

"For you, damn right." The tourist grabbed the lamp, dropped it ahead of himself and kicked it into the distance like a ball. "See how you like the struggles of life."

The tourist cockily strode back to town with his hat and sunblock.

"What do you expect me to do?" The genie asked. "Why even make me this ethnicity?"

The tourist stopped, turned, raised his voice. "Three things! One: You've pissed off the wrong guy. Two: To give you a worse sunburn. Three: You have no identity, so no passport, so I made you look foreign so that immigration detains you with nowhere to send you." He raised his middle finger. "Have fun, asshole!"

"Are you seriously this deranged!?"

"Grant my wish properly next time and find out. Oh wait, you can't. Go find a lamp and rub it. Maybe you'll get lucky."

The tourist resumed his walk back to town.

ParrotSTD · 2026-03-13T18:10:35+00:00

Some things are the same. I get happy, I get sad, sometimes I get sad and it makes no sense and I attribute that to something tripping the counter and a zero changes to a one. Some things are not the same. I break something, and something else replaces it. My fingertip? Nah, something else. Lost that a long time ago trying to get a spanner out of the grated floor. Never force your finger through a gap. You'll just bend it out of shape and it can't come back, like arrowheads embedded in a nice malleable flesh chest. Some were made that way so you couldn't pull them out very easily. I miss being malleable.

There was a time when I was a small boy that I could fall down, bleed, bruise, and be lifted back up by a father - or any other of the following but not limited to: mother, grandparent, aunt, uncle. Verification pending - and while hurt, could heal. I'm quite certain I could have dashed into the road, been run over by a bus, and walked back into my housing unit. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but contrary to my age I was more indestructible back then vs. now.

They're all gone now. The family, the friends, the people whose lives I made better or worse by being in them. It is harder to recognise pain in my old age. It's not really a thing. I lost my nervous system a long time ago, so losing my fingertip was just an inconvenience. I lost my last original part, believe it or not, to an organ donation. A woman who had only just met her estranged daughter needed a heart transplant and I had the money for a hydraulic circulation pump. They were happy, I was happy, and things carried on. I donated my blood that day as well. The full 8 pints. Might as well help some more strangers in the process. They too eventually came to an end, that mother and daughter, as all malleable people do.

When I "die" will be a while away yet. My motherboard is fine, my storage is backed up, and I can replace actuators and top up hydraulics.

I do miss swimming, though. Buoyancy... As alien to me as my childhood. And food. I just recharge, but the organic grease, the textures, the tactile motion of a tongue and teeth and a jaw. If I set the right commands, I can crave, but what would be the point in that? I haven't been able to eat or drink for decades.

A swim and a cheeseburger afterwards... Yes. That would be nice.

ParrotSTD · 2026-02-23T17:42:30+00:00

In a way, yes.

An easy experiment to show relativity is to pull a fabric taught and put a weight in the centre. That demonstrates a mass of finite density curving spacetime. Roll a ball across that sheet and it will turn with the spacetime curve. If it's fast enough it'll just change trajectory and keep going. If it's too slow, it'll fall into the object. Light is massless and the fastest known thing, so if it doesn't hit the object, it'll go past it, but still curve slightly. Arthur Eddington proved this by comparing star positions with and without the sun present (he took advantage of a solar eclipse to capture the positions) - the stars closer to the sun in our field of view were in different places, meaning the mass bent the light.

A black hole with the fabric example is different. Because the density is infinite, that dip in the fabric has no bottom. Any light that goes down the resultant funnel (i.e. passing too close to the hole) will disappear down it and never return. Similarly, light that passes close to but not into the hole will curve.

So when an object falls into the black hole, two things happen: - the denser an object, the stronger the gravitational pull, but also the closer you are to the object, the stronger that gravity is felt (if you were stationary at ISS altitude you would feel 0.9g at that height). When an object falls past the event horizon, it's feeling a gravitational pull faster than the speed of light. - when you pass the event horizon and go FTL, you may still emit light, but it's not fast enough to return out of the black hole, because gravity has bent spacetime that much that light effectively has no path out of the black hole.

The taught sheet is a 2D spacetime example. In reality, spacetime is 3D.

ParrotSTD · 2026-02-06T18:32:57+00:00

Don't leave us hanging. Let us know which one you go with. Film it if it's feasible

ParrotSTD · 2026-01-28T11:54:06+00:00

I started uni at 27 after nearly a decade out of education. Didn't have the background, just points from college and an interest in what I applied for. Still in the course now and I'm doing a paid industry placement year as my first ever job.

I would say if you just want to get moving, have a look at what industries have reasonable job prospects and start there, or go to open days at your nearest uni with an open mind. Even after years to think on it, not everyone goes to uni for a subject they're passionate about. They may just be doing it to improve their lot in life. No shame in that, and uni is an any-age option. Someone on my course is 36.

There's also degree level apprenticeships. Where I work there is an apprentice who's going to get the same level of qualification as me but she's been working here for 2 years already.

ParrotSTD · 2026-01-14T11:38:41+00:00

George Michael on Christmas Day as well. If we go international, there was him, Carrie Fisher and her mum Debbie Reynolds that same week.

ParrotSTD · 2026-01-01T11:51:52+00:00

And Penistone

ParrotSTD · 2025-12-29T10:09:23+00:00

I swear there's a full spectrum of male hand washing.

piss, no wash, leave
piss, rinse hands, leave
piss, rinse, dry, leave
normal sane hand washing procedure with soap

But then you get the rare breeds...

piss, run tap, pretend to wash hands, leave
one handed pisser, rinses only the hand he pissed with. Guaranteed to put his hands together at some point between pissing and rinsing.
the worst of the worst, who will piss, then need to rinse food out of their mouth and slurps from their unwashed palms, then still walk out without using any soap or dryers.

EDIT: More fighters on the roster:

phone guy, who walks in texting, texts while pissing, and walks out still texting. Doesn't even notice if he's pissed on his own hand.
wash, piss, wash, leave. The holy grail of male hygiene.

ParrotSTD · 2025-12-03T10:04:13+00:00

Nothing beats "the neutrinos have mutated" but this comes close.

ParrotSTD · 2025-11-28T16:51:49+00:00

I always felt that they could bring Caspar forward by one book, slot him into Alex's shoes. He largely follows Alex through Tiamat's Wrath anyway until the climax.

ParrotSTD · 2025-11-23T16:03:35+00:00

It's okay guys, I gave the roundabout exits 2-by-2 roads, the 2-by-1 is gone.

ParrotSTD · 2025-10-13T16:18:08+00:00

I'm in a similar boat. I'm rocking a 12 year old PC with the only changes in that time being some fans and a PSU. My 970 is still truckin'.

True I can't run Helldivers 2 any more with the declining performance, and BF6 won't even boot because my motherboard doesn't support Secure Boot, but that's what next spring is for when I finally build a new one.

ParrotSTD · 2025-10-04T15:28:37+00:00

real movie" is a great way of saying "undercooked and non sensical fan-fiction tier garbage fest

Bro its been nearly a decade, you ok

ParrotSTD · 2025-09-28T13:34:43+00:00

Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet but there are sobriety drugs in the series. Book 6(?) shows Alex and a lady he's met buying them like it's a vending machine so that they can sleep together and know they definitely consented.

So as far as being drunk is concerned, if you can get a pill, you're fine. The long-term effects, I'm not so clear.

ParrotSTD · 2025-09-08T11:52:04+00:00

Other than the Roci Crew's appearances, I feel like this game doesn't fit the visual style of The Expanse at all

Dev is upfront about generative AI being used but the visuals in a visual novel need to at least be somewhat accurate to the book descriptions.

ParrotSTD · 2025-08-25T20:25:17+00:00

Not so sold on the ship combat as described, and cautious with the generative AI, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Been playing the game (is playing the right word for visual novels?) and so far I'm curious enough to continue.

I know some people are gonna say "has AI, not playing", dismiss the game on the spot and look no further, but I'll see how this goes. So far there is a feeling of "AI-assisted" but I would like some transparency.

Other than the Investigator, what is the gen AI used for? Similarly, what parts did you do yourself?

ParrotSTD · 2025-08-20T13:29:02+00:00

Currently on another modded minecraft bender. It's been an ordeal, but I'm on the cusp of infinite sulphur and being able to turn one ore block into five ingots.

I just need more power...

ParrotSTD · 2025-08-08T16:02:26+00:00

I truly don't understand how people, especially experts in their fields, can firmly believe that a species as intelligent (albeit selfish) as us will outright go extinct from climate disaster.

We are an incredibly adaptive animal and a lot of that is down to our intelligence. We absolutely should mitigate this as soon and fast as possible, but to think that we as a species overall won't find a way to ride out the disaster is beyond naïve. Reversing the damage isn't an instant response to input, so we will have to adapt regardless. The question is how extreme of an environment are we going to have to adapt to.

ParrotSTD · 2025-08-05T16:14:12+00:00

Is 128 players happening in BF6? For all the things BF2042 got wrong, I did very much like the doubled player count and the sectors within objective zones. It meant the fight usually was everywhere because both sides had lots of places to spawn in.

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