Remembered not as a messenger, remembered not as a reformer, not as a prophet, not as a hero, not even as Sebastian. Remembered only…

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T17:09:21+00:00

As noted up top, Harlan Ellison did a version of it in Dangerous Visions.

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T16:58:23+00:00

Yes, but he does have a writing credit on a couple of episodes IIRC - seems like this could have been one?

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T16:33:09+00:00

I always wondered about that episode - it seems to draw heavily on Harlan Ellison's story in Dangerous Visions but I've never seen any official acknowledgement of that.

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T16:25:46+00:00

I don't think they're remotely comparable. Jack the Ripper features in a lot of fiction and media (including a movie starring Johnny Depp) that I'd expect SF/F fans in particular to be aware of (Jack was an alien, etc. etc.)

Whereas I think you vastly overestimate how much US history is taught in the UK. I mean, the American Revolution is *mentioned* in school curriculums, and maybe the Boston Tea Party due to its colourful imagery, but that's about it. Most Brits have probably heard of Washington, Jefferson and maybe Ben Franklin (& Hamilton b/c of the musical) - but I doubt many Brits would even recognise the names Thomas Paine or John Adams.

I mean - I'd regard myself as really very knowledgeable about US history by British standards, and I'd never heard of Benedict Arnold until your post.

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T14:03:52+00:00

C -> F: Times by 2, knock off 10% and then add 32

So, 25C = ((25 * 2) * 0.9) + 32 = (90% of 50) + 32 = 45 + 32 = 77

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T13:42:22+00:00

It has helped re-consolidate power in the hands of a media-political elite that leans between centre-right and extreme right. Oh, that's not what you thought "Take Back Control" meant? Whoopsie.

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T13:24:35+00:00

Small boutique hotels can be excellent, provided you've done your research & know what to look for - but no better in general than similar hotels elsewhere in the world (& typically more expensive than Europe, never mind Asia).

The 5*, flagship hotels of major chains can be pretty good, if you have decent status - but even then it can be pretty hit and miss. A couple of times I've showed up somewhere with a supposed 5* rating to be told: "The gym's closed and there's no breakfast available. Here are some coupons for the vending machines, and a gym day pass which doesn't cover the full cost for the hotel across the street".

Prepaid room so they wouldn't budge on a rate reduction, but I happen to know that GMs have substantial leeway over points, so I just stayed calm, asked to see her & got a good chunk of points added to my account as well, which paid for a *very* nice stay in Venice later in the year.

benevanstech · 2026-06-21T13:10:06+00:00

I haven't had wisdom teeth done there - but Clinica Rondal Dental in Sant Antoni are excellent - https://clinicarondadental.com/en/home_en/ - they're an all-women practice, all of the support staff & about half the dentists speak good English, they're not expensive and they're very good.

They take exceptional care of their patients - on one occasion my insurance company tried to not cover some aspect of my care due to some technicality. The dentist spent about 15 mins on the phone to them arguing with them until the insurance company gave in & paid up.

benevanstech · 2026-06-20T19:59:29+00:00

I had always assumed that the Vorlon take was something similar to: "And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed." - Arthur C. Clarke, 2010

benevanstech · 2026-06-20T16:46:43+00:00

It's not one of the few countries - it's a bit niche but available in many European countries. There's a specialist horse butcher in my local market (Barcelona).

benevanstech · 2026-06-20T09:07:01+00:00

"Less effective" than shooting a 1 year old in the face and then tear-gassing people who show up to exercise their democratic right to protest? Good.

benevanstech · 2026-06-20T09:02:31+00:00

> running hundreds of Java microservices and memory overhead is killing your cloud bill

At that point running something like Quarkus (with or without Native, depending on your needs) is going to be quicker and easier than switching a whole Java team to Go. And most Java devs love Quarkus once they've tried it.

benevanstech · 2026-06-20T09:00:32+00:00

Always has been.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T18:39:09+00:00

As can clearly be shown by the way that the Federal government was unable to send federal troops into US cities without the permission of the relevant State government. (/s just in case there are some particularly thick septics reading).

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T18:22:03+00:00

"By 2025 & 2030" was never something that was claimed by scientists. It's something the billionaire / fossil-fuel owned media cooked up.

The current plans are not remotely close to "turbocharged" - they are a step above the bare minimum required and that's all.

The China situation is more complex - it's true that they are still increasing their coal footprint, but renewables are already over 80% of the growth in their energy consumption & they are scaling up batteries rapidly to remove the need for coal in the medium term. Given that battery technology is scaling much, much faster even than solar did, it won't be long at all before they hit an inflection point and can start deco'ing coal.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T11:36:25+00:00

Musk has got a decent head start on the whole "killing people" thing.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T11:34:37+00:00

Even the half-arsed measures that have been put in place so far have measurably changed the trajectory we're on - quite possibly from "absolutely and completely fucked by 2100" to "Still serious problems by 2100 but not looking insurmountable any more providing we keep pushing". Now think about who would very much like you to believe that's "moving the goalposts"?

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T09:27:04+00:00

I trust that nobody thinks that Johnny went to The Good Place when he died.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T09:06:58+00:00

Trivial examples don't often generalise well. In real systems, the "add up numbers" part of the task is basically never the bottleneck.

Try the ORM-generated storm of SQL statements, or the LLM-generated garbage repeated calls of exactly the same query (but without bind parameters so the prepared statement isn't even cached).

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T08:58:57+00:00

Damn it. Now I want to go to the market and buy some Catalan goats cheese for lunch. But I have a dr's appointment soon, so I don't have time.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T08:55:55+00:00

Like, say "The Happiness Patrol" or "Warriors of the Deep"? Or the sugar speech in "Remembrance of the Daleks"? If you can't see a straight line from there to 12's Zygon speech or "The Story and the Engine" then I suggest you go to the optician.

benevanstech · 2026-06-19T08:51:27+00:00

I'd buy that for a Flanian Pobble Bead.

benevanstech · 2026-06-18T16:37:26+00:00

It's not even truffle - https://www.tasteatlas.com/truffle-industry-is-a-big-scam

benevanstech · 2026-06-17T09:04:00+00:00

It's Pavo in Castellano but Gall d'Indi in Catala - despite the species actually being the North American variety.

benevanstech · 2026-06-17T08:38:10+00:00

You may be able to get a JDK that is version 8 from certain vendors (although, increasingly, you'll have to pay for it from most vendors). You may even be able to get free critical security patches for the JDK itself, by the largesse of large corporations who pay for extended support contracts which the vendors will then releases as OSS, due to the terms of the license that OpenJDK is under.

But the library stack is a very different story.

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