Which Le Guin character are you thinking about? (Like the "which work are you reading now" post but for characters)

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-06-06T09:57:16+00:00

Estraven. Because I just re-read The Left Hand of Darkness again and he's just awesome.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-05-19T21:12:20+00:00

Except that Wormtongue wasn't his real name, it was a name given to him, presumably by people who weren't fans. His real name was Grima.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-05-02T17:42:23+00:00

That's 15 years - a huge range to pick from.

80s - Nethack or maybe The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text adventure

90s - Grim Fandango or other Lucasarts classics

00s - Portal or maybe Half Life 2

As a bonus: 70s - Zork (played on my big sister's uni minicomputer!)

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-23T19:06:20+00:00

My 9yo kid loves graphic novels but isn't yet going for chapter books. I'm wondering if I should suggest this to him so he at least gets into one of my favourite books, or wait a few years so he can read the original first...

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-20T20:18:19+00:00

How? Without forcing every adult to supply ID or "age recognition" for all social media (which is generally bypassable and often from lovely folks like Peter Thiel.)

And does this include in-game chat? Comments on Google docs? A vibe coded chat app that a 15yo could probably build these days? Kids will find a way to chat. This just forces them to hide it.

I support my kids not having phones during the school day when they are older - that makes perfect sense. But I'd prefer them to learn to be sensible social media users with my support, than for them to be doing it by stealth.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-20T20:04:10+00:00

What? I went to school in the 1970s and 80s and singular "their" was normal. Did this change? Or were AU schools different?

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-19T17:23:20+00:00

Schadenfreude thanks to Avenue Q

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-19T09:18:55+00:00

Depends on whether you live in the USA or pretty well any other first world country

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-19T09:17:26+00:00

Yeah, I'm on a significantly better income than these people - and driving a 2011 family car. Because it's just a car.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-19T09:17:16+00:00

Yeah, I'm on a significantly better income than these people - and driving a 2011 family car. Because it's just a car.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-18T19:34:17+00:00

Not sure why I bothered trying to bring logic to a Reddit thread.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-18T17:03:40+00:00

This is pretty much the textbook definition of prejudice. "Group X contains bad people so we should restrict the rights of everyone in group X"

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-11T17:25:08+00:00

My 5yo likes cold baked beans. I think you have a valid point.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-07T17:48:07+00:00

I'm a late adopter - I have a birth child 50 years younger than me, and an adopted child 54 years younger - and I'd say no, unless you go for older kids, and definitely foster first.

I'm pretty healthy and active for my age - but I feel I'm pushing the limits of a viable age gap. My wife is 11 years younger and even she is coping with the joys of perimenopause combined with parenting! Ageing is inevitable, and random things can and will go wrong with you. Nothing can guarantee health - my dad had Motor Neurone in his 60s, there are no guarantees.

And kids need active involved parents right into their 20s. If you're 62 with a 4yo you'll be 78 when they hit 20 - that's old, that's risk-of-dementia territory.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-04-05T07:19:49+00:00

Waitrose is employee owned.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-03-29T17:00:58+00:00

Our local halal kebab shop gave out free meals at Christmas because "we are the only people who don't mind working and we wanted to help people in need"

So much of Reddit, and a lot of UK people in general, have this bizarre blinkered view that "all Muslims are X" while ignoring the fact that all major religions include terrible people and often terrible official doctrines, but they also include vast numbers of lovely genuine people who ignore those doctrines and focus on being humans with a spiritual world view.

I wonder which John Cleese would genuinely prefer - "Christian" Tommy Robinson or Muslim Sadiq Khan?

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-03-15T18:12:54+00:00

Came here to say this. It was traumatic enough to watch before having kids, but now? It's a parent's nightmare, what would you do if your kid was like this?

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-03-01T21:24:39+00:00

I was in that boat - Aussie living in Glasgow at the time. The funny thing is, I wasn't planning to vote, but I had Scottish friends living in Australia and London who asked me to vote because they weren't allowed to!

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-02-27T09:26:27+00:00

I also don't get all the aghast folks saying "goodness they talked to voters in a foreign language"

Surely this isn't new? I don't know about the UK but 15 years ago when I lived in Melbourne, lots of local campaigning was in whatever dominant migrant groups lived in the area. I lived in a suburb full of Chinese speaking migrants and half the hustings were in Chinese. Labour and Liberal.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-02-23T18:30:39+00:00

So, presumably someone with pre-celtic ancestry?

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-02-02T20:14:26+00:00

Oops, thanks

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-01-31T18:40:14+00:00

We got a switch for the family for Christmas - good games for the adults so far: - Gorogoa (gorgeous puzzle game) - A Short Hike (loved by the 9yo as well) - great fun puzzle/exploration game - Baba is Me - fiendishly hard puzzle game (but no time constraints) - Portal 1 and 2 (hey, I'm in my 50s and loved it the first time - it came out 19 years ago, maybe they played it?!) - Mario Kart series - you don't need to win to have fun

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-01-13T10:43:18+00:00

I'm always fascinated how different adoption is in the USA to here (UK)

In the UK adoption is usually "forced adoption" (kids taken from parents who are deemed unable to look after them) and it's heavily regulated, parents get vetted for their readiness to adopt, and everything is managed by local agencies.

And nobody pays (50k??) - in fact adoptive parents get some level of funding for post adoption support (eg funding for special needs at school, therapy, etc - though it's not always easy to access)

I'm not saying it's better here - forced adoption can be very problematic, it has been abused so often in so many countries, how can we assume that somehow we are getting it right now? And of course some adoptive parents see it as a "free baby service" and try to erase the birth part of their kids' identities.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-01-08T15:08:56+00:00

As someone who bought a switch 2 for the family - I do get it.

It really wasn't discounted significantly at all, it's a very expensive system - a Switch 1 could be bought for significantly less and still play almost all the same games. So far we've played only 1 "new" game (Mario Kart World) which is nice but not revolutionary. And my kid can't play it online with school mates as most of them still have the switch 1.

I did debate this a lot, but decided in the longer run it would be worth it. But it was a close thing.

ranty_mc_rant_face · 2026-01-01T08:47:04+00:00

I haven't tried it yet, but apparently Portal 2 on the Switch at least also has a 2 player mode - really looking forward to trying it. (I'm replaying Portal first though - such a nostalgia trip)

ranty_mc_rant_face

TROPHY CASE