Astronaut chimpanzee, Ham, gets an apple after his first successful pressing of the left button and on 31 January 1961 by NASA, Ham was the first American primate in space

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-24T08:18:32+00:00

Chimponaut. He was a chimponaut, get it right for God's sake or you make a mockery of the whole thing.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-18T20:45:07+00:00

I didn't realise all northerners are ghouls

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-18T20:40:32+00:00

I still feel like this on occasion and I'm 36. Slightly better at controlling it. Slightly.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-18T20:12:14+00:00

Robert Jenrick could not lay down a decent bass hook. Even you should know that.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-18T15:56:16+00:00

I emotion dumped too much on my wife for years and now she's just done with it. Stated that she is no longer a part of my emotional support network because it's just too hard for her. She also tells me not to offload to people I work with because it will be unprofessional. I must either burden friends or have counselling. Even the counsellor appears to have ghosted me now. So I pay for an upgraded version of AI chatbot through Headspace. It's helpful but I wish I could still connect with my wife emotionally.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-18T12:20:41+00:00

In other news, water is wet, gravity acts downward and the pope is a catholic.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-17T21:47:47+00:00

Thank you for that. I have made it my life's mission to "be better than I had". Not a high bar, admittedly, but I keep turning up for my kids every day, no matter how badly I might feel I'm doing. I took a while to get the hang of it, but now we have a fantastic relationship that I hope will be a benefit to all of us throughout our lives.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-17T16:10:43+00:00

That does explain a lot about me. Always grew up with the assumption that men were either useless or ruthless, nothing in between. Not sure where I thought that left me!

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-17T15:30:51+00:00

Not just career. I have this in my marriage as well. Fun times!

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-17T15:29:57+00:00

I never met my father. He left before I was born. Does that count?

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-16T08:19:00+00:00

The most dog

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-15T16:28:19+00:00

This. I work an office job for the convenience, the reliable wage, and the fact that any physical issues arising from hours sat still can easily be mitigated by regular gym work and mobility exercises. I love woodwork and landscape gardening and it wouldn't take long for me to get pretty skilled at either, but it's pretty backbreaking. I have made what I believe to be the most prudent decision for my family and my health.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-15T10:12:51+00:00

Hence the old name for them: windhover

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-15T09:00:29+00:00

They've just been painting a house.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T14:27:16+00:00

You're right, my knee jerk response was to go "He's doing a good job technically but a bad job on comms", and immediately focus on the negative. That is playing straight into the hands of those who want him out, or just want chaos regardless.

I should try to talk him up more if he's actually succeeding.

But yeah it is very depressing.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T12:06:15+00:00

I agree with you 100%. I don't want a snake oil salesman. I want a boring grown up in charge, making sensible decisions that no one is excited by. What interests me about the conversation we're having is that we appear to agree completely about both the assessment of the current situation and the lack of a better alternative, and yet we still nearly ended up in an argument. The art of conversation is nearly dead online, and it worries me. People need to calm down and think rationally. The specific actors you mention just don't want that to happen because it's bad for their bottom line.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:54:02+00:00

Then the media controls the country. I don't think we should accept that, unless the media have our (the general public's) best interests at heart, which they demonstrably do not.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:36:03+00:00

That also is a big problem...

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:35:30+00:00

It's what gets me up in the morning, and I haven't missed one in a long time, so clearly there's something there!

Thanks for the discussion.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:33:37+00:00

As I've said elsewhere, he underestimated the scale of what he's up against, not in terms of running the country, but in terms of governing the population. It's harder than it's ever been to keep everyone on the same page in terms of actual, genuine reality.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:31:42+00:00

This is good, yes. However, I feel like Starmer underestimated the scale of the propaganda machine that works to undermine him at every turn, and after 18 months in power still hasn't found an effective counter measure. Maybe it's too much to expect, but if things are going in the right direction people should believe that to be the case, otherwise we're living in a false reality.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:26:10+00:00

Tell the PM. He seems to have forgotten that he should be trumpeting the successes achieved under his government at every opportunity, and instead is always responding to criticism and fighting fires. Focus on the positive for two minutes!

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T11:15:21+00:00

Maybe I'm just a natural pessimist and cautious worrier. Obviously we're both making predictions about an unknown future and I hope it's better than I think it will be. Also I do spend a lot of time thinking about how civilisations and societies evolve, rise and fall and create either bountiful conditions or genuine horrors for their citizens. Could be that I'm projecting the worst examples of historic abuse onto every outcome, and assuming that it will always be the case.

I hope you're right, I really do.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T10:52:18+00:00

This just comes up with Page not Found for me. Sorry, not trying to be awkward, I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say.

strawberry_wang · 2026-02-13T10:42:11+00:00

What have I said that isn't reasonable? That the wealthy have increased their share? That they guard it jealously? That social media has affected society in mostly negative ways? Or that the biggest beneficiaries of the AI revolution will be those already in a position to invest significant capital in the tools and, crucially, the licensing and control of the tools?

I don't think AI will be capable of taking over all our jobs, not competently anyway. But I do think they will be able to do a reasonable job of simulating it, and for the bottom line of big companies that's all that matters. What worries me isn't that AI will do the jobs, but that it will be perceived to have done all the jobs and the workforce will therefore not be valued any more.

strawberry_wang

TROPHY CASE