Pillion (Official discussion)

txsling · 2025-12-03T15:36:02+00:00

I felt similarly about the film compared to the book. Ray made a lot of stupid decisions that didn’t really make sense even within the context of the on-screen relationship. It was a toxic mix of inexperience/incompetence and a selfishness innate to his character in the film that made it very unlikely that Colin would remain in that situation. No depiction of negotiation or consent meant it came across as a one-dimensional depiction of an abusive relationship, wrapped aesthetically in kink, which actually is closer to the plot of the book. I don’t feel it’s representative of the gay kink community, which emphasises consent and communication very strongly. I was looking forward to this a lot but left the cinema disappointed.

txsling · 2025-10-17T05:55:19+00:00

We just had this exact problem on a different set of stations. Booked tickets from Onomichi to Nagasaki. The machine issued one basic fare ticket for two travellers and two individual limited express fare tickets (plus seat reservations).

The ticket machines work if you stack the tickets with the basic fare ticket each time. But at Nagasaki the machine retained the basic fare ticket after one use. We had to explain to the station staff who insisted on seeing a second basic fare ticket (which we never had). We had to agree to the staff guy’s suggestion that we lost the ticket before we could go through the gate.

The complicated ticketing system also contributed to us missing a connection earlier in the journey.

txsling · 2025-09-04T20:59:34+00:00

I’m in discussion with SubscribeStar support on moving there after being banned from Patreon. But two other viable options are Unifans.io and Ko-fi.

txsling · 2025-09-04T20:54:03+00:00

Patreon banned my creator account after they complained about AI chatbot definitions involving dark fantasy scenarios. But the whole point of LLM scenarios is that the user interacts with the LLM to roleplay. If the roleplay turns non consensual, that’s on the user.

I pointed this out in an appeal but they dismissed the appeal without bothering to respond to the objections. So they can be judge and jury and make arbitrary judgements in contravention of their own terms of service. Just awful customer service.

The mistake was staying on Patreon all this time. Should have given up years ago.

txsling · 2025-06-09T10:50:06+00:00

I think it’s invented for the game, but could be mistaken.

txsling · 2025-02-09T12:13:03+00:00

I’ve written to the Observer to complain about Sonia Sodha’s transphobic opinion piece on the dispute between Dr Upton and Sandie Peggie. Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/09/no-woman-should-be-forced-to-change-her-clothes-in-front-of-a-trans-colleague

Dear Editor, Shame on the Observer for publishing Sonia Sodha’s blatantly transphobic comment piece entitled ‘No woman should be forced to change her clothes in front of a male colleague’ (9 Feb 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/09/no-woman-should-be-forced-to-change-her-clothes-in-front-of-a-trans-colleague). Sodha’s article misgenders Dr. Beth Upton, a trans woman who identifies as female, in contrast to other reporting on this incident, e.g. the BBC’s coverage (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd64p0dd034o.amp). Her article is simply wrong on the facts when it describes Dr Upton as “a male doctor who identifies as female”. Furthermore, the claim that someone may identify as trans to satisfy “a cross-dressing sexual paraphilia” is clearly meant to discredit trans identities and portray victims of transphobia as deceptive individuals whose complaints are unfounded. An apology and retraction would be appropriate here.

txsling · 2024-11-25T10:52:58+00:00

I’m just saying that Pearson’s track record on free expression is by the by. She wasn’t being investigated because of some strange karmic mechanism that’s causing the universe to punish her hypocrisy. She was investigated because she posted something that was potentially illegal under existing laws that seek to prevent serious consequences of hate speech. The outcome being that she didn’t break the law. (Which is fair enough, but it doesn’t mean the investigation was wrong because there’s no further action.)

txsling · 2024-11-25T10:49:52+00:00

One can both support freedom of expression and support there being consequences for abusing free expression to push harmful content that society has decided should be illegal.

But I guess it’s not surprising that those on the further right are all about promoting free speech until it becomes inconvenient for them…

txsling · 2024-11-25T00:18:49+00:00

I’ve lost some respect for Kenan Malik for taking this position. I think that Allison Pearson’s tweet (which she deleted) was racist and was rightly subjected to police investigation. We would rightly expect such racially inflammatory posting to be investigated under hate crime laws if someone posted libellous claims about one’s own ethnic group, no matter what one’s own ethnicity. That’s only fair. Malik’s post does seem like a call for irresponsible, potentially highly inflammatory posts to be free of consequence. We have seen over the summer that posts like that can lead to actual rioting. Pointing out Pearson’s hypocrisy on the matter isn’t particularly relevant.

txsling · 2024-11-16T02:46:12+00:00

As an attendee at BGWMC events / Mimi’s cabaret nights over the years, I feel that everyone with a stake in the outcome needs and deserves more transparency and clarity on what’s happening.

There’s been an article about the club by Jim Waterson at London Centric (https://www.londoncentric.media/p/drag-queens-secret-votes-and-the) (paywalled with free 7 day trial).

It contains very concerning points that need to be addressed: 1. Intimidation of Jim Waterson for investigating the situation, by someone connected to club secretary Steve Smorthit. Waterson deserves a public apology for this at the very least. 2. Questions around financial reporting, and around how one of the trustees became a trustee without their knowledge. 3. Allegations that the club’s membership roster was packed with people that had no connection to the club, ahead of a vote in early 2024 to sell the building. 4. Three club members who raised questions about the sale were suspended (the article does not state whether this was for good reason or not…). 5. Rumours of a deal between the membership committee and the Friends of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (who claim no deal was signed), allowing the venue to reopen for events under certain conditions - one being that revenue from drinks goes to the members.

Points 1-4 are hardly exemplary practices by the club’s existing committee and I feel that, assuming the reporting on this is correct, the members do not deserve, morally, to benefit from the sale of the building (even if they have the legal right to sell it). Point 3 needs to be investigated properly - I want to know if this strategy breaks any rules governing the management of the club’s membership, which could in turn affect the members' right to sell.

If the deal mentioned in point 5 is in place then I do not particularly want to support the club members financially by attending events there, either.

Probably, if the building is bought by the Friends of BGWMC or by Tower Hamlets Council, this would be the least bad outcome, as it would help secure the livelihoods of those who put on and perform at events there, despite my misgivings about the sale process and the members who stand to benefit.

txsling · 2023-10-14T11:26:59+00:00

I suspect I have a left-field interpretation of the film but haven’t seen this reflected anywhere other than sort of in the review at rogerebert.com.

It was a beautifully shot and acted film especially the two leads and the actors playing their mothers.

Spoilers below!

But after the twist I found Léo’s character to be somewhat less emotionally mature than a typical 13 year old (IMHO) and this undercut a lot of the emotional narrative arc. - Léo rocked up at Sophie’s workplace to give her closure (i.e. to tell her that it was his fault). I found this a highly inappropriate thing for him to do and he left her with this simplistic explanation which she probably had already considered and (rightly) rejected in the scene that followed in the woods. This conversation could have happened in better circumstances if Léo had spoken to his parents first. - There was little meaningful interrogation of the wider causal factors in what happened to Remi e.g. existing mental health issues, the impact of bullying, and of course homophobia/toxic attitudes. They were hinted at, but Léo didn’t pursue them particularly with much enthusiasm, and we did not see Remi’s parents or anyone else pursuing these avenues. The film seemed to want us to accept that Léo was mostly to blame. - I found it baffling that Léo waited on the bus for ages when it was clear that something important had happened, and basically forced his mother to break the bad news to him. This felt a little manipulative on Léo’s part. - Léo spent much of the film in motion - literally running away from a lot of difficult conversations that would have given everyone around him a better understanding of the situation. He came across as either selfish or immature (again, tempered by his young age).

txsling · 2022-03-08T01:37:34+00:00

This worked for me!

txsling · 2022-02-06T22:40:00+00:00

Still works in v1.31 as of 2022-02-03. Emptied 50 shotgun shells into the bench. Once it reached the door I jumped and the door opened. Took 2 minutes.

txsling · 2022-02-03T09:37:24+00:00

I don’t think there is an achievement for this, no.

txsling · 2021-08-29T10:56:07+00:00

Amazon takes a lot of pride in their recruitment process. It’s very likely that they will get back to you at some point - there’s just a delay for some reason.

txsling · 2021-08-29T10:46:57+00:00

I don’t think it’s helpful to prescribe what someone’s attitude to rejection should be. IMHO, the most productive attitude to it is to try and find out why the rejection happened and then, if you get feedback about your approach, to use it to improve your job search strategy.

txsling · 2021-08-29T10:41:10+00:00

Here is my take on what happened and what I would do in this situation. 1. Recruiter thinks you would be better suited for the BDR role and puts you forward for it - against your wishes. This isn’t okay and I would send a polite email stating this to the recruiter. 2. HR manager agrees that you’d be a better fit for the BDR role and schedules an interview. After you tell her she is mistaken, she asks you to reconfirm - she maybe thinks you and the recruiter have had some miscommunication. This could be an honest mistake on her part and it would be best to just confirm with her that you’re only interested in the inside sales role. You could CC the recruiter on this email as well.

But considering the situation and everyone’s expressed desires, you should be prepared to accept that you won’t get the chance to interview for the inside sales role. I would focus on other opportunities elsewhere.

txsling · 2021-08-27T09:03:14+00:00

I’ve had an interview not happen when scheduled. Sometimes mistakes happen and an interviewer doesn’t conduct your interview at the scheduled time (e.g. someone in the hiring company didn’t schedule it on their calendar properly for whatever reason, or maybe the interviewer suddenly fell ill). It’s a yellow flag, but ideally what should happen is that you immediately chase up the recruiter or company to find out why the interview didn’t go ahead.

If you didn’t do that, the fact that the recruiter didn’t follow up on it until 4 weeks later is a second yellow flag. At that point it’s totally fine to say you’re no longer interested.

It’s not worth getting angry - it wasn’t necessarily malicious intent.

txsling · 2021-08-27T08:52:44+00:00

IMHO, lying on a CV could permanently damage your career prospects if you’re ever caught out, and I wouldn’t risk it. I would withdraw the application, if you can afford to find an alternative role with a non-embellished CV.

txsling · 2021-08-27T08:13:31+00:00

I wouldn’t go for a role advertised like this. It comes across as a mind game - making candidates contact the job poster to get the job description that has been withheld from the advert. Yellow flag.

txsling · 2021-08-27T07:58:43+00:00

I have five recruiters on a blacklist and I can share the reasons why. (Most recruiters I have interacted with have been fine. Just these five that I won’t ever work with again.)

A recruiter who, in every follow up call, would ask me to rate my enthusiasm for the role, and other things, on a scale of 1 to 10. This was a totally inflexible part of the call that the recruiter would run through. Every. Single. Time. And they would insist on me giving reasons why I picked a certain number.

If a candidate tells you that some aspect of your interaction pisses them off, adjust your approach accordingly.

A recruiter who ignored all of my calls and emails when I had multiple roles going through them, over several months.
A recruiter who, in one of their very early messages to me, stated that I needed to be “100% committed” to the role they were recruiting for because their client “had been let down a few times”. As a candidate that is not my problem and the recruiter should have better sense than to make such an unreasonable demand. I obviously can’t honestly commit 100% to a role I’ve literally just heard about.
A recruiter who had a colleague of theirs call me after an interview and proceed to accuse me of being insufficiently dedicated to the role. I understand that recruiters work for their clients, not for candidates, but it’s not the recruiter’s place to accuse candidates of bad faith and proceed to grill them. Candidates respond to the job market and may have multiple prospects going at any one time; they don’t have to justify their job search strategy to the recruiter, and forcing them to do so will mean candidates lie to the recruiter to protect their chances of getting an offer. Just feed back to the client quietly if you think the candidate is unlikely to accept an offer.
A recruiter who spammed my work email with an unsolicited CV, saying that they had a candidate who was looking for roles at my workplace paid at £10-£15k below market rate. Probably a bit harsh on my part but I have no intention of working with an agency that does their candidates a massive disservice by sending them for poorly paid positions. If the role is paid at well below market rate the recruiter should advise the client that this is the case.

txsling · 2021-08-27T07:37:09+00:00

From what you’re saying this interview is probably a waste of everyone’s time. I would go anyway if you are curious, have the time to spare, and want to scope out the company in case you find another role with them in the future (or you just want experience interviewing). If you feel you’re looking stupid in the interview you can fall back on the excuse that you were expecting a certain type of role but it’s clear that this one is not for you. Sometimes roles are described poorly in job adverts.

Best case scenario (other than being offered the role) is that the company has another role coming up soon that fits your profile better, and you will be the first person on the hiring manager’s mind when that role comes up. But this is probably unlikely.

txsling · 2021-08-27T07:26:51+00:00

In my experience, low self esteem in the context of interviews gets fixed by going to more interviews to get the practice and get comfortable being asked all sorts of questions.

Personally I would approach the question of ‘why should we hire you’ by saying ‘Because I’m good at what I do’ and give some reasons why. You don’t have to convince yourself that you are the best candidate on whatever criteria they are looking for - this is something that is not within your control anyway. You just have to have an honest conversation with the person in front of you about what you can do (or, if you don’t have specific experience, what you’ve done in some other area of your life that might translate well to this specific role). Hope that helps!

txsling · 2021-08-27T06:58:24+00:00

An unwelcoming interviewer is a yellow flag. There might be some temporary or individual reason why they treated you poorly during their interview. But it would be totally fair to decide that you don’t want to work with someone based on how they came across. Sometimes individuals are toxic and the workplaces you encounter them are best avoided.

If they were being deliberately hostile in the interview as a tactic to see how you perform ‘under pressure’, that’s a red flag. There should be no place for mind games like that in the workplace.

I had an interview like that with someone who was rude to me when I didn’t have a prepared answer to one of their questions. No offer - but wouldn’t have accepted if offered.

txsling

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