jacober_calc | Reading

Mood: tired

Public

348/365: Loom & Shuttle, Kidderminster
Click for a larger, sharper image
I must be honest and say that I'm quite glad that the finish line for my 365 project is in sight. It's been fun most of the time, but not being able to have any days off has been stressful on occasion. I don't think I'll be doing it again. Anyway, today's photo is of the Loom & Shuttle pub on the Stourport Road in Kidderminster. This used to be quite a rough pub years ago, but it's been cleaned up a lot in recent times and is now perfectly okay as far as I'm aware. I didn't go in today, but it made a handy enough subject for a photo. As you might expect, the pub's name is a reference to the now-mostly-former carpet industry which was once Kidderminster's largest employer.

Flagged:

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3194/

Some surfaces may seem difficult to glue. But if you research the materials, find tables of what adhesives work on them, and prepare your surfaces carefully, you can fail to glue them in a fun NEW way that fills your house with dangerous vapors.

https://xkcd.com/3194/

loganberrybunny

Mood: uncomfortable

Public

Joint press conference by the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland after their meeting with Messrs Vance and Rubio today. A couple of highlights (if that's the word) from their comments:

"It is not easy to think innovative about solutions when you wake up every morning to different threats." —Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Danish FM.

Rasmussen says it is clear the Trump has the wish of "conquering" Greenland, but that he believes the meeting has managed to "change the American position".

Greenland must strengthen its cooperation with the US as allies. "That doesn't mean we want to be owned by the United States." —Vivian Motzfeld, Greenlandic FM.

Flagged:

kiaa posting in

talkpolitics

Apparently, the internet has decided that on 12 August 2026 the Earth will politely switch off gravity for 7 seconds. Just long enough, we are told, for everything to float, panic, and then crash back down again. The story comes with all the usual extras: a secret government project, tens of billions of hidden dollars, and authorities who "know the truth" but refuse to tell us. Because of course they do:

LINK: The Economic Times

The funny part is not just the claim itself, but how confidently it's being presented. Gravity doesn't "pause" like a streaming video, and no serious physics allows for a planet-wide gravity outage on a timer. If it did, we wouldn't be debating it on social media - we'd be rewriting every physics textbook ever written. Still, the theory survives because it sounds dramatic, scientific enough to fool non-experts, and suspicious enough to fit the classic "they're hiding something" narrative. And of course there's ample numbers of idiots to feed the drama. Or just trolls who'd like some shits'n'giggles.

What actually is happening on that date is far less exciting but much more real: a total solar eclipse. A rare, beautiful, well-understood astronomical event that has been predicted for decades using boring things like math and observation. Somehow, "the Moon blocks the Sun for a few minutes" just doesn't compete online with "gravity collapses and the oceans try to escape".
The money angle also collapses under basic scrutiny. The idea that there's a secret $89 billion operation hidden inside a publicly scrutinized space budget is almost impressive in its optimism. Governments struggle to hide minor accounting mistakes, but sure - a civilization-altering gravity experiment slipped through unnoticed. Totally plausible.

In the end, stories like this say less about science and more about us. Conspiracy theories offer simple explanations, secret villains, and the comforting feeling that you're part of the few who "get it". Reality, meanwhile, is messier, slower, and much less cinematic. Gravity will still be there on 12 August 2026. The real question is why so many people would rather believe otherwise.

Flagged:

conspiracy,
science

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/William_Faulkner

"The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/William_Faulkner

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr.

"Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr.

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Unknown

"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Unknown

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/H._L._Mencken

"I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/H._L._Mencken

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/delegate-2026-01-14

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 14, 2026 is:

delegate • \DEL-uh-gayt\ • verb

To delegate something (such as control, responsibility, authority, or a job or duty) is to trust someone else with it.

// Those tasks can be delegated to someone else.

See the entry >

Examples:

“In practice, principals shuttle back and forth, sometimes multiple times a day, or divide their schedule between mornings and afternoons, or alternate full days at each school. When they’re off-site, they must formally delegate authority, but parents and teachers say it’s not always clear who holds decision-making power.” — Isabel Teotonio, The Toronto Star, 1 Dec. 2025

Did you know?

To delegate is to literally or figuratively send someone else in your place, an idea that is reflected in the word’s origin: it is a descendant of the Latin word lēgāre, meaning “to send as an envoy” (a messenger or representative). The noun delegate, which refers to a person who is chosen or elected to vote or act for others, arrived in English in the 14th century, while the verb didn’t make its entrée till the early 16th century. (Note that the verb rhymes with relegate while the noun rhymes with delicate.) Some distant cousins of the word delegate that also trace back to lēgāre include legacy, colleague, relegate, and legate, “an official representative sent to a foreign country.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/delegate-2026-01-14

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5743

It's technically a novella

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5743

loganberrybunny

Mood: calm

Public

347/365: No Road, Bewdley
Click for a larger, sharper image
This was another day when not a lot of interest really happened. It didn't help that it rained a good deal in the morning, although fortunately the river was low enough beforehand that the flood barriers haven't needed to be deployed. I did pop into Forest Dog Rescue and bought a box of teabags, of all things. The photo shows No Road, which leads off Load Street in Bewdley town centre. Yes, it's actually called No Road. This is a public footpath, and not quite as scary as it may appear! It comes out in Dog Lane, where the chemist and GP surgery are, so it can be quite a handy shortcut.

Flagged:

loganberrybunny

Mood: hungry

Public

Back to the Future (1985)

This is a film I might have guessed would score full marks from me. As you can see, it doesn't, because it's just that little bit too problematic when looked at with mid-2020s eyes. Don't get me wrong, this is still a great movie, expertly constructed and supremely watchable. There aren't any real weak links in the acting, and the atmosphere of 1955 America is wonderfully created. Even having a DeLorean break down about every ten seconds is true to life. For what it is, Back to the Future is pretty much spot on at first viewing, and it's strong enough to hold up to being seen multiple times, as indeed I have. That's not something to sniff at.

But those problems? There's the "Johnny B. Goode" scene, though in reality by November 1955 what you might call modern rock'n'roll already existed: Little Richard had released "Tutti Frutti" the month before, even if it didn't chart until December. The Libyan terrorists are comic-book villains and I can live with that. A bigger deal is how the film treats Lorraine. The "unintentional incestuous attraction" joke is slightly overdone, but the real issue is the plan Marty cooks up, which requires Lorraine to be genuinely emotionally abused to set up George's hero moment. Then an actual assault is played more realistically than you'd expect for a feel-good family comedy, yet the victim is completely fine a few minutes later.

None of this destroys the movie as a whole. Michael J. Fox is excellent as Marty, even if a little gratingly cool at times for these British sensibilities, and Christopher Lloyd is suitably manic as Doc Brown. Lea Thompson must also get a mention for a really fine turn in a tricky role as Lorraine, while Thomas F. Wilson's Biff manages to pull off both "comedy class bully" and "genuinely dangerous predator". The clock tower scene, the other callbacks, most of the humour, and the way it never lets up from start to finish make it a very fine film to this day. Still an easy four-star movie – but looked at through today's eyes, I can't quite see it as the near-perfect picture I'd half-expected. ★★★★

asthfghl posting in

talkpolitics

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the promise was simple: repeat history, march west, and win like the Soviet Union once did. Years later, only one part of that promise came true: the marching. The quick, decisive victory never happened. What was supposed to last days has turned into a grinding war that has already lasted longer than the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany.

The result is hard to ignore. After years of fighting, Russia controls only limited territory at an enormous cost in lives, resources, and internal stability. Entire regions inside Russia now feel the consequences directly, with power outages, infrastructure damage, and a growing sense that the war is not something happening "far away".

At the same time, the international position Moscow spent two decades building is unraveling. One by one, Russia's so-called "partners" are falling away, and the Kremlin appears unable (or unwilling) to do much about it. In the Middle East, a key ally collapsed, leaving Russia sidelined. In Latin America, another partner was neutralized by the US without any visible Russian response. Even Russian commercial interests are now being directly challenged, again without retaliation.

( The uncomfortable truth is... )

Flagged:

loganberrybunny

Mood: thoughtful

Public

This spring's Senedd election looks like being an interesting one. Right now if I had to put money on any particular outcome, I'd go for a minority Plaid administration. I don't think they'll get anywhere near the number of seats they'd need to get a majority in the Senedd, which will now have 96 members. Probably a final seat count somewhere in the low-mid 30s. Reform are on their heels but seem to be slipping back a little very recently, so I'd suggest mid-high 20s for them. Quite possibly every other party, including incumbents Labour, in single figures.

Flagged:

politics,
wales

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Rita_Mae_Brown

"Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Rita_Mae_Brown

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Jean_Kerr

"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?"

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Jean_Kerr

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Peter_De_Vries

"The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums."

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Peter_De_Vries

quoteoftheday_feed

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Frederick_L_Collins

"There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'"

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Frederick_L_Collins

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3193/

I wanted to make the world's fastest yawl, so I made the aft sail bigger, but apparently that means it's not a yawl anymore! It's a real ketch-22.

https://xkcd.com/3193/

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/umbrage-2026-01-13

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 13, 2026 is:

umbrage • \UM-brij\ • noun

Umbrage refers to a feeling of being offended by what someone has said or done. It is often used in the phrase “take umbrage.”

// Some listeners took umbrage at the podcaster’s remarks about the event.

See the entry >

Examples:

“The one item on offer was considered to be so good that the chef took umbrage at being asked for mustard.” — The Irish Times, 31 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

Umbrage is a word born in the shadows. Its ultimate source (and that of umbrella) is Latin umbra, meaning “shade, shadow,” and when it was first used in the 15th century it referred to exactly that. But figurative use followed relatively quickly. Shakespeare wrote of Hamlet that “his semblable is his mirror, and who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more,” and by the 17th century this meaning of “vague suggestion; hint,” had been joined by other uses, including the “feeling of resentment or offense” heard today in such sentences as “many took umbrage at the speaker’s tasteless jokes.” The word’s early literal use is not often encountered, though it does live on in literature: for example, in her 1849 novel, Charlotte Brontë describes how the titular Shirley would relax “at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage.”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/umbrage-2026-01-13

About

Jacober

SwissMicros Forum

Page generated Jan. 15th, 2026 12:06 am

The Calculator Notebook

Made by jacober-calc

Reading

Loom & Shuttle

16 Part Epoxy

Well, that's totally reassuring...

Come 12 August, watch out for that gravity!

William Faulkner

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Unknown

H. L. Mencken

delegate

First Responder

A maze of twisty little passages, all alike

Film post: Back to the Future (1985)

The end of an era: Putin’s great power project is failing

Quick Welsh election thoughts

Rita Mae Brown

Jean Kerr

Peter De Vries

Frederick L Collins

Sailing Rigs

umbrage

About