GreyShuck

joined 1 year ago
[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 12 points 2 days ago

It's my turn to cook tonight. I'm doing a shakshuka.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 35 points 1 week ago

I think that the closest that I had at school was the library. Even decades later I am still happy when surrounded by books.

Otherwise, somewhere green: walking in woodland or sitting by a stream always improves things.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 5 points 3 weeks ago

I've had the same number for 24 years now. I have only ever had a handful of spam calls in total over that time.

I probably get one a month or so on my work number.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 14 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Basically all of them.

A quick skim shows me that the only people who have called me this so far this year are:

  • Doctor
  • Dentist
  • Sister
  • Wife
  • Close friend

I expect that this would be much the same for last year too.

I have no reason not to speak to any of these.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 27 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Doctor who (2005) s01e07 - Kronkburgers on Satellite 5 in the opening scenes.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago

Excluding pretty much everything that I saw as a kid - when you go into basically everything blind - it would be After Hours (1985). I either hadn't read anything about it or hadn't been paying attention. Standing outside the cinema, I just saw that it was by Scorsese and went in.

I still think that it is one of his most under-appreciated films. And I loved the Ted Lasso homage, combining it with the Divine Comedy.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) - Aubrey Plaza in an engaging character piece that has hints of Eagle vs Shark among others. It's not outstanding by any means and not among Plaza's best, but still witty and touching.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago

Way back in the day it used to be Cinema City in Norwich: the only art-house one in the city and where I 'learnt' cinema. It was great.

These days, I live between three small town cinemas in Suffolk, and they are all good in their own ways.

The Riverside in Woodbridge often has a talk about the film or maybe even an interview with the director or one of the cast etc on stage afterwards. Aldeburgh Cinema is run by a charity, shows a good few NT live events and local films and also has a documentary fest each year, and Leiston Film Theatre is, as they say on their site, the oldest purpose built cinema in the county (110 years now), and had the advantage for a while of being about 150m from our back gate. It is the most commercial of three in terms of programme, but still has some interesting stuff.

 

...so that the browser will open the desktop version of that particular site?

If there is a way of doing this in some other browser, I'd also be interested.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 13 points 3 months ago

At the point where you and the AI can see someone straightening their tie in a certain way and you and the AI can exchange a single wordless glance and you both burst out laughing 'cos it was just like that thing that you both saw 6 months ago and found hilarious then - then maybe.

Not before.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh yes, very much - and not just with movies, but TV, novels, stage performance and the like.

As a kid, it was just the overall visuals and spectacle as much as anything - details of the plot were secondary. Into my teens and early twenties and think that plot details came to dominate and after that exploring interesting concepts began to take priority. Then I guess that I began to appreciate the production side of things more: writing quality and cinematography etc maybe into my 30s and 40s. And these days (in my 50s) I am much more focused on character-driven things.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 3 points 5 months ago

My first computer was a ZX81 - in 1982 - which, with my brother, I built from a kit and was astonished when it actually worked. We eventually added the 16k ram pack too: how could anyone possibly use all that?!

First phone. I think it was a Nokia 5110 or similar in 2000.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

 

More than 30 public figures including Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton and Greta Thunberg have written to Shell criticising its “callous and vindictive” lawsuit against Greenpeace after activists occupied a moving oil platform last year.

In one of the biggest legal threats in the environmental charity’s 50-year history, Shell is suing it for $1m (£790,000) in damages, with costs that could run into the millions.

The move follows a protest in January last year in which four Greenpeace activists boarded a platform north of the Canary Islands that was being transported to the Shetland Islands, holding signs stating: “Stop drilling – start paying.”

Monday’s letter , signed by dozens of prominent musicians, activists, and lawyers as well as more than 100,000 members of the public, calls on Shell to respect the right to protest.

 

The ad opens on a bucolic mountainscape, a lush, ascending piano run playing in the background. Gauzy clips from nostalgic midcentury auto ads fill the screen. “See the USA in your Chevrolet,” 1950s diva Dinah Shore sings.

But this isn’t your average car advertisement. Soon, the title track from Singin’ in the Rain begins to play, and scenes of cars burning amid wildfires and filling with water in floods start rolling. The once rollicking music becomes somber.

This commercial is the latest production from Oscar-winning director Adam McKay’s climate-focused production company Yellow Dot Studios. Launched last year, the non-profit studio produces short-form videos aiming to push back on climate disinformation.

 

Rishi Sunak has suffered his heaviest defeat in the House of Lords after the archbishop of Canterbury and former Conservative ministers joined forces with the opposition to force through five amendments to the Rwandan deportation bill.

The string of government setbacks, most passed by unusually large margins of about 100 votes, means the legislation, which aims to clear the way to send asylum seekers on a one-way flight to Kigali, will have to go back to the Commons.

The prime minister has previously warned the unelected chamber against frustrating the “will of the people” by hampering the passage of his safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill, which has been approved by MPs.

 

Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The Department for Work and Pensions is seeking new powers to require banks to trawl the accounts of millions of people who receive benefits in an effort to cut the £8bn currently lost annually to welfare fraud. The plan is close to being passed into law by parliament and will be “fully automated”, the government said. It is likely to use artificial intelligence to flag activity considered suspicious by the DWP.

The government said no decisions on whether a claimant was committing fraud would be made on the basis of the mass surveillance, but it would examine cases flagged as possible fraud or error “through our business-as-usual processes”.

 

Iceland’s iconic Blue Lagoon spa was forced to evacuate on Saturday as meteorologists warned of an “imminent” volcanic eruption nearby.

The spa has faced a series of closures over recent months as a wave of seismic activity continues to affect the country.

According to Iceland’s national broadcaster, lava has begun flowing after “intense seismic activity” in the area around the lagoon.

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