@hairyears@wandering.shop
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

hairyears

@hairyears@wandering.shop

Archetypal geek, perpetrates puns and Limericks, does a bit of Aikido, occasionally types a clever phrase and is looking to level-up his writing skills.

He/Him, fine with They/Them, frequently responds to Oi! / You

My profile pic is a male Ivy Mining Bee, spotted on a leaf in East London: the Header is a Blunthorn Clover Bee, photographed on Wanstead Flats. I'll probably swap these around on a regular basis.

You probably know me as https://wandering.shop/@hairyears on Twitter. Or some other place.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Iran has imposed nationwide bread rations with penalties for bakers breaking the new rules amid the country's worst economic crisis since the birth of the Islamic Republic:

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202401218415

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

Wot @acb sed: this explains why they're taking pot-shots at commercial shipping.

danjac, to random
@danjac@masto.ai avatar

A lot of people were saying "things will pick up in the New Year" but I'm not so sure. Feels more like a sea-change (I've lived through a few recessions: this is not that).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-employment-grew-by-just-700-jobs-in-2023-down-from-267-000-in-2022-adbd8a61

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@danjac

Glad I got my feet under the table in a new job, a month ago - sounds like the window of opportunity is now closed for the foreseeable future (or at least, not the foreclosable future)

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Brexit bonus! Martian hyper-scabies epidemic hits the sunlit uplands of brexitannia! Supply chain whoopsie hits supply of meds for treating the condition causing multi-month delays! Merciless itching intensifies! Happy new year!

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/01/doctors-report-nightmare-surge-in-scabies-across-uk

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross So that explains the motivation of Farage and the ERG: they are lurching blobs of scabies mites in the shape of living corpses, and Brexit has granted them the sunlit upland of sixty million people trapped on an island with no topical insecticide cream.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

If 2024 is as spectacularly shit as 2010-2023, then we're going to end up with Prime Minister Kemi Badenoch before it's over, aren't we.

(To be followed, in less than the lifespan of a wilting lettuce, by the Emperor Dalek.)

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

Be careful what names you whisper in the dark: 'tis bad enough that they are who they are, without inviting Fate to show us all that far worse people lurk in the shadows, waiting to step forward.

Or, worse, were always here, in plain view, barely hiding what they are and what they do.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

I don't do Christmas (am very definitely Not Christian) but I might have ingested a Newtonmass dinner, and am about to collapse into the Schwartzchild radius of my stomach contents.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

We refer to this as Passing The Advent Horizon.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

DO MY WORK:

Currently brainstorming aliterative terms of disparagement for Bob to use in the next Laundry novel.

So far I have disallowed:

— Tangerine Shitgibbon ❌ (because Fuck That Guy)
— Useless Fuckpigs ❌ (too much Dominic Cummings)

But also:

— Demented Felchsquirrels
— Impotent Wankpandas
— Pathetic Puffinfellators
— Turd-polishing Terrapins
— Stupefied Swivemonkeys

And now I need more.

What have you got for me?

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

Hedgehog felchers

Goes together like broken glass and vaseline

Bollock Maggot

Septic haemorrhoid

syphilitic centipede

cuntweevils

urethral leeches

tonsil tickler

snail molester

scabsucking flapnibbler

...And any sentence ending with the epithet "Cut his tongue on the pus and crunchy bits"

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross Also, but not only:

Syphilitic swivelmonkey

rectal afterbirth

jellyfish enema

Australia's longest-surviving crocodile rapist

The cockroaches ran out of his trousers to vomit

Gets no sex when the maggots in (his/her) skiddies/knickers picketed for better conditions at work.

A Mankyman who's got nowt between 'is ears, but rectal gonorrhoea

Kisses like a seagull, if regurgitating fish would be a great improvement

Darling, your breath smells like a piggery drain

...More on request

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@sarajw @cstross

Train an 'AI' the same way I became proficient in profanity: daily exposure to both hospital workers and the construction industry.

stavvers, to random
@stavvers@masto.ai avatar

speaking of threads, you've all seen the best imdb bio of all time, yeah? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1856457/

hairyears, (edited )
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross @stavvers

Threads was based on the 'Square Leg' civil defence scenario:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg

...Which was, even at the time (1980) recognised as a low-ball estimate of the likely damage.

The city I lived in, in the early 1980's was a likely target, and would've been in the fallout plumes from ground-bursts in Birmingham, Coventry, or Rugby.

In short: as much optimistic as realistic, at the time I saw Threads broadcast on TV.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

What I want to know about this scene is WHO SLICES THE TOP OFF THEIR VICTIM’S SKULL, CHECKS INSIDE, THEN PUTS IT BACK AGAIN and WHY IS THIS PERFECTLY DEFLESHED SKELETON NOT IN PIECES ON THE FLOOR is this a Ray Harryhausen episode or something even more disturbing

hairyears, (edited )
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

WHO SLICES THE TOP OFF THEIR VICTIM’S SKULL

Yeah, whatever, Wednesday. Happens in all kind of perfectly normal places.

The skulls emerging from their icy graves at Butugychag were trepanned, too.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Today's writing task: first-draft a scene with a plausibly silly supervillain attack in the centre of Birmingham for Bob to get caught up in, complicated by the presence of Youtube influencers (it's 2015) and folks who are still in denial about the New Management (because magic isn't real). It's 10:30 and I am already getting a headache thinking about this scene ...

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@JohnLoader6 @cstross Can you imagine the horrors that would be revealed by draining a Birmingham canal in the Laundryverse?

Animated moped carcasses with a coating of septic duckweed would be the least of it: imagine what shopping trolleys might turn into...

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

#WritersCoffeeClub 23: Do you have any profanity in your work?

Fuck yes! But only by American standards: here in Scotland fuck is fucking punctuation, and cunt is a gender-neutral term of endearment between friends. (I'm not particularly sweary by Irvine Welsh standards.)

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross Yes, but...

The workplace profanity on a trading floor is pallid and flaccid and far inferior to my experiences on a building site.

I have some collectors' items from an old-school Irish foreman who greeted me with:

"Yew silly fucken cocksuckin syphilitic little toe-rag, why don't ye jest feck off an' die!"

I wished him good morning and asked after his health, politely, urging him to suck the maggots out of his own fuckin' haemorrhoids before they died of rectal gonorrhea.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Oh wow, Techdirt digs the dirt on Dilbert Stark's lawsuit against Media Matters. And they don't think much of it!

" ... kudos to Elon. This really takes stupid SLAPP suits to incredible new levels. I didn’t think you’d be able to find a lawyer who would file a lawsuit so stupid, that makes you look this ridiculous, but you did it."

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/21/congrats-to-elon-musk-i-didnt-think-you-had-it-in-you-to-file-a-lawsuit-this-stupid-but-you-crazy-bastard-you-did-it/

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross There is a specific type of lawyer - 'Bleed the client dry' vulture with asbestos ears and arse - who will always take the case.

The professional skills are:

1: Play the client's ego and anger for profit.

2: Maximise the complexity and length of the case...

3: ...While remembering that financial exhaustion of the other party is a win.

4: Don't get caught commiting malpractices that would get you disbarred, while having no shame in the face of blistering rebukes from the bench.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

GOOD MORNING!

Your thought for the day is:

Muppet Yiffing

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross

There is muppet sex Pr0n.

Do not google for it.

Do not ever, ever feed an online image creation app the seed phrases 'Custard Muppets' and 'Shaved Muppet'.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Brain Worms.

It's the only plausible answer.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross Did Suella's performative cruelty to human beings precede or post-date this disgusting cruelty to brainworms?

ChrisMayLA6, to random
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

Is it awful to hope that something horrible happens to while he's in the jungle filming I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here?

just askin'

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@ChrisMayLA6

You can track him through the jungle by the trail of vomiting mosquitoes, venomous snakes dying in hideous convulsions, and suppurating leeches begging passing westerners for disinfectant mouthwash.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross @ChrisMayLA6

Do not google for "Urethral leeches" or (worse) "Filarial hydrocele"

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Skepticism about carefully phrased input prompts to ChatGPT should be called prompt criticality, amirite? The consequences could be explosive!

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross The whole of the ChatGPT investosphere is based on a basic principle in modelling nuclear reactions:

"There's one Barn every minute"

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

If I was Silvio Berlusconi I wouldn't bother buying paintings on late night TV shopping channels.

I'd simply set up a university scholarship scheme for impecunious art students, with the small print giving me right of first refusal (at a fair market price) on their exhibition work.

Keep buying their best work and sooner or later I'll own the equivalent of a gallery full of stuff by Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst, Banksy, Tracy Emin, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@gsuberland @cstross

AML 5 is in force anyway: the choice is 'Comply or be cut off'

johnefrancis, to gardening
@johnefrancis@mastodon.social avatar

A great thumb-sized bumblebee parked for the night on a smallish giant sunflower, about 8ft from the ground.

This year's pear crop, the 3rd year this tree has borne fruit. 1, 2, 30-ish. Coming into its own after it was attacked by rabbits as a child, setting it back a couple of years.

#bees #gardening

image/jpeg

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@johnefrancis

Magnificent bee!

I don't recognise the species: where was the photo taken?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

About that last RT: I think this is the first ever use of a laser anti-missile weapon in combat. The implications for future conflicts are immense as it shifts the offense/defense slider a long way back towards defense (war fighting has been dominated by offensive technologies since 1918: a tool for reliably zapping artillery shells and missiles in flight will be a game-changer).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Beam

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@cstross A laser capable of damaging a missile in flight will cause permanent eye damage from the scattered (not just the reflected) light over a very large area.

davidallengreen, to random
@davidallengreen@mastodon.green avatar

Happy Autumnal Equinox!

Only six months until there is this much daylight again.

(And a special hello to the reply guys already typing “only in the northern hemisphere”.)

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@davidallengreen

At some point in the future, we will have pedants on Mars to offer another set of interesting and informative clarifications.

The good news is that they will be on Mars, tens of millions of miles away, and they will probably never return.

annika, to random
@annika@xoxo.zone avatar

I have reorganised the departments. Pray I do not reorg them further.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@annika

I have been instructed not to use the word 'Redisorganisation'.

Repeatedly.

Say it twice, and it'll slip out into your workplace conversations, henceforth and forever.

Loukas, to random
@Loukas@mastodon.nu avatar

There's an old military saying, "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything". It means things never happen like you planned for, but the more you plan, the more options you have for responding.

In the context of social change I've been thinking it might be accurate to say "the organisation is worthless but organising is everything." The actual group or party may fail, but the fact that people have connected creates more social resources for people-power.

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@Loukas

Can you link to case studies of post-Soviet workplaces where people still turned up to 'work', unpaid, because the social networks supported an informal economy that kept them alive?

Asking for a friend, in an economy which isn't in a freefall post-Soviet collapse.

tiffanycli, to random
@tiffanycli@mastodon.social avatar

Talking to German friends:

“I hear Bavaria is like the Texas of Germany?”
“Oh no, not at all. Bavaria is not scary!”
“Do … do you guys think Texas is scary?”
“…….”

hairyears,
@hairyears@wandering.shop avatar

@kentindell @tiffanycli @Dalchico

Y'all heard, right, the nickname 'Howdy Arabia'?

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