On Terry Pratchett’s fictional Discworld, Ankh Morpork local newspaper publisher William de Worde remarks: “Lies could run round the world before the truth could get its boots on” in the novel The Truth.
That turn of speed definitely applies today to internet memes, whether AI-generated slop or otherwise.
It hasn’t taken long for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as Reform UK (Ltd.) to pick up on some of the latest garbage emanating from the White House (posts passim) and adapt it for their own Z-list candidate for mayor, Laila Cunningham, another Conservative Party defector who, amongst other things, want to dictate what women choose to wear.
AI from the hard of thinking. Since when have there mountains on the banks of the Thames? And why are the two figures shown leaving no tracks in the snow?
The disgraced 45th and current disgraceful 47th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump (who is on a personal quest to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.), has never been renowned for his intellectual prowess. This, plus his overweening narcissism, means that for his second spell of squatting in the Oval Office, he has surrounded himself with sycophantic staff who will not embarrass him mainly because they are just as stupid as their boss, if not more so.
This stupidity was again on display yesterday on the White House social media accounts, with a post based on the lonely penguin meme from the Werner Herzog film Encounters at the End of the World. The meme features footage of a lone Adélie penguin wandering away from its colony in Antarctica and was posted in connection with the Tangerine Tyrant’s obsession with acquiring Greenland from Denmark, an ambition which has provoked both a consumer boycott (posts passim) and demonstrations in both Denmark itself and Greenland.
Here’s what White House staffers embarrassed themselves and the entire Trump regime with yesterday.
Needless to say the image was produced with the aid of Artificial Ignorance, otherwise abbreviated to AI.
Moreover, it goes without saying that the post attracted extensive mockery online. Here’s an example.
However, this criticism overlooks one vital fact; The Donald’s importing of penguins to Greenland is a far better use of US tax dollars than towing Greenland down to the southern polar region to enable it to be populated by penguins! 😀
German news website heise.de reports that a new app is available for Danish consumers to help avoid buying US consumer products in the wake of the efforts of the disgraced 45th President and disgraceful current 45th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump (who is on a personal quest to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.), to acquire the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland on spurious national security grounds.
A wave of protest in Denmark gave rise to a Facebook group “Boycott goods from the USA“, in which some 100,000 Danes exchange ideas about how best to avoid American products. To put its membership into perspective, Denmark has around six million inhabitants.
Although it is only available at present for Apple phones, an Android version is promised for the near future.
Is it American? Get the answer in seconds
According to the app store blurb:
UdenUSA helps you identify and avoid American products in your everyday life. With our intuitive scanning function, you can easily check whether a product is American-owned and find Danish alternatives.
Furthermore, app developer Pipper told the DPA press agency: “We noticed that it was important for many people to avoid food from the USA. But it’s not always so easy to recognise them in the supermarket.“
The app is provided in two versions – a free version which allows users to scan 2-5 products per day and a subscription version for bulk purchases, which costs DKr. 19.00 per month.
The developer’s website also pointedly asks visitors ‘Are you supporting Trump when you shop?
The Irish Times also points out that the app is not without a few geeky touches. Users who scan a product using their camera phone are then confronted with the message: “Now hacking into the Pentagon … no, wait, don’t worry.“
A number of years ago, wearable technology looked set to become all the rage.
Mention of it has declined noticeably in recent years. When, for instance, was the last time you heard of or encountered, say, Google Glass?
On the other hand, wearable animals – or parts of animals – have a history that extends back into prehistory, in particular that epoch known as the Palaeolithic, the longest period in human history.
Nevertheless, the manners in which animals or their parts have been used have adapted over the millennia in response to technological changes and development.
A recent example of such an adaptation is shown below. It cropped up in your correspondent’s social media timeline today, although a reverse image search indicates it might have originated a couple of years ago.
Why Is The First Letter of Each Word Capitalised?
Are other identity animals available? Comment below.
Shamelessly lifted from social media, Merriam-Webster is making an effort to remedy the modern vicious circle (not cycle. Ed.) of misquoted adages.
One stands corrected
Merriam-Webster describes itself as “America’s most trusted dictionary“. It’s also the USA’s oldest dictionary publisher, whose presses first started producing reference books in 1843, according to Wikipedia.
Your ‘umble scribe hopes the company’s efforts are not in vain, as language skills generally seem to be declining. 🙁
The Tenovus charity shop on St Mark’s Road is currently closed for refurbishment.
However, this does not seem to have been noticed by the local members of the Hard of Thinking Club, who are continuing to dump their donations outside the shop’s door.
The operators/owners of the shop have recently decided to post a notice on the shop’s door shutter informing those generous but misguided patrons of the error of their ways.
Let’s ignore the writing on the wall.
Just like other notices in Bristol, e.g. the ones that say no parking, Tenovus’ sign has been ignored.
Is ignoring the notice due to illiteracy or plain, simple bloody-mindedness? Have your say in the comments.
Meanwhile, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and notify it of such problems.
Your ‘umble scribe is unaware how many times a week – if any – the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump (who is on a mission to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.) catches either a number 77, 87, 196, 452 or N87 from the bus stop at London’s Nine Elms Underground station, but it will do his narcissistic personality disorder no good at all.
The poster below has this week appeared at the bus stop in response to the USA’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this week.
Of course, having the US military at one’s control does mean that The Donald, as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, is able to call on their members to indulge in the ultimate ‘look over there‘ tactics when required to distract from his embarrassing local difficulties caused by his long-term friendship with the late American financier, human trafficker, child sex offender and serial rapist Jeffrey Epstein, as the thousands of documents known as the Epstein files slowly make their redacted way into the public domain and which he and his sycophantic subordinates seem very reluctant to release, despite the existence and imperative of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, not to mention the Tango Terrorists campaign trail promise to release the files.
There’s an old adage that says you can tell a man by the company he keeps.
Before we end, a quick translation from EN-GB for any American readers. You will not find the definition of nonce as used above in a standard American dictionary; you’ll need a British one. It’s British prison slang to denote a person who commits a crime involving sex, especially sex with a child. This definition is taken from the Cambridge online English Dictionary.
Which country will tRump invade next as a distraction from his next scandal? Have your say in the comments.
According to the Catholic version of Christianity, there are seven deadly sins, i.e. pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Although they are not explicitly listed in the Bible, they developed within early Christian theological tradition. Furthermore, Psychology Today speculates that their origins ‘are nebulous and likely trace back to before Hellenistic Greece‘, even though if offers no source for such an assertion. All evidence of their orin tends to point to the early Christian era and more specifically Evagrius Ponticus, a monk in fourth century Egypt.
These seven transgressions are also known as cardinal sins, although whether this alternative naming is derived from the sinning scarlet-garbed clergy committing them is not well documented. This naming is likely derived from the other definition of cardinal, i.e. fundamental, of the greatest importance (think the cardinal points of the compass. Ed.).
Anyway, a new revision of the seven deadly sins has been posted on social media updated for the early 21st century and it bears a distinctly technological character.
Is this an accurate rendition? Have your say below in the comments.
Bristol has what could be described as a bit of form when it comes to street art, with the city being the original canvas of the artist known as Banksy.
Indeed Bristol 247 today has a piece by John Nation, described as the city’s godfather of graffiti outlining why the city continues to be defined by the art form.
Another form of art for which the city is less recognised is fly-tipping. A couple of days ago, Bristol Live highlighted that almost 200 fly-tipping incidents are reported to the city council every day. Last year the council recorded 10,268 fly-tipping incidents, an increase from 8,556 or over 20% during the previous year.
The back streets of BS5 have once again provided ample evidence of the combination of street art and fly-tipping over the festive period, with festive fly-tipping attracting the spray can school of art. Look at what your ‘umble scribe found up St Mark’s Grove this morning.
This is not the first time that fly-tipped materials have attracted the spray can crew in that particular street (posts passim).
In the meantime, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and report fly-tipping.
Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record, has an unenviable reputation for finding a local Bristolian angle to news stories, whether that be by finding some vaguely connected person who just happens to have a BS postcode or by expanding the city’s boundaries into nearby or more distant local authorities or countries, whether there is any such angle or not.
How the story was announced and tagged on the paper’s main page is shown below.
Depending on one’s mode of travel, Bristol is over 100 km from Aberogwr and takes over an hour or even two. There is no way the latter falls within the civic boundaries of the City and County of Bristol, whose closest municipal boundary to Aberogwr extends as far as the low water mark on Ynys Echni / Flat Holm in the middle of the Severn Sea.
Looking at the facts of the story itself, the founder of the beach clean-up group that removed the shoes said the following:
“The strongest theory is that the shoes come from a shipwreck called the Frolic, that hit Tusker Rock about 150 years ago. It was carrying shoes and cargo from Italy. They were washed up the Ogmore River and every now and then they appear, especially when there has been erosion of the riverbank.”
It’s only when one gets to the mention of Tusker Rock (Cymraeg: Ynys Tysgr. Ed.) that the slightness of the connection becomes apparent: it’s a rock in the Bristol Channel 3.2km west of Aberogwr that’s only visible at low tide, but one that has been the end of many vessels over the centuries.
