Incidental Remarks

My fediverse µblog of near endless banality, with occasional food for thought. Follow me via your fediverse client of choice @basil@trivial.observer.

Jul 2025

Jul 2, 2025 22:04 — a response to this post by basil

I forgot that having line breaks in my alt text completely shags the markdown on my website.

Jul 2, 2025 21:39

Email to my MP, who I’m done with.

Hi Mark, For what little it may be worth, I noted your vote today, and wanted to convey my complete disgust at the insulting watering down of the word terrorism, that should be an insult to everyone that has suffered in the face of it, and the appalling implications this vote has on our country. I voted for your predecessor, through gritted teeth, when Corbyn was your leader. I voted for you, with hope and cautious enthusiasm, despite concerns Keir Starmer was not up to the task. I have been left disappointed at almost every turn with this government’s actions and moral leadership. The welfare bill, the immigration rhetoric, the kowtowing to Reform. This vote was the final straw, and your vote told me all I need to know about where you personally stand on the important issues facing this country. It’s difficult to tell if I’ll ever be able to vote for Labour again, but I can guarantee, with complete and absolute certainty, I will never again cast my vote for you. You have shown me who you are. I truly hope you find a less shameful path forwards into your future endeavours. All the best
Hi Mark, For what little it may be worth, I noted your vote today, and wanted to convey my complete disgust at the insulting watering down of the word terrorism, that should be an insult to everyone that has suffered in the face of it, and the appalling implications this vote has on our country. I voted for your predecessor, through gritted teeth, when Corbyn was your leader. I voted for you, with hope and cautious enthusiasm, despite concerns Keir Starmer was not up to the task. I have been left disappointed at almost every turn with this government’s actions and moral leadership. The welfare bill, the immigration rhetoric, the kowtowing to Reform. This vote was the final straw, and your vote told me all I need to know about where you personally stand on the important issues facing this country. It’s difficult to tell if I’ll ever be able to vote for Labour again, but I can guarantee, with complete and absolute certainty, I will never again cast my vote for you. You have shown me who you are. I truly hope you find a less shameful path forwards into your future endeavours. All the best

Jun 2025

Jun 22, 2025 22:27 — a response to this post by basil

The other quote that lives in my head almost constantly of late —

“How do you go bankrupt? Two Ways. Gradually and Then Suddenly.”

Jun 22, 2025 21:40 — a response to this post by ghostdancer

@ghostdancer always intended to come back to this in a more timely manner, but then obviously I forgot.

The next 5 were also excellent.

I should probably blog about our trip to the Balkans for our 10 year anniversary.

Jun 9, 2025 22:17

Really slogging through the 2nd Expanse book, Caliban’s War. Feel like I’ve been reading it for years.

Jun 9, 2025 22:13 — a response to this post by jamie

@jamie they are pretty tasty. But it’s a lot to get through, and Mrs Basil will not like these.

I’d happily make some if I was feeding a bunch of folk. I saw some blogs about adding them in a Martini in place of an olive.

May 2025

May 5, 2025 11:19

Opened a birthday present early since I’ll be travelling on the day.

My first Japanese knife.

Shiny.

A Masakage Shimo Nakiri knife in my hand.
A Masakage Shimo Nakiri knife in my hand.

Mar 2025

Mar 1, 2025 12:45

New strap day. I don’t know what the name is for the straps that come with the Seiko’s that I’ve bought but they don’t look particularly nice and they are just painful to wear.

My new watch, a Seiko Alpinist, on my wrist with a new brown leather strap. In the background, and out of focus, my dog is waiting impatiently for me to throw her ball.
My new watch, a Seiko Alpinist, on my wrist with a new brown leather strap. In the background, and out of focus, my dog is waiting impatiently for me to throw her ball.

Feb 2025

Feb 22, 2025 19:29 — a response to this post by david_chisnall

@david_chisnall like the scene (if I recall correctly) where the structural engineer explains how they are fucking up the building in the camp and presents her credentials. Then gets murdered.

Feb 22, 2025 11:45

New watch day.

A Seiko Alpinist (SPB209J1). A watch with a chrome case, brown and brass face, and cathedral hands.
A Seiko Alpinist (SPB209J1). A watch with a chrome case, brown and brass face, and cathedral hands.

Feb 10, 2025 22:36

Have got through a full year of the lifebook. Had zero expectations I’d be able to keep it up. Having the digital and analogue copies saved me at many points.

My microblog. The digital duplicate of my lifebook at soitgoes.pub. Showing the entry for Today on the 10th February.
My microblog. The digital duplicate of my lifebook at soitgoes.pub. Showing the entry for Today on the 10th February.
The front cover of my lifebook
The front cover of my lifebook
My lifebook held open on the page for the 10th of February.
My lifebook held open on the page for the 10th of February.

Feb 1, 2025 15:27 — a response to this post by basil

Ah, the tab groups have returned after the sync was re-enabled… That makes no sense… But I’ll take it.

Feb 1, 2025 15:25 — a response to this post by basil

I had to download a backup of the encryption key from Vivaldi on my laptop and upload it on my phone to get sync working.

As far as the tab groups go… Guess I’ll just not use them anymore.

Jan 2025

Jan 4, 2025 23:22 — a response to this post by FunctionKey

@FunctionKey I’m enjoying it but the problem I’m pushing through at the moment is that having seen the TV adaptation already, my brain is constantly calling it to mind.

Dec 2024

Dec 11, 2024 00:34

It only just occurred to me to test this Tusky beta on my GTS API. So here we are.

Dec 2, 2024 11:06 — a response to this post by andyc

@andyc this is pretty much what happened with the testing contractor that preceded the current guy.

Claimed he was a guru at creating UI test suites from scratch. Every thing he did was garbage (tests would fail half the time and he would just say: thats the nature of UI testing) and his code was full of AI slop.

Of particular enjoyment was when he wrote his own function to loop around every character in a string and then if the char matched the regular expression [a-z] it would call toUpper() on the char.

When asked why he didn’t just call toUpper on the String like a normal person, he had no answer. He just kept explaining the function to me over and over.

I pasted the code into chatgpt and its explanation of it was verbatim.