We passed Idiocracy some time back. We're now in a region where satirists and humourists are simply no longer able to function without sounding saner.

True, but to be fair, the scientists, engineers, and scholars are largely fleeing the country, the tech industry is in a massive slump (agriculture is the only sector growing jobs according to the last reliable official figures), and there's a political need to create the impression that the country isn't in a bad way.

The BBC, being publicly funded (via the TV license, not general taxation) is constantly monitored for any sign of bias. So much so that the last conservative government abused this to try to place people in their to ensure there is a right wing bias under the guise of "eliminating left wing bias". Recent events from Trump and the right wing press in the UK have actually let the BBC clean out a few of those people the Conservatives put into managerial positions, which was fortunately the opposite of what they wanted to achieve.

Question Time having predominantly right wing guests isn't news to most of us over this side of the pond though. The right still claims it's "left wing bias" though.

Also the guests are the main focus of the programme as they're usually government or opposition politicians or otherwise highly politically engaged people like top journalists, analysts, et al. so the guest selection having a bias is a bit of a concern as it means the BBC is giving more air time to one side.

Spot the guy who's never driven in a lorry.

Or a sports car.

Vibration and harshness does not come from the engine. It comes from the road. This is why rail travel is often a lot smoother than road travel, you're not dealing with a poor road surface.

Try taking a car around a proper race track, the difference between that and street driving will be chalk and cheese, especially in a car with a hard suspension setup (which I strongly suspect, yours is not). Same car, same engine, same tyres, different surface.

PT Barnum was a hell of an optimist to think there's only one born every minute.

If you know a way to cure tribalism, I'd love to hear it.

Until then, we'll just have to manage it as best we can.

I live in the UK and regularly read Reddit as an anonymous user (meaning I don't have an account) and it's fairly good. Most of the really nutty stuff gets filtered out relatively quickly and it doesn't seem to push anti-vax or other extremist propaganda to average people (read: those not expressly looking for it). Many of the UK centric sub-reddits are great examples of British humour, which is what brings me back and I suspect a lot of others. I suspect Tiktok like other forms of social media have just become cesspits of extremism, hate and their propaganda, much like TheAppFormerlyKnownAsTwitter and it's reached a point where it's so obvious and so bad that it's insulting the intelligence of even those who do not posses much of it to be insulted.

Also Reddit is still mostly text... not another bloody video site where you spend 2 minutes watching something you could have read in 12 seconds... if you were taking your time about it.

Basically, people are looking for socials with the least amount of obvious bullshit.

True, but the same lesson is valid for broad spectrum anti-fungals like Amphotericin B.

It's an indictment of the poor way the US treats health care, not just the poor health care system but also the "quick fix" attitude of many Americans. If they get any illness they'll demand the doctor gives them magic pills (a broad spectrum cure, like azithromycin(zithromax)) rather than suffer through a minor illness and of course, the for profit health care system is more than happy to oblige (as is the greater corporate America, who don't want their serfs taking a week off to get better). Overuse of medication when the patient will get better with rest and isolation is why pathogens evolve to become resistant to them.

With fungal infections, prevention is almost always better and this comes in the tried and tested methods of hygiene and quarantine. First is to have a clean environment to prevent the fungus from having enough resources to establish itself, then keep the infected away from healthy patients.

Sadly that's all those lists become, a list of numbers that tell scammers and spammers that a line has a person behind it. One of their biggest problems are paying agents to talk to unattended lines (the people working for scammers are happy to scam their employers, you're shocked, I can tell).

What's needed is to go after the telcos and other businesses that permit this, especially as they're profiting from it, even though it's indirect profit they're still benefiting and permitting it. You want to curtail this kind of activity, punish those enabling it.

I've never joined a no-call list in my life, I've always figured that keeping my number as secret as possible is a better defence which means not handing it out to all and sundry. It's like underpants, they know I'm wearing some but not what colour or kind they are.

It wasn't even deliberate, it's just that Kevin had a particularly spicy Vindaloo at lunch washed down with a couple of lagers and the lavatory was in the basement below the furnace.

I'm sure they'll accept Trumpcoin but only because their own far right Ayatollahcoin didn't take off.

It works for Apple....

Jokes aside, I don't think that's what Costco does. Costco (at least in the UK) limits membership to ether business owners or people in certain professions. From the UK website it's Banking / Finance, Local Government, Fire / Rescue Service, Post Office, Airlines, Education, Police Force, Civil Service / Armed Forces, Medical / Health Service, Insurance. Not exactly the bottom run, but a lot of those are not high paying careers either. Also your company can arrange to be added to the pre-approved membership list (my current employer is despite not directly being in any of those industries listed) so any of their employees can apply for membership. I believe Costco started as a store for (US) government employees, so definitely not trying to shut out the poor (surely you do that by just having high prices).

Not that your point isn't a very valid one good sir.

That wasn't the reason. It usually begins because they want to maintain some specific exclusivity, with Costco it began with US government employees (which is why Costco still discriminates on industry). Australians and Brits may be familiar with the style of store that costco is, we used to call them "Cash and Carry" stores which were large warehouse outlets that were often (and in some cases like Booker still are) limited to business customers, so you had to have a business to get membership to shop there.

Cash and Carry shops started to decline in the 90s because large supermarkets pushed out smaller stores and ran their own logistics, reducing the need to for warehouse stores selling in bulk and delivery became more viable for other business. So they started opening up to the general public but that wasn't enough to save most of them. Costco is a hybrid that combines the warehouse concept of a cash and carry with a normal supermarket.

I'm less concerned about getting out unscathed as I don't have a dog in that fight... However as I'm not a member of the ultra rich (just a peasant who's managed to do OK for their humble beginnings) I'm worried about the aftermath.

The AI bubble is the only thing holding the US economy above water. With Trump's tarriffs screwing everyone who's not a billionaire six ways from Sunday, his financial illiteracy destroying what little that isn't screwing over and his overlords more concerned with keeping the ultra rich onside as they proceed with their Great Re-Whitening... Once the AI bubble bursts it's going to be carnage, metaphorically with huge job losses (which have already started) and possibly literally with the huge amounts of guns in the hands of not so stable people.

As someone living in the UK, we'll be somewhat insulated from this as business flees the US, it'll come to the UK and EU first, with Canada, Japan, Australia and a few others getting some as well. This issue for me will come as aftershocks, a lot of British businesses have swallowed the Cloud and AI fads hook, line and sinker so they'll struggle to get away from large American tech corporations who will be desperate to fleece whoever they can (and it's not like I didn't warn them when they sold off their local infrastructure for "cheap" cloud). Also the fact that we'll see a lot of Americans immigrating over to Europe, meaning more competition for the good jobs.

Nokia Corporation has always been strong on the back end, particularly telecoms infrastructure (mobile phone towers, branch exchanges and the like). That never really went away. Nokia as a handset manufacturer was spun off years ago, now the Nokia phone brand is more or less owned by HMD Global (which seem to be retiring it) although Nokia now owns about 10% of HMD. My last few phones have been HMD handsets, they're pretty good for the price although nothing really interests me with their current models.

As the fine summary talks about data and cloud services, this sounds like the Finnish Nokia corporation which never really went anywhere, not the handset manufacturer. Not sure why the author is conflating the two but I'm not surprised either given what passes for "tech journalism" (sarcastic air quotes).

This is horrifying, terrifying, and sadly well-known even to those who superficially monitor such things.

Popular media: More than one US film/tv studio has "lost" or "suffered a mysterious fire" in un-digitised archives, destroying the lot, during battles to preserve. The BBC sued Bob Monkhhouse for preserving material it destroyed. In Britain, it has been no better. Fans of the British TV series "The Avengers" can only see old episodes because armies of previous fans descended on rubbish tips and, at great risk to themselves, collected as much film as possible.

General history: Places like the John Ryland's Library and the British Library have suffered with rescuing archives at risk of becoming submerged or destroyed by mould. The Archimedes Palimpsest was partially destroyed by one collector filling in the pictures with coloured pens and by another collector allowing the book to be severely damaged by mould.

The National Archives have mysteriously "lost" a great many files over the years and are only digitising those they've retained at an incredibly slow rate. I know because I've personally forked out several hundred to get just two scanned, all because politicians far prefer frippery to archiving. We've absolutely no idea how many of the manuscripts held in other archives are still in usable condition because nobody bothers to check.

It's not just limited to archives, of course. The US has, over the last couple of decades, demolished numerous buildings within the US that are over 300 years old because malls produce profit and ancient structures don't. (They also then complain they have no history...) The Space Shuttle is to be taken to Texas for a PR stunt, which will require it being dismantled and those things aren't designed for that. There is no guarantee any of it will survive the journey. All because PR matters and preservation does not. Other countries? The Louvre... well... probably best not to talk about that utter disgrace. In Egypt, 3000 year old gold artefacts are routinely melted down so the conservators can pocket some extra cash.

It's at times like this that Kenny Everett's general comes to mind.