Quiche

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“Fancy a quickie for dinner?”
“I think you’ll find that it’s pronounced QUICHE!”

But this is a quickie. Hugely busy day and still stuff to do before this evening, when we are also doing stuff.

So here are a couple of links:

Is it because it’s driving through a horrific bit of Sheffield where bus peltage is actually the least of your worries? Spoiler: it is.

Also, this:

Decency long left the building at X. It flows from the very top. When former executive Yoel Roth, whom Musk wrongly accused of being a pedophile, warned recently about hate speech on X, CEO Linda Yaccarino’s first reaction was to play down his concerns. On Monday, Musk followed up: “I have rarely seen evil in as pure a form as Yoel Roth.”

More final nails are being added at an alarming rate.

Yes, but really now, what is this?!?

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Spotted on local wannabe Amazon-esque site. But what is this?

Well, it’s a Car Temporary Parking Signs Car Mountable Rotatable Cell Phone Holder. Clearly.
That’s what it says at the top of the page. See?

And those last six words make complete sense. I don’t think that having a cellphone in a cellphone holder in front of you while you are driving is a good or necessary thing, but that’s what this thing does, and if you need a Car Mountable Rotatable Cell Phone Holder, then this is a product that you might choose.

But what of the Car Temporary Parking Signs bit? If we assume that the top part of this device is the Car Mountable Rotatable Cell Phone Holder (which it clearly is, because there’s an image of it mounted in a car, holding a cellphone), then a quick extrapolation says that the bottom part is the Car Temporary Parking Signs bit.

Is that row of numbers meant to count down how much time you have left at your current parking spot or something?
Is it in microseconds? That seems unreasonable.
But if so, then that number would represent about 4 hours and 41 minutes. Which seems more reasonable.

But it’s in the car and you – presumably – aren’t. So how do you read it? Unreasonable again.

Let’s see if there’s any more information.

What’s in the box?

1 x Car stop sign.
1 x Digital stickers.

But didn’t I pay for a Car Temporary Parking Signs Car Mountable Rotatable Cell Phone Holder? Why isn’t there one of those in the box? What are those things, and where are they in the images of the Car Temporary Parking Signs Car Mountable Rotatable Cell Phone Holder product that I ordered?

Better head to the product description to sort this out:

wut?

Rotate and hide to avoid annoyance: just turn the display once and turn back to hide in no time.

I… I understand all the words here. Just not together. Not in that order.
“Turn back to hide in no time”? Is that the Rotatable bit? Why would you want to turn back to hide? Is that how one avoids annoyance? Or should it be “turn back time to hide”, and it actually links directly to your flux capacitor?

360 degree arbitrary rotation: free rotation, you want a comfortable angle, ensure good navigation or entertainment perspective.

Arbitrary and free rotation are my favourite sorts of rotation.
You want a comfortable angle. Of course you do. Who wouldn’t?

Prevent locked cars, tickets, body scratches, temporary stop signs and car phone holders.

What? How? HOW?
In what way does this product “prevent locked cars, tickets and body scratches”?
It’s sitting on your dashboard holding your cellphone at a comfortable angle and displaying an implausibly large number.
And haven’t I just bought a car phone holder? And isn’t there a stop sign in the box?
That’s not prevention. That’s… that’s… literally providing those things. Entirely different from prevention.

The simple design and excellent craftsmanship are suitable for most vehicles without disturbing the line of sight, thus ensuring driving safety. It is also a beautiful car decoration that can be freely matched with your car.

If it’s not in your line of sight, then how is it at “a comfortable angle, ensure good navigation or entertainment perspective”?
“Beautiful” is highly subjective and hugely optimistic here.
And how can it be matched with your car if the “Basic Colours: Black”?

Unless your car is black, I suppose.

Material: Silica gel
Package Size: 14.5 x 6 x 13cm

At least it’ll keep your car dry. But DO NOT EAT.

But hang on. Actually, looking at those dimensions – that would be absolutely PERFECT fit for my car!

Oh. Oh dear.

Please someone (not me), buy one of these things and let me know what it does. Especially relating to the prevention of “locked cars, tickets, body scratches, temporary stop signs and car phone holders”.

I’d love to know.

Job ad

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Ooh. This looks interesting.

Obviously, having had a few trips out to Robben Island (and with another in just a couple of weeks), I have met a lot of the teams from RIM and from SANCCOB out there, and the work they are doing – against some very challenging conditions – is amazing.
I’m motivated to pick up an extra few bags of plastic waste when I’m over there just to support them.

Just for a giggle, I clicked through on the ad and I actually fulfill literally all of the requirements for the position. Amazing.

Being pale in tone, that’s not always the case, but obviously being strongly penguin-related, this job is subject to Black & White Economic Empowerment regulations.

It’s quarter final time (to moan)

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The Rugby World Cup is currently happening. Millions of people across some of the biggest nations on earth have absolutely no idea that the competition is on, or that rugby even exists.

But for (some) of the nations taking part, it’s really very important.

Cue fresh outrage then at the quarter final draw, which will see two of the world’s top four teams leaving the tournament. It does seem that those top four teams: Ireland, France, South Africa and New Zealand could beat any one of each other, or anyone else on any given day, so in the eyes of the purists, that would be likely be the ideal semi-final lineup.

A quick note: at some point in every knockout competition you have to say goodbye to all but one of the teams involved.

And look, two things here.
Number one: we’ve known about the way the pools were drawn for a long, long time, so why start grumbling again now? Are you genuinely expecting them to change things around ahead of the weekend so that your team can progress with minimal effort?
Number two: just arranging for the best four teams to be in the semis? Well, that’s not how tournaments work. If it were, why bother with the rest of it (and see below at this point)?
Just have the semis and the final. In fact, why not just have a final between the best two teams in the world? Or – fuck it all and just give the trophy to Ireland, who are currently world number 1*.

Easy. Time, money, anguish all saved.

But no, actually don’t do this, because just about the only excitement at this tournament has been provided by the smaller nations. There’s absolutely no joy in watching a 80 point romp of some top country’s B-team over some part-timers from a bit of Europe or Africa that no-one’s ever heard of.
Dull as dishwater. Literally pointless (for one side, at least).

So relax, naaiers. If your team is good enough to be world champions, they’ll have to be able to be good enough to beat all the other teams to get there: those like England or Fiji or Wales or Argentina, plus whoever else makes it through from that top 4.
And it’s worth noting that all 8 of the quarter finalists were in the Top 10 in the world when this whole thing started, so it really does seem that it’s where you choose to draw your imaginary outrage threshold that matters.

Finally, closer to home, there’s the usual storm brewing. Cue r/unpopularopinion, but when South Africa win, it’s because the team is amazing. When they lose, it’s because the referee was dodgy, because “World Rugby hates the Springboks”. If it’s not the coaching staff releasing hour long analysis videos undermining the officials’ performances after a defeat, it’s the fans doing the same – and getting copyright struck. Lol.

Never seems to happen after a win. The officiating was good in those games.
Your reminder that it’s fine to be irrational, as long as you know that you are being irrational.

And a quick look on the socials reveals that we’re prepping ahead of Saturday already:

This is good planning, because then you can look back and say “I told you so” after a defeat, or simply pretend you never mentioned anything if your team wins.

People, there is a better sport out there. It’s football. And there are some really choice matches on this weekend: Netherlands v France. Norway v Spain. Iran v Jordan (woah!). Wales v Croatia. South Africa v Eswatini (met eish, ja).

There is an alternative. If you’re going to get upset about the egg-chasing, use it.

* I checked this fact twice, to be sure, to be sure.