Clean search results, comrades!
I read a good article about search engines today, but I’ve closed so many windows I’ve pushed it out of my history. Dangit! I wanted to link and quote from it.
The gist was, the writer tested all the major search engines to see if they were depressing results. He described the specific searches he did. RT was one of them. Project Veritas. 2020 election fraud. All the search engines you’ve heard of did poorly on more than one of his tests.
Except Yandex. Which, if you don’t know, is Russia’s own search engine.
I tried it and…I really like it! It has a quick, clean interface and clean search results. It does have a tendency to show you some hits in Russian (make sure you go to yandex.com, not yandex.ru and it’s a little better).
I registered with them, thinking I could specify English only if I did that. No, but they did give me a free email. I don’t think now is the time to be using stoatyweasel@yandex.ru, but thanks anyway, Russkies.
No, I’m not a supporter of what Russia is up to, but I’m reeaaallly not a supporter of having my search engine results sanitized by the government. And I think it’s painfully boneheaded to stop eating Russian dressing or playing Tchaikovsky because Vlad is bad man.
March 15, 2022 — 7:50 pm
Comments: 12
DANGIT!
I got the WORDLE on the first guess today. AND I’M NOT ON TWITTER TO BRAG ABOUT IT.
To be fair, getting it in one is nothing to brag about, it just means you got lucky with your start word. Getting it in two, on the other hand, takes *some* skill. I’m chuffed anyway, because I try to use a different start word every day, which lessened my chances I’d ever hit on it by accident.
So what happens when you cut a weasel off social media? She goes to the fediverse, which is like the sleazy dive bar of social media. Oh, I’m palling around with some choice characters now!
Anyway, I’m off to attend a talk. Yes, in person. We’re pretty much all the way back to the old normal, except poorer and hoarding toilet paper.
March 10, 2022 — 6:04 pm
Comments: 19
*gasp*
£1.83 per litre = $10.97 U.S. per Imperial gallon.
In truth, that’s a deliberately click-baity photo. The pic was taken on a motorway (read: Interstate highway) and motorway gas stations are a notorious ripoff.
The reason is, there are far, far fewer gas stations around here, and if you’re in an unfamiliar area (which you’re likely to be, if you’re on the motorway) you can’t risk coming off and poking around for a better deal. So they can charge what they like.
At these prices, though, it would be worth your time firing up Google Maps on your phone and trying anywhere else.
Gas is still “just” £1.54 ($9.17) at our local station. Happy days!
March 9, 2022 — 7:58 pm
Comments: 5
Crunch.
Well, this is just stupid. The last time we bought home heating oil, it was about 45p a liter. Yesterday, it was well over £1 a liter. Since the minimum buy is 500 liters, we were on the fence about ordering it now or waiting a few days to see if the madness passes. Earlier today, Uncle B got a message from our usual supplier saying, “don’t bother. We aren’t taking any new orders.”
No, we probably don’t have enough to get us through the heating season. It’s hot water bottles by day and fires by night for a while.
This sucks. We don’t even get our oil from Russia. This is hikes over supplies they bought in November, fer chrissakes. It’s all speculation, panic and profiteering.
Oh – gas, you ask? It was around £1.19 per liter a week ago. Now it’s £1.52. Let’s do the math, shall we?
£1.19 x 1.31 (today’s exchange rate) x 3.8 (to get us to a gallon) = $5.90 a gallon BEFORE and $7.57 AFTER.
This is exactly how the Greens wanted us peasants to live, you know: with a drastic reduction in our energy consumption (and quality of life, natch). Why does that make me deeply suspicious of this whole crisis?
The ugly-ass Blob People at the top are not relevant to this post. Mailchimp showed me this earlier, and now you have to see it, too. I reckon that’s a new low in dehumanizing depictions of the human form.
March 7, 2022 — 7:50 pm
Comments: 13
I swear I’m taking crazy pills
Did you know Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian version? Why, yes. And here he is playing Hava Nagila on the piano with his penis. Zelenskyy is the real spelling, too. I looked it up.
It’s all a little much for me. I don’t know what is actually going on in Ukraine. I mean, I do believe Russia is doing something big and scary and I’m worried about where this is all going, but the narrative is just…surreal. I get the creeping feeling I’m being played somehow.
I dunno. Maybe two years of lockdown and I’ve got the jimm-jamms. But, hey – about that? Over here, they’re just quietly dropping all that covid stuff, including mandates. Just like that. Under the fog of war.
Ehhhh…I don’t know what I’m getting at. I’m’a go take a bath.
March 2, 2022 — 7:39 pm
Comments: 9
Year of the
Uncle B bought these little fellas ages ago. They’re tiny little figurines; just a bit of fun to celebrate the Year of the Tiger. He tells me they were held up at Customs for some reason. I can’t imagine why.
He was born in the Year of the Tiger. I was born in the Year of the Rat. Many years ago – before we were married – I bought us a couple of commemorative coins from a shop in China town. The shopkeeper squinted, sucked his teeth and said, “Tiger man, rat woman…hard. Possible, but hard.”
And speaking of hard, I had to work until 5 today. I am impossibly salty about it.
How did I ever pull 12-hour days?
March 1, 2022 — 6:52 pm
Comments: 15
*flush*
This thing exists in a forest in West Sussex. The paper called it a “Mystical Waterfall.”
I don’t know about mystical. It looks to me like somebody pulled the plug and we’re circling the ‘ole.
Southern Water called it a “bellmouth drain” and said it was for drawing excess water away from dams. Speculation further down the article was that it was to drive a water mill, several of which were nearby.
I wish they had film or other views; it’s hard to make out how it works. It looks like it’s open at the far end and draining down into a lower stream. Which would make sense if it was to drive something.
I’m sure we could get a sense of the age of it if we could see the construction up close. Looks like there’s a small arch on the far side.
Imagine having such a thing in the landscape and having no idea how it came to be there. Funny old country.
February 28, 2022 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 12
And they’re off…!
Carousel horses at the reclamation yard.
We did take a field trip to the salvage yard today. There was lots of the usual stuff. Masses of reclaimed doors, fire surrounds, beams, bathrooms. The doorknob room. Lots of tiles, including some interesting ones.
I bought an urn. More like a vase. I’ll show it to you when I get it cleaned up.
It was neat, but not as neat as the one we went to a few years ago. I remembered the name: Symond’s Salvage. They don’t seem to have as much stock online to browse through, though I note they have a very interesting galvanized “troff”. We’ll have to make a trip back there some time.
There was no nice garden sculpture for Uncle B, which made him sad. So I bought him a fish and chips.
February 23, 2022 — 7:21 pm
Comments: 14
But is it…?
This is making the rounds today. But is it true?
No. No it is not. 22022022 upside down is 55055055.
Pff! Ambigram!
I stand corrected! Mike In Fairfax pointed out to me in the comments that I flipped the image. If you rotate it 180° it is indeed an ambigram.
Obviously, the palindrome only works in European date notation. But I’m sorry to say, this is one of the few instances when I agree with the Old World. We Americans get it wrong. Month/Day/Year is silly. It’s fundamentally medium/small/big. It ain’t right.
Here’s what the kitchen radio looks like today:
I’d be happier without the zero, but it’s still pretty satisfying. I have to admit, dates like these make me happy. Like when I look up at the clock and it’s 12:34.
Not because I believe random numbers have any actual significance, but because I’m a simpleton attracted to shiny things.
Heh:
February 22, 2022 — 7:45 pm
Comments: 15
We Survived the Great Gale of 2022!
Eh. It lasted a long time, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for us. We lost power for a half hour (during which our cellphones didn’t work, either – worrying). There was a period toward the end where the gusts were pretty scary. But, on the whole, we’ve had worse.
We lost one roof tile. Like the above. When the winds are high enough, the tiles lift and clack. It’s an eerie sound.
This style of tile is usually called a Kent Peg Tile, though they were the main roof tile in the Southeast from about 1300 to 1900. They were introduced by the Romans, but not adapted by Britons until much later. They hang on little wooden pegs, as you’d expect from the name.
The picture above is from a reclamation yard. You can buy them newly made, but you can also buy them reclaimed from old buildings. The ones above were salvage, going for £1.10 each plus VAT.
Have a poke around at the link. As you might imagine, very interesting things turn up in British salvage. If this is the yard we visited once – I think it is – there was an entire church belfry for sale in the drive.
February 18, 2022 — 8:08 pm
Comments: 10