Allen but one of the bad ones, woooo

Ooh! New murderbot just happened!

"Oh powerful Genie, for my first wish I want to be really rich. Do not make a mistake, do not add any ironic twists. For the purposes of this wish you are a kind, benevolent all-powerful being who wants me to gain the maximum benefit with no unexpected or unpleasant consequences. Make sure that you interpret this wish in a way that I will approve"

Magic lamp prompt engineering.

Post: "Read this book, it's great, here's a plot summary, some excerpts and a list of your favourite authors who were inspired by it and think it's fantastic!"

Me: "Ooh! Where can I find it?"

Post: "It's out of print but here's link to an epub on Internet Archive which has been flattened so hard there are no chapter or paragraph breaks, just a vast unending wall of type, be grateful we kept the spaces between the words"

Well that's a bit terrible...

Internet Archive: "We also have a bunch of .jp2 image files of scans of the original printed pages, in case you like reading books in a photo editor?"

And since the book is technically still in copyright, there's not going to be a properly formatted edition on Standard eBooks for another few decades :(

Local retailer has started selling thick, hard-wearing door mats, with "WELCOME" written on them.

So dangerous :(

Because of vampires :(

Oh... his name is Jorn Ternus, like T E R N U S!

All this time I been reading John Temus, like they got him from Temu

Wow. I had so many jokes that I'm very glad I decided not to make.

Modern ID technology (as in: anything after 20th century paper filing systems) has frozen the evolution of names in it's tracks. Why else, in a world full of Dave Tailor's and John Smith's are there no people called Kevin Dev or Stephen Businessman?

South Africa: Why do our pharmaceutical regulations have a Schedule numbering system that goes the opposite from other countries?

Over here, Schedule 1 means "It's on supermarket shelves", schedule 2 is something you have to ask the pharmacist to pass you over the counter, 3 and up are prescription only, getting more and more tightly controlled. Like a schedule 5 drug, they don't allow repeat prescriptions, schedule 9 you need two pharmacists to turn the key at the same time and they have to watch you while you take it.

And schedule 0, of course, is herbal shit: Unscheduled, not allowed to call it medicine, you have to call it a "Supplement" or "Herbal remedy" or something.

When did the word "Kind" become a sort of politeness band-aid for formal communication?

Back in my day, we used to say "Please do the thing" but you can't say that anymore! No! Now you have to say "Please ..--KINDLY--... do the thing". I can't decide if this is because "Please" and "Thank you" are not considered polite enough, or if they're simply not passive aggressive enough.

(Knowing full well that there is precisely zero visible difference between genuine passive aggressive behaviour and simple fear of causing offense by accidentally crossing some unspoken rule or authority boundary or otherwise violating an unfamiliar social house rule)

Okay, back in the game (I was having a hard time caring about puzzles on my long weekend!)

You'd think our leaders would be making a LOT more noise about this, what with the coming local government elections...

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-05-12-unemployment-rate-rises-13-percentage-points-to-327/