Notices by Fish Id Wardrobe (fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk)

@RikerGoogling elf - vulcan = romulan

@RikerGoogling why do Klingons use Bat'leth not disruptors?

@glynmoody shine this into your eyeball, they said. It's perfectly safe, they said

@glynmoody Most animals don't communicate entirely by sound. This might work for, I don't know, whales? But much less so for cats and dogs.

@babe Yes! Bring back surreal adverts, and throw in a bit of horny, why not?

@glynmoody we do that all the time, though.
edit: I mean — if we had a good record as a species at not harming *because sentient*, we'd not be whaling on each other, and it might make sense to extend that to potentially sentient others.

But we don't.

And I'd still argue that it would be better if we did the best we can by everything around us, sentient or not.

@glynmoody but a precaution against what? wouldn't it be more ethical to treat animals well regardless?

Edit: regardless of the consequences to us, I mean?

@glynmoody I note that the author has redefined "sentience" so that it applies to almost every animal. (Which is probably true for other definitions, too, actually; the word is misused).

This neatly sidesteps the question that sprang into my head: WHY should we treat potentially sentient animals differently? To save embarrassment later? That doesn't seem ethical…

@glynmoody ^^^^^
Wait wait wait. The rats of NIMH were (nearly) real??

@evan i use one for work, so…

@glynmoody iirc the yoga thing was in the news a few years ago, so this isn't exactly a lightning response, but, good.

Okay, that's … what the fuck? That's amazing!

We tend, I think, to imagine that the days of simple scientific 'miracles' – Newton and his prism, Fleming and penicillin – are at an end. Anything really useful will take years of work and a mountain of kit to make happen.

Nope. Take tartrazine, the food colouring used in Doritos, and paint it onto your skin. Shine a red light on it. Your skin is transparent!

How many medical applications does that have?!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/sep/05/common-food-dye-found-to-make-skin-and-muscle-temporarily-transparent

@inthehands Not what *I* meant, to be clear: I meant that I can well believe that a racist would assign the phrase to black people -- but using it does not make you racist, because you might (not being racist) assign the phrase to some other group...

@goatsarah @christineburns well, I mean, that's already true, so...

@christineburns I'm not sure you can say "for good" in any sense. It's not for ever; nothing in politics ever is. I remember after Michael Foot they said Labour was finished forever.

And although I'm very happy to see the Tories taught a lesson -- their corruption alone renders them totally unfit -- democracy requires a working opposition...

@inthehands I'm going to argue that GDPR is more than half-way to such a law --- if enforced aggressively enough.

@aral @howlinhobbit Mate, you can call him wrong -- for all I know he may be -- but David Brin? A simpleton? ROFL.

I mean, hurl random insults at whoever you like, I guess. But at least make the insults credible.

@inthehands @mcc I once read that the vocals to this are by someone improbably famous. I think The Pointer Sisters?

@inthehands @jenniferplusplus This is extremely good. I think you could argue that a commons is exactly what the original "guys with beards sharing mainframe code" that started all this were trying to build, but either way it seems to me it's exactly how we should view it.

@mcc If you get a negative size, I assume that would be bad