Witterings

So I'm now in the final few days of my holiday here on Skye and its been lovely so far. Last night, for example, we watched Conclave (it seemed fitting given the news about the Pope) and then I stayed up late to see the Lyrid (?) meteor shower - which was pleasant & an opportunity I wouldn't have had, had I not been in Northern Scotland.

Sadly they were, if I'm totally honest, pretty mediocre; not only was there quite a bit of light pollution from over the village (one idiot has a 24-7 searchlight strapped to his house, pointed directly at the place I'm staying) it was also quite cloudy. Given that I wasn't prepared to stay up until the 3am peak, I saw them & then went to bed. Beautiful - awe-inspiring - indicative of the majesty of the cosmos & Gods handiwork - job done, bed.

Then despite the late start, today we went to ACE target sports which saw us all win assorted prizes for axe throwing (me), archery (me) & air-rifle shooting (not me, boo!). It was massive fun.

My only complaint is that I have yet to see any deer here on the island; I've been told innumberable times that there are thousands of deer infesting the island, and that they are out at dawn & dusk - but, despite being up earlier & later to catch them I've totally failed. Now once or twice I could accept, but not being able to see any deer "despite there being loads of them" at any time on 4 separate trips with me making painstaking efforts to catch them... feels a bit suspicious! Are they are conspiracy being put about by Big Deer? :) 

Anyway. Time is ticking. It wont be long until I'm back home and back at work.

Finished "The Restless Republic" by Anna Keay, about life under the Cromwellian Protectorate and I have to say it was easily the best book I have read this year. Absolutely superb. Next up I'm not sure. Probably "Quantum of Nightmares" by Charles Stross, but it rather depends on how I feel when I approach Mt Reading Backlog. 

In other news *gestures at the news and emits a shrill scream*

Remember kids, you can't spell tariffs without FFS!

S

Well, after yesterdays sliver of good news, we’re back to bad news; Emperor Trump (and lets face it, any President who doesn’t have to obey the law, can pardon his allies, tax his foes, can ignore budgets passed by Congress & close federal departments - all on his personal say-so - is an Emperor) announced massive tariffs last night, on, well, just about everyone and everywhere.

Estimates say that these tariffs cover about 27 - 30% of total global economic activity and are even more extreme than the 22 - 25% Smoot-Hawley tariffs that triggered the Depression of the 1920’s & 30’s.

The reason for these tariffs are “because they’re ripping us off” – examples include “undue regulatory burdens” (apparently this is a big thing for Canada - American companies object to having to make different labels for products sold in French-speaking Quebec), “because they’re not following American laws” (so it’s a claim for global regulatory supremacy) and “because they’re taxing American companies” (so any tax, anywhere, on any American company is unacceptable). Its nonsense, pure & simple - the rambling of a demented would be tyrant, demanding that everyone do exactly as he says, or else.

I don’t know what to say, to be entirely honest. Pray that you’ve got your finances in order & that you’re in secure employment? Assuming that these remain in force then there is going to be an almighty global economic crunch as a result of the Orange Emperors demented schemes. I hope that Europe has got its act together because otherwise a total economic meltdown isn’t off the cards.

Incidentally, if you look at the tariffs, you can tell that they’ve been developed by someone with zero grasp of any subject even adjacent to economics. Why do I say that? Because the tariffs on the uninhabited areas of Antarctica and St Pierre & Miquelon show that its been randomly fire-hosed across the atlas - whilst the tariffs on the British Indian Ocean (now believed to be exclusively inhabited by American military personnel) mean that Trump is actively sanctioning Americans.

Genius, or incompetent? You decide.

Lastly, I note an interesting omission: Russia & Belarus are not included on the sanctions.

Huh. Fancy that. I wonder how that happened?

Well, last nights RPG session was good fun - despite the frustration of my character being spectacularly useless. The entire party started the scenario tied to chairs from which we had to escape - and yet, thanks to a series of botched rolls - the rest of the group had dealt with the guards whilst I was still attached to the chair, aside from a single arm that a different party member had untied

I think that the online dice rolling mechanism does a calculation & checks the difference between me pushing the button & a response back from a central server. It then takes that number & compares it to a baseline, converting it to a dice roll. (E.g. If I push a button at 23:00:00:00 exactly & get a response back at 23:00:00:03 - it takes the 3 tenths of a second, divides it by 10 to get 30% and then converts that to a D6 - so a roll of 2. This is a crude example, but illustrates what I think is happening).

As I the only player not in the UK, I think that this timebase is out. I think that there is an embedded pause somewhere in the system so that my start & end points are clustered somehow. If I'm right then, in my example the response the sending point will be rounded up to the nearest tenth of a second, & the return packet (due to communication lags etc) is also rounded up to the nearest tenth - so my roll is always 00 out of 100 - which on a D6 is a 1. Again, a crude example, but what I think is happening.

But here's the rub. Its not consistent. One week I can just roll poorly - I'll get some decent rolls among the dross, but on other weeks (like last night) I will roll like a complete turkey. I can't explain why I'll be playing a comedy side-kick most days & then be someone who is randomly, scarily, competent.

Still, it is what it is. There is always the chance of doing well.

At least, that's what I tell myself! :) 
 

C has found some work as a translator - its sadly not well paid (I think she's earning €200 for the best part of 2 months work, which is not exactly life-changing - and I'm confident that she is laughably underpaid for what she is doing), but the story? Oh man, oh man.

Its an autobiography of a German-Hungarian woman who lived through WW2, survived being raped by Soviets, had 2 (awful) husbands (1 drunk the other useless and violent), had 7 children, lost many of them to illness & diseases, migrated to Australia, her husband hated it there and beat her, moved back to Germany, en route gave birth to another child whilst on a ship to Singapore...

Its truly, truly harrowing, but its relentlessly awful, to the point that its almost a facetious procession of unfortunate events - very "and as I was being raped, a tyrannosaurus stormed in and attacked us, whereupon it burst into flames, so I chewed my way out of the rubble to get home - then my husband beat me for not buying eggs"

This week I am back in the office to attend the weekly team meeting, which is fine, I guess. Its a lot less convenient in terms of getting things done (later start due to commute etc), but I get to be in the office and meet people. If it was up to me I'd probably opt for a hybrid work arrangement similar to what has evolved (Monday & Thursday in office, rest at home) so I can't complain.

Mind you, I do fantasize about working from home full time and moving to a Scottish Island with a decent internet connection. I doubt it'll happen any time soon, but a man can dream. Speaking of which, we're off to Skye in a few weeks, so this fantasy will probably get some more air-time fairly soon.

Other than that, the world continues to... not "go to hell in a handcart", more... "plods on with tediously cruel idiocy". Trump promised Putin the full relief on western banking sanctions - to which the European response was "LOL, no"; Canada has announced that its seeking to more closely cooperate with the EU over economic matters, to which Trumps response was to threaten YET MORE tariffs, Putin continues to play the Americans expertly... and so on & so forth.

The thing is, Trump is quite demonstrably a deeply unwell individual who cares for little more than revenge, petty tyranny & not being in jail - and has surrounded himself by some of the dumbest & corruptest mfers ever to hold an official role. As such, for all the demonstrable evil his team is unleashing, its being done in a strangely incoherent low energy manner, with rest stops to tell everyone just how great and powerful you are every 20 minutes. In many ways his actions are that of a (admittedly extremely powerful) confused old man whose brain is permanently in 1988. Witness the slew of last nights quasi-coherent posts on Truth Social, ranting, threatening and whining.

Fundamentally, if you are strong, you don't have to tell people how strong you are. Going around screaming at people just how mighty & powerful they are just makes them look foolish & weak. Its - to use a Trumpism - sad.

Plus of course, everything his administration is doing falls squarely within the Overton window; they've not done anything unusual or groundbreaking; his cabal are behaving exactly as anticipated. In many ways - for all the misery, horror & tragedy those affected are suffering - its entirely expected. This is not a horror movie with jump shocks & pervasive sense of doom as the secret murderer pounces, eliminating the cast - this is closer to a disaster movie where the people are trapped on the top floor of the skyscraper, unable to escape the climbing blaze. The threat is not unknown, merely very dangerous - which is mentally easier at least. We know how to deal with angry fascists. We learned that lesson back in the 1940s (hence Europes response to Trumps promise over banking sanctions).

So I guess we just have to hope that orange grandpa falls prey to hubris and one of RFKs plagues takes him out. Fingers crossed. Vance won't be any better in terms of attitude, but at the same time Vance doesn't (and never will) control the cult.

So, last day in the office before the long weekend - and I am ready to kick back and relax. Still, time waits for no man.

C is now healthy again, just in time for my to be away. I was worried - she had headaches, jaw aches & was slightly dizzy & the doctors said that it was probably sinus related. She went and had her ears syringed on Tuesday, removing some (relatively small) gunk, but it didn't do anything for the pain - until early on Wednesday morning when she heard a whistling / popping sound & then all the pain went away. As far as we can make out, she had a blocked tube & it cleared up - and now is healthy again. Heck, she even had the best part of 8 hours sleep last night, so - God willing - she won't be struggling whilst I'm off gallivanting.

Laptop - Following Microsoft copilot trying to autocomplete a bank transaction (incorrectly, I might add) I've switched entirely to Ubuntu, loading it on my Microsoft Surface Go laptop. There was a learning curve, but the new laptop not only works & is stable - but its also a lot more responsive than the old Windows 11 - and has significantly better battery life too. I've even found a decent set of free office-like products so I have full word & email functionality, which is all I really use the laptop for anyway. I still have a windows desktop for computer games etc, but for most other things - the laptop is the main thing. I am very impressed with this and absolutely do not intend to to back - though I would like a bit more virus protection on my laptop. Its meant to be pretty safe as there are not many viruses for Linux, so as long as I don't go to & search out something dodgy I should be fine.

Right, back to it I guess. Onwards! (Further posting about Trump, NATO, Ukraine, the EU etc will be done separately).

Reuters has a story about the Russian response to the proposed ceasefire. It is astonishing and contains so many "LOL, NO!" items that its hard to parse.

There are 3 broad categories: Achievable, Desirable (as in "things Russia wants that are based in reality, but probably won't get") & Laughable (as in "things Russia wants if it had a genie & 3 wishes".

Achievable items include "Sanction relief", "Ukraine not in NATO", "No intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe" & "No Nukes for Ukraine". These are reasonable things for Russia to request & I can see some form of these being included in any armistice deal.

The Desirable ones are suitable incredible, and include "no foreign forces in Ukraine" & "international recognition & full surrender of all the oblasts that we claim (including the bits we don't currently have)" - which is insulting, but I can see why they are requesting these. Whilst there might be some wriggle room on this (perhaps diplomatically recognizing the bits they hold east of the Dnieper) - but there's no way - zero - that Ukraine will cede a military foothold to Russia west of the river. Period.

The utterly Laughable ones include: full retreat of NATO back to 1990 borders, European nations much have limits on the size of militaries, European nations may not assist Ukraine in any future conflict, all European nations must accept a Russian veto on any military action or deployment etc.

Its not serious. Leaving aside the Laughable requirements, they want a surrender of Ukraine, but the framing is more, much more than that, even. The old men in the Kremlin want - a part of the conditions to end the war in Ukraine - a full reverse of all strategic developments since before the collapse of the USSR. Even if Trump agreed to it (and there has to be at least a chance that he realizes that he's being played for a sucker) there is zero chance that Ukraine or European nations will accept these. What European country will accept a Russian veto over their military? When did (e.g.) Poland lose a war to Russia? And how can Trump possibly deliver this? The only way would be WW3, with the US on the side of the Russians - a war that would pit nuclear armed powers against each other.

Its insane. If this is serious & not some sort of framing exercise then I expect a lot more war.