Peter Bryson

@rorysutherland I dislike the “how was x on a scale of 1-5?” surveys because I suspect they are to provide cover and validation for enshittification. That I’ll be represented on a bar chart at a management meeting to say, “look we cut expenditure in this area and the bozos didn’t even notice!”

This is one of many "tragedies of the online commons". At the level of the individual company it makes sense; at the level of the consumer it is maddening.

@MrMichaelSpicer That was you??

Can't believe it's been ten years since I caused confusion.

@abookofsymbols Supersize Me may have been a load of pseudoscientific nonsense, but it’s the reason I know the facts of that case.

nobody understands the “McDonalds coffee too hot” tort case and it bugs me so much. a 79 year old woman suffered third degree burns on 6% of her skin when she spilled the coffee she just bought! she was right!

@DrTylerThomas @qikipedia Oddly that’s probably exactly what he was trying to avoid. Look up what happened to Michael Johnson at the 1992 Olympics.

@qikipedia You know some Chinese toilet got absolutely destroyed at the end of that week and a half

During the Beijing Olympics, Usain Bolt ate 1,000 chicken nuggets over 10 days.

@Sonam7250 @BumbacComeback But the order is the same regardless in this case? Is the issue that total medals is in bold?

@BumbacComeback For those who don’t know, only gold medals are counted—silver is used only to break ties.

This is not how you do medal count in the Olympics 😭

@C_Fitz_ @irish_news @SCUKNI Had a bit of a moment there thinking, “I don’t remember writing this”

Important article in yesterday's @irish_news from Peter Bryson @SCUKNI. "It is clearly a political decision to keep children in poverty" - emphasising how far behind NI is in terms of ensuring children thrive in their early years & on the lack of universal provision on FSM.

@Saraita101 @victorcarbunkle I get this as an oncologist. But it’s very unsettling because AI throws up totally different questions than a human would have thought of. Which means very frequently I have literally never had to consider the answer to that question before.

@victorcarbunkle It's becoming a nuisance. Colleagues report that clients argue with them when the AI is wrong and they point that out to the client 🙃

nothing good will come of ai and we should burn it all down imo. i expect, despite my hatred for it, that it will automate part of my job but it won't do as much as these guys think because i don't think they understand what we do.

@anonymuzzzzzz @LePib2 @papiwontmiss I think JKR put a bit into Goblet of Fire where Hermione tells Krum how to pronounce her name specifically because people kept pronouncing it wrong IRL.

@LePib2 @papiwontmiss In my head, reading Harry Potter, I pronounced it HER-MEE-ONE (rhyming with bone). I don't think I ever said it out loud. Then my daughter named her dog Hermione. It was only when she called the dog that it clicked.

The weird thing about reading so much as a child and gaining a huge vocabulary from that is I can't define a lot of the words I use, I just know that they would fit correctly in a specific sentence. Does anyone else experience that?

@steven_boult @ChezBruce But lots of vegetarians used to eat meat at one time. I would guess the majority based on vegetarians I know personally. So they know what it tastes like and they know they like it. They just don’t like where it comes from.

@PeterMBryson @ChezBruce I guess the point is...it tastes nothing like it but they'll never know. Schrodinger-like in a way

Totally get why folk choose not to eat meat. Not hard to understand. What I don’t understand is why those same people then choose to eat something which pretends to be meat. Completely baffling. 🤷‍♂️

@praeteritia @SnazzyLabs But it’s not a straw man if someone says “your argument would only be correct if these [entirely normal and common] conditions were met,” and then those conditions are indeed met.

@SnazzyLabs it’s literally the condition?

So guess who was right

@GreenClermont @anon_opin History is written by the victors.

@anon_opin The IRA that fought the Irish war of Independence and the PIRA who knee cap people for selling drugs are two *very* different things. Despite what they might think

The horror over bands supporting the IRA is nuts. Put any Irish singalong anthem like Wild Rover in your streaming music service, and see what the algorithm serves you after; I guarantee within 6 songs you'll be cheerfully singing about joining the Provos and fighting the Brits.

@elisabet_bakari @gdholtby @bonchieredstate Apparently for some people it is hard to remember. Put it this way, I guarantee not even the most deranged European has ever been surprised by ice not melting at -2C.

@gdholtby @bonchieredstate It's not that hard to remember. It's the number 32.

Incredible. This may be the greatest post to ever grace this site.

@JucheJochen @SandyofCthulhu I got a legit royal flush in Texas hold ‘em once, but annoyingly we were playing for Lucky Charms.

@SandyofCthulhu I don't think I have ever seen a straight flush in a game.

The problem with portrayals of games in film is of course tha a large part of the audience knows only a smattering. In Chess, all they know is if a piece is removed it’s bad, and if you knock over your king you’ve lost. In Poker they know that some hands are better but not which ones. It’s a problem not easily solved by film-makers. Not “impossible to solve” just “not easy”. So they usually take the easy way out as in Casino Royale. To see a GOOD example of a game used in a film consider the Liars Dice segment in Dead Man’s Chest - where even if you don’t know Liars Dice you figure out enough to make the game suspenseful. And if you DO know Liars Dice then new levels of entertainment are unfolded. For another example, try the poker scene in Ballad of Buster Scruggs. With zero knowledge of Poker, you can understand why the other players don’t want Buster to draw a new hand after seeing what was left. And if you DO know Poker you also know it’s the Dead Man’a Hand.

@AnyaM8_ It’s also a rare example of “begging the question” that is actually the logical fallacy, and not the other thing of, feeling that a question has been left unanswered.

Rare correct use of "unpopular opinion:"

@MichelleODoche @Saraita101 Ah they weren’t averse to the use of hammers where the situation called for it

@Saraita101 Don't know about the hammers, but they'd definitely have a protest about it

Holding the union flag on craggy island. Ted and Dougal would have beaten her with hammers I can tell you that much.

@anon_opin Even on the quiz machines they long ago did away with the games where the computer couldn’t 100% control the outcome (“pub quiz” and “trivia for dummies”) and now all of them have some aspect of dice roll or other “random” chance device that the computer controls.

I think swapping all their quiz machines - where, even if the odds were against you, it was possible to win with genuine knowledge and you could have fun playing with your mates - for gambling machines has contributed, at least a little bit, to the downturn in pubs' fortunes.

@BrianHa36920543 @JLM4CivilRights @IMAO_ I.e. people who are saying “begs the question” to mean “raises the question” fairly universally follow up the phrase by stating the question they believe to be required. So their intent is fairly universally clear.

@BrianHa36920543 @JLM4CivilRights @IMAO_ People could simply do a lot of things, but they probably won’t. FWIW, other than knowing that it is the incorrect usage, I don’t really think it makes a difference. I can’t really imagine a scenario where one’s intent in using the phrase would be ambiguous or unclear.

It is an undeniable fact that the general public uses the phrase "begs the question" incorrectly, for the simple reason that their usage of the term is wrong.

@MartinSLewis Disinterested is often used to mean uninterested, but actually means impartial.

Just heard someone on radio say "spendthrift" to mean someone who was tight. Actually it means the opposite a spendthrift is someone who spends a lot, extravagant, wasteful. I wonder are there other words are often wrongly used to mean the opposite of what they actually mean?