That book is filled with rape, genocide and lots (and I mean LOTS) of genital mutilation. I don’t know why they’d want kids reading it. Especially when the people forcing it on students are the same ones trying to ban books about being kind to gay people.

I’m sure the obvious picks are already mentioned, so I’ll try to think of some stuff that might not be well-known:

Shane Meadows has produced 2 TV series worth watching. One is the This is England collection. It starts with This is England (2006), which is a film, then 3 miniseries (This is England '86, This is England '88 and This is England '90) that continue the story. All of it together is about as good as TV gets. Might wanna check for triggers before watching on something like doesthedogdie.com.

He made a second miniseries called The Virtues. It’s a difficult watch at times, but it’s a masterpiece. And it’s another one you might wanna look into before watching.

There’s a show that was very popular in the UK and Ireland back in the '90s called Cracker. It stars the late great Robbie Coltrane (you probably know him better as Hagrid from Harry Potter). He plays a psychologist who works with the police to find and interrogate various kinds of pathological killers and sex offenders. It’s really, really good. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s ever been released on anything but DVD, so you’ll be stuck with SD quality.

Say Nothing is a recent show that does a really nice job of dealing with ‘the troubles’ in N. Ireland. It’s based on real events, the most central of which is the abduction, murder and ‘disappearing’ of a widowed mother of 10 children by the IRA. Jean McConville is one of 17 people who were disappeared in this way, and is by far the most notorious given her circumstances. The story - based on the book by Patrick Radden Keef - follows Dolours Price, a female IRA member who was a significant figure in the conflict and who was involved in Jean McConville’s abduction. One of the better shows I’ve seen generally, and probably the best bit of media on the N. Irish troubles (there’s so much junk about this place, it’s refreshing to see something half-decent for once). If you need a palate cleanser after watching it, Derry Girls should do the trick!

I agree about Ricky Gervais. I actually liked him in The Office, but in everything else - before and after - he is just fucking awful. Talk shows, stand-up, speeches, podcasting, he is a desperate, strained and insecure performer. When he’s telling a joke, it’s like every word has had to be pressed out of a gland with a clenched fist before the next word can be milked free; it’s clear he’s just saying the words in the correct order, and not performing it. He is never present and ‘in the moment’, and seems to be in a perpetual state of panic about his own inadequacy. If he were actually a decent person instead of whatever the fuck he has become, I wouldn’t be saying this about him. But he’s a cunt, so, yeah. His imposter syndrome (which is entirely deserved in his case) makes the media he’s in unbearable to consume.

To see just how truly awful the man is, watch that Talking Funny documentary. It’s him, Jerry Seinfeld (the least-funny paedophile in the world), Chris Rock and Louie CK all in a room together talking about comedy. Ricky is obviously feeling the full force of his imposter syndrome throughout. It’s probably the most glaring example of what I’m talking about.

I simply don’t get his success. Like, I can understand the success of paedophile rings, but I can’t fathom how Ricky has made it so big. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.

My girlfriend-at-the-time’s dirty, dirty ass. Thought it would be like in my fantasies, where it tastes like candyfloss and smells like a Yankee candle. Nope. Shit. Just shit.

If you’re curious, shit tastes exactly as it smells. I wish I didn’t know that. Although I’m happy that now you, too, know that.

And she had the nerve to dump me later. I deserve a Nobel peace prize for not recoiling in horror and instead just powering through in silence like a fucking GENTLEMAN.

On the bright side, it became a great way to ensure future partners were cognisant of the issue. I’d drop it into the usual “what was your ex like?” gossip sessions that come with new relationships. It’s like saying “please wash your various holes if I’m gonna go rooting around in them like an ant-fiending aardvark” without actually saying it. A cautionary fable from days of yore to guide the next generation.

P.S. I’m still pro-anilingus. Just… clean the fuckin’ thing first. I don’t need to be picking dingleberries from between my teeth, thanks.

Subnautica: Below Zero, the underrated and I would argue superior semi-sequel to Subnautica (not referring to the recent Subnautica 2 Early Access game):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/848450/Subnautica_Below_Zero/

And another run of Dave the Diver in prep for the recent DLC drop:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1868140/DAVE_THE_DIVER/

I read his “contributions” to the Gaza genocide article’s talk page, along with the equally mealy-mouthed hand-wringing of Jimmy Wales. Total bellends both, although for different reasons. Jimmy is pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by Israeli interests, whereas Larry’s pressured into being an annoying grandstanding dickhead by his childhood.

Bowfinger!

Was there ever a time when PC Gamer wasn’t utter shit? Like, what the fuck is this article even saying? And what justification do they have to tag the end of Sjoerd’s LinkedIn quote with info about UE’s move into AI slop?

Is this what games journalism is now? Stalking LinkedIn pages and reporting when 2 lines of text are edited? And then drawing conclusions not at all supported by said text? 😒

I think what he did was heroic. I don’t know for sure that his motives were pure, like I can’t see into his soul, or know what his relationship with Russia was before doing it, but all in all I think what he revealed had to be revealed. The NSA were untethered by any sort of oversight or accountability to the public, and they proved beyond any doubt just how completely and totally an agency loses it’s fucking mind when no one’s watching. I doubt anything changed in that regard - they’ve probably just strafed into a different shadowy part of the landscape and are continuing with new/improved tools - but it at least taught us all that, yes, the government really is both capable and motivated to spy on every bowel movement and armpit sniff you perform, whether or not you’re a suspect in a crime. The mere affirmation that this sort of thing really goes on is worth having.

Please wake me when MAGA pardons or commutes the sentence of someone who actually deserved clemency, as opposed to literal war criminals, insurrectionists and killers.

If we convince that imbecile who owns X that the N-word is actually a synonym for cisgender, he’ll be on that shit like white on rice blood diamond baron.

Is her requirement to be on the sex offenders registry lifelong? That’s literally the least they could do after giving a rapist of a child 90 fucking days…

Made me pretty horny too, to be fair.

oh no who will perform the totally real and actually effective exorcisms now??

Etc. Pride march when??

He’s one of the greats, I agree. Plus he has no rape/sexual assault allegations or abusive behaviour on-set over a 40+ year career, so that gives him a 900% boost in my estimation.

He plays a lot of ‘safe’ characters. That is, characters that don’t require him to dig deep into his own capacity for human depravity or whatever, and I think this gives people the impression that he’s not in the same league as your De Niros or Pacinos. But I have never watched a film of his where he didn’t completely sell the performance to me, even if the movie itself was shite. He’s content and secure enough to not need to take roles that require him flay his psyche on-screen, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I love watching those intense performances of course, but he isn’t any less a master of his craft just because he has other focuses. It’s like guitar virtuosos such as Steve Vai, who can play just about anything with superhuman levels of skill, speed and precision, versus someone like BB King, who plays stuff that a beginner guitarist could use as great training material. No one, including Steve Vai, would say BB King is a lesser guitarist or musician because his music doesn’t require 12 fingers on each hand to play. Tom Hanks is the BB King of this tortured analogy, and someone like Gary Oldman is Steve Vai. Both great, but there’s more to it than mere ‘spectacle’.

I would love to see him do something more dark and evil, if only once. If Robin Williams can play a serial killer, and can play it well, Tom Hanks would absolutely smash that shit. Especially now that he’s an older fella; I think he could get away with a lot more without damaging his ‘brand’. I wanna see him be a serial killing, necrophilic, EVE Online-playing demonic monster.

c/NoStupidQuestions style question:

Why is making enough RAM to go around so hard now? I know the cause of it - AI cunts - but what is the actual bottleneck in the production of RAM that means it can’t be pumped out fast enough to meet demand?

Low hanging fruit, but “The next president of the United States is Donald J. Trump”. And I heard that shit twice. The second time was definitely the dumber of the two, but the drop off from 2nd to 3rd dumbest thing is about as wide as the known universe. It’s cartoonish in its absurdity.

But the dumbest thing I’ve heard personally from an individual is that unbaptised babies who die go straight to hell. I was told this by a woman who liked to preach Jesus’ eternal unconditional love in my town centre. I’m atheist, but by default. Like, I didn’t read my way into it or anything, I just completely lack any impulse to believe despite being made to go to Catholic mass every week for 17 years. All that’s to say that I don’t have particular animosity towards believers, but that kind of believer can suck a dirty dog dick.

Apart from it being insanely unfair to babies - roasting away like a rotisserie chicken without even the consciousness to know what’s going on - it’s also beyond evil to tell that to believers who’ve lost children soon after birth due to disease before they even leave the hospital, or have miscarried through no fault of their own, etc. Strangely, I never hear that argument from the anti-abortion religious fanatics. That is, “don’t abort the baby, or it’ll be sent straight into Satan’s Big Green Egg!”

Imagine being Satan, and having a daily influx of humans too young and unformed to even walk when prodded by a demon’s pitchfork. Even a supremely evil entity like he’s alleged to be would have to wonder just what the fuck is going on with heavenly bureaucracy for this to be the way things are done.

The intent and impact of the word was a lot different back then, certainly so outside of the US, but still, using a subset of humanity as a stand-in for an adjective is pretty grim stuff. Shows how little was thought of them. Like if the characters had instead become white from a flour mill explosion, it’s unlikely they’d have been described as being “as white as scampering little crackers”.

Ventoy > Rufus