Tessera
Folgen

Michael Williamson

@zwobble.bsky.social

149 Posts171 Follower520 Folgt
Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · last mo.

I'm running a heist from issue 2, and having a wonderful time as my players' plan comes together. Mostly. So far. It's my favourite spell system in that it requires you to be inventive, and you can unleash powerful magic even at level 1, if you're willing to pay the price. 10/10 would huff again.

Emiel Boven@emielboven.itch.io · last mo.

My weird science-fantasy RPG zines The Electrum Archive are now 40% off on itch! It has warlocks huffing magical ink to commune with the spirit realm, ancient crashed space ships, scheming merchant houses, and the apocalyptic threat of a fungal hivemind/plague. itch.io/s/189575/sum...

Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · last mo.

So that I have something to refer to in the future when I'm delighted/disappointment in Burnham, a list of plausible (but perhaps unlikely) things I'd like a Burnham government to do, in no particular order.

Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Starmer's reaction to various failures of government is often to act like he's the injured party. But it's a failure of *his* government! Even if the failure was impossible to predict or prevent, you're still culpable if you're the boss. It sucks, but that's the job.

A screenshot of a BBC News headline: "Keir Starmer says it's 'staggering' he wasn't told Mandelson failed security vetting"
John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 6mo ago

"average New Labour minister causes 3 scandals" factoid actualy just statistical error. average minister causes 0 scandals. Scandals Peter, who lives in cave & causes over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

ℳatt@matttomic.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Italian voice actor Carlo Bononi was the voice of all of the characters on Pingu. A trained clown by trade, he used a theater technique called grammelot, which consists of "speaking" in a mix of babbled gibberish noises. He improvised all the voices live and unscripted.

Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · 9mo ago

If it were to happen, one bonus of Starmer leaving Downing Street before the next election is that it preserves an excellent pub quiz question: who was the last prime minister to both become and stop being prime minister as a consequence of a general election?

Dan Davies@dsquareddigest.bsky.social · last yr.

it feels almost indecent to say this since the primary reason for removing children from poverty is simply removing children from poverty. but it is really well established fact that child poverty is extremely expensive in the long term and this policy costs money.

Ian Moody@ianmoody.bsky.social · last yr.

Ministers privately ruling out scrapping two-child benefits cap. ​Sources says government is ‘not going to find a way’ to ditch cap despite predictions that child poverty levels will soar. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Gaby Hinsliff@gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · last yr.

Hands down my fabourite thing I’ve read this week. I laughed, I cried a bit (I lost my own dad recently), I will be quoting this next time someone says something pompous about what it means to be British. Enjoy your eccentric parents while you still have them substack.com/@tomcox/note...

Tom Cox on Substack

Some Notes About My Dad That I Have Made In My Notebooks: My dad has come to an arrangement with the public pool in Nottinghamshire where he swims: after everyone else has got out of the pool, he is ...

substack.com

Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · 2y ago

I have spent 5 days implementing a TOML parser, and I think my conclusion might be that I don't actually want to use TOML as a configuration file format after all. There's more complexity around when different constructs can define tables than I realised, and structure is hard to see at a glance.

Andy Raff (Captain Gamesmaster)@wulfboyraff.bsky.social · 2y ago

This is a powerful and affecting thread, and I advise caution on reading it given it talks about very sensitive subjects. I find it upsetting both because of the subject matter, and because in a way it allows a glimpse of what our parliament might be if it wasn't a fucking circus instead.

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 2y ago

I'm going to do some coverage on here of the assisted dying debate. If you're not interested please mute this thread now. It'll probably go on a while.

Michael Williamson@zwobble.bsky.social · 2y ago

The irony of removing the hereditary peers from the House of Lords is that they're the only ones put there by a vote, it's just that the electorate is rather small i.e. the hereditary peers.

Jaunty Art@jaunty.art · 2y ago

Here is my dad’s Porter joke that has all the makings of a joke but isn’t actually. He used to adore bombastically telling it to people to see how they’d react.

Porter joke So it's the week before Christmas and a man arrives at the train station loaded with gift parcels that he's bought for his friends and family. Given the season, the train station is particularly busy. Now, our friend is wealthy and generous and he's purchased many gifts during the day. And he's trying to navigate the station with gifts hanging from the ribbons off each of his fingers as he gets jostled by others at the train station. Our man needs help! He shouts "Porter!" above the din of the station in the hope that a train station porter can assist him with his load."Porter!" he cries again as he tries to rearrange the gifts into a stack that reaches above his head so he stops getting buffeted around the platform and can board his train. The clock is ticking down on his train's departure so he yells "PORTER!" just as he sees the top parcel start to teeter and fall to his feet. "PORTER! PORTER!" as the other parcels descend and start to get kicked by hurrying commuters. Just as he's standing stricken surrounded by his fallen load with his train leaving the station, the Porter arrives and asks if he can assist. "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?! I'VE BEEN SHOUTING ON YOU." our man cries."Apologies Sir, I did hear you but I was tying my shoelaces." comes the reply. And our exasperated traveller retorts "That's the trouble with you porters! YOU'RE ALWAYS TYING YOUR SHOELACES!"