Recent Comments

1. 5 days ago on Brewster Rockit

   Twice as long as half a piece of string.

2. 9 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   It’s quite entertaining how you still think the arguments are political. As a non-American in a country currently unaffected by the tariffs, I am enjoying watching people who still feel the need to defend the FOTUS by arguing against every reputable economist who is predicting the harm the tariffs will do to Americans as well as others. The only benefit of these is to boost one man’s ego and make him feel important.

   Ordinary Americans, regardless of their political leanings are going to suffer from these tariffs. It beggars belief that there is anyone unable to grasp that the importer has to pay the tariff, not the exporting country and that most importers will need to pass that tariff onto the consumer. In theory, the tariffs will boost American production, but this only left America because it cost more to produce in your country. Therefore, you will either be paying more because of tariffs or more because is is more expensive to produce, but yeah, please still argue this is a good idea. It’s hilarious.

3. 17 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   Your increasingly insatiable need to be right in this discussion is bordering on the Kafkaesque. To me, the logical approach to this whole thing is that what I choose to accept as the objective (un)reality in the strip is the conclusion I have reached for myself, and what others have reached is theirs. My logic and reasoning has come to a particular conclusion that helps me to enjoy this strip immensely and without recourse to extended discourses on who is right and who is wrong.

   In short, this argument is never going to be resolved in a manner that everyone will be happy or satisfied with, so why worry? The strip is there to be enjoyed in whatever way works best for you.

4. 29 days ago on Calvin and Hobbes

   No comment to most of the tirades on here, but unlike American newscasters, the BBC, like a number of others around the world are legally obliged to make very effort to be unbiased and neutral. They HAVE to be to continue to receive their licence fee.

   As one of the very few broadcasters not at the mercy of advertisers for the bulk of the funding, they can largely steer clear of political and commercial bias. They don’t always get it right, but large parts of the world rely on things like BBC World Service to provide the ONLY unbiased and uncensored reporting they are able to access.

   It is routine to find right-wingers decrying the BBC for being full of woke lefties and the left-wingers claiming they are in the pocket of hardline right-wing capitalists, often on the same day. Takes a great deal of balance to be able to tick of BOTH sides!

5. about 2 months ago on Phoebe and Her Unicorn

   Technically, as explained at length elsewhere, while the first chicken had to come from an egg (that’s where chickens come from), its parents do not have to have been chickens, as the first chicken would be a mutation of the proto-species that created it. The biology really isn’t that complex.

6. 3 months ago on Brewster Rockit

   I remain baffled at how so many Americans seem unable to see or grasp what the rest of the world can. The issue has nothing to do with political opinions, but to do with having a rational individul as your leader.

   In most European (and many other) countries, the person in charge doesn’t have unlimited power, they aren’t the ones who choose who should be in place to decide if what they’re doing is right or not (how can a Supreme Court be expected to do anything other than approve his Executive Orders if he put them there to do just that?), and if they are complete lunatics, there are provisions in place to get said leader out before they destroy the country (and the rest of the world).

   I am quite sure I got some of the details of how things like the Supreme Court works off somewhere, but to be blunt, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the world can see that irrespective of what politics you might follow, you have chosen a delusional lunatic who is only interested in looking after himself and has a lust for power that will destroy your country and badly affect the rest of the world. Kamala may have been a terrible choice, but at least there was a semblance of sanity there.

   I look forward to the point where you have to pledge allegiance to him personally instead of the Constitution or the Flag, if you want to stay out of trouble.

7. 4 months ago on Brewster Rockit

   Proper eReaders that use eInk screens are passive; they don’t use power to keep their mage displayed, only to refresh it when you turn the page. These are completely different from tablets or computer and much closer to reading an actual book. They generally only work with ambient light (unless you have one with optional backlight), with a decent paperwhite eInk screen replicating a print book quite closely. Most will happily run on a single charge for several weeks of use.

   I have a vast collection of real print books that I love and treasure, but an eReader allows me have a vast library of other books that I would never otherwise be able to enjoy (too many books, not enough wall space for shelves).

8. 7 months ago on Brewster Rockit

   There are some simple misunderstandings and misreporting that is causing agreat deal of the confusion. In many countries, including the UK and some in Europe, the official figures were always quoted quite clearly as ‘X number of people died in the last 24 hours OF ANY CAUSE that had a positive COVID result in the last 30 days’. In other words, they made clear that the figures were not of people who had die of COVID but were of those where it could have been a contributing factor. Sadly, many media outlets chose not to clarify this and misreport the figures as ‘x number died of COVID’. It was the same outlets who then later claimed the ‘Government’ had lied, when it was themselves who had lied.

   A major misunderstanding of masks is who it protects: masks do not protect the wearer; that isn’t how they work. Surgeons wear masks to reduce the risk of giving OTHERS infections or anything that could put them at risk. When you were wearing a mask, it was OTHER PEOPLE you were protecting, while they were protecting YOU. Again, this is often misreported as ‘masks don’t work’ – they only ‘don’t work’ if they are cheap ones or you have misunderstood how they work.

9. 7 months ago on Brewster Rockit

   This might be a slightly false memory, depending on exactly when you saw it. There are videos on YouTube that show the changing opening crawl of Star Wars from original to more recent versions, which demonstrate its initial US release did not include either ‘Episode IV’ or ‘A New Hope’. These were added really quickly, to the extent that screenings relatively soon afterwards and many initial international releases would include one or both.

   This is a little like many British fans will talk about how they ‘remember’ watching the film in the summer of ‘77, despite the film not being released in the UK until Christmas ‘77 (it was back in UK theatres over the summer of ‘78). It was fairly normal for quite significant delays like this back then.

10. 9 months ago on Brewster Rockit

    Or an infinitely improbable one…