sonofsanta

They've not updated the meta tag in the header (which is what WhatsApp picks up): [b] [/b] You've not needed the letter for weeks now, just to be eligible, so just an overlooked detail from their IT team

Greenland with Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin (Amazon Prime). If I tell you that it's Gerard Butler running round trying to save his family from an impending meteorite, you'll immediately get an idea of what this film is that is, astonishingly, entirely wrong (certainly I did). It's actually a fraught, tense disaster movie without ridiculous feats of superhuman ridiculousness, and is pretty stressful to watch at certain points because stuff goes really wrong and you're sat there thinking how in the hell you'd handle it. Surprisingly good movie, not at all the brainless popcorn flick you'd expect.

WandaVision was great. The last episode did devolve into the usual CGI-mind-lasers--comes with the territory, I guess--but also managed to slip a philsophical conversation into the midst of all that, and was generally speaking an excellent exploration of grief and loss. Hoping it is a one shot and they use these series to round out characters who don't necessarily get as much screen time in the films, fill out the universe a bit more than cinema run time allows. Falcon & Winter Soldier next, which, eh, I'll give it a shot but I'm not currently that excited; but then it's Loki...

WandaVision (Disney+) maybe stretches its opening conceit for one episode too long--I don't have much personal nostalgia for those 1950s American sitcoms, y'know?--but from episode 4 on it becomes utterly compelling and gets really clever at points. One particular "recasting" is a genius piece of meta-narrative (you'll know what I mean once you see it). Well worth sticking with past that very strange opening.

I have a whole theory on John Wick being a member of the Fae. They're the best urban fantasy movies made in ages (if not ever; not much competition) IMHO. Have been on a bit of a 80s computing documentary kick this week while I've worked from home. Have watched, and enjoyed: * Console Wars, about Sega taking on Nintendo in the late 80s/early 90s * Insert Coin, about Midway's time in the industry * And finally got round to From Bedrooms to Billions: the Amiga Years, that @Dos_Box gave me on a penstick about four years ago at EDIT. Didn't actually get any work done while this one was on, was too sucked in by everyone's love and enthusiasm All thoroughly enjoyable for nerds like us

Yeah, MiL had to wait ten minutes because she's on blood thinner medication. It was the multiple queues to get to the jab that took the time up! (Apparently there are no snacks at the end like blood donors, though you can get a soft drink. Boring.)

Well, if you take someone to get their vaccine, take a book with you--was waiting in the car for 90 minutes last night. But mother-in-law has had her first jab (the Oxford/AstraZeneca one), and has been told we can just go back to that centre for the 2nd dose instead of faffing about with Leicester City Centre, so I'll not complain too much about more time to sit quietly and read my Kindle in peace

In contrast to certain other YA authors, Rick Riordan is also using his fame and clout for undoubted good, setting up a publishing label dedicated to elevating underrepresented voices and doing his best to support trans kids instead of, y'know, what the other one is spending her time and wealth on. He's a good 'un. Lovely Wife and I started watching Locked Down with Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, but even as we pressed play we said "two hours? Seems a bit much for a romcom, what's wrong with films being 1h40 like in the old days" and lo and behold, the opening went on at least 20 self-indulgent minutes too long, and we gave up before they'd even left the flat to start the heist. Shame.

Got our first vaccine letter in our house, for 75 year old mother-in-law. All very exciting! First appointment booked for Monday afternoon at the mass vaccination centre at Boston. Half-hour drive isn't quite as convenient as local GP's, but at least we have a mass-vaccination centre nearby where we know we'll always be able to get an appointment. Oh, you have to book the second appointment at the same time. Well, that makes sense. We'll just go back to Bost-- --oh. Right. Second appointment only available for us in Leicester, 60 miles away. What a joke.

Vanilla 3060 is coming for £329 and, uh, it has more RAM than the 3060Ti and 3070? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2021/01/12/nvidias-rtx-3060-will-hit-pcs-and-laptops-in-february/

Quite. I suspect those reasons boil down to "I've not changed my opinion on anything for a decade", because that's about how out of date his ideas on MS and Google are. I'm not denying MS used to be that way, but they're a lot better now, and we get a bloody good deal off 'em, frankly. Anyway, saying no more lest I get frogged. Oh, except that I finally looked up that Celeron N3450 CPU on the Intel Ark, and they date back to 2016. They have quite feasibly been sat on a shelf in a warehouse for four years before they found someon gullible enough to buy them...

Well I managed to flag up to Jolyon Maugham (he currently campaigning on government corruption during the pandemic) how much of a waste of money these laptops were, and now I've got someone in my mentions insisting that Microsoft licensing is like a drug dealer hooking its client and I guess, therefore, implying that I'm a mule for them, all because we didn't get Chromebooks instead. No good deed goes unpunished, eh? Especially not on Twitter.

Don't laugh, but I feel really bloody sorry for our SLT. Penultimate day of term: you're doing mass testing in January! We've probably been planning this a while because it's not the sort of thing you do off the cuff but we thought we'd wait until almost the last moment to let you know. Last day of term: you were upset about us dropping new plans on you yesterday, so we're delaying the start of school in January. What do you mean you'd already made plans for that week that now you need to remake? First day of new term: so, uh, all that work you just spent your "break" doing because we left all our announcements till the last minute? Yeeeeeah you didn't need to do any of that*, we're just shutting you outright. The lack of respect for school staff time is painful. They are going to burn people out and lose a lot of good professionals from the system, through resignations or worse. *I know the work isn't wasted, as such, we'll be doing the testing whenever everyone does come back--but it didn't need to be done over the Christmas break, and could (it turns out) have been put together in a more measured timeframe while everyone was on the clock anyway.

There's one particular department that seems to share a certain level of self-importance and arrogance no matter which school you're in, so I reckon I could have a guess. Possibly produce some literature on my theory, though my foreign language skills have atrophied so it would need to be written in the English language. 👀

Given the idea is there are daily tests for a week for close contacts, and the middling accuracy of the test when self-administered, does that mean you need to test negative every day for a week before you can be certain? In which case, isn't that saving at most three working days now?

Thanks for that--because the BBC News article used the word "teachers" instead, apparently believing that to be synonymous with "school staff", so I was coming here to have a whinge and ask if anyone knew if we were eligible. Pleased to hear we have not in fact been forgotten for once!

I think it was less a technicality, and more a comment on whether you should bother or not 2 is a lesser film though it has its moments, 3 is pretty bad. The two new Jurassic Worlds are entertaining enough, if ridiculous (esp. the second). Nothing comes close to the first, though.

Yup. 4 more today here. Apparently, in chatting to the head, you're only allowed to close a year group if you can't identify the close contacts successfully. So if we did a crappier job of track and trace we'd be able to take the necessary and effective steps to stop this in its tracks, but instead--because PHE mistakently believe identifying close contacts is sufficient in a school environment, and we're doing the work with seatings plans etc.--we have to keep letting it rampage through our student population. There will absolutely be people getting phoned that first weekend of the holidays being told they have to self-isolate over the whole break and can't go out and see anyone or do anything.

We've had two asymptomatic students test positive only because they're involved in the randomised sampling so get tested weekly. God knows how many other cases are walking about freely. We are now at 271 students out of 1220 having to self-isolate from positive tests or close contact with same, but Public Health England still refuse to let us close even a year group because, I paraphrase, "your systems are so thorough that you don't need to". Yet even with these amazing systems--clear bubbling, no crossover times etc.--we're up to an average of three new cases a day, and it's snowballing. Which almost proves it's impossible to keep a school open and operating normally in a global pandemic, you'd think!

The component market is madness atm. Bought a 5700XT for £370 new in July, bought a 3060Ti last week in the 15 minutes before they went out of stock everywhere, and on Sunday it only took 9 hours to sell the 5700XT used on eBay for... £370. Basically paid £1 in listing fees to rent that card for five months before upgrading to an RTX card.

From PCGamer's review: Ouch.

Better Call Saul may be the best program ever made. Breaking Bad S5 was the previous high point for me, but BCS hit that level by Season 2 and has just kept it up ever since. Absolutely phenomenal storytelling, acting, editing, production, filming... everything about it is a creative team at the height of their powers.

"A bunch of Thornton’s chocolates to share in the staff room" lol, good one

I feel like my whole reputation is on the line now, and a potential frogging awaits me if I have been a poor royal advisor 😬

I think this replaced XBox Gold entirely, though I don't know if the games downloading aspect of it works. Xbox All Access may be worth a look for you--monthly subscription of £21 gets you the game pass and an XBox Series S (i.e. the less-powerful of the new ones), which works out cheaper in the long run than buying the console and subscribing on top. Everything from XBox One should be backwards compatible too so it'd be a good way to catch up on last-gen whilst also being ready for games to go cheap this gen