Recursive Words

My other half went down with the bug that’s gone through the house this morning – which we’re guessing in norovirus. The builders were supposed to return today to continue working on our now non existent bathroom and laundry room (yes, that’s right – we are down to one bathroom, no shower, and no washing machine at the moment). They heard the word “norovirus” and retreated until at least Monday.

Just after all that happened, my other half was then so ill that I had to strip the bed and wash the bedclothes in the bath – with no way to dry them. They are currently hanging on the washing line in the garden, while the sky tries to rain on them (we have several sets of bedclothes, thankfully).

After sorting all of that out, cleaning the house from top to bottom with bleach sprays, hoovering everywhere, and tidying up, our elderly cat decided to pee and throw up on the landing – because obviously that’s helpful.

Thankfully our middle daughter seems to be on the road to recovery, and our eldest is pretty much back-to-normal (she’s eating everything in the kitchen while I write this). We seem to have shielded our youngest daughter and her baby from it all. I have requested they stay in their room until tomorrow night at least, if they can.

At this point I’m just wondering what’s going to happen next. I’ve gone through half a bottle of hand-gel just for myself so far today.

In other news, you might have noticed I’ve reverted the blog back to stock photos instead of AI generated sketches. This was entirely on purpose – to ward off the anti-AI brigade that seem to be marching the internet in much the same way that the trans-brigade went after J K Rowling following her request that women be allowed to be women, and to protect their spaces (mad idea, I know).

To say I disagree with keyboard warriors about most things is an understatement. I don’t understand what they think they achieve, other than causing legions of people to block, ignore, and dislike them. I also notice they rarely go by their real names – because of course they know they would become unemployed remarkably quickly if their toxic use of social media were to become known.

While having a rant, I’m getting ever-so-slightly fed-up of people from all over the developed world complaining at length about the political leaders their countries voted for – and never actually doing anything about it. Of course there’s money to be made in repeating what the silent majority is thinking to draw their likes and comments.

Invariably – because of algorithmic timelines – they are preaching to the converted – just as the people they are complaining about are doing the same – and given the mighty social platforms would rather keep you reading than cause you to walk away, they’re never going to cross the streams.

Don’t even get me started with social networks allowing robots to generate content. It doesn’t take a genius to spot a “generated” post, and yet they are flooded with reactions – partly from robots fanning the arguments.

Google+ got it right, many years ago, when they forced everybody to assume their real identity. Without your real name, and your real profile photo, you could not take part – and enough people didn’t like that, that the effort failed – so nobody can really complain now about the world they helped create – where anybody can hide in plain sight, and enlist armies of idiot robots to pedal any message they want, no matter how hateful.

Phew.

Deep breaths.

I’m going to go watch the Winter Olympics. If you want to say hi, feel free. Send me a stupid selfie or something – I could do with something light hearted and fun to lift the weekend out of the ditch somehow.

Maybe I should go order some LEGO from Amazon to get delivered?