Opens curtains
mumbles
"There's a Daylight Shortage "
Checks news headlines
"Odd. Nothing about Conservative's cuts in daylight ."
Search
182 results for “curtain”
-
-
Fox News - Breaking News Updates | Latest News Headlines | Photos & News Video [Unofficial] @[email protected]Aaron Rodgers pulls back curtain on bargaining talks with NFL envisioning one week of 16 international games
-
Also discussed: A clear shower curtain with a tuxedo body on it so you can take selfies that look like you wear a tux in the shower. (Ep.9)
-
I was ready to shout “The Ghost & Mrs Muir!” or “The Iron Curtain!”, but the question setters let me down. #Mastermind
-
"The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile."
"Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'"
-- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4 -
Jon Russell from Asia Tech Review says the valuations don’t make sense. AI startups are being priced beyond Apple or Amazon, yet we haven’t seen any filings. When OpenAI finally goes public we’ll finally see what’s behind the curtain.
Watch on YouTube 👇
https://youtube.com/shorts/eBnbM50IKmY -
13 𝑫𝙖𝒚𝙨 𝙤𝒇 𝑯𝙖𝒍𝙡𝒐𝙬𝒆𝙚𝒏: "𝙏𝒉𝙚 𝘿𝒊𝙖𝒓𝙮 𝙤𝒇 𝑴𝙧. 𝑷𝙤𝒚𝙣𝒕𝙚𝒓" 𝙗𝒚 𝑴. 𝙍. 𝑱𝙖𝒎𝙚𝒔
2026 Theme: Bibliographic Horror - Haunted Diaries
1911, England#review #halloween #horror #horrorstory #13DaysOfHalloween #books #bookreviews #bookworm #readreadread #shortstory #frictionalreading #bookhorror #reading #words #language #diaries #curtains #textiles #mrjames #diaryofmrpoynter
-
Putin is TRAPPED in a Disastrous War of his Own Making - he has NO Way Out!?
by #SiliconCurtain
31:59https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aKAtX9dZlo
🇺🇸
Discussion with #JasonJaySmart: Kyiv-based political analyst and national security expert specializing in post-Soviet affairs🇬🇧 🇺🇦
Silicon Curtain makes interviews about propaganda, digital disinformation, politics, in connection with #Russia's war against the West -
Charmy’s Army in “DEE SEAST – The Hell of the Ball” – Part 3: Blue Vests and Brown Bananas
<<< Previous COMIC strip NEXT COMIC STRIP >>>In the third installment of our saga, panic reaches a fever pitch before colliding directly with mundane retail logistics. Convinced that Walmart’s customer service desk has instituted a terrifying new policy for processing refunds, the ponytail girl spiraled into sheer dread: will returning a defective toaster get her tossed into a holding pen to be devoured by domesticated ghouls? Thankfully, the blonde clears the air. Dee isn’t eating dissatisfied shoppers; she works in the meat department devouring the expired cuts. She isn’t a mindless trash can, either—as corporate HR would insist, she is a proud “Waste Management Facilitator.”
The fluorescent lights of the retail district buzzed overhead like a hive of mechanical hornets. The ponytail girl stood dead in the center of the sidewalk, completely frozen in terror, clutching both hands to her face. Her eyes were practically the size of saucers, and her breathing sounded like a bellows working overtime.
“I bought a set of non-stick sauté pans three weeks ago,” she whispered, her voice trembling with sheer, unadulterated existential dread. “The coating is already flaking off near the handle. I have the receipt in my purse. I was literally planning to go to Customer Care this afternoon. But now? Now I know the truth! They’re going to look at my receipt, see that the packaging is torn, hit a discreet red button under the desk, and drop me down a trapdoor into Dee’s feeding pit!”
The blonde stared at her friend for three long seconds, an expression of profound exhaustion settling across her features. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a deep, shuddering sigh that blew a stray blonde lock out of her eyes.
“Have you ever, in your entire life, heard of a big-box store feeding actual human customers to an employee?” the blonde asked flatly. “Do you realize the liability insurance premiums on that alone? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration would have field inspectors crawling through the air ducts within forty-eight hours. The paperwork would take decades.”
“Corporations do terrible things to protect their quarterly profit margins!” the ponytail girl insisted, gesticulating wildly toward the towering blue sign visible above the tree line. “Think about it! Customer returns cost money! Salvage freight costs money! If you replace the return desk with an apex predator from beyond the grave, refund requests drop to absolute zero overnight! It’s the ultimate cost-cutting measure!”
“She’s in the meat department, you absolute lunatic,” the blonde barked, grabbing her friend by the arm and dragging her along the pavement. “She doesn’t eat dissatisfied patrons who lost their receipt for a shower curtain. She eats the brown ground chuck and the discount chicken thighs that have been sitting in the display cooler forty-eight hours past their sell-by date!”
The ponytail girl blinked once. Twice. Her frantic breathing slowed down, though the look of absolute disgust remained firmly plastered across her face. “Wait… what?”
“You heard Charmy earlier,” the blonde continued, shaking her head. “Food waste is one of the biggest logistical hurdles in supermarket management. Stores throw away literal tons of spoiled produce, dented cans, and graying beef every single calendar year. Landfills charge dumping fees. Commercial composters have strict guidelines. But an undead post-human? Their digestive systems—or whatever remaining chemical soup passes for an internal organ—can neutralize bacteria that would put a vulture into an intensive care unit.”
“So she’s a garbage disposal,” the ponytail girl summarized, wrinkling her nose until her freckles scrunched into a tight knot. “A glorified, walking, rotting kitchen sink drain with bangs.”
“Charmy said she prefers the title Waste Management Facilitator,” the blonde corrected with an ironic smirk. “Corporate America doesn’t hire monsters; they hire operational specialists. They probably gave her an orientation badge, a five-minute video on slips, trips, and falls, and a designated break room in the refrigerated storage annex so she doesn’t scare the bakery associates.”
Across the street, Charmy and Dee had paused outside a small convenience store. Dee was leaning against a lamppost, her head tilted at a precarious angle that suggested her neck vertebrae were merely suggestive guidelines. A passing delivery driver glanced at her, double-took, and quickly crossed the street with an expression of profound confusion, but nobody screamed. Nobody dialed the national guard. The world had simply absorbed the unthinkable and filed it away under routine municipal oddities.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” the ponytail girl muttered, watching Dee attempt to scratch her shoulder and nearly dislocating her collarbone in the process. “The idea that the zombie apocalypse ended with our society almost being overrun, or the idea that it ended with the survivors realizing zombies could be exploited for unpaid sanitation labor.”
“Welcome to late-stage capitalism,” the blonde replied with a dry chuckle. “If a catastrophic virus wipes out twenty percent of the population, the remaining eighty percent won’t mourn; they’ll just figure out how to put the fallen to work clearing out the dairy aisle. But hey, look at the bright side: at least Dee is earning an honest living. It’s more than half the guys you’ve dated this year can say.”
“That is a low blow and completely uncalled for,” the ponytail girl grumbled, though she couldn’t suppress a faint, cynical grin. “At least my exes showered once a week. Dee looks like she just crawled out of an abandoned septic tank behind a haunted waterpark.”
“True,” the blonde agreed, watching as Charmy gently handed Dee a small bottle of hand sanitizer, which she promptly attempted to drink before Charmy calmly redirected it to her palms. “She’s definitely rough around the edges. But that brings up an even more pressing dilemma: with Halloween coming up, what does an integrated undead citizen do for social life? And more importantly… what does this mean for the town dance?”
TO BE CONTINUED….
Rate this:
#books #fantasy #fiction #shortStory #writing -
Previews, Pre-Season, Betas, and Opening Nights
There’s an old saying in the theatre biz. No show is ever really ready on opening night. It’s a cliché that has seen it’s time pass in the big money commercial circuit because so many producers run lengthy preview weeks, charging essentially, but not quite, full price to avoid reviewers publishing their criticisms until the show is officially open. The preview process began lengthing after the days of out-of-town tryouts came to an end, although we see that still happening occasionally as larger regional theatres will debut a work, allowing it to still be worked on, hoping that it will one day make it to Broadway.
There was a famous production of Eugene O’Neil’s play Hughie, starring and directed by Al Pacino, that ran in previews for almost a month before finally opening. That led to a critic from Daily Variety breaking the only after opening night embargo a week early since the announced limited run would end up with less “real” performances than those in previews after the show officially opened. The show would go on to extend the run a couple of times.
In smaller circuits the cliché still lives on, simply because of a lack of resources to run many preview performances in front of audiences to really gauge reaction before it officially opens. A show can look great in final dress rehearsals, but it’s never complete until there’s a paying audience of strangers sitting in the dark to tell if it works or not. The ever-present lack of time still breathes life into the cliché in ways that offer both hope and anxiety behind opening night curtains around the world.
In the professional sports world teams play in a pre-season or spring training games that don’t matter while the players tune up for the real thing. Although in most of those types of meaningless games it’s really more like watching players audition than it is anything else. Occasionally a budding star emerges, but that’s atypical. Early “real” season games that do count (at full price) are when teams find out what they have, leading knowledgeable sports viewers knowing when it is time to pay real attention to a team’s chances or not.
Those are two interests in my life. I’m a theatre professional (and geek) and I watch sports. Another is my interest in tech. In tech we have betas. Or we used to, when that was mostly for software. Now we’re just in previews, pre-season, or perpetual betas forever for both software and hardware. Which is somewhat understandable, yet weird, perhaps ironic, but ultimately a joke on the paying public, given the pace in which things are always advancing in tech, including the pace and price of advancement.
We never seem to reach opening night, opening day or the end of a beta period in tech. Instead products and software are released incomplete, occasionally followed immediately by “leaks” that suggest the company that just took your money for it’s latest best product ever is working on fixing the things they knew were wrong for the next version when they released the product you just payed for.
But you’re going to love it.
It’s easier to swallow with software. It’s a bigger pill that sticks in the craw with hardware.
It used to be that betas were for working out bugs. They still are to a degree, but now they’re just the next show in a never-ending season, or the latest minor-league call up. But you still pay full price for the game when the team needs to put a not ready for the big leagues pitcher on the mound just to fulfill its obligation to play the announced season.
You can argue that there’s nothing wrong with the way things have evolved in tech because the financial equations are different. It requires a substantial upfront investment to create, produce and deliver new technology. You’d be mostly wrong, but you can argue it. Most of the costs in show biz happen upfront before a show even gets close to an audience, hopefully a large enough one in a long enough run to recoup the initial investment. It is a different equation in sports.
The release of Apple’s iPhone Duo strikes me as an interesting entry in this evolution of consumer dynamics. Soon, perhaps too soon, before the product was released to the general public, leaks popped out that Apple was working on tweaks to two of the major criticisms of the device for the next generation — a larger model and adding FaceID. That followed criticism from reviewers.
In general, most tech reviews I read, watched, or listened to made it very clear that the iPhone Duo was a first generation device with some rough edges that wasn’t for everyone, especially at the entry price. I can’t judge those reviews myself since I haven’t seen the product, but they mostly seemed very similar and to my mind fair. Some, sounding more like theatre critics or sport writers I’ve known, were more harsh, delivering criticism that might have prompted a closing notice being posted before intermission or an early game benching.
Here’s where my three interests diverge a bit. In theatre the show can close early if it’s savaged or not enthusiastically endorsed by reviews. In sports a pro team can retool a bit by trading or signing free agents midseason. Tech companies have to play out the run with tech hardware until the next generation is ready.
Given the leaks following the reviews I find it sort of funny that I’m in a place of feeling a bit sorry for the carriers that are offering great deals on the iPhone Duo subsidized by a three year contract. That’s a tough sell to anyone who pays attention, though admittedly most won’t if they’re hot to trot for the new shiny folding phone from Apple.
It’s my hunch, and only a hunch, that Apple knew these criticisms were coming. Even so, it’s one thing to prepare the next version hoping to make changes that advance a platform, it’s another to make them in reaction to negative press once the product is unveiled. It sets you up in the next round for being congratulated for fixing what was wrong the last time.
In the theatre if a joke doesn’t land, you can replace the joke in previews. In sports you bench a player or fire a coach. With tech hardware it’s not that easy changing things before it becomes a punch line. (See the Vision Pro.)
My second hunch, only a hunch, is that the iPhone Duo will eventually become a successful part of Apple’s lineup and get past what feels like a rough opening. I don’t think it will enter into Vision Pro punchline territory. Critics of all human endeavors need something to criticize as much as companies need to produce the next thing. It’s a symbiotic relationship that feeds on itself. And the always distracted general public has short-term memory bordering on amnesia.
It’s my wish that tech companies, like theatre companies and sports teams, would figure out a better path to the success they seek. Sure, you might be able to fool some of the people all of the time. But for the most part folks figure it out on their own. Some of the time. And that some of the time is what everybody on the producing end of things counts on.
Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.
#Apple #iPhone #iPhoneDuo #reviews #Sports #Tech #technology #TheaterOfTheMind #Theatre #Writing -
'a certain kind of Arab politics and mien goes a long, long way to securing consent and licence. Nusseibeh is an operator, that’s for sure, but she is also a beneficiary of a branding exercise that the UAE has been working on for a long time to ingratiate itself with western establishments...presenting itself as a “moderate” Muslim country that is alive to the dangers of radical Islam'
#middleEast #africa #sudan #uae #un
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/26/uae-sudan-lana-nusseibeh-un-secretary-general
-
@georgetakei I certainly know which guy I'd like to sit and have a beer and a conversation with 🍻 #Talarico
-
-
There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you. -
I was certain of 1
🧠 Quiz of the Day - Oct 25
🟩 🟩 🟩 ⬜ 🟩
🟩 ⬜ ⬜ ⬜ ⬜Score: 5/10
Think you can do better? quizoftheday.co.uk
-
PRs around these places are certainly a vibe.
-
Canada–EU Summit Must Give Investors Certainty, Leblond Says
Trade expert says critical minerals and defence cooperation require dependable demand, reciprocal access and sustained work on trade…
#Economy #CanadaEUsummit #CETA #criticalminerals #defenceprocurement #Digitaltrade #EconomyofEU #EconomyoftheEU #energysecurity #EUeconomy #Europe #EuropeanUnion #lng #MarkCarney #PatrickLeblond #tradediversification
https://www.europesays.com/3333859/ -
We live in times when certain forces around us, seen and unseen, defend themselves by attacking their assailants, real or imagined, by any means possible, and often by those means which we might consider not only underhand, but illegal. Illegality is, of course, something discerned by those in power, a
The Best Defense: Attack
https://urban.camera/2026/10/the-best-defense-attack/#Albania #Brazil #Education #Europe #Justice #Life #Politics #Serbia #SocialMedia #Society #UnitedKingdom #USA
-
Noted: when zombies reach a certain stage, they are flammable
-
Quest Diagnostics Reports Cyber Breach Affecting ‘Certain Patient Records’ https://www.securityweek.com/quest-diagnostics-reports-cyber-breach-affecting-certain-patient-records/
-
Pure innocence!!! Certainly not a little kitty who was destroying Penguins tree!!!
#cat #cats #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #catstodon #MastoCats #CatsOfFediverse #PetsOfMastodon #TabbyCat #SpookyKitties #SodiumPopLightning
-
And she knew one unspoken fact for a certainty, one truth that had underlined their bond since the day she'd met him.
Her will was so much stronger than his. It always had been.
— the burning god by r. f. kuang
-
One way of getting a reputation is to go with a certain confidence into some obscure, unfamiliar subject, whither no one thinks it worth while to follow you, and to discourse on it with seeming coherence.
-
The idea of wheel and operator groups able to do certain administrative tasks was introduced in 4.3 BSD. McKusick,
Leffler, Karels, and Cabrera wrote about it in their 1985 paper on the improvements made over 4.2.It took a while to percolate to the AT&T side of the fence. SunOS had group wheel by the 1990s, with the special tweak that if no-one was in it one got the traditional everyone-can-su-root behaviour. System 5 did not.
-
[ 🇺🇸 ÉTATS-UNIS | 🇷🇺 RUSSIE ]
🔸 « Nous ferons certainement des affaires avec la Russie une fois la guerre terminée. » - Donald Trump
-
#StartUp Claims to Use #AI-Created #Viruses to Treat a Patient
Certain viruses attack #bacteria and can sometimes clear antibiotic-resistant infections. Researchers said they had tailored a #virus to attack one patient’s illness.
Researchers announced they had administered virus, known as a #phage, to patient suffering from deadly bacterial infection. Phages attack bacteria and the hope is that this one will kill the microbes causing the infection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/science/ai-virus-bacteria-radical-numerics.html
https://archive.is/20261020222023/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/20/science/ai-virus-bacteria-radical-numerics.html -
PXG Secret Weapon Mini Driver: Specs and First Look
There are certain holes where taking the driver out of the bag feels like an act of optimism…
#Golf #PXG|ParsonsXtremeGolf #golfclubreviews #GolfEquipment #golftechnology #JakeKnapp #Minidrivers #ParsonsXtremeGolf #PXG #SecretWeaponmini-driver
https://www.europesays.com/golf/82364/ -
Hmmm...
I do wish I could answer with certainty without looking it up what the value of (equalp 123.456 #C(123.456 0.0)) is...
I only _think_ it is true; not good enough. -
https://youtu.be/nONaGSuh-JI
⛔️🇺🇸Trump and Musks plan to bully Ukraine is ‘certain to fail’ as President Zelensky refuses to surrender Ukraine (Trump Report Podcast VIDEO) #Ukraine #Press #Media #VOTE #VOTE2026 #America #USA #US #News #Brussels #CoE #PACE #France #UK #London #Germany #Democrats #Republicans #Headlines #USAIsAStateSponsorOfTerror
#12yrInvasionOfUkraine #RussiansAreBabyKillers -
https://www.europesays.com/fr/1266508/ Pourquoi certains contribuables vont être prélevés deux fois par le fisc ce lundi 26 octobre #Actualités #Économie #Fisc #FR #France #impôt #News #RépubliqueFrançaise #taxe