Col

Midlands, UK. Humour, news and eclectic interesting items. My toots may not all be original. I follow views without necessarily endorsing them, and I unfollow most non followers. I usually block those who argue or abuse. Ex Cop. LCFC. Header picture is 'Arriving at the Hall' by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

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npub13cf5phczlej8lryjfjw4lzal76r70jd23dp60njdyccaxzydrsjsq7nrp5

NIP-05 Address

kibcol1049_at_mstdn.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsguy6qmup0uerl3jfye82l3wlldpl8ex4gksa8eexjvvwnpzx3cfgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds90ck3z

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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Last Notes

2026-08-08 12:32:34 UTC

Mobile phones don’t need the full 100% charge: Keeping it at 100% on the charger every night adds wear to the battery. Set a cap limit. On iPhone, go to Settings > Battery > Charging > Charge Limit and select 90%. On Android, open Settings > Battery > Battery protection. A little less juice today could mean more battery life next year.

2026-08-03 13:46:38 UTC

Astronomers have made the first measurement of the full size of the largest known galaxy, obtained with the Isaac Newton Telescope in the Canary Islands. IC 1101 is roughly 1.7 million light-years across, with mass equal to roughly 3.4 trillion suns.
For comparison, our galaxy is around 110,000 light-years across, so this galaxy is 15 Milky Ways wide. By volume, almost 4,000 Milky Ways would fit in IC1101. This massive galaxy hasn't finished growing yet.

2026-08-01 08:28:52 UTC

Hundreds of ancient geoglyphs in the Amazon hint at complex societies. Archaeologists uncovered nearly 400 circles, squares, and other geometric shapes carved beneath the forest canopy using laser technology. The geoglyphs are estimated to be roughly 1,200 to 2,600 years old, challenging the long-held theory that the Amazon was largely untouched before Europeans arrived in the 15th century. Researchers think the carvings were used for festivities among an ancient society called the Aquiry.

2026-07-16 07:34:42 UTC

BBC News - British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y680w62wno

2026-06-01 10:29:08 UTC

In the US, insurance company’s use AI to deny claims in just 1.2 seconds. No exaggeration. Cigna built an algorithm that reviewed and rejected 300,000 claims in 2 months. Each in an average of 1.2 seconds of “review.” That same system gets overturned on appeal 80% of the time. But the insurance company knows that less than 0.2% of people ever appeal. Not 20%. Not 2% but point 2% They’re not rejecting your claim because it’s wrong. They’re rejecting it because statistically, you’ll give up.

2026-05-18 15:13:36 UTC

A climate tech company has turned a sci-fi idea into reality: pulling drinking water straight out of the air. Using materials inspired by Nobel Prize–winning research, the system grabs moisture from the atmosphere (even in really dry deserts) and turns it into clean, near-distilled water. Each unit can produce up to 1,000 litres a day, which could be a game-changer for places where fresh water is hard to come by or unreliable.

2026-04-24 11:54:28 UTC

HP have another update that stops 3rd-party ink cartridges across 11 printer models. No warning. No opt-out. Surprise, your cartridge doesn’t work anymore. HP, Epson, Canon and Brother control roughly 87% of the world printer market. 4 companies! When 1 locks you into expensive ink, the rest quietly fall in line. Inkjet ink costs up to $9,600 per gallon, (Chanel No. 5 perfume is around $26,000 a gallon). They sell the printer cheap, sometimes even at a loss, then squeeze you forever on the ink.

2026-03-29 07:11:50 UTC

My paper airplane wouldn't fly, it was just stationary.

2026-03-28 08:28:48 UTC

Reform’s Matt Goodwin, has been accused of using AI to write his new book, Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity. The former academic left the ChatGPT URL in some of the few references used to justify his arguments, says Andy Twelves in The Spectator, and much of his analysis appears to refer to “events, places and people which do not exist”.

2026-03-27 06:50:26 UTC

My tidying up is just putting stuff in less obvious places.

2026-03-25 07:05:38 UTC

A New Mexico jury has ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users.

2026-03-17 08:17:28 UTC

BBC News - Sri Lanka declares Wednesdays off as Asian countries try to conserve fuel
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g5n58rlnzo

2026-03-15 07:17:36 UTC

Before the internet, most people believed villages only had one idiot, now it's abundantly clear that we miscalculated.

2026-03-14 07:05:41 UTC

No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard.
Gene Roddenberry

2026-03-13 07:22:30 UTC

“A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it’s the only weapon we have.”
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

2026-03-12 07:51:50 UTC

Keir Starmer warned his cabinet against an “overly deferential” approach to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish governments, telling ministers they should be prepared to make spending decisions “even when devolved governments may oppose this”, according to a leaked memo.

2026-03-11 07:36:21 UTC

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
Terry Pratchett

2026-03-10 16:59:57 UTC

https://urls.grow.me/bl_-kUbU5b

2026-03-06 07:46:27 UTC

Every single sock I own, has a hole in it. Or how would you get your foot in?

2026-03-02 07:47:43 UTC

Me: Anyone else get the feeling their being watched?
Alexa: "It's they're!"

2026-03-02 07:44:47 UTC

Pharaohs were buried with their hands across their chest because of an ancient belief that there would be countless water slides in the after life.

2026-02-25 07:06:40 UTC

My phone has a feature that shows me what I look like as an old person, it's called a camera.

2026-02-24 07:59:15 UTC

I'm so old I remember when the internet didn't have commercials.

2026-02-17 13:57:47 UTC

Six companies linked to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, are being wound down in the wake of revelations about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

2026-02-17 13:57:05 UTC

Keir Starmer has pledged action on young people’s access to social media in “months, not years”, while saying this did not necessarily mean a complete ban on access for under-16s.

2026-02-09 07:18:38 UTC

Daughter: Did you know there's only 12 seconds in a year?
Dad: Trust me there's more than that.
Daughter: If I can prove it to you can we go to Mcdonalds?
Dad: Ok.
Daughter: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd....
Dad: (At the McDonald's drive through) One happy meal please.

2026-02-07 08:26:30 UTC

A teenager in Australia swam for 4 hours in choppy waters and fading light to raise the alarm after a freak wind swept his family out to sea on inflatable paddleboards and a kayak. Austin Applebee, 13, was tasked by his mum to kayak back for help, but it took on water so he had to swim 2.5 miles back. On the beach, he sprinted another mile to the nearest phone to ring the coastguard, then passed out. Rescuers found his mum and two younger siblings clinging to the paddleboard about 9 miles out.

2026-02-04 08:45:40 UTC

- reply

Are you just winding me up? 🤭 Morning.

2026-02-04 08:20:27 UTC

My Handle on life broke.

2026-02-03 14:16:35 UTC

Rome has introduced a €2 tourist tax to visit the Trevi Fountain, which sees some 10 million visitors a year and up to 70,000 a day in high season. Sightseers will now have to queue to pay the fee before getting to enjoy the Roman relic without the selfie-stick waving crowds.

2026-02-01 08:17:36 UTC

If at first you don't succeed
maybe sky diving isn't for you.

2026-01-28 15:24:28 UTC

Older people are twice as likely to drink heavily as those in their twenties, according to new NHS figures. Close to a third of those aged between 65 and 74 drink at “risky levels” – a measly six glasses of wine per week – up from just a fifth two years earlier.

2026-01-27 13:17:42 UTC

China hacked the mobile phones of senior officials in Downing Street for several years, exposing their private communications to Beijing, according to The Daily Telegraph. The operation, known as Salt Typhoon, is thought to have targeted the phones of top aides to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak between 2021 and 2024, and may still be going on.

2026-01-25 19:39:57 UTC

- reply

👍

2026-01-25 07:59:47 UTC

Hackers need to step their game up a bit and start deleting everyone's student loans, bad credit and mortgages etc.

2026-01-22 13:36:07 UTC

Ignore the old Thucydides line that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. The US was at its mightiest in 1946, when it made half the manufactured goods in the world and held a nuclear monopoly. What did Washington do with all this power? Set up the Marshall Plan and Nato, and rebuilt Germany and Japan as pacifist democracies. The belligerent turn in American behaviour has come during its relative decline.

2026-01-21 16:02:15 UTC

Activists created a 12.5 million block digital library in “Minecraft” to bypass censorship laws. In many authoritarian countries where news sources and books are censored, the video game is not, leading a group of designers to make a library full of information that people in those countries, and anyone else in the world, can access.

2026-01-21 12:29:41 UTC

British households will be eligible for thousands of pounds worth of solar panels and other green tech to lower their energy bills. The government says its Warm Homes Plan, which will invest £15bn in households over the next five years, will create a “rooftop revolution”, tripling the number of solar-powered homes.

2026-01-17 07:33:53 UTC

I've told all of my coworkers that I have an identical twin, so if I see any of them somewhere in public, I can completely ignore them.

2026-01-15 08:30:08 UTC

If you spell the words "absolutely nothing" backwards, you get gnihton yletulosba..
which ironically means... absolutely nothing.

2026-01-12 07:45:33 UTC

I wasn't sure who I was supposed to hate today, so I watched the news and went on social media and they informed me.

2026-01-05 07:35:03 UTC

20 years ago I always wanted to have a cool ringtone, and now my phone has been on silent for the past 10 years.

2026-01-03 07:24:41 UTC

I think I made too many New Year's resolutions this year.
It took me almost a full day to break them all!

2025-12-31 11:14:30 UTC

The planning document for the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing runs to 359,070 pages, “equivalent to nearly 300 times the complete works of William Shakespeare”. (FT)

2025-12-24 08:14:54 UTC

Chart indicating how strong various passwords are.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/115/773/544/170/697/215/original/8ad908ccc14517c8.jpg

2025-12-22 07:41:48 UTC

The first asylum seekers are expected to arrive in East Sussex barracks in new year as the Government has vowed to end use of asylum hotels and plans to send first men to Crowborough site within weeks.

2025-12-11 07:53:06 UTC

Santa: What do you want for Christmas?
Me: a Dragon.
Santa: Be realistic.
Me: OK politicians arrested and jailed for their crimes.
Santa: Do you want your dragon to breathe fire?

2025-12-09 10:39:22 UTC

I wasn't a big fan of tinkering with genetics - until now!
BBC News - Pioneering new treatment reverses incurable blood cancer in some patients
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj38ymeyg4mo

2025-12-08 13:33:28 UTC

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, my big fear is being stuck in a motorway traffic jam unable to get off. 🥺

2025-12-08 08:15:24 UTC

At least eight MEPs elected for Ukip or Brexit party are now known to have been the focus of efforts by alleged Russian asset, Nathan Gill.

2025-12-08 08:11:06 UTC

What do electric cars and diarrhea have in common? The fear of not making it home.

2025-12-05 15:06:36 UTC

Batesville School District in rural Arkansas had a $250,000 annual budget deficit. Then, it discovered it could save at least $2.4 million over a span of 20 years with clean-energy alternatives like solar.
It transformed an unused field into a solar energy farm and covered the front of its high school in 1,500 panels. It turned that annual deficit into a $1.8 million surplus, and the savings gave every teacher in the district up to a $15,000 pay raise.

2025-11-29 07:39:57 UTC

Hard work pays off later. Laziness pays off now.

2025-11-28 15:02:33 UTC

A Brittany town is so fed up of the French being perceived as rude and unwelcoming that it has launched a “courtesy week”. Residents of Saint-Brieuc are being told to stop moaning and strike up polite chatter with one another as part of a drive to become the nation’s “capital of courtesy”. Bonne chance.

2025-11-28 07:56:59 UTC

Marley was dead: to begin with.
Charles Dickens (Christmas Carol)

2025-11-25 16:55:00 UTC

California just returned 17,000 acres of ancestral land to the Tule River Indian Tribe in what Governor Gavin Newsom called “the largest ancestral land return in the history of the region and a major step in addressing historical wrongs against California Native American tribes.” Now, a number of conservation projects will begin, including the reintroduction of Tule elk, which has already begun.

2025-11-22 08:23:56 UTC

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv accepts within days a US-backed “peace plan” that would force it to give up territory to Russia and make other painful concessions. Trump confirmed on Friday morning that next Thursday – Thanksgiving in the US – would be an “acceptable” deadline for Zelenskyy to sign the deal, which European and Ukrainian officials have said amounts to a “capitulation”.

2025-11-21 13:44:43 UTC

Volodymyr Zelensky is being pressed to accept Donald Trump’s latest scheme for ending the war with Russia. Under the 28-point peace plan, drafted in private by Washington and Moscow, Russia would be freed from Western sanctions and allowed to rejoin the G8, while Kyiv would be forced to cede swathes of land currently under its control and banned from future membership of NATO.

2025-11-18 07:07:45 UTC

“It is useless to try to hold a person to anything he says while he’s madly in love, drunk, or running for office.”
Shirley MacLaine

2025-11-17 07:25:18 UTC

Immigration Refugees who have established lives with homes and families in the UK – including Ukrainians – will face having to return if their home countries become safe, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has said.

2025-11-11 07:55:53 UTC

After much soul-searching I have decided not to send Christmas cards this year, they just end up in the bin and subsequently in landfill. I have decided to take the money I would have spent to Asda and swap it for vodka and beer, massively reducing my ability to give a shit what anyone thinks. I'm sure you'll support me in this.
Merry Christmas.

2025-11-06 16:30:11 UTC

The Collins Dictionary word of the year is “vibe coding”, which means making an app or website by describing it to AI rather than writing the code manually. Others on the list include “aura farming” (cultivating a cool, charismatic persona), “broligarchy” (uber-rich tech bros) and “Henry” (an acronym for “high earner, not rich yet”).

2025-11-03 16:02:04 UTC

Nigel Farage has said Reform UK is the party of “alarm clock Britain” in a major speech on his vision for the economy. He promised to “substantially” slash the benefits bill, raise the thresholds at which people start to pay tax, embrace the cryptocurrency boom, “get the North Sea operating” and scrapping all net zero subsidies.

2025-11-01 07:05:35 UTC

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
Terry Pratchett, “Diggers”

2025-10-29 07:15:17 UTC

In Sudan, ethnically motivated mass killings and other atrocities are being reported from El Fasher after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces took control of the city in Sudan’s western Darfur region over the weekend.

2025-10-29 06:49:06 UTC

Beautiful people are not always good, but good people are always beautiful.
Imam Ali

2025-10-28 07:35:52 UTC

Humanity has failed to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately, the secretary general of the UN has warned. In his only interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, António Guterres acknowledged it is now “inevitable” that humanity will overshoot the target.

2025-10-23 12:16:47 UTC

This Sunday, clocks will go back across the UK, marking the end of BST. The change is scheduled for 2am, so we all get an extra hour in bed, but it also means the evenings will look darker sooner. It was introduced during WW1 in 1916 to help conserve fuel and make better use of daylight hours. In the UK, clocks now go forward on the last Sunday in March, but there's a growing debate over whether changing the clocks still serves a purpose, especially given modern energy use and flexible working.

2025-10-21 13:37:11 UTC

BBC News - Eight countries added to methanol poisoning warning list
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33p7vvyp2zo

2025-10-21 07:24:39 UTC

An electronic eye implant half the thickness of a human hair has helped people with incurable sight loss to see again, opening up a potential “new era” in tackling blindness. Doctors who implanted the sim card-shaped prosthetic devices say they have helped many of the 38 elderly patients in the trial regain their ability to read.

2025-10-21 07:23:31 UTC

A Conservative MP tipped as a future party leader has been condemned for saying large numbers of legally settled families must be deported. Katie Lam said that the families should “go home” leaving a “culturally coherent group of people”.

2025-10-20 13:34:44 UTC

The Mongolian wrestler Hōshōryū Tomokatsu won the Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall last night. After five days of fighting – during which the assembled rikishi ploughed through 700kg of rice, 1,000 packets of miso soup and 400 bottles of soy sauce – the 150kg 26-year-old beat his 191kg opponent in a crisp 10 seconds.

2025-10-20 06:03:38 UTC

For the record, I do all of my own stunts. Just not on purpose anymore.

2025-10-20 06:03:03 UTC

She got her doctorate in Palindromes. From today, she's to be addressed as Dr. Awkward.

2025-10-18 09:45:48 UTC

Plug-in hybrids are almost as bad for the environment as petrol cars. A new study of onboard data has found that so-called PHEVs, which run on both electric batteries and combustion engines, pump out only 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel engines rather than the claimed 75% reduction. The discrepancy is thought to be due to overestimates of how much the cars use electric mode – a measly 27% of driving time, rather than the official figure of 84%.

2025-10-18 06:40:52 UTC

Bean bag chairs are like Venus fly traps for anyone aged over 40.

2025-10-16 06:59:38 UTC

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.

2025-10-13 15:19:25 UTC

France is mired in its “most serious political crisis since 1968”, says Sylvie Kauffmann in the FT. 4 days after the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu, the 3rd PM in a year, Emmanuel Macron revealed that the new PM would be Sébastien Lecornu again! A new poll puts Le Pen’s far-right National Rally on 36%, probably enough to scrabble together a majority, so mainstream parties may agree a compromise on pensions that would only be a temporary reprieve. After his disastrous snap election last year.

2025-10-05 07:09:12 UTC

Mate: Did you eat all my chocolate in the fridge last night?
Me: No, I ate it on the sofa.

2025-10-05 07:08:13 UTC

I need to use a pair of scissors to open the plastic packaging on a new pair of scissors. Needing scissors was the point of me buying a pair of scissors!

2025-10-04 09:45:29 UTC

The Trump administration, allegedly changed the colour of the US flag just before the president’s state visit to the UK. Nick Farley, Britain’s official flag supplier, said the White House decided at the last minute that the red used in the Union flag, called R01, wasn’t strong enough for the Stars and Stripes, and insisted on a cherry red instead. So all the American flags flown during the visit had to be replaced, costing British taxpayers an estimated £50,000.

2025-10-03 14:02:15 UTC

One of the two people killed in yesterday’s terror attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester was accidentally shot by police. A second person received non-fatal gunshot wounds; they appear to have been behind the closed synagogue door when officers opened fire on the suspect, named as 35-year-old Jihad al-Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian origin. Three others have been arrested.

2025-09-30 14:07:38 UTC

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I often think of my great uncle who was in a glider that landed in WWII. I say landed, they were designed to crash land and then fall apart so the soldiers could rush out! There was no practicing, you only did it once, most crashed badly, and many were killed and injured. I never met him as he was badly injured and died a few years afterwards and before I was born. Brave or what! 🤔🫣

2025-09-30 07:35:26 UTC

I made a lot of stupid mistakes as a child. Now that I'm an adult, I make mistakes that are much more complex and far- reaching.

2025-09-28 07:22:49 UTC

https://news.sky.com/liveblog-webview/politics-latest-labour-conference-migration-starmer-reeves-burnham-12593360

2025-09-26 12:27:19 UTC

- reply

😱

2025-09-26 06:10:01 UTC

The crown court backlog in England and Wales has hit a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years.
Slow justice is no justice!

2025-09-26 06:06:41 UTC

All working adults will need digital ID cards under plans to be announced by Keir Starmer, in a move that will spark a battle with civil liberties campaigners.

2025-09-25 05:58:18 UTC

The world’s oceans have failed a key planetary health check for the first time, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels, a report has shown. In its latest annual assessment, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said ocean acidity had crossed a critical threshold for marine life.

2025-09-20 06:08:00 UTC

Three hardest things for people to say:
1. I was wrong.
2. I need help.
3. Worcestershire.

2025-09-17 15:07:25 UTC

Ohio is allowing families to sign up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program from the hospital at birth. The program sends children one free book each month until they’re 5 years old to help them fall in love with reading early.

2025-09-17 06:05:52 UTC

Me: You're so lazy.
Mate: Every corpse on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated person, that's why I stay lazy my friend.

2025-09-14 12:30:11 UTC

BBC News - Romania becomes second Nato country to detect Russian drones in airspace - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80g7g5rmlno

2025-09-13 08:03:41 UTC

Dan Shillito, a lorry driver, leapt into action when he saw police holding a man dangling off the edge of a bridge on the M1. “I drove the lorry underneath him so at least if he fell, he would only fall a short distance,” the 34-year-old told The Times. “Then I ran around, jumped up on the container, and supported him.” He held the man for around 8 minutes before he was lowered on to the container without injury. “His son messaged me to say thank you, and said ‘You’ve saved my family.’”

2025-09-12 15:05:32 UTC

Rhode Island and Connecticut are suing the Trump administration over its decision to halt construction on a massive offshore wind farm that had been 80% complete with a stop-work order that would threaten jobs, clean energy, and billions in investments.

2025-09-12 15:04:35 UTC

Tourists driving in Scotland can now fit their vehicles with “T plates”, a green version of learners’ “L plates”. The stickers, available to buy online, were declared legal by Transport Scotland after a sharp increase in crashes linked to a tourism boom in the Highlands, often involving travellers unfamiliar with driving on the left. Och aye.

2025-09-10 20:57:48 UTC

I've been feeling weak, tired, depressed and rundown, so I looked up the symptoms.
It appears I'm experiencing 2025.

2025-09-10 16:35:37 UTC

- reply

I wouldn't worry about it. It won't change you. 🤔😂

2025-09-10 11:48:07 UTC

Zodiac signs may be wrong! Created in Babylon 2,500 yrs ago, the 12 signs were based on the constellations behind the sun then. But not now. If your birthday is today, you think you’re a Virgo because that was the constellation behind the sun on this day thousands of years ago. Now, it’s Leo. For 3 reasons: The Earth wobbles, shifting our stars view by about 1 degree every 72 years. Constellations aren’t all the same size, and there is a 13th constellation, Ophiuchus, which they forgot about!

2025-09-10 07:16:19 UTC

School absences “significantly contribute” to children’s mental ill health, according to recent research that shows the risks increase the longer a child is absent.