Picture of me, long black hair in a tentacles shirt

Dalliance.net is Pre’s homepage, index of his projects, updates on his blog. That sort of thing. You can subscribe in various ways.

Projects

Blog

Blog header image, me silhouetted against an orange/yellow sunset

My blog, mostly monthly summaries of the Fediverse Account.

Visit at dalliance.net/blog

Or check out the categories index


Starship Schrödinger’s Destiny

A crew of five stand in a green field with a flying saucer behind them next to a planet like earth in the sky.

Ongoing: An Interactive Sci-Fi story for Virtual Reality about the adventures of the crew of a flying saucer.

Visit at starshipsd.com


Wordcloud Tarot

A spread of cards scattered around. Each has a picture, and also a world cloud in the background

Ongoing: My tarot decks have the meanings of the cards written on the card in a world-cloud. There’s also a video show with a reading about politics most weeks.

Visit at wordcloudtarot.com


Tentacles, After The End

A woman in a blue dress and a red and chrome robot flee from tentacle monsters chasing in the background

A 30 minute animated movie about the last woman alive on a planet ravaged by tentacle monsters from outer space.

Tentacles is complete, visit the archive at tentacles.org.uk


Book: Do Dream Sheep Bleat?

A white pocketbook with the icon of a black and white fat penguin

A short story book about magic and memes and reality.

Dreamsheep is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/dreamsheep


Book: Yes, The Conspiracy Really Exists, And Furthermore It’s All Your Fault.

A book cover with a starburst, pyramid and eye

A long rant about how stupid humans screw up humanity.

The book is complete, you can buy a copy or read it online at dalliance.net/yes


Loopy

Pre behind some keyboard

After the band broke up, I took to playing with myself via a loop pedal. Sometimes, very rarely, even in public.


Bookshelf

dusty old books in a bookshelf plus logo

An album of songs inspired by some of the best books on my bookshelf.

The album is complete, you can listen to the songs at dalliance.net/bookshelf


Handsome Jack’s Showband

A semi-circular logo and silhouetted crowd of arms

My punk cover’s band.

Despite some online-only gigs, the band didn’t make it though the pandemic, you can watch some old gig videos online at handsomejacks.co.uk


Joust Adventure

Screenshot of a game, made from pictures of plush toys and balloons

A little web-game I made back in 2011 with the hope people might pay me to make level 2.

I don’t think anyone ever finished level 1. Too hard.

Can you do it?

The project is abandoned, you can still play level one at dalliance.net/joustadventure. So far as I know, I’m the only person to ever complete the level. Let me know if you do!


  • Diary

    My diary from the Fediverse.
    Status at - Sat, 05 Jul 2025 13:25:28 +0000

    I have deconstructed the temporary half arsed shoddy micro-campervan conversion.

    Emptied it out, ready for the professionals to do the fully arsed non-shoddy permanent conversion over the next couple of weeks.

    The fridge and the chair remain in the back but not tied down at all.

    The chair I might leave at my mums as a better sofa-bed for me to sleep on when there, and maybe spend the night with them before dropping the van off. They live much closer than me to the drop off point.

    He said he might be able to use the fridge.

    My job was so shoddy it was already starting to fall apart so will be good to have it done properly.


    Status at - Fri, 04 Jul 2025 18:13:17 +0000

    Content warning:Happy Final Forth of July everybody!


    It's been a pretty good run, more than two hundred years of freedom for some people (if they aren't slaves) and even sixty years - nearly one lifetime - of actual universal suffrage!

    Now that this short experiment in democracy has ended, I wish all of America good luck in the struggle to come, as you each discover your place in the new strict social order.

    Try to stay out of the camps!

    The title "Land Of The Free" has now moved to.... 📨 👐 ... New Zealand!

    So from now on the new Forth of July will be the Sixth of February.

    Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.


    Status at - Fri, 04 Jul 2025 16:53:33 +0000

    The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile has started to repeatedly scan the sky.

    Some of it's first images are available at skyviewer.app/explorer

    Lots of galaxies up there eh?


    Status at - Fri, 04 Jul 2025 15:57:04 +0000

    This month's newsletter/digest is on it's way to all the amazing lovely peaceful protestors who want it in the email box.

    The rest of your terrorist sympathizers who should be arrested can read it here:

    dalliance.net/blog/jun25/

    Featuring rants about gaza and glasto and a broken watch failing to be right even once a day.


    Status at - Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:11:57 +0000

    Content warning:USPol Big Bill


    Oh thank goodness! For a moment there I thought that America might waste a whole bunch of money on healthcare and keeping the workers fit for work!

    Much better for the money to go to increasing the number on the spreadsheets of the rich people.

    Can you imagine how terrible the world would be if America didn't kill thousands of people by denying them medicine to keep the spreadsheet numbers high?

    Adam Smith would have been so mad, his invisible hand would surely have smite everyone.


    Status at - Wed, 02 Jul 2025 18:27:06 +0000

    Content warning:re: UKPol, Palestine Action Ban


    These are the only honourable members in the house. Every other MP thinks that Palestine Action should be banned as terrorists even though they have never done any terrorism and are against killing and genocide.


    Status at - Wed, 02 Jul 2025 17:33:09 +0000

    Content warning:re: UKPol, Palestine Action Ban


    Fifteen minutes of debate and less than 30 votes against.

    The MPs just wave it through without even trying to object.

    The House Of Commons has voted to add a group that doesn't do any terrorism to the list of banned terrorist groups.

    They will do climate protest groups next.

    Protest is not terrorism, this government is a fascist authoritarian nightmare.


    Status at - Tue, 01 Jul 2025 18:08:35 +0000

    If I chant "Death to the IMF", it doesn't mean I want to kill all bankers!

    Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but that statement doesn't resolve it.

    😆


    Status at - Tue, 01 Jul 2025 14:49:24 +0000

    I dunno who needs to hear this but that's not and those aren't


    Status at - Tue, 01 Jul 2025 11:23:05 +0000

    The media focus on this one criticism is insane, just massive focus on ensuring everybody is quoted as being against Bob's chant.

    The manufacturing of consent in plain view. No support of Bob allowed to be quoted, only condemnation. No focus at all on the horrors committed by the army itself, just condemnation and contrition from all corners.

    And all so much louder than the coverage of death and hunger and destruction and genocide being committed by that army.

    Our media environment is so focused and in lock-step, even though it's in theory free. Yet not a single newspaper saying, you know, the Vylan character has a point! Maybe we should disband a criminal army!

    Got confused about the date in the show here, but the reading's about right. The bandwagon rolls on because it's a victory for everyone. The media gets to condemn someone, and they don't have to condemn Israel.

    wordcloudtarot.com/readings/20


  • Bookmarks

    Things I have bookmarked lately.
    Whatever You Do, Don’t Make Them Uncomfortable - Tue, 01 Jul 2025 13:16:42 +0000
    The Bear: "The real scandal isn't the chant - it's The Mail on Sunday's
    deliberate fabrication. Turning "Death to the IDF" into "Death to
    Israelis" wasn't sloppy journalism. It was character assassination
    designed to transform political protest into genocidal incitement. When
    major newspapers can simply invent quotes and attribute them to public
    figures without consequence, we've moved beyond press freedom into press
    lawlessness."

    Is a Glastonbury chant the real problem, or Israel's genocidal violence in Gaza? - Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:53:54 +0000
    "By arming Israel, by organising spy flights over Gaza from RAF base
    Akrotiri on Cyprus, and by providing diplomatic cover, Starmer has
    effectively glorified Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian children in the
    enclave. Bob Vylan’s chants of “Death to the IDF” have a far more
    dangerous counterpart in Starmer’s recital of Israel’s “right to defend
    itself” when that “defence” involves Israel mercilessly starving Gaza’s
    population of food, water and power. Bob Vylan are a punk band;
    Starmer is the British prime minister, the man who directs Britain’s
    foreign policy and directs its army."

    You Cannot Negotiate with the Zionist West - Craig Murray - Mon, 23 Jun 2025 10:37:39 +0000
    "Israel attacked Iran during negotiations between Iran and the US, with the next scheduled meeting just three days away – including assassinating the lead negotiator.
    Trump then gave Iran a two-week ultimatum
    to agree a peace deal. Iran held one foreign-minister-level meeting
    with the UK, Germany and France and scheduled a second meeting. Trump
    then attacked Iran with 11 days of the ultimatum still to run.
    Plainly the Zionist West not only has zero interest in peace, it is
    engaging in morally abhorrent levels of dishonesty and deception,
    attacking under a false flag of truce. The idea that Iran should now
    return to “negotiation” with such appallingly deceitful interlocutors is
    risible."

    She Won. They Didn't Just Change the Machines. They Rewired the Election. - Wed, 18 Jun 2025 08:24:24 +0000
    evidence of election rigging?

    Sales Pitch: Give Us Your Ad Business or We’ll Sue - Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:15:06 +0000
    musk sues his customers to get them to spend.

    📺 Introducing the Fediverse: a New Era of Social Media - Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:37:30 +0000
    Four minute fedi explainer

    Trump's Relationship With Musk Collapses in Nasty War of Words | TIME - Thu, 05 Jun 2025 22:57:44 +0000
    Time sums up the word's first global Forum Admin Spat in it's full glory.

    CD / Blur - YouTube - Thu, 22 May 2025 18:44:34 +0000
    Captain Disillusion looks at unblurring, inverse fast furry transforms and convolutions.

    Thank God for immigrants - by Ian Dunt - Striking 13 - Fri, 16 May 2025 17:56:32 +0000


    A third of my friends are immigrants of one kind or another and they are all great. Wish I could deport all those who want to stop immigration. It enriches us. We are better because of immigrants. I am better because of immigrants. Here's Ian Dunt: "Imagine how much poorer the world would be without British
    Asians in general. I'm not talking about the subcontinent. I'm not
    talking about Britain. I'm talking about British Asians themselves, as a
    distinct group, quite apart from their other loyalties or their other
    identities. Imagine how much more impoverished we would be, in food and
    music and literary life, in social habits and intellectual and political
    history. Imagine how poor we would be, the vast riches which would have been taken away from us."

    The Misconception that Almost Stopped AI - YouTube - Sun, 11 May 2025 10:54:59 +0000
    Some interesting visualizations and good explanation in this video about why training a neural network by gradient descent doesn't get stuck in local minima as you train. We tend to find it hard to visualize a higher dimensional landscape, let alone one with billions of dimensions. What loos like a local minima when mapped into a 3d visualization of a 2d landscape has all sorts of escape routes in the higher dimensions. It has a good visual on the way the landscape mapping can change as a result of changes to the other parameters, creating new "wormholes" as they change. Great video.

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