Ben Taylor @VoxDei@qoto.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
Ben Taylor
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Snowy Owl fully prepared for her close up on this Montreal traffic cam ♥️🤗
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Something I forgot to post at the time. In case you were wondering if this is a thing…
Ben Taylor
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New from 404 Media: you may have seen that a group of Polish hackers repaired trains the manufacturers had bricked (hackers were successful and helped). Now the train company is threatening to sue them. We spoke to the hackers.
With my Trade Union hat on I supported someone a little while back who was accused of something particularly unpleasant. He strenuously and emotionally denied everything. I chose to believe him, because it felt like someone had to and my job as his TU rep was to support him, which was much easier if I decided he was telling the truth. And he was at a similar or slightly earlier stage to me in life with similar problems to what I'd gone through (otherwise similar, anyway), I saw some of myself in him.
For different reasons both he and I left the company before his case came to trial, I didn't find out what the outcome was until just now. He wasn't telling the truth. That will be his victim re-traumatised, his wife betrayed, his family presumably broken, his child growing up with that stigma on his father, and that's leaving aside the toll on him, personally.
I feel incredibly sad. There are no winners here. There were never going to be as soon as he did what he did.
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Honestly. I know these people are getting rich, but I remember David Mitchell making the point once (his was about Heathrow 3rd runway): You can't take it with you. What good is being rich when the climate crisis kills you and your children? #climatecrisis #climatechange #COP28 #FossilFuels
Ben Taylor
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The thing about birds is that the dinosaurs we were left with were the sinful ones. The others all disappeared in the velocirapture.
Ben Taylor
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🎄 XMAS CREATOR BOOST TIME 🎄
Every year I try to boost awesome creators doing things that might make cool presents.
If you are a creator, reply with:
- a description
- a picture
- a link
And I will boost you.
If you are NOT a creator, buy the cool things and boost this thread!
Merry Xmas everyone.
Ben Taylor
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Fascinating image from a smartphone camera. Upshot: a photo is no longer a snapshot in time. It's the perils of computational photography - https://petapixel.com/2023/11/16/one-in-a-million-iphone-photo-shows-two-versions-of-the-same-woman/
Ben Taylor
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It was a cold and frosty magical morning here in Glastonbury. Taken from Glastonbury Tor at sunrise.
Ben Taylor
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Henry Kissinger, who famously sabotaged the 1967 Vietnam peace talks in order to become Nixon’s national security advisor, has died. It’s rare when you can pinpoint a number of deaths to a political appointee but the 1975 peace deal was exactly the same as the 67 guidelines, and more than a million people died because of his decision, including 60% of all US casualties.
My 9yo son has homework to find six "adverbial phrases" (I had to look this up) in one of his books. I had to look through three novels to find even one example, and in the end I made four of the six up.
You may say I shouldn't be doing my son's homework for him, and you'd be right. But if you're going to say that, please also explain to me how there is any expectation that any of these primary-age children are going to do this themselves, and what the benefit of doing so is, and what the benefit of knowing what an "adverbial phrase" is? Because the whole thing seems to me like a waste of time designed to teach children that they can't be expected to do their own homework.
#English #englishgrammar #grammar #primaryeducation #education
Ben Taylor
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We need to talk about the Clangers. The Clangers (copyright Coolabi Productions Ltd, Smallfilms Ltd and Peter Firmin, images used under review/satire...) live on "a small Moon"...and are tall enough that the Moon's curvature is comparable to their scale. This is the best pic I could find to illustrate this, the further Clanger seems to be pretty much ON the horizon from the camera's point of view.
So we can draw a circle to match that curvature...
Ben Taylor
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Google announced that starting in June 2024, ad blockers such as #uBlock Origin will be disabled in Chrome 127 and later with the rollout of Manifest V3 (#Mv3).
The new #Chrome manifest will prevent using custom filters and stops on demand updates of blocklist. Only #Google authorized updates to browser extension will be allowed in the future, which mean an automatic win for Google in their battle to stop YouTube #AdBlockers .
#ManifestV3 is deceitful and threatening to your privacy, and now is a good time to switch to #Firefox (@mozilla) and/or #TorBrowser (@torproject) if you haven't done so already!
EFF (@eff) on Google’s Manifest V3:
⚠️https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening
⚠️https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
Chrome Manifest V3 Transition Timeline (2023-11-16)
🚩https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to-mv3/
Ben Taylor
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EVERYONE: We gotta save salmon
US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: Ok we'll build a giant fish vacuum
TRIBES: Why not just open up the dams
ARMY CORPS: We have to save the power companies!
POWER COMPANIES: No, you really don't
ARMY CORPS: FISH VACUUM
CONGRESS: Maybe u should look into shutting down the dams
ARMY CORPS: Our FISH VACUUM only costs $1.9 BILLION AND DOESN'T WORK LET'S GOOOOO
TRIBES: “Killing salmon to lose money deserves a deeper analysis.” (actual quote)
Ben Taylor
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Look after bees.
Post from a local Beekeeper 🐝
“Its late, and maybe in the morning I'll delete this post, but I've just got home and for now I need to write this down.
Earlier this evening I received a message from a home owner to say they had a swarm of bees in their hedge, but they were worried about them because children had been throwing water at them.
By the time my fellow beekeeper and I arrived, what had been a beautiful prime swarm was reduced to a few hundred drenched bees, huddling limply around their queen.
I've already deleted the photos of the puddles of water, the dripping wet hedge, and the many, many dead and dying bees that hadn't been able to escape the attack; sharing those pictures serves no purpose.
We gently placed the bees that had survived into a collection box, and hopefully tomorrow, when they've had chance to dry out and settle, we'll check on them and if necessary feed them; they'll be exhausted and possibly (understandably) defensive. They've been through a lot.
Please, please, help me to educate your children, your grandchildren, your neices and nephews, your neighbours, your colleagues and your friends that a swarm of bees isn't dangerous - they're amazing creatures that are just looking for a new home.
Please don't let anyone harm them. Just call a beekeeper who will gladly rehome them.
Please help me to spread this message and hopefully save any more bees from being unnecessarily harmed” 😢
- A Sad and unhappy Beekeeper
Ben Taylor
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SIMON CASE: David.
SUNAK: It shows we're serious people.
CASE: David. Cameron.
SUNAK: We'll give him a Barony
CASE: Of where? Ham?
SUNAK: Well it's done now so-
ED MILIBAND <interrupts>: CHAOS MOTHERFUCKERS!
SUNAK: Damnit! Who keeps letting him in?!
CASE: I think it's the cleaners
I love that they're only just realising how inadequate they all are. Anyone competent got purged by Boris in case they showed him up, so without exception they're either too inexperienced, too stupid or in another job.
From the Guardian
Ben Taylor
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Brilliant. A bot that buys/sells stocks after Congresscritters buy/sell stocks. It is up 20% during a period the market was flat.
https://www.threads.net/@quiverquantitative/post/CzcB-Gsgqow
via @pluralistic
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
