Ben Taylor @VoxDei@qoto.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
One of the cards in one of my (9yo) son's board games. Need to guess as many as you can. This has made my inner grammar pedant twitch badly, along with my monarch list pedant. 😂
Wait, so if you turn up at a polling station as a young person on polling day with photo ID (like a young person's railcard) but it's not the right ID, you're a fraud risk and can't vote, say the Tories.
But anyone else who may or may not be British or indeed exist can register to vote and can vote by proxy, four proxies to one UK resident, "on the word of an eligible British resident" that they're eligible, in their choice of marginal constituency. WTAF?
Ben Taylor
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Okay, sex determination in humans.
This shit is COMPLICATED and this will probably be a longish thread. Sorry. But I've seen a lot of people claim that "biology says" that everyone is either male or female, full stop, and it's just not true. 1/22
Tory backbencher described as "usually loyal to Sunak": “It’s clear that a plurality of people in the country are more to the right on immigration than we are and we would do well to remember that.”
Yeah, that's your problem right there. The British people think you're a bunch of softies on immigration. Yeah, that's definitely why the polls are pointing to your annihilation at the next election. No question.
Ben Taylor
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History is curiously quiet on what "minor repairs" the Royal George required in 1782, but I'd cautiously venture the toolbox talk was inadequate.
I mean, killing up to 800 people and leaving the ship 20m deep at the bottom of the Royal Navy's most important anchorage doesn't *imply* a safe system of work...
After 60 years the wreck was removed - along with windows 6 miles away - by the traditional application of [checks notes] a shit-ton of explosives. Top work all round, lads.
Ben Taylor
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Heads up UK citizens overseas! The disgraceful ‘15 year rule’ which disenfranchised you is being binned TODAY! From 16 January you can now at long last register to vote, which you should do ASAP in view of in the upcoming general election, because *gestures at everything*
https://mailchi.mp/a6cd97a73d7e/3mn-brits-abroad-regain-right-to-vote-in-uk-elections?e=897c54e3ba
Ben Taylor
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"Heat pumps don't work in the cold"
Context: This is data from my mom and dad's new cold climate heat pump. While the system has been calling for heat continuously during this time, it has only needed to kick on the backup resistive heating in the deepest of cold, and even then only for a couple of hours overnight.
Ben Taylor
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@marcel @pluralistic Nice article. This quote hits the mark too:
"while we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job"
Ben Taylor
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I'm severely colourblind - my eyes can hardly detect red light at all.
So, working in web development, picking colour schemes is hard.
There are tools around to help you pick accessible colour schemes, but they assume that you can tell by looking that a colour is the one you want, and the only information you need the computer to calculate is the contrast ratio.
I realised I need a tool that will take the name of a colour and find a shade that gives a target contrast ratio.
Here it is: https://colourblind-palette-maker.glitch.me/
It uses the new APCA perceptual contrast algorithm and the Oklab colour space to help me find colours that people with better colour vision will interpret correctly, while ensuring there's good contrast for as many people as possible.
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Someone on LinkedIn pointed out that #OpenAI doesn’t use an LLM for their support chat, but has instead opted to use some extremely limited decision tree. Which is both understandable, telling, and fucking hilarious.
Ben Taylor
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
There is an increase of account takeovers due to insiders at telco firms simply giving control to people paying them. Do a check on systems where this single factor would permit an account compromise. And change the configuration. These are opportunistic trawling attacks. This is becoming more common as attackers replicate the success.
The attacker uses other channels (like people search websites) to enumerate and guess the phone number attached to an online account and then checks against the telco they have control over.
The insider only briefly temporarily forwards the victim number to a 3rd party then switches it back to normal once they’re in. This is how they stay quiet since most victims will not have leverage or telemetry to understand how they got hacked.
It was their cell phone provider.
Make it so account recovery systems require multiple factors and remove telephony-based recovery for VIP accounts entirely.
Go check your systems now. Go try to access all your stuff like you forgot your password.
I am very serious.
Ben Taylor
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Just wow. Our treatment of refugees is so inhumane that Medecins Sans Frontieres (better known for providing medical care in refugee camps near war zones) has felt compelled to spend resources to set up shop in Essex. What a shameful indictment of the UK's inhumanity towards people in need.
#refugees #migration #ukpolitics #uk #msf #MedecinsSansFrontieres
Ben Taylor
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The polish train hacking saga is truly the gift that keeps on giving, now with full receipts PLUS an actual incident of a train compressor failing on the exact date that security researchers found hardcoded into the train's software, as a condition for triggering a compressor failure.
https://www.404media.co/polish-hackers-explain-exactly-how-they-fixed-trains-that-the-manufacturer-bricked/
#trains
#infosec
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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I have enjoyed this last year of photographing Glastonbury Tor in all weathers. I think to sum it up for me, it is a passion and I truly feel a connection with this magical place like I know many others do. These are a few of my favourites. Have a fab New Years Eve.
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
