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Dave T-W boosted
ChrisO_wiki

1/ CONQUERING CRIMEA: PART 5

In this fifth and penultimate part of a short series of threads on the military history of Crimea, I'll cover the most recent invasion of Crimea – the 1943-44 Soviet reconquest of the peninsula, which had been conquered by Nazi Germany in 1941-42.

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Dave T-W boosted
Phil M0OFX

Why do they spell it "Colour", "Honour" and "Favour" in the United Kingdom?

Because Rick Astley is British.

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Dave T-W boosted
Tim Mak

As an organization, NPR will no longer use Twitter. This was announced in an internal memo this morning, and comes after Twitter insisted on putting an untrue statement on NPR’s profile.

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Dave T-W boosted
Jeff Jarvis

If Substack were a decent company, it would have federated its Notes with ActivityPub. The last thing we need is another conversational platform controlled by one company known for promoting questionable opinions.
on.substack.com/p/introducing-

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Dave T-W

Yeah, this is amazing sustainable design.

Cross section of a sustainable house.
Various pathways show flow of rainwater, stale and fresh air, domestic hot water.
A list on the right shows the function of each element.

MAX FORDHAM HOUSE

Rainwater drainage;

R1 Rainwater is attenuated in green roof and in planters

R2: Rainwater is absorbed into porous material on blue roof R3: Rainwater is drained to lower roof and patio at a controlled rate

R4: Rainwater is absorbed into porous attenuation volume beneath

patio before being drained away slowly.

Water supply

$1 1st stage air source heatpump is located within the sun on a south facing terrace. Heatpump operates for an hour each afternoon, when the air is warmest

$2: Hot refrigerant gas is pumped to 2nd stage heatpump 53: Second stage heatpump within building heats one day's supply

of domestic hot water 54: Domestic hot water is distributed radially to showers

HVAC

U1: Cold, fresh air brought into building from beneath car undercroft U2: Heat is recovered from stale, moist exhaust air at MVHR unit

U3: Fresh, tempered air is supplied silently to inhabited rooms at high speed through 3D printed jet nozzles

U4: Warm moist air is extracted from kitchens and bathrooms US: Cold moist stale air is exhausted at high speed U6: Recirculating cooker hood extracts smells but not heat from cooking

Envelope:

PI: A well-insulated envelope completely wraps the building's

structure, with airtightness and moisture windnightness layers incorporated

P2: Insulated, actuated window shutters close at night, reducing heat loss through windows

P3: Windows can open fully to ventilate heat away in warm weather

P4: Thermally massive building structure allows better use of Incidental heat gain in the winter and absorbs excess daytime heat
during warm weather Windows orientated and positioned to optimise daylight

Renewable energy

VI Upper roof is fully utilised for photovoltaic electricity generation. PVs generate almost all of house's energy

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Dave T-W

The Building Centre near Goodge Street, London has an exhibition area open to the public for free. There's always something interesting for anyone who's into or .

The current showcase finishes in a couple of days, a set of short films about in construction.
There's also an exhibit about architect Max Fordham, and his work. Great for any student of Design and Technology who wants some ideas.

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Dave T-W boosted
Renée

"When I tell it it's wrong, ChatGPT tries again and gets more correct!"

No. It learns which answer you stopped asking questions at. It has no idea of correct factually!

Correct for ChatGPT means *you are satisfied* with the combo of words it put together. That you liked its information-shaped sentence.

That's all. If you tell it it's still wrong, it will try again with different words instead.

You just think it's getting more right because you let it stop when it accidentally is.

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Dave T-W boosted
NewsThump

Blimey, Labour are really going for the jugular with these new attack ads...

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Dave T-W

Just watched "The Truman Show" with the kiddo, still my most cherished movie after 25 years. If you have never seen it, sort that out ASAP. So many details to pick up on each viewing.

Whilst there are a dozen ways to read the film, many moments are still key to my experiences growing up. My younger brother also loves the film for some of those reasons, and we both listen the soundtrack regularly, so will have to sneak some of that into his wedding next year.

What does mean to you?

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Dave T-W

Yay, @jensorensen is on Mastodon, I had not checked in on her for a while.

Jen Sorensen  
Latest comic: You've come a long way, baby!
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Dave T-W boosted
Phillip Hallam-Baker

This clip of Kellyann Conway bemoaning the fact the GOP is losing support of younger voters started me thinking.

Kellyanne: I think we got some work to do on the young people who think differently on abortion perhaps, guns, or climate change.. The thing I’m really concerned about on this is that the left becomes a turnout machine with young people..

twitter.com/Acyn/status/164561

Why is it that I am opposed to 100% of the GOP platform? I am hardly an extreme leftist, I am white, male and come from an uber-privileged background. I went to a top public school, Oxford and have a cousin in the House of Lords.

Then it struck me, the reason I find the GOP so offensive is that for over 20 years now, the GOP has made 'making the liberals cry' their primary goal in deciding policy.

People talk about the Republicans being in the pocket of industry lobbyists but they are really not at this point. Many times, it is the industry lobbyists opposing GOP policies that are supposed to benefit their industry. Properly used, lobbyists are really part of marketing. As a person in business, I really don't much care what the government spends its money on so long as it includes things I can supply at a competitive price and make a profit. From a business perspective, it doesn't matter if that means warships or offshore wind turbines. So the real role of the lobbyist is to tell me which one it is likely to be and allow me to plan accordingly.

Instead of being tied to business interests as folk on the left assume, the GOP has increasingly embraced chasing the latest headline in the Murdoch press. And the goal of the Murdoch press is to gain the attention of elderly bigoted white males by stoking their indignant rage against 'the woke'.

The net is that instead of looking for policies that attract younger voters, the GOP has sought out the exact opposite taking policy positions across the board whose sole purpose is to spite the dreams of young people. Facing a shrinking base as the segregation generation dies out, the GOP has doubled down on hate to boost turnout. And as they are starting to realize, you can only play that game so long.

Each election cycle, the segregation generation is 4 years older and has shrunk accordingly. Only 16% of the US population is over 65. When Trump ran in 2016, the segregation generation made up over 30%.

We have got to the point in the demographic curve where large areas of the US can shift from red to blue through demographic shifts alone in two electoral cycles. And to make matters worse for the GOP, they will be fighting the first of those cycles with Trump's name on the ballot at the top of their ticket in every race.

And that is how the GOP has ended up on the wrong side of every policy issue.

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Dave T-W boosted
Tim Mak

Here are the results of testing a Ukraine thread on Mastodon.

I only have 1/20th the following here as I do on Twitter.

Yet you folks provided 1/4 the boosts/likes/comments that Twitter did on similar news reporting.

I’m staying.

And maybe I’ll even post to Mastodon first for my next big announcement!

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Dave T-W

My surreal moment of the weekend: running bingo with Sandra from Gogglebox.
Apparently I'm a "handsome young man."
And then explaining the concept of the show to a confused Dane.

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Dave T-W boosted
Dan

This is inescapable on French insta so I'm posting it here for all to enjoy

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Dave T-W boosted
Tim Mak

You folks were super enthusiastic about my posting more on Mastodon, so let's try this.

RT/boost and let's see if there's interest in a regular #Ukraine thread!

Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

For the last year, I've been tracking a notorious Russian unit known for its role in killing 100s of civilians.

This past month we published how we found them.

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Dave T-W

Mother-in-law this morning "Thank you for my eggs, much appreciated."
Me: "I also appreciate your eggs. Without them I wouldn't have my wonderful wife and children."

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Dave T-W boosted
Humanist Engineer

This brings me great joy.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, swears in Dr. Makenzie Lystrup as director of Goddard Space Flight Center.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy (right. April E, 2023, Mary W. Jackson NRER Headquarters building, Washington.

Instead of a Bible, Dr. Lystrup's hand rests on a hardback copy of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.
Bottom text: Look again at that book...

#Secular #Humanism #SecularHumanism #atheist #science #nasa #CarlSagan

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Dave T-W

A little for on Android.
Have been hooked on this story game the last few days. A must for the crew and after the compelling it was a no brainer that this was worth punting £4 on. It's quite beautiful.

You play a citizen of a country in the kid 20th Century, not unlike many Eastern European nations caught between superpowers and ancient regional emnities. Thrown into the position of President, your role is to negotiate with the various factions and lead the country.

What's astonishing is the level of detail the game has, the characters, events and cultures that draw on and from across the globe.

I don't know how scripted it is, but I was gutted when my first playthrough ended in tragedy, despite great successes.
Will try again, perhaps a little less trusting and idealistic before.

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Dave T-W

Bit confused about this, I was expecting some sort of authentication, Blockchain or something as a solution to fake articles purporting to come from reliable sources. Not "we're reviewing how *we* use generative for theguardian.com/commentisfree/

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Dave T-W boosted
Astro Dad

SpaceX expected to launch their giant #Starship next week for its Orbital Flight Test.
Currently looking at Tuesday 11th, based on published closures.
Track the progress at the South Texas launch site here:
youtu.be/mhJRzQsLZGg

Starship is stacked on the booster and there's likely to be a couple of wet dress rehearsals and maybe a static fire over the next few days.

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