Dave T-W @davoloid@qoto.org
- Location
- Mostly London
- Pronouns (plz)
- he/him
Just another worried little citizen of this modern-day Pompeii. Techie at UCL, moving towards Process Automation with MS Power Platform. Scatterbrain, interested in education, languages, Space and lots of disparate things. sorry.
Keeping my space toots at @astrodad as an experiment in self-moderation :)
*Background banner is a photo Yorkshire flag in blue and white, in front of a classic bell tent, in a field of similar tents at a festival.
Joined Oct 2022
Listening in to EDI Town Hall at UCL. Strange to hear about #accessibility still being a design challenge when 20 years ago we were able to put up new buildings with proper toilets, access ramps, fire refuges and lifts.
Dave T-W
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Hi friends,
The http://alt-text.org alt text library project needs a new leader, because I have brain cancer.
I would like to connect with the #accessibility dev community, something I have never figured out, probably in part for neurodivergence reasons. I want to hand the project off to a team or a leader if anyone is willing to take it over.
Github: https://github.com/alt-text-org
WIP MVP: a site designed for writing alt text with a private library: https://my.alt-text.org
Boosts appreciated
Dave T-W
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Report
In a first concession from a US university on student protests, Brown U reaches agreement with protesters.
Protestors would remove their encampment in exchange for the institution considering divesting from Israel.
5 students will be invited to meet with five members of Brown in May to present their arguments, & the board will vote on the proposal in October.
Note: "consider"; "vote in October"
Dave T-W
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I 100% agree with this comment from Andrew Copson, the chief executive of Humanists UK.
"The proposal to allow 100% religious discrimination in new state faith schools will increase religious and racial segregation in our schools at a time when integration and cohesion has never been more important."
England scraps 50% rule on faith school admissions https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/may/01/england-scraps-50-rule-on-faith-school-admissions?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Also at TBC is the #Retrofit24 exhibit, which I *think* I've mentioned before but some of the displays seem to have changed since I last popped through. That shows various examples and aspects of retrofitting buildings rather than demolition and new build. These including environmental considerations (lower carbon emissions through refurbishment) but also cultural if a building has a historical element and heritage of the location.
Sometimes (e.g. Houlton School https://www.houltonschool.org.uk/) it's possible to completely transform a building to a vastle different use.
Passed The Building Centre at lunchtime, always worth seeing what's on there if you're into #Architecture, #Sustainability or anything about #Urban planning.
May's #free exhibit is about the #LanguageOfSigns.
https://www.buildingcentre.co.uk/whats_on/exhibitions/keep-on-the-grass-the-language-of-signs
My two favourite London signs:
"Commit No Nuisance" and "This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address." (now vanished)
1/2
On the whole the style and flow of the movie is thrilling, but suffers from poor dialogue and several scenes that seem forced in order to induce plot points, but are then rushed through without further consideration. Feels like a more experienced Director/Producer might have kept those elements tighter, allowed the story to build to a better payoff. At 1hr 49 there was plenty of runtime avalable.
I'm still trying to work out whether the still images in the movie were taken in those scenes, staged to match the action, or generated from the moving footage. Was very clever.
Watched Alex Garland's #CivilWar last night. Visceral,
impressive for a low budget movie. Manages to avoid politicising because the story is about the reporters. Hence the wierd Texas/California Union)
However, the portrayal of the war photographers as neutral observers merely documenting events for others to judge on, is naive. We have only to look at the distressing images from recent and current conflicts that are waved about without reference to the context.
https://thomasflight.substack.com/p/civil-war-on-the-complicated-power
Using the #OReilly app as we have institutional access. Fine, but there's no way in the app *still* to voice read those books, or export to a #VoiceReader. I often download pdfs or push web articles straight to my regular app.
Any suggestions?
Dave T-W
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An idea I'm playing with: A tool that lets you build a basic HTML page, and shows you how to host it for free.
Dave T-W
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Reminder that I made https://quickinfo.io where you can quickly look up answers to certain classes of questions instead of googling and wading through bad results full of ads and spam.
Demo: https://quickinfo.io/?demo
Usages: https://quickinfo.io/?%3F
Many people still google em dash, shrug, degree sign, etc. They open a website from results, it is slow and full of ads. It shows a cookie banner. There is a better way.
Dave T-W
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Different conservative groups "all disagree about who should be in charge, but they all agree that some people are ordained to rule, and that any 'artificial' attempt to overturn the 'natural' order throws society into chaos." — @pluralistic
(FWIW, I got my go-to definition of conservatism from an essay by Phil Agre: "Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.")
Dave T-W
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V Bellingcat:
From Crimea to #Iran : Two More Ships Join #Russia ’s Grain-Smuggling Fleet
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/04/23/from-crimea-to-iran-two-more-ships-join-russias-grain-smuggling-fleet/?utm_source=twitter
And if you would like to hear the take of #TheGlobalJigsaw on the above, you can check out our episodes here - one on the grain deal, two on Iran, plenty on Russia:
Dave T-W
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@simon_brooke @IndyRichard I think if I was Stormy Daniels I would regard the suggestion I had an “affair” with Trump as defamatory.
Dave T-W
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Dave T-W
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Not all math puns are terrible.
Just sum.
Dave T-W
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The fact that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife was one of the organizers of Donald Trump’s armed insurrection should be mentioned every time SCOTUS is in the news, IMHO.
Dave T-W
boosted
- Location
- Mostly London
- Pronouns (plz)
- he/him
Just another worried little citizen of this modern-day Pompeii. Techie at UCL, moving towards Process Automation with MS Power Platform. Scatterbrain, interested in education, languages, Space and lots of disparate things. sorry.
Keeping my space toots at @astrodad as an experiment in self-moderation :)
*Background banner is a photo Yorkshire flag in blue and white, in front of a classic bell tent, in a field of similar tents at a festival.
Joined Oct 2022
