@simonwood@mastodon.social
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

simonwood

@simonwood@mastodon.social

Lecturer in Medical Education at Cardiff University, lapsed mathematician, garden railway builder & Doctor Who appreciator.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

Goals for tomorrow

  • watch a brand new Doctor Who
  • cuddle a hen
simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

Achieved on both counts.

Hen 👇

My discussion with @Eugene about on @fusionpatrol 👉 https://fusionpatrol.com/2024/05/12/683-doctor-who-space-babies/

simonwood, to Cardiff
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

The Vulcan’s back! https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/10/beloved-cardiff-pub-demolished-in-2012-reopens-after-brick-by-brick-rebuild-on-new-site

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

“Stewart’s natural magnetism is somewhat muted behind a whey powder pallor, an air of defeated weariness and hair that looks as if it’s been deep-fried rather than washed.” 🤣🤣🤣 https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/05/love-lies-bleeding-review-rose-glass-kristen-stewart-katy-obrian-deliciously-lurid-outlaw-romance

mrpjevans, to random
@mrpjevans@mastodon.social avatar

One for fellow software devs out there.

I thought 'Oh, a silly grammar cock-up that makes for a fun local news story'. Then I read the first line. I won't spoil the surprise but maybe make sure there's no-one close when you yell 'OH FOR FU...'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-68942321

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@mrpjevans @Edent I’m a bit disappointed North Yorkshire didn’t change the sign to St Mary\’s Street.

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

Amazon “building this new tool – which makes cancelling union membership much, much, easier than cancelling Amazon Prime – is a breach of this law” https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/

simonwood, to DoctorWho
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

This list was obviously going to be very very wrong (starting with the title) so I won’t say anything.

…Except David Warner (not placed) deserved to rank highly. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/may/03/the-greatest-doctor-who-ranked

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust Martin Belam is great. And some of these are broadly in the right place. But certainly some odd choices too.

Edent, to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

Mastodon is wild.

You can write something like "Imagine you had a cat - and one day it started speaking to you in Spanish. What would you do?"

And fully 75% of the replies will be "I'm allergic to cats so it would never happen."

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent I’m allergic to cats. They make me sneeze. (But at least my cat always says “te bendiga”)

Edent, (edited ) to random
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

You receive a call on your phone.
The caller says they're from your bank and they're calling about a suspected fraud.

"Oh yeah," you think. Obvious scam, right?

The caller says "I'll send you an in-app notification to prove I'm calling from your bank."

Your phone buzzes. You tap the notification This is what you see.

Still think it is a scam?
1/3

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent I think I’d be taken in by that. My thought was: why do they need to check they’re on the phone to me if they called me? But on balance I’d decided it was just poor wording or an ill thought through system (both of which I still think, in fact!) so I wouldn’t have challenged it.

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@flabberghaster @Edent I have had my actual bank call me, and then ask me (via security questions) to verify that I am actually me. I feel that was training customers to divulge information insecurely, as I had no way of knowing that they were who they were, and they wouldn’t have provided it if I’d gone along with their request.

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@CaptainJanegay @Edent Maybe someone else has access to your phone, so they’re going to send a push notification to your phone to verify it's really you? 🤔

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@CaptainJanegay @Edent Very true.

Asking for verification is ok, but it amazes me they don’t work on customer expectations - what you will be asked for when the bank calls - and also customers’ fraud literacy - how we can and should verify them!

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@dolmen @flabberghaster @Edent I left it to them to prove who they were. Surprisingly it took the guy a while to come up with the answer - it obviously wasn’t a procedure he was familiar with! But it was simple enough - we switched over to secure messaging via the online bank.

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

"Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." One sentence, common words, but never before placed in that order. And yet, oh and yet, all of us spend our days saying the same things to each other, time after weary time, living by clichaic, learned response: "I love you", "Don't go in there", "You have no right to say that", "shut up", "I'm hungry", "that hurt", "why should I?", "it's not my fault", "help", "Marjorie is dead"

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

“Am I right in thinking that you have a daughter?”
“Yup. Henrietta.”
“Did he? Did he really? That must have hurt. Hurt like hell on a jetski.”

Edent, to fediverse
@Edent@mastodon.social avatar

Finally fixed the weird bug which stopped people following my blog using .

If you are so inclined, could you please give @blog a follow and let me know if it is working?

Thanks Midnight Warriors!

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@Edent @blog Works now for me, an 8am warrior, too.

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

The Met Office app tells you the actual temperatures forecast and also has a ‘feels like’ temperature, reflecting that our experience of hot or cold depends on other factors too.

I think films ought not only to have an actual duration, but also a ‘feels like’ duration based on the number of times you have to check your watch is still working… https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/29/whats-the-perfect-movie-length-only-a-lightweight-really-wants-toilet-or-food-breaks

simonwood, to random
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

In the UK from today “manufacturers of phones, TVs and smart doorbells, among others, are now legally required [to prompt users] to change any common passwords.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/29/devices-with-weak-passwords-to-be-banned-uk

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust I presume it could be the device rather than the manufacturer, though obviously I’d rather they insisted on that.

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust 1Password literally has a feature that does this (it’s called Watchtower or some such - and not just common passwords, but it checks against leaked passwords).

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

But… 1Password has complete access to your passwords, sure. All of them. Fine. But the home router you mention - it can do the same thing with a list of 1, at least while the manufacturer is in business. Of course there’s a cost associated with that. But there’s also a cost associated with allowing unscrupulous manufacturers and hapless consumers to assemble giant botnets. (2/3)

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

It’s just that the manufacturers get away without paying the price and the consumers think they’re winning because their IoT tat costs peanuts.

So I think the legislation ought to do what you think it’s doing, and I wish it was. (3/3)

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust Ok, looking at the legislation, I don’t think it’s nearly as ambitious as you think it is. (1/3)

LoneLocust, to DoctorWho
@LoneLocust@mastodon.social avatar

Goddamit the BBC and Disney+ bullshittery. This is worse than than the UNIT dating controversy.

If you say you’re releasing Season 1 on Blu-Ray in August, you’d damned well better be talking about William Hartnell.

Otherwise, it’s .

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust There’s no way it can be season 14. Either you decide that whatever the BBC calls it is what it is (hence season 1 in 2005 and season 1 in 2024) or you use actual arithmetic to count up properly (hence season 27 in 2005 and season 40 in 2024). You can’t do it one way one time and then the other way the next…

simonwood,
@simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

@LoneLocust Au contraire!

All those ‘Season 14’ holdouts who slept through the 2005 ‘Series 1’ debacle will finally wake up and smell the coffee.

Sequential numbering’s time has come, and the Collection Blu-rays for the 21st Century episodes will be able to have their correct ordinals. (Except in the US of course.)

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • normalnudes
  • osvaldo12
  • magazineikmin
  • vwfavf
  • thenastyranch
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • Durango
  • ngwrru68w68
  • rosin
  • kavyap
  • tsrsr
  • PowerRangers
  • DreamBathrooms
  • Leos
  • khanakhh
  • hgfsjryuu7
  • cubers
  • everett
  • cisconetworking
  • InstantRegret
  • mdbf
  • tacticalgear
  • ethstaker
  • tester
  • modclub
  • GTA5RPClips
  • anitta
  • All magazines
    •