@simonwood@mastodon.social
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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
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Lots we don’t know about what Threads will do yet. But I think @ian is right. A few hours in and it’s clear it’s killed Twitter (which tbf was already dying) and Bluesky (which had barely begun). https://ianbetteridge.com/2023/07/06/some-quick-thoughts-on-threads/

simonwood,
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@ian John Gruber claims “If you liked Twitter, you’ll love Bluesky. If you hated Twitter, you’ll like Mastodon.” But Threads is for people who liked Twitter too. Mastodon’s differentiation works to its benefit here.

simonwood, to random
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From the first part of the headline “Tory MPs back mandatory swift bricks“ I wasn’t expecting this to be a story about birds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/06/tory-mps-back-mandatory-swift-bricks-new-homes-help-declining-birds

ianbetteridge, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @ianbetteridge Yeah, I can see the appeal in making it easy to get started. But things like alt text and hashtags don’t feel like power features to me. Quick to get started but painful to sort the signal to noise ratio. But plenty will be happy with noise from celebs and brands so I don’t expect it to go away. And if it proves not to be a monstrously malign citizen of the fediverse, I look forward to being able to follow people and orgs who will do Threads but not Mastodon.

    respros, to random
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    Set up a Threads account out of curiosity. It is junk. Feed is a load of spam from accounts I don't want to see. No way to access via a web browser.

    simonwood,
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    @respros Yeah, it doesn’t suit me. Very easy to set up, not so easy to use it productively (It’s simple yet still confusing - I’m left wondering: What’s the point of following - there’s no follow stream? Why aren’t my hashtags working? How the hell to I add alt text?) Mind you, I suspect I’m not the target demographic, and it’s years since I used Instagram.

    simonwood, to random
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    It would appear Threads will collect an amount of private data that is illegal in the EU, and is just launching in countries with more lax laws https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/no-instagram-threads-app-in-the-eu-irish-dpc-says-metas-new-twitter-rival-wont-be-launched-here/a1927220337.html https://m.independent.ie/business/technology/no-instagram-threads-app-in-the-eu-irish-dpc-says-metas-new-twitter-rival-wont-be-launched-here/a1927220337.html

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust Ditto.

    simonwood, to random
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    ‘Well, look, if I were the newly hired chief executive officer of a social media company…and then one day my head of software engineering came to me and said “hey boss, too many people were too engaged with too many posts, so I had to limit everyone’s ability to view posts on our site, just FYI,” I would … probably … fire ... him?’
    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-03/insider-trading-is-better-from-home

    simonwood, to random
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    Time for a final chat about 90s timey-crimey series “Crime Traveller”. Eugene & I discuss why you can’t go back in time to before you went back in time, and the hidden messages which prove the whole thing takes place in an alternate reality.
    https://fusionpatrol.com/2023/07/01/637-crime-traveller-the-broken-crystal/

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust Looks like we got to the end of the show before Ant & Nick after all!

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust For all the criticism the US health system gets, my dentist has never rewarded me with any sort of curry. Just a cup of pink looking water.

    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust 🤣

    simonwood, to random
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    WordPress plugin for fediverse embeds | Stefan Bohacek https://stefanbohacek.com/project/wordpress-plugin-for-fediverse-embeds/

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust https://youtu.be/0pkiSPoZiIU

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust Man talks a lot of sense, but has a huge blindspot where every time he talks about ‘thrive’ he doesn't seem to realise he actually means ‘grow’ and not all of us give a thrupenny fuck about growth.

    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust Thrive is distinct from growth. E.g. look at the way Kate Raworth has framed doughnut economics.

    sleslie, to random
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    TIL (because of reddit's profit seeking move to charge for API access) about a new fediverse alternative https://join-lemmy.org/

    The lesson of "if it's free then YOU are likely the product" is finally starting to sink in about the monoliths. Will be interesting to see if the other part "it's gotta be easy otherwise people willing selli their freedoms" is now truer and we'll see some mass migrations along same lines of twitter->mastodon exodus. Hopeful but realistic.

    simonwood,
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    @sleslie Another “threadiverse” option is Kbin https://kbin.pub/

    simonwood, to random
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    Just how ethical is Adobe's Firefly AI image generator? - Creative Bloq https://apple.news/As8fLvuVNQhKaZT5EcERT1A

    simonwood, to random
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    @veronica Exploding cucumber https://kbin.social/m/Plants/t/33324

    LoneLocust, to random
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    simonwood,
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    @LoneLocust A favourite 👌

    feditips, (edited ) to kbin
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    update:

    • The https://kbin.social server is now federating with the Fediverse. You can follow/interact with kbin.social magazines & users from other Kbin servers, Mastodon & rest of the Fediverse. For example the TIL magazine is at @TodayILearned, the lead dev of Kbin is at @ernest

    • There's a new Kbin server at https://readit.buzz which is run by the same people as the Universodon.com Mastodon server. It's open for signups, just click "log in" and then "register".

    simonwood,
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    @feditips Presumably also if you @ mention the magazine, eg. @kbinMeta, or post using the ‘add post’ box at the top of the ‘Microblog’ tab…?

    simonwood, to random
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    "So welcome live, this Halloween night, to the first ever TV Ghostwatch"

    30 years today since was first broadcast, and the 12th over on the bird site, when we all start watching simultaneously at 9.25pm... Alas, I can't find anything happening over here (do Toot-alongs happen?) and I won't go back there... but fortunately I have the new bluray release so I will focus on that.

    Though I may not be able to resist the occasional Toot "It's Pipes, Mum…Pipes is here!"

    simonwood,
    @simonwood@mastodon.social avatar

    stuff...

    The : http://www.ghostwatchbtc.com/p/national-seance.html

    Some random thoughts I blogged 9 years ago: http://littlestorping.co.uk/2013/11/01/some-random-thoughts-about-ghostwatch/

    Our podcast special episode from 2 years ago: https://fusionpatrol.com/2020/10/31/496-halloween-special-ghostwatch/

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