@BashStKid@mastodon.online
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

BashStKid

@BashStKid@mastodon.online

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done”

Various permutations of rugby, music, history, farming, rare breeds, food. With a bit of earth sciences, physics, and energy.

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

spytfyre, to instagramreality
@spytfyre@mastodon.scot avatar

From now until the , I'm playing the Benny Hill theme tune at full volume and adopting a Kenneth Williams "oooh matron" voice, because it's now the only way to keep a grip on

This video for the latest fishing hook () helps too

https://youtu.be/u7T-SHu5wi8?si=-bFVY-h1s3HlHbw1

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@TCMuffin @Thebratdragon @PaulNickson @spytfyre @Man
Please say if wrong, but low-level US Atlantic radar was not that great at the time? Plausible they could simply fly in low, if refuelled of course.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Sometimes when you learn how something works, you think, Thanks knowledge, that really helped, everything makes more sense, and other times you look up how wrists turn, and it's like WTF?!

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr Oh, just wait until you look at some comparative evolutionary anatomy. It’s surprising we’re here at all.

Tldr; God is a bodger.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@EVDHmn @RickiTarr
Yes, I have a bit of background in palaeontology, with some zoology and genetics. Very much in a big dark cave with a small light (which is why you need to talk to all the other folks with lights!)

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Not enough people realize that the "Turing Test" as originally presented was "can a gay English man in 1945 tell the difference between a chatbot and a femme-coded woman" over a teletype connection.

(Turing was very gay and had a sex-segregated education and then work life: he basically didn't know women and his alienation is palpable. But today's techbros don't have any such excuse, and the emphasis on femme-coded AI is ... telling.)
https://mastodon.xyz/@pmorinerie/112506480363973206

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross @Oggie
I suppose there’s a change from the old robot as metaphor for the strong but suppressed male worker to the intangible ai as knowledgeable and entertaining but submissive and servile.
Does that connect to Asimovian male robots being exterior-focused in the factory or on the frontier, while female ais are all around the homes and interiors?

No matter how far we travel, we don’t leave our preconceptions behind.

BashStKid, to random
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

World’s largest food awards move judging panel from UK to Ireland to avoid Brexit red tape https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/26/worlds-largest-food-awards-move-judging-panel-from-uk-to-ireland-to-avoid-brexit-red-tape?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@Wen True, but with everything on fire, there’s a space for ‘here’s an easily fixable, reasonably cheap, high impact on local voters’ issue.
Whereas if we wait until everything’s not on fire …

Garwboy, to random
@Garwboy@ohai.social avatar

Guys, I'm starting to think that the Prime Minister may be horrifically bad at politics.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@adnan @Garwboy Umbrellas are woke. Or something.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@adnan @Garwboy Moderate odds he’ll be off to be the new banking face of India plugging into New York fintech, while Akshata sets up base camp in Cali. Any journos want to check if the girls have already registered in any Santa Monica schools?

ChrisMayLA6, to books
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

I sometimes thought my father thought he could't die while he still had books on his pending pile (a stab at immortality I seem to be replicating)... so, it was strangely touching to see Tom Gauld has had similar thoughts.

@bookstodon

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon
You don’t have to be all Eco about libraries to sympathise.
Not so long ago, if you were eager to fill up on Penguins, or recipes, or history, or a bunch of Haynes manuals, or what a friend was excited about, you bought it.
Your reach always exceeds your grasp, so you end up with a buffer pile to get round to when you have time, or might just need one day.
And who doesn’t want all those friends and connections and memories taking over the wall space?

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Oh, Dairy Pics from yesterday! I've never seen such happy cows, and the cheese was sooo good!

This is several wedges of cheese in different sizes and shapes on a slab of granite. They are Camembert Havarti, Edam, Gouda, Raclette, Jersey Jack, and Garlic Jack
A weathered shed with an old red truck in front of it, there is a windmill and green rolling hills in the background and a dog walking on a gravel path in the foreground
This is the cow pasture, you can see cows grazing under trees in the distance and big puffy white clouds in the sky

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr Some cow pics would be nice if there’s a next time.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr They like the attention, even if they’d rather have a biscuit than a closeup. (btw, not suggesting you feed them, probably not going to go down well with the farmer!)

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

UK government adviser on disruptive protest accused of conflict of interest:

John Woodcock, whose review proposes bans for protest groups, has lobbying links to firms in arms and fossil fuel sectors (and is recommending bans on protests against both those industries)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/government-adviser-on-disruptive-protest-accused-of-conflict-of-interest

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross Correct me, but he was originally asked to look at everything, but now can’t see a problem with anything on the right, only with nonviolent protest on the left?

And we can’t get shot of him because Lords?

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@glitzersachen @cstross Worse, he is one, and can’t be excluded from voting and legislating for the rest of his life.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@HighlandLawyer @glitzersachen @cstross
Yes, theoretically, the Lords could introduce their own bill for cleaning out the last five or six years of corrupt elevations. But they won’t, so they’ll all have to go.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@simon_brooke @HighlandLawyer @glitzersachen @cstross
I wouldn’t quite agree. Our example, at least since, say, 1945, shows that you can have an appointed leg chamber that isn’t corrupt albeit imperfect. More recent events have also shown it’s not at all intrinsically stable, lacks any control feedback, and is easily corrupted.
Hence, when you cry ‘Abolition’, most people’s memories say ‘oh, it works ok, why bother’.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@Theriac @cstross @HighlandLawyer @glitzersachen Now if only Mone had the chutzpah to apply to join the Labour Party, we could see if Natalie Elphicke was an outlier or not.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@HighlandLawyer @simon_brooke @glitzersachen @cstross
It’s a tricky one. There are very few modern attempts at this which aren’t rewarmed hashes of the US tripartite structure. Maybe a modification of the German system?

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@glitzersachen @HighlandLawyer @simon_brooke @cstross
If I were being thoroughly impractical, I might suggest a second chamber made up of bards and teachers as the antithesis of a primary chamber of successful politicians.

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

When Maxwell realized in 1862 that light consists of waves in the electromagnetic field, why didn't anyone try to use electricity to make such waves right away? Why did Hertz succeed only 24 years later?

According to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘹𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘴:

"Since he regarded the production of light as an essentially molecular and mechanical process, prior, in a sense, to electromagnetic laws, Maxwell could elaborate an electromagnetic account of the propagation of light without ever supposing that ether waves were produced purely electromagnetically."

In 1879, a physicist named Lodge realized that in theory one could make "electromagnetic light". But he didn't think of creating waves of lower frequency:

"Send through the helix an intermittent current (best alternately reversed) but the alternations must be very rapid, several billion per sec."

He mentioned this idea to Fitzgerald, who believed he could prove it was impossible. Unfortunately Fitzgerald managed to convince Lodge. But later he realized his mistake:

"It was FitzGerald himself who found the flaws in his "proofs." He then proceeded to put the subject on a sound theoretical basis, so that by 1883 he understood quite clearly how electromagnetic waves could be produced and what their characteristics would be. But the waves remained inaccessible; FitzGerald, along with everyone else, was stymied by the lack of any way to detect them."

In 1883, Fitzgerald gave a talk called "On a Method of Producing Electromagnetic Disturbances of Comparatively Short Wavelengths". But he couldn't figure out how to 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵 these waves. Hertz figured that out in 1886.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@johncarlosbaez A bit of waiting for equipment to catch up and be serendipitously able to stimulate ideas?

Things like having reasonable vacuums and dependable higher voltages available in the lab. Or, outside the lab, advancing telegraphy.

Not to mention the difficulties in detecting something you don’t fully understand. iirc, Hertz had a lot of trouble until he realised the room he was working in was affecting his detection.

junesim63, to random
@junesim63@mstdn.social avatar

He's been a very good boy this morning. It only took two of us and some Dreamies to take his temperature at the vet, and he only growled once (as would I if someone stuck an implement up my bum).
He's had a virus infection, but he now has a clean bill of health. So it's a good today.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@junesim63 Good, I wondered how he was getting on.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

“ 'According to some estimates, 40% of money laundering around the world – this is money often stolen from Africa and Africans by corrupt businessmen, bent politicians and war lords and so on – 40% of that money comes through London and overseas territories and crown dependencies.’ ”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/14/nearly-40-of-dirty-money-is-laundered-in-london-and-uk-crown-dependenies

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@StillIRise1963 London has spent a long time perfecting being a corrupt arranger and fixer for dirty money that needs cleaning.

18+ fkamiah17, (edited ) to art
@fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

Looks like he's drenched in the blood of the anachronistic Empire his unearned privilege is built on to me, and posing in front of the bonfire his government has made of the country.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@fkamiah17 It does look suitably apocalyptic.

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@fkamiah17 it would only take a bit of smudging to turn it into a Bacon Screaming Pope …

fkamiah17, (edited ) to random
@fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

I thought it was Palestinian parents who indoctrinated their children to hate Israelis 🤔
I should say these images (stills from a video clip) were taken at Tarqumiyah crossing in Hebron yesterday. The police protected the "activists".

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@fkamiah17 Sadly, I think we all know how keen kids are to copy their family and gain approval. I’m sure this is normative behaviour wherever they live.

fkamiah17, to Life
@fkamiah17@toot.wales avatar

A man just delivered 240ltrs of compost. Now I have to move it to the shed.
sobs

BashStKid,
@BashStKid@mastodon.online avatar

@fkamiah17 I bet the tidying spell from Fantasia never looked so attractive.

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