@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

JonnyT

@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk

A stuffed simian. Posts auto-delete after 2 weeks.

Avatar alt-text: The head and upper torso of a stuffed gorilla. The gorilla is seated and its body is directed slightly towards the left. The head faces the same way but the gorilla is looking directly at the viewer.

Header alt-text: A 'Show Your Stripes' graph showing temperature anomalies for London between 1850 and 2022 relative to a 1971 to 2000 baseline. The lines become progressively redder to the right of the graph.

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

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

Now there’s a GE on the way, recommendations for UK politics accounts and politics commentators who actually regularly post here (not just sporadic broadcasting or accounts that have been inactive since 2022) would be fab, if anyone has some. (Don’t worry – I won’t flood feeds with any of this stuff, although I may be a bit giddy on the night of 4 July, unless polling radically shifts before then.)

#Ukpol #ukpolitics #ge2024

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@craiggrannell Possibly worth following the #UKPol, #UKPolitics and #GE2024 tags for a bit (or skimming through them) to see who you'd like to follow more permanently.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@craiggrannell PS. It's also worth tagging your posts this way too, so that people who are filtering out politics via a mute of one or more of the tags still see your other posts and don't have to mute you completely.

JonnyT, to UKpolitics
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I have just found out that the US election is on 5 November. This, together with the Tories calling one on 4 July, is a terrible, terrible joke on us proles, right?

JonnyT, to UKpolitics
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I don't know how anyone else feels about their personal security being in the hands of someone who can't (a) read a weather forecast or (b) use an umbrella for the biggest announcement of their career so far, but I'm not confident in their ability to keep me safe.

garius, to random
@garius@mastodon.me.uk avatar

RISHI: It's still pissing down out there. Are you sure about this?
PR GUY: Yes
RISHI: Why can't we use the press room?
PR GUY: Larry the cat's asleep in there
RISHI: We could wake him?
PR GUY:
RISHI:
PR GUY: No
RISHI:
PR GUY: Go knock em dead, champ
RISHI: Um. Okay

<walks out>

PR GUY: What a tit.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@garius Amazing isn't it. How bad can you possibly be at this? Just astonishingly inept.

jesusmargar, to Starwars
@jesusmargar@mastodon.social avatar

#dune #starwars #frankherbert #arrakis #tatooine #plagiarism #scifi

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@wesdym @jesusmargar The major problem with that thesis is that - unlike Luke Skywalker - Paul Atreides is very much not a hero. Kind of the point of the first few books: despite his best efforts he still ends up being a genocidal monster with the blood of billions on his hands, and infinitely worse than the Emperors and Harkonnens that preceded him. He is only a hero in the sense that he can see this outcome and tries to prevent it happening. Yet fails miserably.

markmccaughrean, to random
@markmccaughrean@mastodon.social avatar

I’ve lived the last fifteen years in The Netherlands & although I doubtless have a limited & biased view, I’ve been happy with what has seemed broadly to be a progressive, tolerant, & environmentally-conscious society.

I guess this new centre- & far-right government coalition is about to trash all of that with its reactionary populist bullshit 🤮

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/16/new-dutch-coalition-aims-to-reintroduce-80mph-limit-in-cull-of-climate-goals

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@markmccaughrean A government that willingly includes the far right is just a far-right government. There is no centrism there.

weirdwriter, to tech

Can we retire the notion of old people fearing technology? Because I just had three cases where five seniors didn't understand why I was excited about tech as they were.

They were excited about the possibilities tech could give the world, even after they are long gone. I explained I was very disillusioned with how the whole tech sector exploits marginalized people and exploits workers. I looked at the recent iPads coming out and said, no thanks because I have what I need. It works, and these new features don't justify the price investment for me. The very five seniors all marked it on their calendars to order the new tech or pre order the new tech.

I explained that what I have works for me so I don't need new tech. I geeked up my tech so that it runs new and gets everybody to think it's new.

Of course, the subject went to AI. Everyone knows I'm against AI on here and online, especially the labor practices and the profit seeking grab... anyway, the seniors were utterly baffled as to why I wouldn't be happy about AI.

These aren't tech illiterate seniors, either. They can tell me the difference between a GB and a TB and one of them knows a little about servers but that's basically it. They can't host their own email server or anything but they know tech.

Even one said, you know what? My grandson is like you. He's younger than you are and he actually doesn't like technology at all!

To prove to them AI had some really big flaws, I loaded up an LLM with a voice input. They could use a Microphone to speak into it.

I told all my friends with non American dialects to speak into the microphone, but don't try to sound American.

That's when, for example, GPT and other LLM's fell short. The others were amazed because they thought, well, AI would at least cover different dialects.

But the AI's understood the dialects I'd say about 40% of the time, but to be fair, I was in a hall with a lot of echos and doors slamming, etc.

There are tech people that salivate over the death of all humans, and how no more computer stuff will be done by humans ever again, but these seniors aren't like that at all.

Still, they were just flabbergasted that because I was a tech guru that I am far, far, far, less excited about tech than they were.

I am glad I did the little voice demonstration though! I tried a number of American dialects. It couldn't even understand a southern accent well, and that's American English! Imagine how awful the others were!

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@weirdwriter The modern day Luddite is one who knows, is interested by and (sometimes) excited by technology but knows that the people, businesses and governance of them are the diametric opposite of who and what they should be for the betterment of society.

stefan, (edited ) to accessibility
@stefan@stefanbohacek.online avatar

Trying to understand human psychology a bit here, boosts for reach are very much appreciated.

When you post an image without alt text, and someone replies with the image description for you to use, what is your typical reaction?

#accessibility #a11y #AltText #ImageDescriptions

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@stefan @nora But you do know. If you exclude the votes of the people opting for the 'I never forget alt text' option, the 'thank them and add it' option is significantly ahead of all other options. So you have surmised correctly that most people would fall into that camp.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@stefan @nora (Counterpoint: when I wrote the above, you'd had a good number of responses and there's a near 50:50 split between the two options in my post, and the others have barely been chosen. I don't know what the situation was approximately an hour ago when you wrote your post so it couldn't have been a lot less definitive)

john, to random
@john@sauropods.win avatar

Does anybody know if there’s a traditional composite material that behaves something like fibreglass? As in fibre/fabric laid up in a binder of some sort to make a stiff material in arbitrary forms.

Paper mache is one but it’s too weak (I think, maybe there's a super version?). I'm considering things like cotton or flax in casein glue or pine resin... but I doubt it will work.

(And my last casein glue experiment stunk like rotten milk for weeks!)

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@john @futurebird Is cow gum biodegradable? I have a vague recollection of using it as a child with sheets of newspaper to create sculptures.

(It might not have been cow gum but was one of the 'glues' you'd use at primary school back in the day).

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@john @futurebird Now I've thought on it a bit more, I may have the wrong glue. It was more likely to be the milky, watery one. You'd soak the paper in a tray of the glue and apply the paper wet to the surface. When it dried it was rock hard.

Can't recall what that glue was, sorry, but it was widespread in arts classes in the 70s.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@john Oh yes, we definitely used a starch glue for similar purposes. Sticky, gloopy stuff. It was that one or the milky one that you could put on your hand, leave to dry for a bit and then peel off to give you a translucent skin with your palm/finger prints, Mission Impossible style.

simonvarwell, to random Esperanto
@simonvarwell@mastodon.scot avatar

This is genuinely hilarious. UKGov commissions a report to demonstrate how awful Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods are. Report comes back praising them so report is buried.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/08/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-generally-popular-report-ordered-by-sunak-finds

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@simonvarwell @vicgrinberg I live in London beside a busy, major thoroughfare. The initial lockdowns during the pandemic when people couldn't drive were bliss. So it is completely unsurprising to me that something with such an obvious and immediate impact on people's quality of life would be popular.

It is also unsurprising to me that a political party so self-absorbed and incompetent is going to continue to pursue a deeply unpopular, anti-LTN position.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

If you like large post incident reviews of major ransomware incidents - there’s only a few of these - the British Library one is out now:

https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf

The long story short is they lacked resiliency, detection capability, and somebody exposed RDP to the internet for remote access for contractors.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@GossiTheDog What they lacked the most was money. Everything else stems from that detail.

JonnyT, to random
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

I imagine others have already shared this but can we have far more headlines like this in more of the press, please. And not just for Trump.

thisismissem, (edited ) to mastodon
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io avatar

Documentation for how to enable hCaptcha support on just dropped: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/optional/captcha/

Many thanks to @vmstan for taking the time to document this functionality!

PLEASE DON'T EXPLAIN hCAPTCHA's PROBLEMS TO ME, IT'S IN THE DOCUMENTATION.

You can contribute to the documentation here: https://github.com/mastodon/documentation/blob/main/content/en/admin/optional/captcha.md

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@thisismissem @GossiTheDog @vmstan NB. hCAPTCHA is not accessible. Please read the real world experience of screen reader users as to why - here's a starting point:

https://toot.cafe/@aardrian/111958354127776691

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@thisismissem @GossiTheDog @vmstan That doesn't excuse people from keeping on recommending it as a solution. It isn't one. Stop recommending it.

TeaKayB, to random
@TeaKayB@mathstodon.xyz avatar

has areas called Broughton, Loughton and Woughton, and (even disregarding their initial letters) they're all pronounced completely differently.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@TeaKayB @christianp All three sound like, 'shithole'?

BigAngBlack, to pdx
@BigAngBlack@fosstodon.org avatar

A gunman killed and injured protesters at a march. Why did blame the victims? | US policing | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/19/blm-march-portland-shooting

> Survivors of a mass shooting have publicly shared video contradicting police claims that victims were armed and part of a ‘confrontation’


JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@BigAngBlack @clayrivers "Why did Police blame the victims?"

A few paragraphs in:

"The attack took place on 19 February 2022 before a march in north-east Portland to demand justice for two young Black men killed by police officers in Minneapolis, Daunte Wright and Amir Locke."

It's a damned mystery, alright.

kissane, (edited ) to random
@kissane@mas.to avatar

Is Mona crushing anyone else’s phone battery, or is it just me?

ETA: I've gathered enough feedback to believe that the answer is proooobably "it's your old phone," so I'm going to delete this shortly to conserve group attention.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@kissane Can't say it is doing that for me but the app has so many settings it's unlikely my set up is going to be the same as yours.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@kissane Mine very much isn't, which could explain why I'm not seeing whatever you're experiencing.

Might be worth tagging in the developer, if you've not already done so? Probably easier for them to diagnose an issue in a near default install than it would be for mine.

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

Okay, this made me laugh.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@GossiTheDog CAPTCHA is offensively inaccessible, including the supposedly accessible hCAPTCHA. So, no, you should not enable it. You'd be automatically excluding many blind people from joining your instance.

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

Are we going to keep pretending that the future won't be drastically changed by climate change? And, for how long will people bury their heads in the sand.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@StillIRise1963 Disagree completely with you there: they have. The impact is all around us. Flooding. Fire. Extreme weather. It's costing the world trillions a year. The impacts are diluted for many because they're not at the bottom but they're still impacted. Hell, in Europe we've all been the victim of climate change the past two winters. Why are our energy bills so high? Not because Russia invaded Ukraine but because fossil fuel companies forced us to still be dependent on gas.

JonnyT,
@JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk avatar

@StillIRise1963 (Sorry if I'm acting like an arse. It's a topic I've been following or involved with to one degree or another for 30+ years. And one for which, "we told you so" 30 years ago makes you all too aware of wtf is happening compared to back then. I find it difficult to control my emotions over how we've got to today with far too little done and far too much left to do to stop what is but shouldn't be and really, really doesn't have to be coming).

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