Here's a fifth painting of @major_clanger 's cat Taura, focusing on dark and light.
Taura looks as elegant as ever π
N.B. You can find my prior paintings here: hgpenningtonart.com
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In my hands is my first iPod. Steve Jobs is smiling at me. Everybody at the Apple Store is smiling.
I take off my Apple Vision. I am back in the retirement home. Nobody has visited me for 12 years. I put it back on.
I hold my iPod. Everybody in the Apple Store is smiling.
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At this point, the British court system is actively transphobic, acting as the judicial arm of a state that seeks to eradicate trans people, especially women.
When the law is unjust, it must be ignored. Resist transphobia.
It is disappointing to see the Open University back down in the face of obvious justice denied.
ounews.co/around-ou/ou-speaks-β¦
A statement from Professor Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University regarding the recent employment tribunal judgment
The judgment made for difficult reading for all of us. We apologise unreservedly to Professor Phoenix for the hurt and distress this has caused.The Open University (OU News)
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@NatalyaD @ajlanes
Well yeah it was obviously exactly that. What research was expected to come out of it?
Intellectual enquiry can be into new understandings of things, or the psychology of why people hold to their views, but it can't simply seek to re-affirm a mainstream view. That's not research in any meaningful sense.
Only imagine my surprise that someone who doesn't understand that turned out not to handle robust criticism well and became unpopular with her colleagues.
@petealexharris @ajlanes Phoenix is whining that in criminology there's ~300 academics in the field (seems an under count) and she's been ostracised by them.
That's cos most criminologists follow the Actual Evidence not some "I get to wave my trauma to be a bigot" like Phoenix did. Also there are already prison policies (not always followed) which Phoenix-and-friends (there's a disturbing children's TV prog title) never talk about either.
Shouting about being cancelled=attention.
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I've recently been doing some cognitive behavioural therapy care of the NHS, with a particular emphasis on activation (getting up and doing things) and self esteem. The last session is this coming Thursday. I think it's been net beneficial, in the sense that it's given me space to talk about things and think about things, and acquire a few more tools to manage my mind.
And the past week or so working for Hughes Hall to understand their Linux and database systems has been a big boost; it's clear that I'm actually pretty damn good at doing this kind of stuff and people seem impressed as if I'm working some kind of deep magic.
And yet somehow when I'm sitting here alone it all feels like some kind of illusion in the face of that sense of stuckness and uselessness and yearning. Which I know is lies. I can effect change, I am capaable, I am cared about.
Could all be hormones. My tits are aching with another growth spurt.
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not your point, but the colour and lighting design of Rogue One was *perfect*
Starts dull blue gray, and lightens throughout and ends full saturated bright colour...
POGGs!
Peace Order and Good Governance? Or little plastic things you got in crisps in the 80s?
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as many have already said, itβs a great way to bring the material to a new audience.
I also think people put the original show too much on a pedestal. The show being animated is not the only reason people might not be watching the original. Compared to βadultβ animated shows like Arcane and Castlevania, Avatar is quite cartoonish.
Iβve recently finished season 2 which I really loved, but season 1 couldβve done without much of the slapstick humor aimed at kids IMHO
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Re: Stork/Crane pun
Can we just all sit back and appreciate just how good this joke is? It plays on folklore that many English-speakers know about, it references two similar wading birds, and there's a double-entendre about cranes (one being a bird and the other being machinery). This may be my favorite yet!
Outrage Season
We have finally got the nomination statistics for the 2023 Hugos, and understandably there is a great deal of concern being express. Some very strange things have gone on. Believe me, I'm not happy either. Fairly inevitably there are plenty of people who know little about how WSFS works who assume that there must be some overriding authority who could, and should, have prevented Chengdu from doing what they have done.
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@LAGilman I'm interested to hear how such transparency would have worked in interaction with an autocratic state.
Oh, wait.
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Yesterday our remote sensing team did 3 ortho surveys over the eruption area, the latest acquisition at 16:15 UTC. The team is a cross agency effort combined with people and equipment from Icelandic Institute of Natural History, National Land Survey and the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Iceland. These have now been made publicly available as an #opendata tile service and can be explored here for example: umbrotasja.gis.is/mapview/?appβ¦
#gischat #GrindavΓk #eruption #iceland
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Why the hovercraft's time might have finally arrived
Hovercraft were a quick way to zip across the world's waterways but were noisy and expensive to operate. Could they be about to enjoy a second wind?Mark Piesing (BBC)
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"these were not exceptional individuals β they were individuals doing what they (wrongly) believed to be their job or performing what they (wrongly) believed to be their function or protecting what they (wrongly) saw to be legitimate interests."
Excellent blog post from @davidallengreen on the failures of the UK legal system and the professional classes that allowed the #Horizon scandal to flourish.
davidallengreen.com/2024/01/hoβ¦
How the legal system made it so easy for the Post Office to destroy the lives of the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses β and how the legal system then made it so hard for them to obtain justice
12th January 2024 The Post Office Horizon scandal is both simple and complex, straightforward but also difficult to grasp in all its interconnected detail. The essence of the scandal is, of course,β¦The Law and Policy Blog
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Except, in the salient aspect, that the events described *don't* really follow at least the strictest, Aristotelian criteria for Greek tragedy, where the tragedy takes place in a single place on a single day.
The original Cocklecarrot mentioned "Sophoclean" (great word). Now, dragged up in a Secondary Modern, I'm not an expert on such things, but Oedipus Rex and Antigone follow the unities, iirr?
So it was a weirdly specific (-ly wrong) analogy to use to extend a single event to 36 hours and the length of the M1.
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TIL that the works of J.R.R. Tolkien passed into the public domain in NZ this year (life plus 50 years)β¦ but also wonβt for another 20 years in much of Europe, and 40 years in the USAβ¦
#law & #copyright peeps: What on π does it mean if someone writes a derivative work here in NZ and then tries to republish it overseas? Or if it is published here and then imported to a different country via the internet or otherwise?
Please retoot so this post finds a person who can answer it!
(Edit: Not π¨π¦)
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@Martin Campbell The version on legislation.gov.uk similarly: legislation.gov.uk/eur/2016/67β¦
β¦but how one is supposed to write that in the OUβs preferred citation style for legal authorities, I do not know.
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"Whoever wrote this code clearly has no understanding of elementary mathematics or the most basic rules of programming."
Savage, but justified.
Page 17-18,
postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uβ¦
#PostOfficeScandal #HorizonScandal
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I'm worried by this story: theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jβ¦
Yes, Fujitsu must shoulder some blame for the faulty technology, and possibly more for being in denial. But Fujitsu did not choose to pursue the users for the "missing" money and prosecute them. There is a considerable human side to this story. We must not let the Post Office offload all the financial responsibility onto Fujitsu.
"We only acted like complete bastards because their software fucked up." won't cut it.
Fujitsu may have to repay βfortuneβ spent on Post Office scandal, Chalk says
Justice secretary says if firm behind Horizon IT software is found culpable, ministers would seek βproper recompenseβSammy Gecsoyler (The Guardian)
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@guigsy @ajlanes Racism and classism.
Racism affected how we were treated over Horizon, says Post Office victims
The workers say they believe racism affected the way people were treated in the Horizon scandalBy Sima Kotecha (BBC News)
Bookseller email received: 10:00 am.
Item ordered: 10:05am
A map of showing the path of a 1764 eclipse across Europe, printed in two passes, with the map in sepia and the shadow line in black.
A great acquisition in and of itself, but what's really special is that the map was designed by a woman, engraved by a woman, and printed by a woman. And not two weeks ago we were brainstorming ideas for a future exhibition on women in science, so it couldn't be more perfect.
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Finally got around to looking at #PEH578L's petrol gauge. Multimeter showed that the fault was at the sender, which is a simple float on an arm operating a variable resistor.
Opened it up and was slightly surprised to discover a wire-wound rheostat. Also that three of the turns are broken which would explain why it doesn't work. So unless I feel like re-winding it, I probably need a new one.
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@ajlanes The tank is basically a cuboid, so I don't think that's what it's for.
It might be compensating for the fact that the float is on a pivoting arm, so the rate of rotation changes with depth.
But now that I look at it, I think the variance may be the wrong way around for that, so maybe it's compensating for non-linearity in the dashboard gauge instead.
Maybe I should do some experiments...
You know what would be nice?
An "open firmware" project, where people produce and share FOSS firmware for common household devices, replacing the manufacturer's firmware with a decrapified version.
A smart TV? Reflash it with FOSS firmware, which removes tracking, calls to the manufacturer's servers, and any Internet-connected services that you don't want?
A printer? It's now yours. No ink subscription, or need for an app to print remotely.
And so on.
A man can dream, eh.
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Paul Bowsher
in reply to coldclimate • • •coldclimate
in reply to Paul Bowsher • • •