Skip to main content


in reply to Alexandra Lanes

Thing
Yes, apparently it does. Woohoo. (Checking that the CW feature in Mona actually works against a Friendica server)


Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


That's a pretty significant bump in global mean Daily Sea Surface Temperature this year, to say the least.

Yes, this should be on every newspaper. And importantly it should be analyzed more deeply than a daily "reminder" of or, even worse, "evidence" that #climatechange is happening (which only confirms the idea, that this is something worth discussing by now, which it isn't). climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst…

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.



Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


So, let me get this right...

Musk is obsessed with the letter X. At some point he suddenly decided he wanted to rebrand Twitter as X just changed it to the Unicode X character i.e. uncopyrightable.

Now it turns out even the trademark is owned by arch-rival cage-fighting lizard Zuckerberg.

And they didn't even tell the owners of their HQ building they were changing the logo, so police got called on the signage engineers replacing it.

But this guy is a genius?

reshared this

in reply to Zoë O'Connell

If it's uncopyrightable, how did Meta and Microsoft already copyright it? reuters.com/technology/problem…
in reply to Martin Campbell

@martincampbell2 They didn’t, they own the trademark (brand) for it rather than the copyright (artistic expression).

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Welcome to Wayland.social: the successor to X.com.

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


"Talmudic law [notes] that while many crimes can be repented for, no one can fully repent for cheating with measures as they can never account for the full impact of their actions. As soon as the crime is committed, it spreads like slander, eroding trust… 'The punishment for unjust measures is more severe than the punishment for immorality, for the latter is a sin against God only, the former against one's fellow man,' says the Mishneh Torah."
- James Vincent, "Beyond Measure"

reshared this


Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Never trust a builder to wire a plug.
This entry was edited (2 years ago)

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.

Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source
Dave Smith has moved
Better that than a smoke alarm

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Are you finding Mastodon to be less vibrant/active?

I’m worried that we are not getting as much engagement on our Ukraine war reporting as we used to.

We’re trying to decide which social media platforms to continue posting on, given how much effort it takes to replicate across all of them.

If you want to send a signal to us that we should keep posting here, will you sign up for our newsletter? Counteroffensive.substack.com

I’m only asking Mastodon users today so we can gauge impact.

This entry was edited (2 years ago)

reshared this

in reply to Tim Mak

Isn't it worth it, even if you only reach one person? The world is changed, one person at a time.
in reply to Tim Mak

I only work on and post on the Middle East - but I follow Ukraine. I understand the feeling that it’s an effort but do try to persist here. And I will sign up for your substack


Stonewall was a riot where people on both sides lowered the temperature and had a respectful conversation.

reshared this



Typo of the day: diuretic debit.

Kind of appropriate I guess, since apparently donating to Stonewall was pissing money away.



in reply to Alexandra Lanes

I saw a different one, parked the other way around, last night... The alley through past that new building seems to have opened recently.
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

I got the impression (but didn't confirm) from the way someone was taking a photo of it that perhaps they'd just got through the trap but damaged the car in the process.



I would like to reassure the Lib Dem Parliamentary Party that I do not in fact have access to any launch codes, so I cannot in fact nuke the lot of you from orbit.


Today’s new word: wankflange.

Definition: Richard Foord MP (Lib Dem), who thinks there is intolerance on both sides of the issue of trans rights, and thinks that parents should know if kids change pronouns at school.

in reply to Kate Watson

@antinomy Indeed. It'd be nice if kids felt they could tell their parents everything, but you can assume that kids have a better handle on their particular parents than the school does.
in reply to Adam

@pseudomonas I’m genuinely boggled that it isn’t obvious to these people that the safeguarding risk to a questioning child with possibly homophonic / transphobic parents or other family adults is not *at school*.
@Adam

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Erik Demaine proved that any pattern of straight cuts can be implemented by folding a piece of paper then making a single straight cut!

erikdemaine.org/foldcut/

Here is what this looks like for a Koch snowflake:

reshared this

in reply to Greg Egan

I count more than 7 foldings on these examples, isn't that supposed to be impossible, at least with paper?
in reply to Greg Egan

I was just reading up on various parasites (trying to figure out what's biting us) and came across this sentence about agromyzid midges: 'The midge adults would have caused the holes back when the leaves were still folded up inside the bud, resulting in a “snowflake” like pattern of holes once the leaves expanded'.

(Parasites on the midges are known to bite humans too.)

I haven't found any pictures that look like snowflakes, though you can clearly see the symmetry.
bygl.osu.edu/node/1967

Greg Egan reshared this.



Beelzebub has the Devil for a sideboard.

Which doesn’t sound very convenient, although I suppose you could hang your keys on the horns.



Is it bad that I find myself yearning for trn’s thread navigation when reading fedi posts?

reshared this

in reply to Alexandra Lanes

I find myself yearning for trn's thread navigation when reading fedi posts, Slack threads, Facebook threads, ... In fact, just about any online discussion. Even given the vagaries of Usenet threading, it Just Worked(tm).
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

No! I've considered implementing that in my mail client, but it seems like a pain to do.



in reply to Alexandra Lanes

They always taste very chthonic as sweets go. Are you sure you're not a zombie or vampire?
in reply to kæt

As far as I know nothing is rotting or falling off, and I'm quite partial to garlic.


I'm so sick of biological TERFs. They just drive me biological wild with their biological bigotry. They should get a biological life.


@NightlyBye I genuinely don't think they know what "biological" means and they just use it as an amplifier like "fucking"




Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


I tried eating fruit but the onboarding was confusing. I have to choose from apple, banana, orange? How is a normal user supposed to navigate this complexity

reshared this

in reply to Tom Walker

I'm going to stick to that chopped fruit you get in the little plastic boxes marked "Fruit". Regular fruit needs to take some UX lessons from those guys
in reply to Tom Walker

Getting some annoyed responses to this. Look it's up to you if you don't want to take UX seriously, but you can't expect fruit to reach a mainstream audience if you don't solve the onboarding issues


I witnessed another trans person's deed poll today. A bit more involved, necessitating a trip to the solicitor, because he's 14, but nevertheless it reminded me of the surreal socially distanced signing dance I did during lockdown for my deed poll with @Zoë O'Connell and @Sarah Brown

It didn't have to be me that signed -- it could have been anyone who knew him and his parents -- but I felt privileged to do it, passing on some part of the support other trans people gave me.


Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Me: Chatty as all hell, wants to babble at the world constantly

Also me: Terribly shy about one-on-one conversations, hasn't used Telegram regularly in months

Also also me: HI HELLO GIVE ME ATTENTION

Also also also me: NO NOT LIKE THAT

reshared this



I think I’m ill suited to social media, because of my unwillingness to argue at length with things I think are probably not true but of which I don’t have encyclopaedic knowledge.

Simon Landmine reshared this.

in reply to Alexandra Lanes

I replied to one of your toots earlier and deleted my reply for this reason. I realised I'd accidentally said "relativistic effects" (which affect *electrons* of big atoms) instead of "non-spherical effects" (which affect *nuclei* of big atoms) and suddenly realised someone who could plausibly make such a mistake clearly doesn't know what they're on about, and what was I playing at, there's probably an actual nuclear physicist on your TL. So I deleted it. So you're not alone in this! 😀

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Please, please, please YouTubers of the world.

"The essay" is an educational tool, not an engaging presentation format. That "paragraph intake of breath" is so depressing. There's so much great material in these things, but I do wish people would study public *lectures*.

For millennia people have been perfecting it in all kinds of varieties to suit personalities, access, etc.

"Like a video message from someone being kept hostage by an evil history postdoc" is one of the *less* successful.

reshared this



Mental Health


CN: mental health

My mental health remains somewhat wobbly, as it has been for a month or two now. There have been two absolute low points, one "head buzzing so much with despair" and one of the form where the world is a treacle of minor chords and even being present feels like an effort that can't be guaranteed. In between it's been recovery and walking a sort of narrow path on the edge, as if solid rock can be felt to one side and an abyss to the other. A forgetfulness of joy, too, as if I have lost the object permanence of love.

I have CBT starting next month. I have an appointment with my GP potentially to adjust antidepressant doses. I've got the endocrinologist tomorrow. The things I can do apart from just hanging on, I am doing. (To be clear, I'm not a danger to myself or anyone else.)



Caster Semenya won her case in the ECHR yesterday. Only the legal summary is currently available in English: “Discrimination against professional athlete with differences of sex development who was required under non-State regulations to lower her natural testosterone level to compete in women’s category in international competitions: violation”.

The judgment in French is at hudoc.echr.coe.int/%7B%22appno… ; I’ll toot the official English translation when it appears





Normal instruction leaflet. “DEAR MASTER, IT'S MY PLEASURE TO SERVE YOU!
In order to serve you better, I wanna share you some secrets about myself and beg your pardon. I'm sorry when I become loud during high-pressure inflation 2 min after starting, as I'm pumping on full throttle!”

Kate Watson reshared this.


Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


David Tennant, of Dr Who fame, apparently said some pro trans things and now the TERFs are going after him on Twitter. His response is that he isn't worried because, and I quote, "I'll be fine, Terfs can't climb stairs"

I want that on a T-shirt. No, I NEED that on a T-shirt!

ETA: Apparently it was a parody account that said the stairs line. I still want it on a T-shirt.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Am having trouble so far finding an explanation/breakdown of what "terfs can't climb stairs" means exactly.

Am not posting this looking for enlightenment specifically. Though it would be nice & appreciated, of course.

in reply to Sarah Brown

Tennant didn’t say the line, but he is pretty awesome on trans issues. The whole thing exploded because of a t-shirt he was wearing. In addition, he’s been wearing a nonbinary pride pin to all his public appearances for some time, apparently in support of one of his kids.

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


Increased Seismic activity in Iceland. 🇮🇸
Not erupting... Yet. But some webcams are ready.
eruption.acme.to/

#Iceland #Eruption #Seismic #LiveStream

Stay tuned

This entry was edited (2 years ago)

reshared this


Alexandra Lanes reshared this.


The Grand Canal, Venice. A #slitscan from Casino di Venezia to Ponte delle Guglie, using a vaporetto (waterbus) as a slow, steady scanning support, using a suction-cup camera mount inside the window.

#photography #slitscan

reshared this



Since I managed to find it and someone elsenet was asking about the “U.K. trans asylum in NZ case”…

AL (United Kingdom) [2017] NZIPT 502911

forms.justice.govt.nz/search/D…

reshared this