Ben Taylor @VoxDei@social.cleverlibre.org
Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
Ben Taylor
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There was a really vivid lilac sky this morning, about 45 minutes before sunrise. Moon glinting through the tree.
#glastonbury #glastonburytor #somerset #landscapephotography #sunrise #sunrisephotography #bluehour
Ben Taylor
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Absolutely the best Acknowledgments section of a paper I’ve read. From https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.03988 / h/t @playingwithdust
Ben Taylor
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Archway view from Glastonbury Tor this morning. A chill wind in the air and frost on the ground.
#glastonburytor #somerset #archway #glastonbury #sunrise #sunrisephotography
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Sometimes you can only see what is going on in your own country by seeing how others sew what is happening. "Cruel Britannia" in the Sydney Morning Herald is an unsettling, upsetting, but essential read.
https://archive.ph/svVD4
Ben Taylor
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The shadow of the Tor in the mist with the moon setting as the sun rose behind me. Taken from Glastonbury Tor.
#glastonbury #glastonburytor #somerset #mist #landscapephotography #sunrise #sunrisephotography
Ben Taylor
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People tell me they're afraid of AI and computers taking over the world but if it helps: I'm really not.
For the last few decades since Terminator came out, we've been hard at work building in a dead man's switch to every major system on Earth to prevent this from happening. I guarantee you that if computers try to take over the world, somewhere, within a month, a certificate for some critical dependency no one ever considered will expire and take all the machines out at once. We've done a few dozen trial runs of this to make sure the system works. 100% success rate so far.
Ben Taylor
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@freemo IIRC, obviously your statement is correct at one level. Many studies have shown pretty strongly that there's no causal link between, say, violent video games and real-life violence. But I think the relatively-recent rise in anti-Asian violence (a subject near and dear to my heart) points to a much subtler effect.
My hypothesis is that when X number of isolated people harbor anti-Asian hatred (for example), but all of society is collectively telling them that's wrong, they mumble and grumble and keep their hatred to themselves, but when that same number of people are no longer isolated, but find themselves supported in large numbers by something like a large online community, a prominent political leader, or both, well, clearly the mask comes off, and the violence becomes very real.
This is why people are rightly (IMO) worried about the limits of speech on the internet.
Another example: there have been people angry at the government for decades, but it seems like it took Facebook connecting them and feeding them information they wanted to see about how to act on that hate, plus a prominent political leader spouting related nonsense, for them to travel to Washington DC and try to overthrow the government.
Seeing hateful nonsense isn't going to turn you or me into a hateful person. It isn't going to turn anyone who isn't already hateful into a hateful person. But leaving it available provides a very thin patina of credibility, and since information on the internet is not generally divorced from the people posting it, it also provides a means of social connection when left in place.
One angry hateful person is a person. Angry hateful people online are literally the basis of a violent armed mob.
This is why I'm actually finding myself more and more against an "anything goes" policy online, while still very strongly supporting free speech in person.
If you're willing to stand on a street corner and speak what you believe is true, anybody that is willing to be seen associating with you can do so, and I don't think anybody should interfere. If you want to print a crank newsletter and pass it out, go ahead. In this is freedom!
But it takes nothing, less than nothing, to post nasty stuff online, where it lives side-by-side in the same interface with good information, granting it that very thin patina of credibility I mentioned, and associations are anonymous or hidden until it's too late.
I don't think that's so simple. I think all of this [waves at everything] demonstrates that.
Ben Taylor
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The sun rising over a blanket of mist this morning. Taken from Glastonbury Tor.There might be a few more in a bit.
#glastonbury #sunrise #sunrisephotography #misty #glastonburytor #somerset
Ben Taylor
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Rich: a Python library for rich text and beautiful formatting in the terminal
https://github.com/Textualize/rich
We use this library for some of our command line tools and it is fantastic.
Ben Taylor
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Discovered during the week I was unable to access a Kindle book purchased in 2013. Reason? The order was “too old”, and refund issued to buy again. Which was pointless as the book is now more expensive than when I bought it.
Subsequently discovered 66(!!) other ebooks no longer available for download.
Currently 40 minutes in to a support chat with Amazon.
About to learn, I think, whether we purchase ebooks, or rent them…
I've just worked out why Google has been insisting my wife's birthday was coming up and did I want to do anything. It's because my Google calendar has an entry called "Wife's Dad's birthday" so I know it's a hard day for her. Thanks Google. Nice to be reminded you're reading my calendar.
Ben Taylor
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@feorag I know about the ie/ei thing in English. It's still very amazing to a German.
Ben Taylor
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🏳️🌈🖖🏽
Overheard: “Not all heroes wear capes. Or tops, it seems.”
Ben Taylor
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Ben Taylor
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Sneak preview of my next fine collection of photons from my driveway!
This is part of the **Seagull Nebula** in *Monoceros *(on the border to *Canis Major*); you're looking at the average of about 13 hours of 10 minute Hydrogen-alpha emission exposures, with stars removed.
Try to spot two things:
- *bow shock* of a star (looks like a thin crescent Moon)
- image artifact from a plane that happened to fly through
Ben Taylor
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This is accurate ;)
(via https://marketoonist.com/2023/01/evolution-of-smart-products.html)
Ben Taylor
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'Spleen-on-a-chip' yields insight into sickle cell disease
Every day, billions of red blood cells pass through the spleen, an organ that is responsible for filtering out old or damaged blood cells. This task is made more difficult when the blood cells are misshapen, as they are in patients with sickle cell disease, which affects millions of people throughout the world. Sickled blood cells can clog the spleen's filters, leading to a potentially life-threatening situation
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-01-spleen-on-a-chip-yields-insight-sickle-cell.html
Ben Taylor
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My UK/IE Kindle giveaways have gone so poorly I apparently gave up on them -- I'd forgotten all the ones I had cache. So here is another set (which I'll also tweet): 10 UK/IE Kindle copies of DEAD LIES DREAMING, @cstross's first book of the New Management, a sequel / continuation of the Laundry books. Which is interesting, since those books haven't ended yet...
So here's the thing: this is a *great* book about family. The good and bad parts of it, for both bio- and found-family.
Ben Taylor
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Software Engineer, Trade Unionist, Gamer, Geek, Dad. Lives in Devon
Joined Nov 2022
