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Adam Jacobs 🇺🇦
@statsguy@mas.to
mastodon 4.7.2Retired medical statistician. Foodie. Gardener. Cebollista. Political views: reality-based.
Fully paid-up member of the Guardian Reading Tofu Eating Wokerati.
1365 Followers
1363 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 07, 2022
Location:
UK
Pronouns:
He/Him
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So we're sending British military forces to join in a war on the side of Saudi Arabia, a brutally repressive authoritarian regime that murders journalists, but we can't send British military forces to join in a war on the side of Ukraine, a country that is literally defending Europe against an existential threat?
Please make it make sense.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlykpe4dk0yo
#SaudiArabia #MiddleEastWar #UkraineWar #UKPolitics
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
Nvidia are going to spend $500 billion on increasing their carbon footprint.
For context, the UN have estimated that it would cost $93 billion per year to end world hunger.
Anyway, hope you're all enjoying the heat wave.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78gr0jv0mdo
#NVidia #ClimateCollapse #ClimateChange #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateEmergency
If the villagers of Piddington vote for independence, then if I were Burnham, I would respect their democratic wish and grant them independence immediately.
That would of course mean revoking all their British passports. And since they are so dead set against undocumented migrants, we'd then have to build a big fuck-off wall around the village with a couple of border posts on it, and only let the villagers out if they are in position of a valid Piddington passport, compliant with the international standards of ICAO Document 9303.
Oh, and of course they would need a visa as well. Can't have free movement now, can we? I suppose it might take a few months for visa applications to be approved, but do they want control of their borders or don't they?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw5ym35z15x7o
#Piddington #UKPolitics
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
"Greens call for temporary ban on new data centres"
Very sensible. Their carbon footprint is cause anough for concern, but when so much of the country is already under hosepipe bans, the idea of building stuff with that kind of water consumption is bonkers.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz0zm4pzme2o
#GreenParty #ClimateChange #DataCentres #Drought
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
Pretty sure that slashing a dinghy with a knife while there is an emergency worker on board is illegal.
I do hope Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary take this seriously.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/22/far-right-activist-daniel-thomas-slashes-dinghy-with-blade-while-rescue-worker-onboard
Replying to
As the article says, you won't find it online, but if you want to find a showing of the film near you, then this is the link you need.
https://www.nebriefing.org/screening-map
#PeoplesEmergencyBriefing #ClimateChange
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
I am gobsmacked that somehow it has become controversial to state that saving the lives of people in peril at sea is a good thing to do.
But apparently it is.
Anyway, if you think that saving lives at sea is a good thing to do, perhaps you'd like to show your support by donating a few quid to the RNLI? I'm sure they could use a bit of support right now.
https://www.justgiving.com/charity/rnli?utm_source=CL&utm_medium=DT
#RNLI #Lifeboats
Boosted by @trending@homestead.social
Grannies sitting quietly holding placards: hundreds arrested on terrorism charges
Gangs of masked men intimidating vulnerable people and obstructing a police operation: no-one arrested
Can someone remind me what people were saying about #TwoTierPolicing?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyegwl9vzqo
#UKPolitics #Asylum #FarageRiots
Ooh, "named and shamed". That'll show them. They even got fined amounts that might just show at the third decimal place in their accounts if you're lucky.
There really is remarkably little incentive for companies to obey the law here.
How many directors were disqualified?
How many directors were fined personally?
How many directors were made to wear an ankle tag and obey a curfew?
How many directors had to do hundreds of hours of community service picking up litter?
Guessing the answer is a bit fat zero to all of the above.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39mv4vm7exo
#OneRuleForThem
But sure, Andy, let's drill for more oil. What's the worst that could happen?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgzd34kq5dt
#ClimateCollapse #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateChange #WildFires #AndyBurnham
Polanski has been foolish here. He must surely know that the corporate media are absolutely gunning for him.
He needs to check every single word and every single photo of anything he boosts on social media. Sure, I'm sure it was a genuine oversight and he didn't mean to boost the photo, but he has to be so careful. The slightest mis-step and the corporate media will be all over him like a rash.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y063yqlleo
#Polanski
Boosted by @hypebot@goingdark.social
Oh Christ, this is horrific: the #FarageRiots have now escalated to setting fire to people's homes.
Isn't it about time that laws on incitement to violence were applied to politicians?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr47x99k5n6t
UK Politics
Gotta admit, when I first saw this sign online I did wonder if it had been photoshopped. But this evening I saw it with my own eyes and I can confirm that it is real.
UK Politics
I see the BBC are deploying significant investigative resources to make sure they remind us plebs that the real threat to us all comes from poor brown people on small boats.
Perish the thought that they should deploy those resources on investigating rich white people defrauding the taxpayer or buying influence over government.
It would never do to let the plebs know what the real threat is, would it?
Replying to
@PallasRiot@social.treehouse.systems They did OK in the first gulf war in 1991.
The big difference with that one is that it was a war of defence with clearly defined aims (kick Saddam's army out of Kuwait).
Their problem is they keep starting unwinnable wars of aggression (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, etc). Doesn't really matter how good at fighting they are: the mistake is strategic rather than military. They are just intrinsically unwinnable.
UK Politics
If any Labour MPs think the solution to their problems is to replace #Starmer with #Streeting, they need their head examined.
No doubt there are many reasons for Labour's unpopularity, but surely one big one is that they promised change from the Tories and have basically just carried on Torying.
Why would you want to replace Starmer with one of the few Labour MPs who's even more right wing than he is?
UK Politics
I don't think any of us really knows at this stage how good a job Andy Burnham is going to do as PM, assuming he gets the job (as seems overwhelmingly likely).
I for one am certainly keeping an open mind for now.
I'm sure there are many criteria on which he can be judged, but one criterion I shall be using is this:
If the right-wing media publish endless vitriolic articles saying how terrible he is (probably accusing him of being antisemitic, that's usually how it works), then I shall assume he must be doing something right.
Iran War
Replying to
@fribbledom@mastodon.social 640 KB? Luxury!
When I were a lad, I used to have to write x=10 rather than x = 10 so that I could fit everything into 16 KB.
I wish all my French followers a very happy Bastille Day!
Today we remember what can happen when the ruling classes abuse their power and the ordinary people get stretched to breaking point.
But that could never happen again, right?
#BastilleDay #QuatorzeJuillet #14Juillet
Replying to
- I have solar panels on my roof and I'm signed up for an export tariff with Octopus Energy so that they credit my account for the electricity I send back to them.
Except that they don't.
For 4 months in a row now, they have "forgotten" to add the export credit to my bills.
Got in touch with them after the first 2 months, they apologised and sent a new bill with the export on it, but they're still not adding the export to my bill automatically.
Formal complaint made now.
3/n
OK, here's a #TechieQuestion: if I want to sync directories from a Linux server using a Python script, does it make much difference whether I invoke a shell command with rsync from the Python script or use a dedicated Python sync command such as pyrsync?
(Boosts welcome if this isn't your area of expertise)
Replying to
@mjr@masto.bike @EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu @erpu@eupolicy.social Thanks. Maybe "a reasonable step in the right direction" would have been a better description than "awesome"
Replying to
- I have an ISA with a bank that generally pays quite competitive rates of interest. My ISA was competitive when I opened it, but that was in 2022, and it's gradually degraded since then. I was able to increase the interest I'm getting paid by about 60% by switching it to a new account with the same bank, which was easy enough, but I had to be alert enough to what was going on to do that. The bank would have very happily kept paying me lower and lower rates of interest if I hadn't acted
2/n
Replying to
I'm not going to be seriously out of pocket from any of these things, as I'm keeping alert to what's going on and taking action where I need to.
But it really gets on my tits that I need to do that.
If the bank can pay competitive interest on some of their ISA accounts, why don't they do it on existing ones?
And when did you ever hear about an electricity company forgetting to charge you for the energy you bought from them?
It's just such a massive faff and a waste of my time.
4/4
#Starmer's government is obviously not as chaotic and incompetent as Johnson's government, but honestly I think it's getting to within an order of magnitude of it now.
Replying to
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I think it's even worse than that. I have a perfectly functional old phone gathering dust in a drawer somewhere.
But it runs Android 8, can't be upgraded (at least I haven't figured out how), and so many apps don't work with older Android versions it eventually became unusable.
Replying to
@Lazarou@mastodon.social @ReggieHere@mastodon.social On the face of it, it's a bizarre theory, but it does get some support from the fact that absolutely everything that Starmer has done since the 2024 election has been 100% consistent with the theory
If I were #Starmer, and if I were confident that I had acted properly and not misled Parliament, then I would absolutely welcome an inquiry by the Privileges Committee so that I could clear my name.
The way he is so strongly fighting against this inquiry being allowed to happen tells you everything you need to know.
Replying to
@paco@infosec.exchange I have indeed had good guidance and I will be invoking original rsync from the shell within my Python script.
The question arose because I will be using a Python script, and sometimes if you can do something directly in Python then it seems neater to me to do it that way rather than invoking a shell command. That would be particularly true if the Python command were more efficient than the shell command, though that looks like it won't be true here.
Replying to
@christineburns I've seen a few of those.
I've often wondered if they zap you with lasers if you get too close. I think they really ought to. That would be cool.
And no, I didn't walk up close to one to find out.
The death of Ann Widdecombe is a useful reminder to us all that we should strive to live our lives in such a way that when we finally shuffle off this mortal coil, other people are actually sad about it.
#BeKind #AnnWiddecombe
Replying to
@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu That sounds awesome! Will it only apply to EU members, or will we be able to take advantage of it for journeys starting from the UK too?