You're going to get left behind if you don't use Al." Leave me then. Leave me with my critical thinking skills, my ability to read and write long- form, and books without needing Al summaries.

Successfully replaced the keyboard on my laptop. Apart from the backlight. Because I got the wrong keyboard. Never mind - I call mostly unfucking an expensive bit of kit without causing a lithium fire* a win in my book! (*look, it happened _one_ time, OK)

Our school has been closing at 2pm and having slightly shortened lessons and breaks. The school is working on a Hot Weather Policy, because we know it’s the new normal. We haven’t the money to air-condition the teaching rooms in our PPI build.

I felt I had no choice but to resign from the BBC due to their attitude to speaking out , in my own time , about both sexual abuse and transphobia, I feel more cancelled than these arse flannels

So… I did lose my job as a Science Technician. Which is sad but, for various reasons I was becoming bored of it. I was offered redeployment as either First Aid Lead, or as a Teaching Assistant for the Special Educational Needs kids. Obviously I took the Teaching Assistant gig.

Literally just finished setting up a jellyfin server. Now to ponder what to do about the FairPlay DRM bullshit.

In other news, my RAID had its first disk crash, so first off, how fucking expensive are disc of spinning rust these days! And secondly, swapping out a disk and there being no data loss is magic, even if I know how the magic is done. I still remember keeping magnets away from cassette tapes.

Did manage to induce actual, genuine, ‘surprised Pikachu’ face in eight people today re:my upcoming redundancy/redeployment. Should see if letting my chaos goblin side out has worked early tomorrow. But it looks like I’m going to be spared getting a P45. For a bit at least.

Today’s thought was how well an AI data centre would deal with a thermite fire, the inert gases and water wouldn’t work, but I wonder if a mist fire suppression system would put it out? Also, the realism/effectiveness of introducing rapid breeding jellyfish into a freshwater source.

Genuinely laughed out loud. That doesn't happen to me often on the internet lately. thehardtimes.net/blog/we-sat-...

For me it’s that they won’t let me start up a paramilitary wing. I can make thermite, I just need to know where the AI data centres are!

I prefer Bluesky in the U.K. evening as in the morning my feed is mostly Americans asking for money for rent or health care.

Easy to sort out - Emla cream (numbing cream) and a steady hand with some scissors. Done it more than once.

I must not make a joke tomorrow. I must not make a joke tomorrow. I must not make a joke tomorrow. I must not make a joke tomorrow.

I suspect that if I tell the Head at my ‘end of consultation’ redundancy meeting tomorrow to hurry it up because I’m bored, I’ll get another ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’ in the minutes. More so if I ask why they requested evidence if they are going to ignore it?

I’ve always had concerns about the Greens and disability policy - they just seem to *forget* disabled people exist. Hopefully the increased membership and possible alternatives for conference voting might change that. But right now, ‘ignored’ might be better than some of the alternatives.

Bet this won't apply to loyalist terrorists: "The legal change, which is expected to complete its final parliamentary stages this week, would also create new criminal offences for people who “support, assist and obtain material benefits” from groups formally listed as state-supported threats."

"Hot weather puts Britain’s food chain on the brink." [Times] "Kew issues red alert as parched soil leaves trees prone to collapse" [Times] There are 3 articles on this page, the 3rd, with same space, is Kate climbing a mountain to raise money for charity.

"France suffers 1,000 extra deaths in heat" relegated to a NiB on page 26 of The Times.

If I have learnt one thing from many years of talking to the cunning folk of Hookland it is of the importance of knowing from which direction evil travels. – #CLNolan, BBC National Programme talk, 1936 #FolkloreAgainstFascism

20% OFF EVERYTHING IN MY SHOP! I am having a huge sale and everything in my shop is 20% off! Tons of new things, including 3d printed and hand painted goodies, stickers, pins, etc. I have some B Grade ITA Bags listed as well ♡ Freebies sent with every order! www.etsy.com/shop/Meggles...

🚨 BREAKING: Health workers and activists took over Brighton beach this evening to demand the UK Government terminates Palantir’s contract with NHS England.

The Anti-Net Zero party, bigging it up with other international climate denial networks and donors at the Alliance for [ir]Responsible Citizenship in London, during the heatwave. At the same time London Climate Action Week cancelled an event on extreme heat due to the extreme heat.

This one needs to be more widely disseminated

That when Buzz Aldrin (a Presbyterian) took communion on the moon (look it up!), he summoned Jesus (Presbytrian doctrine is that J.C. is present during communion). Jesus died in ninety seconds because of asphyxiation from being in a vacuum. That's why it's all been downhill since 1969.

TKDB: Trans kids hang pride flags from Havering Town Hall transkidsdeservebetter.org/trans-kids-hang-pride-flags-from-havering-town-hall

Any disabled speakers at all?

"Broom the soup." A lot of centrists are freaking out right now, and people are both reading too much and too little into the DSA victories, but a metaphor from my career may be helpful here. 1/?

It's not a big deal, it happens to lots of candles.

This. All of this.

This has immeasurably improved my day.

This can’t be overstated.

I can’t even be angry without trying to put in a joke to try and keep people happy. I need to reset the part of my brain that does that, but I spent too much time learning not to just curse and punch people when they anger me.

Red weather warning - so a risk to life of people who are economically active, y’know the ones we care about. Don’t worry too much about the Amber warnings as that only kills the sorts of people we don’t like much anyway. Useless eaters like the old, frail and disabled.

In a bad mood because I’m being thanked for my ‘understanding’ for having my final redundancy meeting rescheduled because something more important* than my job came up. I understand that they are dragging the process out as long as possible, which makes it hard for me to get another school job.

Guessing that these wastes of skin will be sitting in a nice air conditioned room, far from us proles.

Interesting to see Doctorow more than happy to have AI scraping the internet so he can ‘see what was on CBS news’ otherwise he might have to go to the Internet Archive. Also no mention on it scraping racist and science denier websites to spit it out verbatim.

Many asylum seekers arriving in the UK will not have documents proving their age, and if children are incorrectly classed as adults, they can be stripped of some legal protections and placed in adult-only detention centers.

I mean, ORG (The Open Rights Group) and others have been screaming this for ages (since the OSA was first floated in the U.K.), so 🤷‍♂️ ORG also campaigns against this sort of thing and lets people know what they can try and do to stop it. www.openrightsgroup.org

The best guide to Prime Day yet.

So yes. Our school is closing early because of the heat. I think the local school heads have been phoning each other to play chicken over who will blink first and close early. 😂 (I have no evidence of this, but it fits my view of head teachers and borough education departments…)

This morning my brother went to get mum up out of bed and was befuddled to find her on her bed already dressed. She wanted to be ready if the house caught fire. Mum has always had fear of lightning, so her internal logic is fine. And to be fair, there were fires last night.

Damn, that poor guy. Imagine someone lying to you just to get things that they want out of you, and then turning upon you and fucking you over. Awful

Today is full of magics. You don’t need to read about others experiences, you don’t need to capture your own to share. Today, just bathe in it all. Harvest your own omens, revel in whatever blessings the day offers. Refuse to be part of the mediated spectacle. Find your own primal wonder. #Solstice

I've noticed something related. More and more hobby spaces are banning AI. Seeing this a lot on reddit. Not necessarily for ideological reasons. It's because it's increasingly associated with low quality and drowning out better content. Places like r/gamebooks are banning it for this reason.

This is the AI leadership I want to see.

Got the minutes of my first redundancy meeting - they addressed the letter to my brother instead of me, disclosed my sexuality, age and disabled status to my coworkers, tried to bullshit us and it’s all ‘noted’, I make one joke at the end and it’s ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’.