First day of the new year and I have two WD portable hard drives fail. Reminds me to always backup as the damn things are always destined to die at some point. 🙄

I hope that 2025 will bring peace and calm across the world. If we think of the most vulnerable people in society and treat everyone with kindness and respect, friends and strangers alike, then perhaps this year will be a kinder and gentler one. Love to you all 🤗 (Picture Henry Ren - Unsplash)

Two big disappointments this week, two people we used to have great respect for, Rory Stewart after discovering he shoots small birds and supports fox hunting, and @stephenfry.bsky.social after his comments on trans people, Stonewall & politics. Never idolise anyone, they will disappoint you 😕

🔴‘Wes Streeting’s Regressive Ban on Puberty Blockers is a Betrayal of Trans People’ The Health Secretary claims to be led by the evidence but has merely furthered the fact-free anti-trans agenda pursued by the Conservatives, argues Helen Belcher bylinetimes.com/2024/12/13/w...

Who volunteers to save me from weekend boredom? 😵‍💫😝

12/12/24 @bsky.app blog update: “If you change your default Bluesky username to a website URL,… your most recent .bsky.social username is reserved for you, and this reservation does not expire.” Did it. Took 2 minutes. And @scottxot.bsky.social still points here. bsky.social/about/blog/4...

Interesting observation of the day… the #haptic feedback on iOS when pulling the page down to refresh on #Threads app feels like the friction from a rosin coated thread. This is a pretty elaborate use of haptic feedback which shows a degree of OCD from a programmer somewhere 🤓

The Agency (2024) 🍿 is a huge dilemma… I’m rewatching The Bureau (2015) (Le Bureau des Légendes) the French TV series on which is is based. The Agency is set in London (The Barbican features a lot) and is effectively a clone of The Bureau, The Agency is good, but The Bureau is of legendary quality.

Currently watching and enjoying The Day of the Jackal (2024) Well worth checking out. 🙂

A lot of things suck in this lifetime, but I remember when the thought of this was incomprehensible. This is beautiful.

Still have no Christmas plans 🙄 🎄 maybe I’ll just hide for a week…

Just discovered Mondelez have shrunk Galaxy chocolate bars by making them unsatisfyingly thinner… what fuckery is this? They are too thin and when you break a piece off the new size doesn’t sit comfortably in the mouth… meh… 🍫

The amount of hassle it is to refit a curtain pole three inches higher on the wall… yeah I know I could shorten the curtains but I think that would be more inconvenient hmm 🤔

Pictured: Angry pointing at no trees

What flavour?

For those on BlueSky unfamiliar with this modern British tradition: During times of high winds, we all jump on YouTube and watch planes trying to land at Heathrow, with excited commentary from the UK's premier plane nerd channel. Currently live here! www.youtube.com/live/egvoBvc...

What Musk actually said was that Britain’s multi-ethnicity would lead to ‘inevitable’ civil war, and that we are a police state for prosecuting racist rioters. Farage is thanking Musk for his racist agenda

Having to delete and repost a post because of a typo… 🙄

Also time to have a walk around my London neighbourhood looking for bikes, bins and random things that have fallen over to take photos of to illustrate the destructive power of #StormDarragh. 🙃

#Plex dilemma. Do I re-encode all my TV shows, movies and artistic content to H265 now that I’ve almost filled up the 32Tb RAID storage on my NAS? Or do I buy four new drives at insane cost? 🙄

Farage on Musk (reported in The Times): "I have neither solicited nor discussed [a donation] with Elon. He’s very supportive, he thinks Britain is going down the tubes. He thinks that Labour is leading us in a horrendous direction with the death of entrepreneurship and free speech"

The Netatmo smart weather sensors on my balcony in East London are suggesting wind gusts are up to 45 Km/h and are still rising. I don’t think we’re through the worst of #StormDarragh yet.

You know the "🔹AI Overview" you get on Google Search? I discovered today that it's repeating as fact something I made up 7 years ago as a joke. "Kyloren syndrome" is a fictional disease I invented as part of a sting operation to prove that you can publish any nonsense in predatory journals...

🤣🤣🤣

These mass blocking facilities are extremely dangerous to use. Some well known leading lights from X are on these lists just b/c someone decided they followed too many too quickly (due to using Starter Packs) when first arriving on BS & wanting to connect up with their old tribe from X. ☠️Beware‼️

It looks like some #blocklists here are blocking genuine accounts that have been using starter lists and migration tools to follow all. I always found block lists on the other place unreliable so I think here I’ll manually control who I follow and dispense with the automated blocklist bots. 🙂

Bluesky is THE environment for new media and 'public good' publications. Lots of people have been saying it - but I can tell you from the publisher perspective - it's true. Unlike X or Threads, external news content thrives here. So please follow & share my UK media for public good starter pack. 👇

Reports from Israel suggest: - a TV address from Netanyahu at 20.00 local - ceasefire with factions in Lebanon to enter force on Wednesday - deal will likely apply for an initial 60 days, during which more permanent arrangements must be put in place

So clearly a huge number of people don’t like some of the things KS and the Labour government have done and are planning. Their solution? Another election… Great idea… Elect the Conservatives… 😵‍💫 Most of the things we hate about KS govt are because this Labour govt is behaving like Conservatives! 🤨

News has just broke that Trump plans to eject trans people from the military within days of inauguration. Trans servicemembers who have served 19 years will lose their pensions and healthcare. This is obscene. They served our country, and will be kicked to the side like trash.

I think many visiting the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone after the HBO show and STALKER 2 would be surprised to see that it is primarily a beautiful wildlife park with fresh air and wonderful forests… and just a bit of radiation in some places 😀

St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kyiv

Following the ICC's arrest warrants, how can the continued sale of arms to Israel possibly be justified?

The world must be getting bad… I was just showing someone an Instagram video showing children from a local support group in #Gaza cooking food for people. As I mentioned the destruction in the background I almost started crying… just fucking too much… 🥹 www.instagram.com/reel/DCZ3dMe...

Netflix - please stop minimising the end credits of movies to suggest something else. Let viewers enjoy the soundtrack and see the cast and crew that worked on the film. We'll exit it ourselves when ready to. #film #filmsky #movies #moviesky

Currently watching excellent French intelligence drama “The Bureau” aka “Le bureau des légendes” It’s a marvellous, considered, relaxed pace psychological thriller of 5 series with much more technical accuracy than most dramas of this kind. It can be found at Paramount+ 🤓 imdb.com/title/tt4063...

London parks were doing full autumn this afternoon

As the ICC finally issues arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders, here’s a promise. To those who helped facilitate Israel’s genocide - Western politicians, media outlets, and journalists: We will not rest until you are held accountable for the crime you helped commit.

For £106 Apple replaced my Apple Watch with a worn out battery. Setting up new one it is insisting on a 12 digit passcode when it has a 10 digit limit. Prob because the paired iPhone has MDM password restrictions which the watch is inheriting. The irony of it demanding something unsupported though.

If the farmers break the law tomorrow we better see the same response we see to Just Stop Oil. No two tier justice.

@byline.com That’s one of the advantages of this platform. You can register a domain or subdomain as handle and by definition that’s verified as far as the domain owner goes.

Join the King’s College London WarCrimes research group on 27 November for a webinar on #UN Security Council and judicial intervention in #Ukraine and #Israel/Gaza www.tickettailor.com/events/depar...

A politician and a close protection guard are among those the Gambling Commission is looking to prosecute over bets placed on the date of the election A source has told Sky's Jon Craig at least three - and as many as five - people may be charged

In the future when books are written, films made & society look back on this war of #genocide #Israel is waging on #Palestine & #Lebanon, two groups will be defined, those who stayed silent or who collaborated, & those who stood up & denounced it, history will condemn the former.

A disturbing vid of #DonaldTrump declaring war on trans rights. This video is almost 2 yrs old. In a room which looks like it’s had a power cut he cancels concept of gender fluidity stating will only be men & women, laws to be enacted to remove all #trans rights. www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/pre...

Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed tens of thousands of people: many of them children, many parents. So many children have been orphaned during Israel's war against Hamas that no agency or aid group can count them. nyti.ms/46VvfTS

Now in its third year, York's Quiet Pride event on 15 August provides a valuable inclusive and pressure-free alternative, helping communities connect | Helen Jones

The BT Tower, a staple of London's skyline that was once used to send telecom traffic, was sold to an American hotel group on Wednesday. It will be transformed by the company that turned the TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport into a hotel. www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/b...

Unprecedented scenes in the Commons tonight. Absolute mayhem. John McDonnell interviewed just now on Sky News blunt about his opinions and doesn’t pull his punches saying he is “ashamed” of the place and asking if Keir Starmer “threatened” the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

That’s two hours of my life I won’t get back…