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TimWardCam

@[email protected]

Cambridge Liberal Democrat. Techie. One time pilot.

Profile picture: street furniture - I take pictures of interesting street furniture when travelling. In this context it is appropriate for the street lighting columns to be gold plated.

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ChrisMayLA6 , to bookstodon group
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 153.

Each of Emma Newman's Planetfall quartet explores a different aspect of the same overarching story of religious driven intergalactic migration. In Atlas Alone (2019), the fourth story centres on an elite gamer & their attempt to uncover & then take revenge for a crime against humanity. To say much more would ruin the plot for you, but as with the others, this is great, fascinating sci-fi, which has a great payoff at the end.


@bookstodon

TimWardCam ,
@TimWardCam@c.im avatar

@ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon I'm always puzzled by galactic scale SF which as religion as a thing. Surely, one might expect, by the time any civilisation has reached galactic scale it will long since have left religion behind it?

TimWardCam ,
@TimWardCam@c.im avatar

@fskornia @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon Maybe I should have said "hope" rather than "expect" ... 🤣

TimWardCam ,
@TimWardCam@c.im avatar

@Thebratdragon @ChrisMayLA6 @bookstodon No, not seen those.

nixCraft , to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

The real guide to interpreting developer job ads 🤡 EDIT: I believe this is an old image from the bird site https://twitter.com/rundavidrun/status/689165491760316416

Guide to software developer job advertisements A table of job description -> what it means work on cutting edge technology -> Do what everyone else is doing a fast-paced environment -> Your job will be constant firefighting must be a team player -> Must not question authority able to work with minimal supervision -> You'll be the one we blame when something goes wrong an Agile team -> We have daily stand-ups a market leader -> Recently started making a profit rockstar developer -> You will work very long hours with impossible deadlines we have an urgent need -> Our other rockstar just left and no one understands the code dynamic environment -> Our leadership keeps changing priorities self-starter -> We have no process passionate -> Perseveres through regular death marches
ALT
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    • TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @nixCraft Reminds me of a boring bit of bus journey in India.

    Amongst other entertainments, our tour guide kept us awake by reading some of the matrimonial ads from the newspaper and telling us what the code words meant in real life.

    nixCraft , to random
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    What Happens When a Romance Writer Gets Locked Out of Google Docs: In March, an aspiring author got a troubling message: All of her works in progress were no longer accessible. What happened next is every writer’s worst fear. Remember, the cloud is just someone else’s computer https://www.wired.com/story/what-happens-when-a-romance-author-gets-locked-out-of-google-docs/

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @nixCraft Once Upon A Time it was like "you trust the bank to look after your money, don't you? - so why wouldn't you trust the cloud to look after your bits?"

    Point is that I don't trust the bank to look after my money. What I trust them to do is replace it if they cock up and lose it, with different, but identically useful, money of their own, sourced from somewhere else that isn't my concern.

    It's the "identically useful" that's hard if a cloud provider loses your particular collection of bits.

    lowqualityfacts , to random
    @lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

    I always drive at least 40mph over the limit just to be safe.
    https://patreon.com/lowqualityfacts

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @lowqualityfacts We do get taught about a minimum speed limit sign in the UK. I don't know whether there actually are any - in half a century of driving I've never knowingly seen one. https://mocktheorytest.com/resources/different-types-of-speed-limit-signs-in-the-uk/

    ashleygjovik , to random
    @ashleygjovik@mastodon.social avatar

    The United States has invaded the United States in order to bring freedom and democracy to the United States.

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @ashleygjovik "They've got to be protected / all their rights respected / 'till somebody we like can be elected"

    I wonder what he thinks of this policy now being applied within the US? - I guess someone could always ask him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhZF66C1Dc

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @ashleygjovik Try his other stuff. If you don't mind things that really aren't politically correct. https://tomlehrersongs.com/

    nixCraft , (edited ) to random
    @nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

    Poll: Please clarify what your primary purpose is for using : 🤔

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @nixCraft "Because I'm paid to" or "because that's what you get on a Raspberry Pi" or "because that's what my ISP offers" or "because that's what my phone runs" (if you're counting Android) are my reasons.

    antanicus , to random Italian
    @antanicus@puntarella.party avatar

    "Unlike much sought-after electrical battery components, salt is widely dispersed, easily extracted and able to store heat with minimal degradation or toxic by-products. It is estimated that the salt tanks can be re-charged thousands of times for up to 40 years – at least three times longer than other current storage options."

    Imagine believing the way out of the climate apocalypse is to waste billions on nuclear tractors instead of investing a fraction of that to perfect energy storage...

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/01/thermal-energy-storage-industry

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @antanicus Anyone who has had bad experiences with previous generations of thermal batteries - night storage heaters, which were essentially utterly crap at doing their jobs - will be particularly interested to see how this pans out.

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @antanicus Well, for one thing, a lot of people would have been expensively cold for some years until the tech started improving.

    ajsadauskas , to Fuck Cars
    @ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

    What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?

    A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.

    Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I'm not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.

    How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?

    @fuck_cars

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars One thing you can get within a 15 minute walk of some US homes is arrested!

    (My grandma went for a walk in a Miami suburb. The locals thought that someone walking (rather than driving) was obviously suspicious so they called the cops. Because my grandma was white and female and elderly, rather than black and male and young, they stopped to talk to her rather than just shooting her. They then spent several minutes trying to get her to admit that she was walking because her car had broken down - they just couldn't get it through their heads that she was walking because she wanted to walk.)

    georgetakei , to random
    @georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar

    All these red states are now boasting about how they are withdrawing from the American Library Association. They aren’t just satisfied with banning books, they want to get rid of the places that keep and lend them, too. The Christian Right is on the march.

    Carl Sagan once warned us of the “dumbing down” of America. He warned of a time when our “critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...”

    That time is upon us. We must do all we can to prevent that darkness from taking hold.

    TimWardCam ,
    @TimWardCam@c.im avatar

    @georgetakei There is still no such concept as "Christian Right". Someone can be Christian or they can be right wing, but they can't be both - anyone who claims to be is lying.

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