simon_brooke

simon_brooke, 5 days ago to trans

If you're saying that #Trans people cannot use lavatories of their legally assigned and recognised gender, you're essentially saying they cannot safely use lavatories in public places at all. Which means you're saying that they cannot travel, and cannot exist in the public realm. Which means you're also saying that that legal recognition is meaningless and worthless.

Trans people are our brothers and sisters, our comrades. Is this really the world we want to build for them?

simon_brooke, 5 days ago to ubuntu

I think I've whinged here before about my difficulties with #Shotwell after switching from #Ubuntu to #Debian. Well, I've fixed it, and I've published a gist in case anyone wants to do the same.

https://gist.github.com/simon-brooke/d1ed98e731a57212398597f10ce166e0

simon_brooke, 7 days ago to random

It's my belief that we should ban any political contributions above about £100 per annum completely. But an alternative occurred to me this morning:

How about we tax ALL political donations at 50%, and pay the proceeds into the campaign funds of those registered candidates who have received least donations?

#GeneralElectionUK

simon_brooke, 7 days ago to random

"On one thing alone Starmer is right. This is a very off thing for a Labour leader to say" – @RichardJMurphy

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/06/02/starmer-has-now-made-it-clear-he-intends-to-govern-on-behalf-of-the-rich/

simon_brooke, 11 days ago to random

Lesley Riddoch here arguing, essentially, that we all have to bite our tongues, haud oor whischt, and vote #SNP, because "they're the only parliamentary route to #ScottishIndependence. I count Lesley as a friend and as someone I greatly respect, but I think she's wrong here: there is no longer a parliamentary path to independence.

The Lesley Riddoch Podcast: Campaign Pains

Episode webpage: https://share.transistor.fm/s/981581dc

Media file: https://media.transistor.fm/981581dc/601cf266.mp3

simon_brooke, 11 days ago to random

The floor of the #roundhouse is done! Needless to say this is the first time I've been on site in a week, so Lucy has largely done this by herself.

Fitting one of the last pieces, carefully cut to fit round a pillar.
Hammering in the final nail.

simon_brooke, 11 days ago to Scotland

Is it really true that #Scotland's womens' football team is playing #ISRAEL at Hampden this weekend? How is this being allowed? What are we going to do about it?

#Gaza
#GazaGenocide

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to Scotland

Destroying the planet we live on -- the only planet we can live on -- is of course totally legal and even supported and subsidised by governments around the world (including #Scotland's).

But PROTESTING against destroying the planet? That's illegal. That's very, very illegal. Don't even think about doing that.

#ClimateEmergency

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/23/alarm-as-german-climate-activists-charged-with-forming-a-criminal-organisation

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to random

Anyone who was seriously involved in 2014's #indyref, could I persuade you to fill in the questionnaire at https://yeswedidnae.scot/?

#ScotPol
#ScottishIndependence

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to climate

"Over the past two hundred years — but mostly, in fact, over the past fifty years — we've burned several hundred million years worth of stored sunlight. We've dug up and pumped out and burned so much of that stored mineral carbon, returning it to the atmosphere, that the planet is ceasing to be habitable; and if we don't stop doing that, completely, very soon indeed, the planet will have ceased to be habitable."

#ClimateEmergency
#GeneralElectionUK

https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2023-07-03-the-vision-thing/

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to climate

"none of the major parties currently canvassing for votes in England have any convincing and appealing vision of the future. I should say: this is not solely an English problem: I'm not aware of — perhaps because the kleptocrat-owned media chooses not to report on — any major party in any significant nation anywhere in the world which has such a vision"

#ClimateEmergency
#GeneralElectionUK

https://www.
https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2023-07-03-the-vision-thing/

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to climate

"There's a vanity of small differences here. We'll say 'my country (which ever our country is) is more democratic than that other country.' And it may be true. Britain, where Lord Lebedev of Siberia has a permanent, unelected, lifetime seat in the legislature, may be 'more democratic' than the Russian Federation where he was born, and where his father served as a spy."

#ClimateEmergency
#GeneralElectionUK

https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2023-07-03-the-vision-thing/

simon_brooke, 12 days ago to random

While we're on the subject of men, women, and bears, I saw this, and felt it was so perfect I had to share.

simon_brooke, 13 days ago to random

In Ertuğrul Çetin's jme-clj library, there's a lovely little macro get* that constructs the names of Java getter methods on the fly in order to interrogate arbitrary objects. I tried to generalise it to collect values of several properties in a single call, and discovered just how much I have still to learn about the #Clojure evaluator!

https://gist.github.com/simon-brooke/5896998720be3efda3bfab9cfc182b2c

simon_brooke, 14 days ago to random

"This leads us straight back to the original conversation about “Man or Bear,” which has nothing to do with bears. (Sorry, bears!)"

https://bikepacking.com/plog/man-or-bear-debate/

simon_brooke, 14 days ago to random

Ah, jings, I am feeling so ill I'd like to just fall through the space-time continuum.

simon_brooke, 16 days ago to debian

Right, I've managed to compile UnrealEngine for #Debian Stable, which feels like an achievement. If only I could do the same for a reasonably modern version of Shotwell!

#GameDev

simon_brooke, 16 days ago to random

The Chatteratti are saying that the #Conservatives can't find enough candidates. Is it time for those of us on the revolutionary left to accept our patriotic duty, bite the bullet, scrub up, cut our hair, raid the charity shops for suits, and rock up at Central Office chorusing "pick me"?

simon_brooke, 17 days ago (edited 17 days ago) to random

I'm really proud of Standingstone today. A baby was born here this morning, in the yurt we erected for his parents a fortnight ago. I'm proud that we have been able to give them a place to be, relatively protected from the stresses of the world, at this important moment.

But I'm a bit ashamed for Scotland that the best place we can offer to a pair of strangers in our midst, only one of whom speaks English well, to bring a child into the world, is a tent in a field.

#ScotPol
#Housing

>>>

simon_brooke, 17 days ago to Scotland

Candidates so far selected in #Scotland (which is most of them).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_Scotland#Candidates

#GeneralElectionUK
#ScotPol

simon_brooke, 20 days ago to random

I've been listening to the second half of The Rest Is Politics interview with #Kwarteng, and my take away is what TRIVIAL people everyone involved is. Kwarteng is supposed to be one of the intellects of the #Tory party, but they can none of them – not Kwarteng, not Campbell, not even Stewart – string two concepts together.

Leading: 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2)

Episode webpage: http://therestispolitics.com/

Media file: https://pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/A27C8C/traffic.megaphone.fm/GLT7979855855.mp3?updated=1715358972

simon_brooke, 22 days ago to random

"spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible" -- @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/16/symmetrical-10gb-for-119/#utopia

simon_brooke, 25 days ago to random

This week's major project is splitting the tractor, to replace the failed oil seal which is leaking oil from the gearbox into the clutch housing. We've got to the point where the only thing still holding the front half of the tractor to the rear is the steering linkage, and I can't remember how we split that last time!

simon_brooke, 25 days ago to random

OK, folk, help me compile a list of failed "inward investment" projects across Scotland.

I'll start

Rootes Linwood
IBM Greenock
Singer Kilbowie
Stelrad Dalbeattie
Sun Linlithgow
NCR Dundee
Timex Dundee

I must have missed hundreds. Add your picks

#ScotPol

simon_brooke, 26 days ago to random

"After so long in office, with so very little to show for it, you need far more than to rely on the mantra of “competency.” That is the bare minimum anyone should expect from any government. It is not, by any measure, a vision or a strategy for political growth" -- Jonathon Shafi, in the @TheNational

But which government is he talking about?

(I'm encouraged to see Shafi being more of a voice in #ScotPol again; I've ae been impressed with him)

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24317597.jonathon-shafi-shouldnt-place-blind-faith-new-snp-leadership/