Ruth
@sugarglider.bsky.social
Wildly swerving between cozy pictures of sewing projects and cats, and what some people call 'politics'.
Pinned
Ruth
@sugarglider.bsky.social
· Mar 5
I made a boycott American products list for the UK, because I was so frustrated with the incorrect ones circling. And found the character limit for Alt Text whilst I was at it. I love my US folk but I can't be spending my money with your companies at the moment.
I have an app to control my heating and it tells me each day why the heating came on as much as it did, using cute emoticons. Except there's only two options:
☁️ means the weather effected the need for heat
🧑🦲 means "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM you weak southern softy, you can't take a bit of cold".
☁️ means the weather effected the need for heat
🧑🦲 means "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM you weak southern softy, you can't take a bit of cold".
November 12, 2025 at 2:59 PM
I have an app to control my heating and it tells me each day why the heating came on as much as it did, using cute emoticons. Except there's only two options:
☁️ means the weather effected the need for heat
🧑🦲 means "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM you weak southern softy, you can't take a bit of cold".
☁️ means the weather effected the need for heat
🧑🦲 means "YOU'RE THE PROBLEM you weak southern softy, you can't take a bit of cold".
Reposted by Ruth
The British government admits it is now monitoring VPNs use by UK residents. Regulator Ofcom has contracted with an AI-powered surveillance service to detect the number of citizens using VPNs to evade the Online Safety Act.
The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
Exclusive: Ofcom is monitoring VPNs following Online Safety Act. Here's how
Ignoring VPNs risks creating ineffective laws, but tracking them threatens people's privacy
www.techradar.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:39 PM
The British government admits it is now monitoring VPNs use by UK residents. Regulator Ofcom has contracted with an AI-powered surveillance service to detect the number of citizens using VPNs to evade the Online Safety Act.
The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
Reposted by Ruth
Victorian artist Georgiana Houghton pioneered spirit-guided abstract art, producing visionary, colorful drawings claimed to be influenced by spirits.
November 11, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Victorian artist Georgiana Houghton pioneered spirit-guided abstract art, producing visionary, colorful drawings claimed to be influenced by spirits.
I wonder if, before we put a per mile charge on electric vehicles, we could tax jet fuel? Like, at all? Maybe do a tax on private jets?
November 7, 2025 at 10:07 AM
I wonder if, before we put a per mile charge on electric vehicles, we could tax jet fuel? Like, at all? Maybe do a tax on private jets?
Trying to pace myself with the new Thursday Murder Club book. The writing and tone of voice for the characters is just so joyful and warm and full of hope even when life is hard, and I think the author has such a succinct way of expressing things, I don't want it to end too fast.
November 5, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Trying to pace myself with the new Thursday Murder Club book. The writing and tone of voice for the characters is just so joyful and warm and full of hope even when life is hard, and I think the author has such a succinct way of expressing things, I don't want it to end too fast.
I am trying to be hopeful but I suspect the upcoming budget will be tax rises on working people via income and VAT and nothing particularly useful directed at millionaires/billionaires.
November 4, 2025 at 10:21 AM
I am trying to be hopeful but I suspect the upcoming budget will be tax rises on working people via income and VAT and nothing particularly useful directed at millionaires/billionaires.
Lots of 'ketamine for depression' trials atm. Ketamine is a dissociative drug. A break from the intensity of life can help people, but only if you return renewed to deal with it, are supported, and your environment improved. Otherwise we really are just anaesthetising the pain.
November 3, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Lots of 'ketamine for depression' trials atm. Ketamine is a dissociative drug. A break from the intensity of life can help people, but only if you return renewed to deal with it, are supported, and your environment improved. Otherwise we really are just anaesthetising the pain.
Reposted by Ruth
"There are times when protecting the right to freedom of speech and freedom to protest can mean that activity that would otherwise be unlawful would be regarded as lawful by the court to protect those rights," - Judge Paul Dugdale
Just Stop Oil activists cleared over Stonehenge protest
The trio are cleared of all charges after citing human rights law in their defence.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 2, 2025 at 4:04 PM
"There are times when protecting the right to freedom of speech and freedom to protest can mean that activity that would otherwise be unlawful would be regarded as lawful by the court to protect those rights," - Judge Paul Dugdale
Next year I hope life is quiet enough, and I have enough energy, to run a pumpkin carving party the weekend before Halloween. I think it would be super cozy to hang out and carve pumpkins and eat thematic nibbles and maybe drink lunch out of a cauldron or something.
November 1, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Next year I hope life is quiet enough, and I have enough energy, to run a pumpkin carving party the weekend before Halloween. I think it would be super cozy to hang out and carve pumpkins and eat thematic nibbles and maybe drink lunch out of a cauldron or something.
One of my absolute favourite Tom Cardy songs. Perfect for apooky season! What a banger!
October 28, 2025 at 10:54 AM
One of my absolute favourite Tom Cardy songs. Perfect for apooky season! What a banger!
I stayed in the most amazing 16th century mansion/hall this weekend gone. Original wooden spiral staircases, original ceiling plasters, horse-hair plaster infill in the wooden walls. Almost no modern rooms or features. And you can just hire it!
October 27, 2025 at 11:58 AM
I stayed in the most amazing 16th century mansion/hall this weekend gone. Original wooden spiral staircases, original ceiling plasters, horse-hair plaster infill in the wooden walls. Almost no modern rooms or features. And you can just hire it!
Reposted by Ruth
🚨BREAKING : The Green Party has passed 150,000 members 🥳
Thousands are joining right now to help us replace Labour and take the fight to Reform.
Are you in?
Make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now ⤵️
Thousands are joining right now to help us replace Labour and take the fight to Reform.
Are you in?
Make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now ⤵️
October 27, 2025 at 10:00 AM
🚨BREAKING : The Green Party has passed 150,000 members 🥳
Thousands are joining right now to help us replace Labour and take the fight to Reform.
Are you in?
Make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now ⤵️
Thousands are joining right now to help us replace Labour and take the fight to Reform.
Are you in?
Make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now ⤵️
First experience of AI at a larp this weekend, used as a kind of interactive history library for the world. Less cute when it made up a load of stuff that the event organizer hadn't written and wasted two or more hours of our event by leading us down a dead end. Would not recommend.
October 26, 2025 at 3:30 PM
First experience of AI at a larp this weekend, used as a kind of interactive history library for the world. Less cute when it made up a load of stuff that the event organizer hadn't written and wasted two or more hours of our event by leading us down a dead end. Would not recommend.
Looks like Plaid is your party in Wales, folks.
Thank you Caerphilly for coming our against Reform.
Thank you Caerphilly for coming our against Reform.
My latest newsletter with all the analysis from a historic Caerphilly byelection
willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/plaid-smas...
willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/plaid-smas...
Plaid smash Reform to win in Caerphilly
These are the key takeaways from a massive night in Welsh politics
willhaywardwales.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Looks like Plaid is your party in Wales, folks.
Thank you Caerphilly for coming our against Reform.
Thank you Caerphilly for coming our against Reform.
I wish some of my elder not-relatives with Indefinite Leave to Rain realised they could be voting for their own deportation if they continue to vote Conservative.
Tory policy is to revoke permanent residence (ILR) for everybody who does not earn £38k - deporting most nurses who have ILR
This is put in the video as "who is unlikely to contribute more than they cost"
NB: video does not say EU settled status is exempt
No govt since Idi Amin has done this
This is put in the video as "who is unlikely to contribute more than they cost"
NB: video does not say EU settled status is exempt
No govt since Idi Amin has done this
October 22, 2025 at 9:36 AM
I wish some of my elder not-relatives with Indefinite Leave to Rain realised they could be voting for their own deportation if they continue to vote Conservative.
Funny but true (and therefore a touch depressing).
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji@jpeg)
October 20, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Funny but true (and therefore a touch depressing).
Kinda wild that Pokémon Go owner Niantic used the game's players to develop a geospatial AI (based on their images when they used the scaniverse feature), then sold off the game, apparently so it could focus on selling the new AI model to the military.
October 20, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Kinda wild that Pokémon Go owner Niantic used the game's players to develop a geospatial AI (based on their images when they used the scaniverse feature), then sold off the game, apparently so it could focus on selling the new AI model to the military.
Tacked up enough white EPP pieces to start to think about how I will lay out this quilt. I think it's going to look like this, perhaps. For this layout I could make the white pieces as stretch hexagons rather than the rhomboids you see here. Not sure what would look better though.
#quilting
#quilting
October 19, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Tacked up enough white EPP pieces to start to think about how I will lay out this quilt. I think it's going to look like this, perhaps. For this layout I could make the white pieces as stretch hexagons rather than the rhomboids you see here. Not sure what would look better though.
#quilting
#quilting
Reposted by Ruth
"We are coming for the Labour government and we are taking the fight to Reform.”
Be part of it. Join the Green Party today! 👇
Be part of it. Join the Green Party today! 👇
October 19, 2025 at 1:37 PM
"We are coming for the Labour government and we are taking the fight to Reform.”
Be part of it. Join the Green Party today! 👇
Be part of it. Join the Green Party today! 👇
I have been to 20-30 weddings in my life time, and I realised the one thing I would spend thousands of pounds on for my wedding is probably a decent cup of coffee 🫣
October 18, 2025 at 6:20 PM
I have been to 20-30 weddings in my life time, and I realised the one thing I would spend thousands of pounds on for my wedding is probably a decent cup of coffee 🫣
Joined the Green Party a few days ago. First impressions: immediately involved in confirming nominations, invited to local WhatsApp group, sent emails about attending regional meetings including with leader. Don't think my membership of Labour ever included this much democracy.
October 18, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Joined the Green Party a few days ago. First impressions: immediately involved in confirming nominations, invited to local WhatsApp group, sent emails about attending regional meetings including with leader. Don't think my membership of Labour ever included this much democracy.
Reposted by Ruth
So glad I switched from a gas cooker and wood burning stove over to electric (induction and an air-to-air heat pump) several years back.
And not just for climate reasons.
share.google/e6mbJFgsx5Yv...
And not just for climate reasons.
share.google/e6mbJFgsx5Yv...
Wood burning and gas cooking hugely costly to healthcare systems, New Zealand study finds
Experts suggest replacing gas hobs with electric ones, saying it is a win–win for health and the climate
share.google
October 17, 2025 at 8:06 PM
So glad I switched from a gas cooker and wood burning stove over to electric (induction and an air-to-air heat pump) several years back.
And not just for climate reasons.
share.google/e6mbJFgsx5Yv...
And not just for climate reasons.
share.google/e6mbJFgsx5Yv...
Reposted by Ruth
Any full time job that requires a government top up to live means that capital is once more stealing from the tax payer
there is no world in which a full time job should be allowed to pay less than a living wage
October 16, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Any full time job that requires a government top up to live means that capital is once more stealing from the tax payer
Shit loads + 1; I joined this afternoon.
We now have 115,000 members (translation: a sh*t load).
And we're not stopping there. Thousands of people are joining every week to be part of a different, hopeful politics.
Join the Green Party today ⤵️
And we're not stopping there. Thousands of people are joining every week to be part of a different, hopeful politics.
Join the Green Party today ⤵️
October 16, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Shit loads + 1; I joined this afternoon.