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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 6h

Hastings, please, save your pointed metaphors for a less stressful time.

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 13h

She's lovely! Congratulations.

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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 19h

happy 20th birthday to the internets

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 14h

Lusophone world!

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 14h

All of the protected characteristics ennumerated in the Equality Act 2010 are innate from birth. For example, *checks notes*, "marriage or civil partnership".

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 16h

No! No!!

Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 16h

Anyway, delighted that this event commemorating Ursula K. Le Guin will feature a communal pickle barrel. www.aaschool.ac.uk/publicprogra...

AA School

Architectural Association School of Architecture's website homepage is the online entrance into the AA; to its courses from Foundation to PhD for undergraduate and postgraduate students; its open publ...

www.aaschool.ac.uk

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 16h

I'm sure we're all familiar with the communal pickle barrels that didn't make it into The Dispossessed. (See screenshot from an interview with Le Guin. www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...)

Question in bold: "If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be?"

Answer: "In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need. I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book."

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 17h

Proofreading something at work (a guide to some of our portraits) and removing all instances of the phrase "gifted by". "Given" is a perfectly good word that doesn't fill me with rage.

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

photo of Google News search results for Amazon Prime Day (the second this year)

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 1d

It's still used in British English! You could say "that was a real ding-dong" when describing an argument. (Typing it out is making me realise how stupid this sounds. WE HAVE A NORMAL LANGUAGE.)

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 1d

I just watched an episode of 30 Rock which revealed that Tracy Jordan is allergic to allergy medicine.

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svenning🌲 @svenning.io · 1d

We are already seeing some fantastic (but horrible) contributions to the Bad UX World Cup! 😃

This year's challenge: Create a horrible date picker!

See all the contributions (so far) here: badux.lol

#baduxworldcup

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

I think because the world is terrible.

Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

"In fact, he had pointed out, if the CCTV footage stretched back to the dawn of humanity it would probably have only taken an hour to find the moment of theft. This argument didn’t go down well."

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

"You don’t watch the whole thing, he said. You use a binary search. You fast forward to halfway, see if the bike is there and, if it is, zoom to three quarters of the way through. But if it wasn’t there at the halfway mark, you rewind to a quarter of the way through. It’s very quick."

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

"Afterwards I found a chatroom thread among Cambridge computer scientists, one of whom had also been told that unless he could pin down the moment of theft no one would look at the footage. He said he had tried to explain sorting algorithms to police — he was a computer scientist, after all."

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

From the original Times article: "Triumphantly I went to the police. “Look!” I said. “You will be able to see them.” They refused to look at the footage unless I could narrow it down to a window shorter than a few hours. This is, I discovered, a common response."

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

Allegedly, it's been tried. www.iflscience.com/computer-sci...

Computer Scientist Attempts To Get The Police To Find His Stolen Bike Using Math

The binary chop did not go down well with the police.

www.iflscience.com

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

It is a foolish hope; some people will still misread the timetable or go to the wrong place or wander around lost or decide to go to a session that's not the one they're timetabled for, however much I insist on putting text in red and giving painstaking written instructions to the student helpers.

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

I know that thinking "this would work if people would just X" is pointless (people will never just X; that is the nature of people), but I still feel like if I plan things properly and make the written instructions really really clear our library inductions for new students will run smoothly.

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

(I should note that her point wasn't "so we shouldn't care about the people sleeping on the streets"; I think she just wanted to share knowledge about freezing to death, which is honestly quite relatable.)

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

It was a particularly cold winter and people at work were expressing concern for the local homeless people, and then she said that freezing to death is a comparatively peaceful way to go, citing her brother-in-law's last phone call to her sister, while dying on Everest. 😬

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

At least they apparently treat car thefts the same way. We're all getting screwed over, instead of just cyclists. (Cold comfort.)

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Verity @veritysp.bsky.social · 2d

This makes me so angry. Just resign yourself to the fact that if you commute by bike + train and your bike gets stolen from the station, BTP don't care!

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