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Andrew Cherry

@kolektiv.xyncro.com

75 followers 310 following 280 posts

Tech-person, primarily software, occasionally hardware. Somewhat of the left. Dog-dad (also actual child-dad). He/Him. European.

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Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 11h

Yeah, friends with kids at other schools have mentioned the same, so it seems at least somewhat coordinated. Good on them indeed.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 11h

Had an email from my son's school about this earlier today. Just bizarre, what the hell motivates some people? Maybe, very generously, it's some automated domain squatting system, but even so - come on, world...

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 18h

Bookmarked for potential purchase with reckless financial abandon.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 18h

This does sound like a cracking read, if (as seems likely, given the balance of probability) a free copy doesn't migrate to my doorstep, it'll have to go on the increasingly bankruptcy-inducing books-to-be-bought list.

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 20h

I'm giving away this signed 1st edition h/b of my new novel (it has a tiny jacket rip which means I wouldn't sell it) to one person who reposts this.

You might like it if you like:
Folkloric creatures
Old records
Intricate psychedelic stories
The idea of circular time

All shares much-appreciated.

Joe McLaren's fabulous cover for Everything Will Swallow You

A close up of the small tear on this first edition of Everything Will Swallow You

Reposted by Andrew Cherry

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 20h

I'm giving away this signed 1st edition h/b of my new novel (it has a tiny jacket rip which means I wouldn't sell it) to one person who reposts this.

You might like it if you like:
Folkloric creatures
Old records
Intricate psychedelic stories
The idea of circular time

All shares much-appreciated.

Joe McLaren's fabulous cover for Everything Will Swallow You

A close up of the small tear on this first edition of Everything Will Swallow You

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 1d

I was wondering that, doesn't seem to be any I recognise, and cars of that age would generally have had much shorter registration codes of whatever form.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 2d

What would a social network look like in an ideal world? I'm not entirely sure it's this... I dashed off some quick thoughts while they were still in my mind, I'll come back and refine further later, perhaps...

blog.xyncro.com/bluesky-thin...

Reposted by Andrew Cherry

@davidgauke @davidgauke.bsky.social · 2d

Half-baked tales of rulings turning on chicken nuggets are no basis for cutting Britain adrift. My Times piece on the Tories’ policy of leaving the ECHR based on spurious claims. www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Leaving the ECHR won’t fix illegal migration

Half-baked tales of rulings turning on chicken nuggets are no basis for cutting Britain adrift

www.thetimes.com

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

I'm not on Mastodon (that I can remember), but please tell me there's a mode where you have to crank the handle regularly for the MP3s to play, like a gramophone...

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

Yeah, it's funny how people who are all "I'm great at recognising patterns and systems" seem to have the same set of potential personal disasters in waiting.

<looks in mirror>

Oh no...

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

Hilariously shoddy AI-generated memes at that, as if it's not that you can't read the room, but that you hate the room, and all that the room loves.

Just a bizarre masterclass in anti-PR which seems to stem from the usual cause: "But I've solved this with engineering! Why don't you love me!"

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

Right now it's giving very "No, it's the kids that are wrong" energy, and that doesn't fly. People are experiencing a human social problem, and being told it's just tech - or at least they feel that. Feelings matter, even if you're technically correct. Note: it is *not* the best kind of correct...!

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

Like it or not, if you've built something and have a lot of users, you can't ignore what they think your product is. You can evolve to what you planned, sure, but you also need to think about how to do that without your users seeing it as a rug pull.

/3

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

Neutral infra is a totally fine thing to build, but it's not what the majority of users thought they were adopting, and it's also not how bsky appeared to act. bsky might have thought that's what they were selling, but it's not what people bought.

/2

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 4d

I would say that it's a big technical/theorist selling point, but it's not what most of the users that left Twitter thought they were getting. Especially if you start to push that point before there's an option for the moderation that many would like.

/1

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 5d

Maybe some, but from what I read, a lot of people just want consistency. Is it a moderated platform or isn't it? Can the ToS be applied openly and equitably? Right now it just seems like reactive flailing rather than any kind of actual strategy, and comms are very much not helping that.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 5d

I need to get my head back around where things have got to, I did a while back but things have clearly evolved. If I can find some time and headspace I'll try and find a way to contribute even if it's tiny at the moment. Much love for what you've done and are trying to do.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 5d

It's feeling like there really needs to be an equivalent to Blacksky for people who share those values but who (for obvious and valid reasons) aren't part of Blacksky. I wish I knew a good way to define that. We need more communities, not just user bases.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 6d

While I was never likely to have been a voter for Letwin, it's astonishing how much politics, and the Tory party in particular, has degenerated from even that relatively recent point. Thoughtful, articulate, and more careful of an end goal than party points scoring - can we have those Tories back?

Reposted by Andrew Cherry

Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 6d

The Times finds it "unacceptable" that people who came here legally in 2021 and have been living and working here since should allowed to stay.

The sad decline of a once great newspaper into ignorant xenophobia and casual racism

archive.ph/TFZY9

There is a more pressing issue. Ministers must ensure that the vast numbers of immigrants who arrived in the so-called Boriswave of 2020-21 are not automatically absorbed into the permanent population. They are about to cross the the five-year threshold into ILR, yet Labour continues to dither. Ms Mahmood must freeze the status of this huge cohort while a new residency regime is finalised. A million or more extra permanent residents in these islands, let in on the nod, is simply unacceptable. Finally, the home secretary must acquaint herself, and the public, with an accurate estimate of the actual number of foreign nationals living here, what taxes they pay and what services they consume. Without hard data, all the political parties are fumbling around in the dark.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 6d

I don't even need to read the article to be entirely confident that if there's ever an answer to this, it will not be flying cars (fine, electric flying taxis, sure). The answer is not flying cars. It is never flying cars.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 6d

I don't know how you can become a Stanford researcher while making so many completely un-evidenced claims in that many words, either. So many assertions presented as facts! So few definitions! Did nobody editing say "What is a digital mind? Also, while you're at it, define a mind."

Reposted by Andrew Cherry

The Onion @theonion.com · 8d

Stress-Free Eric Adams Spends Day Bribing Pigeons In Central Park

Stress-Free Eric Adams Spends Day Bribing Pigeons In Central Park

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 8d

The litmus test seems to be "are Labour actually going to do something fundamentally immoral and unfair for the sake of perceived electoral gain?" - but I would argue that they've already failed, the real test should be "would you even consider something so callous?". Whatever happens, we know now.

Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 8d

Hah, I do indeed. FPTP is potentially going to give the kind of result that's never been seen here, agreed - on the optimistic positive side, maybe we'll find that we actually work quite well without a government, perhaps we should send some folks on a fact-finding trip to Belgium...