Francis 🇾🇪 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @francis@greenplenty.social

Guide Dogs UK has a very important announcement for anyone with tattoos, a beard, an unconventional hairstyle, etc. You are needed to play with puppies.

"We’re issuing a national appeal for volunteers with distinctive characteristics to help socialise the next generation of guide dogs. Our new research shows that 1 in 5 (20 %) of dog owners revealed their dogs have shown signs of fear or confusion when encountering unfamiliar physical attributes." https://bit.ly/3PgRTOc

1978: “We made sand think!”
1993: “We made sand think faster!”
2007: “Wow, that’s some quick sand!”
2024: “We made sand hallucinate!”

✈️ ✊

RIP to Angela Chao, who accidentally reversed into a shallow pond in her Tesla. She called her friends to help, and they arrived. But... none of them knew how to open the doors.

This shouldn't have happened.

AI models found to show language bias by recommending Black defendents be 'sentenced to death'

https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/03/09/ai-models-found-to-show-language-bias-by-recommending-black-defendents-be-sentenced-to-dea

Link to the damn paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00742

Ooo. Company just called I applied for.
Them: We'd like to get you into a round of interviews!
Me: GREAT! How many interviews?
Them: There are six
Me: Oh, Three interviews are my max.
Them: *frustrated* You don't get to decide that.
Me: Oh, but I DO. *click*
Back to #pascal programming :) Fight back #tech bros! Fight back.

I see rich 'non doms' are angry at Jeremey Hunt stealing Labour's policy to end the tax break... and some are now threatening to leave the county.

To my mind this is a bit like squatters complaining to a landlord that the imposition of rent means they will leave & find somewhere else to live...

I say good riddance to them if they don't want to contribute taxes to the maintenance of a country that due to their malign influence is falling apart.

#taxes #JeremyHunt

If seeing Biden both facilitating genocide in Gaza and destroy public health, allowing Covid to cause a mass disabling event, isn't enough to show how dangerous Vote Blue No Matter Who is, I don't know what will convince them. Right wingers are dangerous regardless of whether they have an R or a D after their name.

#US is showing clear signs of pulling out of #ProjectUkraine and this has panicked all #EU puppets to an unprecedented degree.
#LePetitRoi is suffering Napoleonic Syndrome and dreams of wars with Russia, and #FrauGenocide, as she crosses the boundaries of paranoia, wants to develop new weapons systems overnight.

All US puppets in #Europe have become dangerous for peace.

"transgender people are going to destroy Christianity and the traditional American family"

yes, and we need to make faster work of it. chop, chop, everybody!

#climatechange #climatedenial

How much money do you think the United States has spent since 1945 on the Cold War? Sometimes they ask this question then from the back of the audience comes in answer ‘billions and billions‘. A huge underestimate – billions and billions. The amount of money that the United States has spent on the Cold War since 1945 is approximately 10 trillion dollars. Trillion, that’s the big one with the ‘T’. What could you buy with 10 trillion dollars? The answer is: You could buy everything in the United States except the land. Everything. Every building, truck, bus, car, boat, plane, pencil, baby’s diaper. Everything in the United States except the land, that’s what we have spent on the Cold War.

So, now let me ask: How certain was it that the Russians were going to invade? Was it 100% certain? Guess not since they never invaded. What if it was only let say 10% certain? What would advocates of big military buildup have said? We must be prudent. It’s not enough to count on only the most likely circumstance. If the worst happens and it’s really extremely dangerous for us we have to prepare for that. Remote contingencies if there is serious enough have the prepared for. It’s classic military thinking – you prepare for the worst case.

And so now, I ask my friends who are comfortable with that argument, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, why doesn’t that same argument apply to Global Warming. You don’t think it’s 100% likely? Fine. You are entitled to think that. If it’s only a small probability of it happening since the consequences are so serious, don’t you have to make some serious investment to prevent it or mitigate it? I think there’s a double standard of argument working and I don’t think we should permit it.

— Carl Sagan, An excerpt of a speech given on the 2nd of September in 1990 at the 5th Emerging Issues Forum at NCSU