@iainthomson

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@iainthomson

@iainthomson

@iainthomson

British hack for hire, 30 years covering the technology sector. Signal iainthomson.60

San Francisco Katılım Ocak 2009
1.3K Takip Edilen9.8K Takipçiler
Robert Graham
Robert Graham@robertgraham·
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".
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Terrible Maps
Terrible Maps@TerribleMaps·
The most dangerous animals found in each US state Some of these may be unexpected
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
Covered #BSidesSF and a great talk by @k8em0. She said something that I can't forget. The UN World Food Programme says it could end world hunger in a decade for $40bn a year. This year, five tech companies committed $660–690bn to AI infrastructure. thestack.technology/security-resea…
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Tom Whipple
Tom Whipple@whippletom·
Brutally awful Guardian blind date lady this week
Tom Whipple tweet mediaTom Whipple tweet media
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Earth
Earth@earthcurated·
Post a picture YOU took. Just a pic. No description.
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
Heading into the city to meet a good friend, but it's @StPatricks_Day, which means amateur-hour drinkers. We've got a nice place to go but if you're getting wankered tip the bartenders, who are having a hell of a time, and keep it cheerful. No one likes a fighty drunk.
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
@hugorifkind @DavidDPaxton He also forgot to mention a homosexual war hero is also being removed from the 50 quid note. That's hardly woke.
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David Paxton
David Paxton@DavidDPaxton·
AI slop. More offensive to Churchill’s memory than any hedgehog.
Matt Goodwin@GoodwinMJ

The removal of historical figures such as Winston Churchill from English banknotes may appear trivial to some. But it isn’t. It matters far more than many people realise. Because what we are witnessing is not an isolated decision about banknote design. It is part of something much larger: a slow but relentless erosion of our national culture, identity, and collective memory. As Professor Frank Furedi has observed, we are living through what he calls “the War Against the Past.” Across the Western world, an assortment of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucrats, radical activists, and increasingly compliant public institutions are engaged in a cultural project that seeks to delegitimise our national histories and strip away the symbols that once anchored our collective identity and memory. The pattern is now familiar. Statues are toppled. Historical figures are reframed as morally suspect or “divisive”. Public institutions rename buildings, spaces, Tube lines. School and university reading lists are “decolonised”. The past itself is rewritten to emphasise only its sins while ignoring its achievements. Even the quiet symbolism of everyday life — the images on our currency, the names of our streets, the monuments in our squares — is steadily edited and sanitised. What replaces these symbols is rarely anything meaningful. Instead of historically significant figures who helped shape the nation, we are offered neutral, universal imagery that stands for almost nothing at all — landscapes, wildlife, abstractions. On the surface this seems harmless. But symbolism matters. For centuries, historical figures served as cultural signposts, reminders of the history, struggles and achievements that shaped the nation and its people. Remove those signposts, and something subtle but important begins to change. The past becomes distant. Then contested. And then disposable. Gradually, the story of a nation — its triumphs, failures, and defining moments — is hollowed out. In its place emerges a new idea of national identity that is deliberately thin: one that defines Britain not through its history or traditions but through the abstract celebration of diversity itself. In other words, the only thing that is meant to define us is that we have no defining identity at all. The endpoint of this cultural project is not inclusion but historical amnesia, or cultural erasure. A society that is detached from its past, uncertain of its traditions, and unsure of what binds it together. This is what Sir Roger Scruton meant when he wrote: “A society that loses its memory loses its identity.” And that loss happens gradually, through thousands of seemingly small decisions — a statue removed here, a curriculum altered there, a historical figure quietly replaced on a banknote. Each individual change may appear insignificant. But taken together they represent something far more profound: the slow disconnection of a people from their own history and collective memory. A people who no longer really know who “we” are. I doubt the bureaucrats who made this decision at the Bank of England fully grasp the cultural significance of what they are doing. But intention is not the point. The effect is what matters. When we remove the symbols of our past, we further weaken the very foundations of our identity. Or Orwell warned: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” This is what is happening and accelerating around us. This is what Furedi meant by the “War Against Our Past”. And this is why it really matters. Not because of one banknote. But because of the much larger cultural story it represents.

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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
@JohnLamont Although you do get 20% more to your gallons. Americans are a bit peeved at UK prices, among other things.
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John Lamont
John Lamont@JohnLamont·
@iainthomson Yesterday I filled my car at $6.88/US GAL. Edinburgh Costco. Some garages are $7.80/
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
Big Sur is a beautiful place that is also renowned for having the highest gas prices in the state. I took this a decade ago to show friends how bad things were My better half spotted a local Shell station today is selling petrol/gas at $6 a gallon, up from $4.50 last week.
@iainthomson tweet media
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Andru Edwards
Andru Edwards@AndruEdwards·
Apple just upgraded the @F1 experience! 🏎️ Apple just made Formula One a lot easier to follow in the U.S. One place for the full race weekend. Practice, qualifying, sprint sessions, and every Grand Prix, live or on demand. The gifted package was cool, too. @apple TV 4K, pins, and a seriously clean F1 jacket. But the bigger story is what this means for fans. No more bouncing between apps or trying to figure out where the next session is airing. Race day just got way more convenient. Are you watching F1 on @AppleTV this season? #formula1 #apple #appletv #gifted
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Lisa Forte
Lisa Forte@LisaForteUK·
On a scale of 1 - Aston Martins current F1 car how is your weekend going?!?!
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
@UridiumAuthor I still have mine, although the RAM pack is toast. So many of us learned BASIC the hard way, that bloody keyboard was a nightmare.
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Andrew Braybrook
Andrew Braybrook@UridiumAuthor·
Happy 45th birthday to the ZX81. My Dad bought one, with the 16K RAM pack, and that's where I learned BASIC. The keyboard was mercifully more sturdy than the ZX80 kit build before.
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
My latest piece for The Stack on Microsoft taking a leaf from the antivirus industry and "fingerprinting" LLM prompt injection attacks to block them. The paper looks very interesting but Microsoft isn't saying when it'll be released. thestack.technology/microsoft-prom…
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Edgar McGregor
Edgar McGregor@edgarrmcgregor·
This heatwave in Southern California felt different. It had the quiet, muggy warm mornings that only July and August used to have. The house is hot when you wake up, hot when you go to bed. Hot in the middle of the night. I haven't seen that in past winter heatwaves.
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
Three F-15 Strike Eagles fall for friendly fire over Kuwait during a drone storm attack. The crews are OK but it looks like someone on the air defence team had a Serenity moment.
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
@robertgraham The airport equivalent of "An error has been detected. Press OK to carry on."
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Robert Graham
Robert Graham@robertgraham·
I'm at Atanta Airport. Alarm is going off. "May I have your attention please. An emergency has been reported in the building. While this is being verified, please stand by for further instructions."
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@iainthomson
@iainthomson@iainthomson·
@Ruchicodess A lovely shot, but the Bay Bridge doesn't get the respect it deserves. It was a tougher engineering job, built the then world's largest tunnel that was used to create Treasure Island, and more vital in economic terms than linking to Marin. And its light show is marvelous.
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Ruchi Pakhle
Ruchi Pakhle@Ruchicodess·
san francisco is incredible
Ruchi Pakhle tweet media
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