James Wallbank

@dataknotsdesks

Artist. Designer. Maker. Cottage Industrialist. Operates lasers and has opinions. 🪧

1,201 Following1,088 Followers1,812 Posts

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James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· 21d

I've been using this sander for years. Only yesterday did I notice… (Genuine photo, not edited, not AI.)

Photo: the front plate of a power tool, including the on/off switches. Text reads. " EXCEL 370W Belt and Dics Sander".

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· 22d

With accessible, searchable Alt Text… (You're welcome!)

Ok hear me out: instead of all of us having to become extremely knowledgeable on a new infectious disease every 3-6 months, what if we got a large group of experts together and just put them in charge of giving us easy to understand health recommendations. They could also do things like track outbreaks and predict future concerns.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· 23d

Did somebody say random rampage?

Bongo the Bengal Cat looking eager for action, if that action involves entertaining chaos. Or blood.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· 29d

Those pesky elite conspirators get everywhere…

Photograph: street furniture, a telecoms box painted an unobtrusive grayish green. On it, graffiti in white marker pen. It reads "FARAGE = FASCIST" with a less clear signature, probably "RiP".

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jul 14

In the USA most citizens feel that their fellow citizens are the bad guys.

In many countries, people see their fellow citizens as morally good.

% who rate the morality and ethics of people in their country as…

Country — Good / Bad

U.S. — 47 / 53
Turkey — 51 / 49
Brazil — 51 / 48
Greece — 55 / 44
France — 55 / 43
Italy — 59 / 40
South Africa — 63 / 36
Hungary — 68 / 31
Argentina — 70 / 29
Nigeria — 71 / 29
Poland — 70 / 28
Spain — 71 / 29
Kenya — 72 / 28
Israel — 68 / 27
Germany — 72 / 27
South Korea — 78 / 22
Netherlands — 80 / 19
U.K. — 82 / 17
Mexico — 83 / 17
Japan — 83 / 16
Australia — 85 / 14
Sweden — 88 / 12
lndia — 88 / 9
Indonesia — 92 / 8
Canada — 92 / 7

Note: Those who did not answer are not shown.

Source: Spring 2025 Global Attitudes Survey "In 25-Country Survey, Americans Especially Likely To View Fellow Citizens as Morally Bad"
PEW RESEARCH CENTER

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 29

And here's this with accessible, searchable Alt Text. You're welcome!

Screenshot from X
Ron wright @ronst... 2d

Elon Musk once jokingly offered to end World Hunger, asking how much it would cost as if it would be some incalculable number. When the UN replied saying 6.6 Billion would be enough to immediately end Famine for the year he never responded, and a few months later bought Twitter for 44 Billion.
You struggle and suffer because people like him are allowed to exist, not because your neighbor is an immigrant.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 29

🐆🗿

Bongo the Bengal Cat sitting on a low, stone garden wall. Behind him are verdant plants. He's surveying the scene in a relaxed, alert manner. Next to him is a decorative stone sculpture of a goofy face.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 23

Very satisfactory working conditions in the basement! Just 3°C higher than normal.

Analogue thermometer hung on a rough, brick and stone wall. It shows 19°C (66°F). Outside it was 32°C (89°F).

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 18

No results found for "Chloe Albanesius".

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 17

For the most part, Tabletop Roleplaying Games are just pulpy entertainment, with very little cultural or literary merit, or critical insight. But, very occasionally, you get a passage like this… #Mothership #TTRPG #Ballardian #JGB

47.2 CORPORATE POWER
When running the Company it's helpful to assume it has functionally unlimited resources. Assume it's above the law Assume its agents are able to get to anyone, Assume there is a permanent record filed away somewhere with blackmail on every member of the crew. Assume anything the crewmembers own is actually just leased through the Company. Assume the Company always has another crew, just as disposable, just as desperate, to clean things up if your players can't get the job done. Assume illegal research procedures, flagrant regulatory violations, price fixing, collusion, corporate espionage, colonial extortion, bribery, negligence, and embezzlement. Assume invasive biometric tracking, disinformation campaigns, industrial sabotage, proxy wars, human and animal experimentation, rampant pollution, and environmental collapse. Assume abandoned space stations, colonies, cities, and worlds. Assume their products cause cancer. Assume they covertly fund terrorist groups. Assume ties to organized crime. Assume they're overextended in debt and on the brink of collapse which will trigger an interstellar economic meltdown. Assume they've done all of this before. Assume they will never stop.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 16

This is the infographic that persuaded me that our current eating patterns are unsustainable. Anyone who honestly thinks they care about wildlife can't kid themselves any more.

Infographic:
The global biomass of wild mammals.

Humans 390mt
Wild Land 22mt
Wild Marine 40mt

Domesticated 630mt, including: Cattle 420mt, Dogs 20mt, Cats 2mt.

Source: Greenspoon, L.,et al. (2023). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(10), e2204892120

findingnature.org.uk

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 15

Just looking at Emoji to find out what the Iranian Flag looks like. Of course there are other ways to find out, but it was a casual thought and the keyboard was open. YOU CAN'T SEARCH FOR IT! Open Emoji search, and type "IRA". The Iranian Flag is shown, along with the Iraqi Flag. Now type N…

Screenshot: An Emoji search for the text "IRA" shows the Iranian Flag, along with the Iraqi Flag, a "Shout" speech bubble, and two annoyed faces. (These last three emoji may be responses associated with the word "irate".)

Screenshot: An Emoji search for the text "IRAN" returns "No results found".

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 15

And here that is with accessible, searchable Alt-Text. You're welcome!

A screenshot from social media…

Anonymous @YourAnonNews
[ PUTTING WORKERS FIRST ]

Imagine waking up tomorrow and every billionaire vanished. Most people would still go to work. Food would still be grown. Roads would still be built. Hospitals would still operate. Now imagine every worker vanished. That's the difference between wealth and value.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Jun 14

🐆😎

Bongo the Bengal Cat, sitting upright in the sun. Behind him are a stone wall, various plants, and a yew tree.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 26

🐆😎

Bongo the Bengal cat lying on a colourful rug in the shade. He looks calmly at the camera. The decorative feet of metal garden furnuture are visible next to him.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 26

🐆💤

Bongo the Bengal Cat laying on a colourful carpet on a white-painted veranda. He's stretched out in a relaxed, yoga-like pose.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 24

Car boot sale. Worn tools, grimey toys, obsolete electricals, odd tiles, tired homewares, tarnished trinkets, bad books, propane, polythene, polyester, nylon, lycra, vinyl. Sunglasses, vapes, scooters, decaying flesh. A tableau shaped by the unseen ubiquity of nostalgia, refined sugar and crude oil.

Road signs on a grassy traffic island. Bright sunshine.

<- Coal Aston (B6158)
<- Batemoor Jordanthorpe Norton (B6158)
<- BOWSHAW CAR BOOT

On the Coal Aston sign, a sticker depicts The Chuckle Brothers.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 22

Yes indeed! Bongo does a very good impression of a charming little kitty, but actually he leads a double life—at night he's a streetfighter and professional assassin. 😼

Bongo the Bengal Cat, relaxing on a sun-dappled veranda. He's lying on a patterned carpet runner looking very innocent, apart from his notched left ear.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 22

Slightly cheated—this is the last one I rated as any good—from an hour ago.

Bongo the Bengal Cat washing his left front paw. In the process he's revealing that his claws are sharp and positively terrifying.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 20

Attached to a black metal lamp post, next to a recently trimmed hedge, is a printed sticker. It bears a text, in red, which has faded to pink, "Our enemies don't arrive by boat, they arrive by private jet.". The sticker also bears a picture of Elon Musk, smiling.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 16

Artists. Authors. Screenwriters. Game Designers. Futurists. Listen Up!

Rough cyanotype, printed on a page torn out of a ring-bound sketchbook. The objects exposed are individual letters of an industrial character, possibly from a signboard. They spell out a message, in white, in slightly wonky lines.

I NEED THAT
WILD STUFF
NOT MORE TROPES
WADING THROUGH
PORRIDGE

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 15

Attached to a piece of street furniture, painted in unobtrusive dark green, is a printed sticker. It bears a text, in red, "Our enemies don't arrive by boat, they arrive by private jet.". The sticker also bears a picture of Elon Musk, smiling.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 15

Want some ALT text with that? (Now it's accessible AND searchable.) You're welcome!

I just saw a transphobic past that was like, "In a sexual species, females have two X chromosomes and males have an X and a Y, I'm not a bigot it's just science." l'm a science teacher, so I commented this:

First of all, in a sexual species, you can have females be XX and males be X (insects), you can have females be ZW and males be ZZ (birds), you can have females be females because they developed in a warm environment and males be males because they developed in a cool environment (reptiles), you can have females be females because they lost a penis sword fighting contest (some flatworms), you can have males be males because they were born female, but changed sexes because the only male in their group died (parrotfish and clownfish), you can have males look and act like females because they are trying to get close enough to actual females to mate with them (cuttlefish, bluegills, others), or you can be one of thousands of sexes (slime mold, some mushrooms.) Oh, did you mean humans? Oh ok then. You can be male because you were born female, but you have 5-alphareductase deficiency and so you grew a penis at age 12. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but you are insensitive to androgens, and so you have a female body. You can be female because you have an X and a Y chromosome but your Y is missing the SRY gene, and so you have a female body. You can be
male because you have two X chromosomes, but one of your X's HAS an SRY gene, and so you have a male body. You can be male because you have two X chromosomes—but also a Y. You can be female because you have only one X chromosome at all. And you can be male because you have two X chromosomes, but your heart and brain are male. And vice - effing - versa. Don't use science to justify your bigotry. The world is way too weird for that shit.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· May 11

🐆🌈🏁😎

Bongo the Bengal Cat, relaxing on a white painted veranda in bright sunlight. The veranda itself is decorated with stencilled patterns, and jasmine is growing through its railings. Bongo is lying on variously patterned rugs in pink, yellow, orange, black, white, brown and blue—so colourful that one imagines they might be banned for their potential to induce psychedelic effects.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Apr 20

Bongo is a master of camouflage, always finding places to lurk that utterly comfound image recognition technologies. And, more saliently, rodent perception. 🐆

Bongo the Bengal Cat, viewed from a distance of only about 1 metre. Despite the fact that he's in full view, he's quite difficult to see, because his coat is camouflaged, and he's lying across two highly patterned, very colourful rugs, and the location's light is disrupted by confusing patterns of sunlight and shadow.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Mar 30

Catch The Pigeon.

A view through a window to an indistinct, unfocused garden scene. In focus is the outline of a bird, where it's flown into the glass and left a print in the dust on its feathers. This one is so clear that you can see the outline of its head and breast, the pattern of feathers, traces of its wings, and the contour of its body. It's quite clearly a wood pigeon.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Mar 14

"Relax! Cats do not have any uncanny characteristics… that are your concern." 🐆

Bongo the Bengal Cat, sitting in sunlight on a wooden floor, looking relaxed. Beside him, a shiny black surface reflects a strange double of his image.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Mar 14

Not sure about "best" but here's one from this morning!

Bongo the Bengal Cat, sitting in sunlight. He's on a tiled floor, and positioned to peer around a doorframe. He seems to be looking at something out of frame, to the top left. Behind him there's an orange bathtub, some chromed plumbing, and curtains patterned in red and blue.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Mar 7

A decade ago we were in an Information War. We still are. But the conflict has morphed into an Imagination War. The battle isn't just over what we know. Now it's over whether we retain the capacity to imagine, or whether we consent to it being locked into a data centre.

Bongo the Bengal Cat, sitting on a wooden table, looking intently at an image of a rat on a smartphone.

James Wallbank@dataknotsdesks· Feb 28

Are you a fan of architectural quirks? Try this!