Ben Taylor

@vox-dei

Sci-fi, gaming, coding, some science (particularly marine/climate and remote sensing). Also random things that my cats or kids have done or grumping about politics, probably.

394 Following211 Followers2,418 Posts

Bluesky

gamer

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Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jul 11

Headlines I did not expect @financialtimes.com

A headline and sub-heading from the FT. "Lawn Tennis Association set to move into venture capital investing. Governing body partners with Redrice Ventures to invest in sport start-ups as income from Wimbledon declines."

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jun 23

Pleasingly logarithmic engagement on this post. Slightly ruined by the saves, I need 1000 saves. Or 0.1 saves. One of the two. #MathsSky

A screenshot of a post of mine from this morning. It currently has one reply, ten reposts and one hundred likes. And two saves, which slightly spoils it.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jun 14

Put in a raised bed and the cats are delighted with their new toilet and the pre-made holes that are available simply by digging up the plants. So we put in another bed and put a net over it to keep them off. Now they have a toilet *and* one with a toy to roll on and attack. #proofofcat #caturday

A rectangular vegetable bed full of black compost and several small broccoli plants. The bed is covered by a green 1cm mesh nylon net held up in the middle by a couple of garden stakes and anchored at the sides to make a tent.

There is a large ginger and white cat sitting in the middle of the bed on top of the netting (and the plants) causing the tent structure to collapse. The cat is slightly wired and staring urgently at the sky.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jun 12

Heh. They've fixed the basic issue ("scrubbed" isn't doing that for me) but they haven't fixed the jailbreak. 😂

A screenshot from a Google search for "s c ru b b e d". The results say:

These are results for scrubbed
Search instead for s c ru b b e d

AI Overview
This is a general guide to troubleshooting. Could you please share what specific item or device you are trying to clean or troubleshoot?
If you tell me what you are working on, I can provide the exact steps or solutions you need.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jun 2

SCHNAUZER! (This is the next post-an-image-of-this thing, isn't it?)

A toy mouse. It is grey, it is furry, it has ears, it is not Michael Sheen. It is therefore, by definition, a Schnauzer.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· May 31

This is a very shiny 2025 £1 coin. I rather like the bee design. Though I can't help noticing that what is supposed to be a hexagonal honeycomb is broken in such a way that it looks like a biohazard warning pattern. Perhaps appropriate given what we're doing to the #bees. #coins

The back of a shiny one-pound coin. The right half shows two bees in relief, the left half bears the legend "1 pound" with what is presumably supposed to be a repeating hexagon grid.

Except the hexagon grid has been made up from a repeating triple-linked-circle motif, with the outer side of each circle left open, to form what looks very like a repeating biohazard motif.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· May 15

126 damage, uninterruptible, hits every square. What exactly am I supposed to do with this one @pinix-games.bsky.social? I don't mind having a run ended by bad planning, but losing to the final boss because he's got an uninterruptible hit-everything insta-kill seems a tad unfair. #games

A screenshot from Alina of the Arena by Pinix Games. The fight is the final boss. On the boss's turn he's going to hit every square in the arena for 126 damage, using an attack that does 11 base damage but scales with block (he has 100 block). The attack is marked uninterruptible.

I have about 90% health, which is 60 (and 7 block). So even a much better-equipped player at this point (and I'm not badly equipped) would be unlikely to find this attack survivable.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· May 10

Not sure who I should credit for this one, but... #Reform #ukpol #localgovernment

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· May 5

When my phone was aimed at my cat, it was to take a picture of him looking contented while I scritched the top of his head. This was the photo that appeared when the shutter was pressed. (No serious injuries were caused, he was playing. Git.) #cats

The top-left two-thirds of the photo is my jeans-clad leg. The bottom-right fifth is my hand in between is a blurry strip of carpet, in the middle of which is the head of an equally blurry ginger and white cat lunging at my hand with his mouth open wide.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Apr 28

US C-17 Globemaster landing at Exeter airport just now, slightly weirdly. Didn't know they landed these there! Photo from a train going into Exeter station. #Exeter #Devon #Aircraft

View from underneath a large military transport aircraft against a cloudy sky. Four engines, flaps down, side bulges where the rear wheels are.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Apr 24

Thank you to @edmorrish.com and @brianbilston.bsky.social for today's serendipitous post-adjacency.

Two bluesky posts. The top one quotes a Times article headlined "Can a midlife man pull off a mullet?" with a picture of a late-40s white man looking at the camera sporting a modest mullet. Below is a poem from Brian Bilston entitled "Billionaire in a Midlife Crisis".

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Apr 7

Ron plays fetch. He likes bouncy balls. Never known anything like it! His brother Dylan will do it a bit with the little plastic caps off drinks bottles, but he's much less invested in it, like he's seen Ron doing it and vaguely thinks he might be missing out.

A ginger-and-white shorthair cat crouched maybe a foot from a green bouncy ball on a beige carpet. The cat is aligned towards the ball but has its head turned to the left.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Mar 22

An unexpected political analogy from the FT in regard to Slovenia's upcoming elections. 😆

A screenshot from an FT piece on Slovenian elections: “It’s like hedgehogs mating, everybody is proceeding very carefully,”

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Mar 15

So uh... My cat is smarter than I thought. #cats

A ginger and white cat. The cat has its back to the camera and is standing on its hind legs on the seat of a ladder-back chair, leaning against and over the top of the back of the chair and using the resulting height to stick out his right forepaw and use it to attempt to turn the lever arm of the door handle on the door behind which his food is stored.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Mar 3

Very dramatic moon rising this evening in Torquay! #Torquay #Torbay #Devon #Moon

A late dusk image across the bay to the harbour in Torquay. The waterfront is brightly lit, and just clearing the hills behind it is a bright full moon. The moon is a deep reddish-orange colour and is reflecting off the water of the bay across to the camera.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Feb 6

Rather reminded me of this. From Brave New World.

A screenshot from the trailer of Brave New World. A woman walks towards the camera, in the background a crowded plaza with an oval-shaped walkway or mezzanine above it. Similar to the Houses of Parliament concept shots, everything is in pale blue or pink tones, as if the lighting is through frosted bathroom glass.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Feb 4

Uh... Bluesky thumbnail was slightly concerning as to the sentiment towards the Met Office there. 😆

Screenshot of a thumbnail of one of the OP's images, with some sort of lizard and some text. Where the original said "Indy says... check the bloody Met Office", Bluesky has cropped it for the thumbnail so it says "Indy says... ck the bloody Met Of".

I doubt I'm the only person who assumed the first word on the second line was not "check".

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 27

AI assistant from @gwr.com everybody. It is, needless to say, impossible to talk to an actual living person, only the moronic AI. Thanks for nothing. #trains #stormchandra

A screenshot of a discussion with GWR's AI assistant. I asked it a question, it asked me to confirm that when I said "Yes", that was what I wanted to know. I said yes, it asked me to confirm that when I said "Yes", that was what I wanted to know. I said yes, it asked me to... you get the picture.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 9

Sorry, "Start-up"? xAI does not become a start-up because Musk spun out a separate division from Twitter to do his AI stuff, @financialtimes.com.

A screenshot from the Financial Times app. The headline is "Elon Musk's xAI restricts Grok after outcry I've sexualised images". The tag-line refers to xAI as a "Start-up".

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 6

I'll see your car and I'll raise you a DUKW (pronounced duck). Image from Wikipedia.

A black-and-white photo of a wheeled amphibious WW2 landing craft climbing out of a river in Nijmegen in 1944. The craft is about 10m long in US Army livery (though I gather this one is British) and is carrying thirteen or so soldiers, while another twelve or so look on. In the background there is a large arched bridge spanning the river.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 3

And here's London in 1837. There are several pages of description about London, as well as a larger-scale map showing London situated with the surrounding counties. Ping @garius.bsky.social because I think this is very much your kind of thing!

A map of London in 1837. It shows London as obviously substantially smaller than at present, showing Hyde and Regent's Parks as on the borders of the city at the western end (largely outside it) to roughly Limehouse on the eastern end, from Walworth in the south to Euston Road in the north. The immediate surrounds are shown, showing many parts of what would be considered London today as well outside. Six railway lines run to the city, though two of them terminate outside it, at Paddington and Vauxhall, and the one terminating at what I think is Marylebone is only just inside.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 3

Apparently the book didn't sell well, so the publisher had a load of unsold copies, so the bookstore owner got a load cheap, selling for a tenner each. The bookstore in question is Westcountry Books in Newton Abbot if anyone is interested, there was at least one more copy. This is the map of Devon.

A map of Devon(shire) in 1837, showing towns and villages and some relief, as well as the railway line running as far as Newton Abbot. The county is outlined in pink and two coats of arms are shown - they aren't identified but from appearance I suspect they are the Bishop of Exeter and the Earl of Devonshire. Am artist's rendering of the Exeter Guildhall is in the bottom-right.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Jan 3

Found this in a second-hand bookstore. Largely a reprint (with modern typefaces and so forth, and with additional introduction) of a book comprising a description and map of every county in England in 1837, and several cities, along with some historical information about England. It's wonderful!

The front cover of a large coffee-table book entitled "Victorian Maps of England: The County and City Maps of Thomas Moule". The Cover shows a detailed map of the county of Cornwall as it was in 1837, showing towns, cities and some relief, as well as the Isles of Scilly. The county is outlined in orange and the map shows the arms of Tywardreth and of the Earl of Mount-Edgecombe, along with an artist's impression of Land's End looking very rocky and sheer, and the names and numerical references of the Hundreds in the county.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Dec 25

Santa appears to share my wife's prejudices. 🤣

A medicine box purporting to contain ManFluAmol, Anti-ManFlu(TM). The tagline is "Helps You To Man The F Up"

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Dec 17

Row one, seat one, I see. #FIFA #Trump #WorldCup26

On the left a picture of a smiling Donald Trump in the Oval Office wearing a red MAGA cap. He is holding a giant novelty ticket for the FIFA World Cup 26 Final Match in his name, for Row 1 - Seat 1.

On the right a screengrab from The Simpsons of Mr. Burns wearing a disbelieving smile as the winner of a lottery is announced as the fan sitting in seat zero zero zero one (his seat).

In the Simpsons episode of course, Mr. Burns wins a car as a result of this (which he doesn't need, being rich) and the angry fans in the stadium boo loudly and pelt him with pretzels as he drives the car away.

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Dec 7

Jesus H. Christ. After talking about paying Africans to move off "their" land, the reaction to a question about whether this is the rise of techno-fascism is a shrug and "Don't move there"? This is going to end with a lot of people dead or effectively enslaved, isn't it? #fascism #Libertarians

Part of a Financial Times article about Libertarian efforts to establish settlements with few rules. The excerpt reads:

'Patri Friedman initially pushes back on the notion of these projects as neocolonialist, declaring "most of our projects are greenfield" He paused. "Although, in Africa, we are looking at land parcels large enough that there will be people living there, in which case we will offer relocation bonuses to pay for anybody who wants to move out of the zone."

And what about fears that this marks the rise of techno-fascism? "I mean, we are funding companies that will operate non-democratic cities," he says, shrugging. "And if you're not into that you shouldn't move there." '

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Nov 25

I haven't been blocked by many people, but I have by some (mostly for being unkind to St. Jeremy Corbyn). It is amusing to find that at least one of them is apparently irritating enough to trigger this kind of thing.😆 (With apologies to @peark.es for stealing his post to make a point)

Screenshot of a Bluesky quote post. The quote post says "I want to make something very clear to everyone: I do not work for you. You don't sign my paychecks and the expectation that I do is frankly insane. Go away."

The quoted post just says "Blocked".

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Oct 18

Good juxtaposition of the quote and the image here from the @financialtimes.com 😆

Screenshot from the Financial Times. There is a paragraph of text quoting Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, which reads "Let’s see who shows up for that,” Johnson said Wednesday at a news conference with other House GOP leaders. “I bet you you’ll see Hamas supporters, I bet you’ll see antifa types, I bet you’ll see the Marxists on full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

Below the quote from Speaker Johnson is a photo captioned "Protesters at the National Mall in Washington on Saturday". The protestors are two people in person-sized hot-dog suits holding up placards, one reading "ICE is a bunch of weenies" and the other reading "Un-American?!? Bro. I'm a hot dog."

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Aug 27

Screenshot from The Simpsons. Homer is standing in a crowd watching a speaker, and incorrectly correcting the speaker: ' "Nuc-u-lar"! It's pronounced, "Nuc-u-lar."

Ben Taylor@vox-dei· Aug 24

They've gone! Approaching Hastings already, sorry!