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Alan Stokes

@alanmstokes.bsky.social
359 followers 237 following 53 posts

Jobbing geek. Londoner.

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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
This is rather wonderful. www.rmg.co.uk/stories/mari...
rmg.co.uk
Cutty Sark’s new binnacle: charting a course for heritage crafts
A navigational case shines a light on traditional skills – and prompts intriguing questions into the tea clipper’s history
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
It's not the most important thing at the moment, but I'm so embarrassed for America. To have world leaders concern themselves with symbols of placation for an overgrown manchild. To have the leader of a country fighting for its life thinking about what he wears to the White House.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
I have made soup, and so I am feeling justified and excellent. My Dad always used to say, "A day without soup is a day wasted". I assumed that was a common saying, but it doesn't seem to be - a variant on Chaplin's more famous a day without laughter version, perhaps.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
Is it lord mayors or lords mayor? (Of London, if relevant.)
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
www.bbc.com/sport/tennis... "While the source of the issue was human error ..." No, it wasn't. Your system made it possible for this to happen. And so you've fixed the system. Don't blame humans for making mistakes. If your system doesn't make mistakes obvious and hard to make, that's on you.
bbc.com
Wimbledon 2025: Changes made to electronic line calling after 'human error'
Wimbledon makes changes to its electronic line calling system to remove the possibility of 'human error' after controversy on Sunday.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
RIP Sgt Mohammed Hussain, who died on Friday aged 100. Born in Rawalpindi in pre-partition India, he joined the Army aged sixteen in 1941, fighting in Italy from 1943-45, and later settling in Berkshire where he marked his 100th birthday last month.
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Ciaran Martin @ciaranm.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Ancient IT is also the biggest and most serious cyber security risk to the public realm. If Reform’s seemingly preposterous DOGE effort ends up usefully highlighting the problem, then so be it
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Dr Duncan Robertson @duncanrobertson.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
AI use case.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Maybe it's because I'm a third child, but I find this argument bizarre. Who knows how well off they'll be in 15 years? Maybe you'll lose your job. Maybe a parent will need care. Maybe Liz Truss will double your mortgage costs. And maybe you'll make bad choices. But that's hardly the child's fault.
Extract from article in The Sunday Times by Jason Cowley: "McSweeney, who insists Labour must always put country before party, has long opposed extending benefits such as universal credit to third and subsequent children. So too does Jo White, the influential MP for Bassetlaw and chair of the red wall caucus. “Lifting the cap would be a retrograde step,” she said. “The benefit system is there to support people when they’re at their greatest need and should be there throughout life if needed, but the focus has to be on people working and putting a wage on the table and raising aspirations and opportunities through doing that. Having more children is a choice that you should make when the finances allow you to do so. If there’s a system that allows you to keep on having children, then it enables you to remain on benefits for years and years.”" These words highlighted: "Having more children is a choice that you should make when the finances allow you to do so". From https://www.thetimes.com/article/2e3449cc-6347-4f21-b0cd-b76bfe4db338
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
An early morning @kevlin.bsky.social at LHR.
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Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 20/05/2025
For some reason I am reminded of the baffling conversation I once had with a KGB officer in Siberia who was convinced that Thought for the Day had to be coded instructions for Western intelligence agents. “Otherwise it would just be nonsense and the BBC would not broadcast nonsense!”
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Every single birth certificate says on its face that it is not evidence of identity.
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 03/05/2025
The obvious solution is to hire some, and then fire them.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
I see Race Around the World is starting in China this time. Presumably they want to avoid the risk of authoritarian regimes like, say, the USA.
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Tim Brock @timbrock.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
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Robert Lock @robertlock.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duy_T%C... While poking about in French Colonial history I discovered an exiled Vietnamese Emperor. Who was a ham radio enthusiast, resistance member , briefly joined french navy and ended WW2 as a Lieutenant Colonel @dreadships.bsky.social @garius.bsky.social
en.m.wikipedia.org
Duy Tân - Wikipedia
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Janel Comeau 🍁 @verybadllama.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
I have tariffed the penguins that are on Heard Island and which you were probably assuming did not export goods forgive me they were taking advantage of us so cunning and so cold
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Brussels Midi really is a horrible station.
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Keker, Van Nest & Peters @kekerllp.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Our first post is a big one...Statement from Keker, Van Nest & Peters on Trump’s Latest Executive Order “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court.”
“Trump’s new Executive Order underscores how far removed this President, Attorney General and Administration are from our nation’s Constitution and bedrock values. Our liberties depend on lawyers’ willingness to represent unpopular people and causes, including in matters adverse to the Federal Government. An attack on lawyers who perform this work is inexcusable and despicable. Our profession owes every client zealous legal representation without fear of retribution, regardless of their political affiliation or ability to pay. We encourage law firm leaders to sign on to an amicus effort in support of Perkins Coie’s challenge to the Administration’s executive order targeting the firm, and to resist the Administration’s erosion of the rule of law.” 
– John Keker, Robert Van Nest, Elliot Peters, Laurie Carr Mims, and the Keker, Van Nest & Peters Partnership
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Boris @bmann.ca · 19/03/2025
"Signal would exit the French market before it would comply with this law as written" Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social, President of Signal @signal.org
Screenshot of X post: https://x.com/mer__edith/status/1902383162065400296, part 1

BAT SIGNAL: A law in France that would mandate a backdoor in end to end encrypted communications is set for a vote within the next day, after some start-stop skirmishes. 

The French Narcotraffic law would require encrypted communications providers—like Signal—create a backdoor by giving the government the ability to add themselves to any group or chat they like. In the name of (checks notes) fighting drug trafficking. 

While those hyping this bad law have rushed to assure French politicians that the proposal isn’t’ ‘breaking encryption’ their arguments are as tedious as they are stale as they are laughable. For those catching up, let’s review the basics: end to end encryption must only have two ‘ends’—sender and recipient(s). Otherwise, it is backdoored. Whatever method is devised to add a ‘third end’ —from a perverted PRNG in a cryptographic protocol, to vendor-provided government software grafted onto the side of secure communications that allow said government to add themselves to your chats—it rips a hole in the hull of private communications and is a backdoor. 

Indeed, the ghost participant proposal was roundly rebuked (humiliated, even) when it was first proposed in 2019 in the UK. The technical community was united, and it was never implemented in law or otherwise. Screenshot of X Post, Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal https://x.com/mer__edith/status/1902383162065400296

We cannot accept any backdoor, however it’s dressed up. Communications don’t stay within jurisdictional boundaries. Which means a hole created in France becomes a vector for anyone wanting to undermine Signal’s robust privacy guarantees, anywhere. Instead of contending with unbreakable math, they only have to compromise a French government employee, or the vendor-provided software used to sideload government operatives into your private chats. 

This is why, as always, Signal would exit the French market before it would comply with this law as written. At this moment especially, there is simply too much riding on Signal, on our being able to forge a future in which private communication persists, to allow such pernicious undermining. 

We hope—WE HOPE—that this callow, dishonest attack will fail, and will be the last. We would love to get back to the work of maintaining and improving our core technologies, instead of fighting legislation which is distinguished in nothing as much as its refusal to listen to decades of expert consensus in its drive to imperil global cybersecurity and the human right of privacy.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Nihilistic poetry
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
As a native speaker, I don't believe "we made flaws" can possibly be correct English. I believe the idiomatic phrase is "we fucked up".
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
All LLMs have guard filters on them, on both input (block problematic questions) and output (ditto answers). They're entirely separate from the core model, which has no inhibitions. Obviously Chinese filters have different settings than US ones; this tells you nothing about the underlying model.
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World Bollard Association™️ @worldbollardassoc.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
💛WIN A BOLLARD💛 The most popular competition in the history of social media is back. It's the prize you've all been waiting for. Repost and follow to be in with a chance of winning this gorgeous Monoscape Bridgeford Smooth Grey Concrete Bollard worth £252.42. #WorldBollardAssociation
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz I wanted to share this quote from Prime Levi: "Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.... (1/3)
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
While lots of big AI companies are down today, I gather Schadenfreude LLC (ticker: FKYU) is up 28.3%.
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Zentrum für Politische Schönheit @politicalbeauty.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Tesla Gigafactory, Berlin - right now! In cooperation with @ledbydonkeys.org
Auf der Tesla Gigafactory in Berlin steht: „Heil Tesla!“
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The Secret Barrister @barristersecret.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
If a man can’t give a Nazi salute at a party for a racist convicted fraudster and proven sex offender, then what kind of sick world are we living in, I ask you.
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Noah Kennedy @nomaxx117.bsky.social · 12/06/2024
Mr. Bond, I have strategically deployed several unlicensed instances of Oracle Database 19c to the infrastructure of every Five Eyes member state. In exactly one hour I shall be notifying Oracle's legal department of these events. I suggest you sit back and relax, Mr. Bond. Enjoy the show.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
"Gulf of Ignorance" has a nice ring to it, don't you think? If anyone happens to be looking for a new name.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 29/12/2024
Jimmy Carter was the first President I was aware of, at a very basic level. It's become increasingly clear he was a genuinely good person. We need more of those. My respects.
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Ben TG @ben-tg.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
Think about it @kevlin.bsky.social #epoch
System thinks I'm a customer since 1970
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
The CofE has much to answer for, but seriously? If children aged 10+ believe in Santa then I worry about the rest of their education. BBC News - Hampshire pupils 'sob' as vicar discusses existence of Santa - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Ben @benreadingbooks.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
There is a interesting (I thought) explanation of the problem in London here: www.londoncentric.media/p/why-exactl.... Issues probably similar in other cities.
londoncentric.media
Why exactly is London's phone signal so bad?
Plus: Will the tube strikes actually go ahead; the capital rises up in support of a cat.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Quite a sensible error message this one - although nobody has dealt with it for more than a week. Still, I think it counts as a Kevlin Henny. @kevlin.bsky.social
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Steve Ferra @abpow.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
they've literally taken the Road to Damascus
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Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Notre Dame in Paris re-opens this wkd. I'm a cathedral nerd. Here are some things that you might not notice about it – just from that one photo. THREAD. 1. You can see straight down the nave to the apse. No medieval English cathedral has that.
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dave ❄️ 🥕 🧻 @davemacleod.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Nigel Farage has been on #bbcqt so many time now I’m pretty sure he’s the host and the entire panel
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Les Contes de l'Archiviste - LCDLA @contearchiviste.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Michel Barnier devient le premier Premier Ministre depuis 2005 à n'avoir connu aucune diffusion d'épisode de Doctor Who au cours de son mandat. A bientôt pour d'autres études politiques pertinentes.
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Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · 03/12/2024
The reason the coup attempt in South Korea failed as quickly as it did is because South Koreans immediately rushed to the streets to say “we won’t let you do that” and force the military to decide whether they’d shoot their fellow citizens or not. Important for us remember over the next 4 years.
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
I'm fucking blasted and hanging out in the weirdest scene because history happened at a deeply inconvenient hour. so it goes.
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Batshit headline of the day.
News headline "Nomura chief apologises after ex-employee charged with clients' attempted murder",  "Former wealth management staff arrested after allegedly setting customers' house on fire"
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Glenn Moore @thenewsatglenn.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Did…did a minotaur write this
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Gemma Bristow @konallis.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Oliver Cromwell's house festooned with Christmas lights. The man would be spinning in his grave, if he hadn't already been exhumed and dismembered.
Half-timbered house, outside which stand mannequins of a man and woman in 17th-century clothing. Christmas lights are hung in the windows and along the roofline.
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Lego Lost At Sea @legolostatsea.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
My son was five and knee-high to a grasshopper when he first found a Lego flipper from the spill. Nearly 28 years on and he's just found another - one of 242,000 blue Lego flippers lost overboard from the Tokio Express in 1997.
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Ken Shirriff @righto.com · 25/11/2024
I recently saw an amazing Navajo rug at the National Gallery of Art. It looks abstract at first, but it is a detailed representation of the Intel Pentium processor. Called "Replica of a Chip", it was created in 1994 by Marilou Schultz, a Navajo/Diné weaver and math teacher. 1/n
A Navajo rug with a complex pattern with muted reds, pinks and blues. The pattern consists of various vertical and horizontal rectangles with stripes. Around the border are small alternating black and colored rectangles. The weaving is mounted in a wooden frame and hanging on the museum wall.
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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 19/11/2024
Bluesky has only 20mn users compared to Threads's 275m, but it gets almost as many visits worldwide because obviously most Threads users would rather die than actually spend time there techcrunch.com/2024/11/19/b...
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Guilty🕷Abroad @jjgass.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
A decision by a Dutch appellate court, during the Nazi occupation, to sentence a minor criminal to less time than the law required to stop him from being sent to an infamous work camp A current Dutch judge posts that this decision still inspires him
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Alan Stokes @alanmstokes.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
An original Commodore PET, with cassette recorder and rectangular keyboard.
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