iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Smylers

OMG I had to check my work emails regarding an extra case in court tomorrow and I've just read this from an HR person. "on a knee to nose basis" A KNEE TO NOSE BASIS 😳

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 6h

Yes! Though I'll be irked if Ross Kemp's decision means Hannah gets murdered. He thought he was saving people, but exactly 1 will be murdered regardless, so it doesn't help Team Faithful collectively. Whereas digging up more money would've actually increased the prize.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 23h

You read Sarah Wynn-Williams's book? There's a bit where they are tracking when a teenage girl *deletes* a selfie, so that they can sell her to advertisers as somebody who's feeling “vulnerable”, and therefore an opportune time to serve beauty ads to her.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 03/10/2026

It's more like “Pizza doesn't seem very good because the free samples of pizza that I keep being given as a bonus when I order something else aren't very good.” Like, if that's a bad advert for AI, then the AI companies could just stop doing that.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 03/10/2026

We (Spouse, children, and I) are going to this later. As presumably are many other people ... so basic probability suggests we aren't among the few that he's hoping to see.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 03/10/2026

That sounds good. One of our children's schools has told pupils and parents not to email teachers after 19:00 or on weekends — the most convenient time for sending them. I'm very happy for teachers not to read them until their working hours, but I don't see why we can't send them outside of that.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Quite. If they'd first asked whether somebody is female/male/non-binary/other and then optionally whether they are trans, that'd've been reasonable. Starting with transphobic definition (when you don't even know if there'll be another question on gender) is not good.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Except it isn't a neutral question. “Sex, as recorded at birth” is a trans-hostile definition that many organizations have been taking recently. If you want to accuratelygather gender demographics, I don't see how it helps that to adopt the phrasing of transphobes.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

“Sex, as recorded at birth” as the first mention of sex or gender, feels pretty trans-hostile to me. It isn't the phrasing I'd choose if I wanted to ensure trans groups aren't under represented.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

This is a local government body, not a company. That still doesn't explain what they're doing with the data, which is supposedly just for shaping the future of transport.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Yeah, that's the next question. They apparently feel the need to ask for both.

Which of the following best describes your gender identity?

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Yeah, it makes sense to ask for somebody's sex. But why specifically their sex “as recorded at birth”? The question after that one asks for gender identity — why both?

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

A survey about improving public transport in West Yorkshire asks residents for their sex “as recorded at birth”: www.wycaresidentpanel.co.uk I appreciate there's a ‘prefer not to say’ option, but why ask this at all, @tracybrabinmayorwy.bsky.social? How will it be used in transport planning?

Screenshot of a survey, headed with the logos of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Tracy Brabin Mayor of West Yorkshire, and DJS Research, showing the question “What is your sex, as recorded at birth?”, with the options “Male”, “Female”, and “Prefer not to say”

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Yay, well done on a PB! I only managed 18 on those. #PopMaster

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Good point. But ‘Strictly’ casting seems to've got worse over time, and this year's (non-celeb) ‘Bake Off’ seems heavy on people in their 20s giving off ‘wannabe famous streamer’ vibes.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Becoming a main character (even a villain) will help him in publicity for his new post-BBC podcast or whatever it is. And if that works well, the next celeb series willl be full of types doing it specifically to plug their wares rather than playing the game, which will be tedious.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 02/10/2026

Tickets successfully bought for @sawdoctors.com at Halifax Piece Hall next summer and @zaltzcricket.bsky.social at Leeds City Varieties in January. Both went on sale at 10:00, but I managed to juggle between two browser windows and bought the right things.

The Saw Doctors Summer 2027
Sat 12 June Halifax The Piece Hall
Sat 3 July Cork Virgin Media Park
with a picture of the band underneath looking happy, Davy and Anto (I think) raising their hands in the air

Andy Zalzman looking at a newspaper he's holding and looking aghast

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

Was chatting to my boss and missed my intended train home … so ended up on the next train, where I bumped into a friend and got to catch up with them.

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Reposted by Smylers

Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

Well you should've tied them down better.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

How late counts as primetime? ‘Colin from Accounts’ was 22:00.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

They don't always present it like that. Sometimes they put the words vertically, so that we can see the mnemonic clearly spelt down the page in a nice straight line. And sometimes they do this:

A screenshot starting “Our vision is underpinned by our Personal Best Values which are:” and then a vertical list of the words from the previous post, starting with ‘respect’, each in capital italics, centred, with their ‘PRIDE’ letter in bold, then ‘PRIDE’ in bold at the bottom; the highlighted letters don't align vertically

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

A school near us uses the acronym PRIDE to remember ... well, erm:

A row of symbols in white, gold, and red on a dark blue background, with the first being a cup with the word ‘pride’ under it and all the letters in gold; the rest of the symbols have captions in pale blue with a single letter highlighted in gold in each: the P in ‘respect’, the R in ‘courage’, the first of the 3 Is in ‘responsibility’, the D in ‘kindness’, and the first E in ‘resilience’

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

The last time Spouse got one of those, on a basic phone, it took us about 8 goes between us to type it in correctly. I appreciate most people have smartphones. But those who don't probably correlate with those who use NHS services proportionally more.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

Well you should've tied them down better.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

Was the link in the text message unreasonably long, with lots of arbitrary codes in mixed case that would be near impossible to type into a different device accurately?

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

In most jobs you could use a stage name, but I believe the GMC takes a dim view of that for doctors …

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

I couldn't think how long it would take me to look at 10 buses. But the Bayeux Tapestry is a bit like a comic. Those are ~20 cm wide, 70 m ≈ 350 pages of a comic. There are about 22 pages of comics in each ‘Beano’, so it's like trying to read over 11 ‘Beano’s in 40 minutes!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

And it's how I learnt that Joss Stone wasn't originally from Devon!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

It's still better for the environment not to make even paper bags. If they're free, people grab more than they need. And it seems fairest to charge the customers who actually need new bags, than to effectively share the cost across all customers, even those who bring their own bags.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 01/10/2026

There's a sketch in ‘The Headset Set’ (BBC Radio 4) where the customer says their bag for life is wearing out and they want a replacement. The shopworker's response is to sympathetically break the news that actually their bags are very accurate … and to plug their will-writing service!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

When people talk about Claude, I always think of the delightful cartoon dog in the books by Alex T Smith:

Cover of ‘Claude in the City’, with a cartoon of a white dog standing up, with a long pointy face, big floppy black ears, and red beret and top, looking very happy, waving and wagging, next to a pigeon; in the background, some people on a street and a collection of skyscrapers

Cover of ‘Claude at the Beach’, with the same cartoon dog in a beret, but this time wearing arm bands and cautiously pointing a toe into the sea; in the background is another swimmer, and a shark

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

I even messed up the ‘obvious’ one, saying “Here We Go Again” — somehow mangling Whitesnake with, erm, Stakka Bo! #PopMaster www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNK...

youtube.com

Stakka Bo - Here We Go

YouTube video by StakkaBoVEVO

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

Sorry for your loss, and theirs. That must have been awful to have them suddenly taken away from you like that. Completely understandable that such a tragedy would stay with you. And good that you still remember them!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

In m first apartment the smoke detector was fitted above the spiral staircase. I didn't really think about that till the battery failed, and I realized there was no reasonable way of standing on anything to reach it. Somehow I learnt to sleep through its beeping twice every minute!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

You're an amazing person and a fantastic parent for keeping on pushing for this. Please do remember that!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 30/09/2026

Yay, so glad that is happening and that 10yo is excited by it! We're all praying it will go well. But even if it doesn't, it was *still* the right thing to do — because it's the only way of finding out, and it would've been so much worse to have been denied that opportunity.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 29/09/2026

I didn't even bother opening mine, filing it away unread.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 29/09/2026

Yay! I also somehow got 36 (just the year wrong), though ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ was a complete guess — just the first Carole King song I thought of (completely failing to spot the planet in its title!). #PopMaster

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 29/09/2026

Just caught up — surprisingly bad at plausibly getting the questions wrong! #PopMaster

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 29/09/2026

I suspect it's actually that 2 min late is still close enough to be “on time”. And while it was arriving in Leeds 9 min late, it was predicted to leave Leeds only 2 min late. Irrelevant to a passenger getting off at Leeds, of course, but reasonable from the train's point of view.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 29/09/2026

Why is England Women's next listed fixture in June? And late June at that — what are they doing for 9 months?

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 28/09/2026

Ditto, and it cost me my (record) streak! Purple was the only group I knew; I eventually got blue with some randomish guessing, but didn't manage to separate yellow and green. Then Connections Bot told me it was “fairly straightforward”! #Connections Puzzle #1205 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟩🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟩🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟨🟩🟩

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 28/09/2026

Wow, fantastic! So happy for you both. I hope they accept that quickly, and come up with a supportive plan for the 10yo's start.

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 28/09/2026

16% of 50 = 8% of 100 = 8

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 28/09/2026

Good to know this train is on time, FastJP. Oh, unless you click the + to expand the per-station view, at which point it's predicted to depart 21 minutes late and arrive 9 minutes late — that sort of “on time”.

Part of a screenshot showing 12:45 Derby to Leeds, labelled ‘On time’, with a plus sign at the end of the row

The same thing but with the plus expanded and listed underneath are listed Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield and Wakefield Westgate labelled in orange, with ‘arrives’, ‘departs’, and ‘realtime’ times for each one'; Derby is departs 12:45 but realtime 13:03; Leeds is arrives 14:03 but realtime 14:12

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 28/09/2026

The word ‘webinar’ itself still grates with me!

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 27/09/2026

If your books have taught me anything, it's probably somebody else playing the long game who's been impersonating you for years who's been verified. Or that you don't actually exist …

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Smylers @smylers.uk · 27/09/2026

To be more accurate, EBay, it's *collection* that's taking longer than expected. Evri's tracking shows the seller dropped it off at a shop on Tuesday lunchtime, but Evri themselves haven't been to collect it from there yet. The delivery window was Wed–yesterday and they still haven't collected it!

“Delivery is taking longer than expected”

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