I'm off to the Defend Our Juries protest in London today.
I have no love of the Gaza protests and I support banning Palestine Action, but I'm less comfortable with the side of proscription that sees folks arrested for supporting them. I've a feeling these arrests are going to end up being a piece of history we'll all remember and I want to shoot them.
Far right protests are also planned in London so I may get some visually interesting shots of those too: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/08/three-thousand-riot-officers-readied-for-weekend-of-protests-in-england-and-wales
I also think that if we're going to have these elements of authoritarianism in society then they should hand out guns to good citizens like me and allow me to summarily execute people who undermine the sanctity of the quiet carriage.
"Let's go to the carriage where everyone is respectful enough to each other to remain quiet; we can have a good conversation there! Sure, bring your screaming child too!"
I'm going on an adventure!
Also I'm on a train at 8:30am in the quiet carriage sat opposite a table full of Swansea women loudly whining about their husbands and boyfriends over a bottle of Malbec.
#selfie
I'm off to the Defend Our Juries protest in London today.
I have no love of the Gaza protests and I support banning Palestine Action, but I'm less comfortable with the side of proscription that sees folks arrested for supporting them. I've a feeling these arrests are going to end up being a piece of history we'll all remember and I want to shoot them.
Far right protests are also planned in London so I may get some visually interesting shots of those too: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/08/three-thousand-riot-officers-readied-for-weekend-of-protests-in-england-and-wales
I'm going on an adventure!
Also I'm on a train at 8:30am in the quiet carriage sat opposite a table full of Swansea women loudly whining about their husbands and boyfriends over a bottle of Malbec.
#selfie
The Grauniad has a few pieces up on the proposed occupation, but I think this one is the most astute: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/08/the-guardian-view-on-israels-gaza-takeover-plan-a-destructive-act-that-must-be-stopped
With the relaxed RoE the IDF is operating under, under which policing operations around GHF sites have been disastrous, expecting an occupation of cities to be anything other than a catastrophe is insane. As Israeli military commanders have said, it'll be a meat grinder. Worse than Iraq.
Rosenberg on the settler movement's wider plan to annex Gaza: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/08/right-wing-israeli-settlers-annex-gaza/683776/?gift=y-oC1QlmgLOUZVvlEoH84_NaAnu1jg39vxpc7bNU4Jc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Netanyahu is shielded by Trump to the point where unlawful annexation will be tolerated if he goes for it, catastrophe be damned — but Likud is vulnerable. The best hope for every side of this awful situation is an election.
A no confidence vote can't be forced for another four months though, and short of his far-right coalition collapsing an election (that he'll surely lose) won't be until October next year.
Good grief.
Huckabee, pissed off about Starmer's entirely reasonable statement opposing Israel's apparent plan to occupy Gaza City, is actively advocating for starvation, forced deportation to other countries, and uhh, for repeating the Dresden fire-bombing in Gaza I think?
I remind myself that Israel's shift in March is entirely enabled by the support he has from Trump and his appointees like Huckabee. Americans chose this, and Huckabee is a stark reflection of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/08/huckabee-starmer-gaza-dresden
The Grauniad has a few pieces up on the proposed occupation, but I think this one is the most astute: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/08/the-guardian-view-on-israels-gaza-takeover-plan-a-destructive-act-that-must-be-stopped
With the relaxed RoE the IDF is operating under, under which policing operations around GHF sites have been disastrous, expecting an occupation of cities to be anything other than a catastrophe is insane. As Israeli military commanders have said, it'll be a meat grinder. Worse than Iraq.
Good grief.
Huckabee, pissed off about Starmer's entirely reasonable statement opposing Israel's apparent plan to occupy Gaza City, is actively advocating for starvation, forced deportation to other countries, and uhh, for repeating the Dresden fire-bombing in Gaza I think?
I remind myself that Israel's shift in March is entirely enabled by the support he has from Trump and his appointees like Huckabee. Americans chose this, and Huckabee is a stark reflection of them.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/08/huckabee-starmer-gaza-dresden
Teams Premium got rolled out to me this week and I've been playing with Copilot, and gosh, it's awful.
I use local LLMs a lot at home, mostly for doing text-based substitutions and such, and they hardly ever get things wrong. Copilot consistently gets things wrong. I've been asking it for help with Lua, which I don't know, and it consistently makes things up.
The free online ChatGPT model seems comparable to my local LLMs though, and I'm left wondering just how bad Copilot is.
I mean, I don't use Windows or wider Microsoft software, so maybe there are contexts in which it's good, but the version in Teams Premium seems dire and if that's what it's universally like then I can't imagine what on earth the strategy is around these 'Copilot PCs' and such.
Teams Premium got rolled out to me this week and I've been playing with Copilot, and gosh, it's awful.
I use local LLMs a lot at home, mostly for doing text-based substitutions and such, and they hardly ever get things wrong. Copilot consistently gets things wrong. I've been asking it for help with Lua, which I don't know, and it consistently makes things up.
The free online ChatGPT model seems comparable to my local LLMs though, and I'm left wondering just how bad Copilot is.
This is excellent. It feels like having much more space available.
That wide bottom chin bezel on the top one is a pain though. I might need to replace that one with something with a smaller bezel and then mount that one to the left again 🤔
This is really good. I've angled the top one down and it feels so natural. I should've done this years ago.
RIP to my cursed desk setup. Long live the new cursed desk setup!
This is excellent. It feels like having much more space available.
That wide bottom chin bezel on the top one is a pain though. I might need to replace that one with something with a smaller bezel and then mount that one to the left again 🤔
merely rhys