Ian Silvester

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@davepl1968 How long did it take???

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 Looking forward to it very much indeed! Is the other platform Bluesky yet? 😉

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@davepl1968 😄 Have you _seen_ the far north? It's all forest and bitey insects! Much nicer to string ourselves out along the warmer, less wet bit 😉

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 Why the hell would anyone mod it like that???

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 The video on YouTube is the DB605 version of this?

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 👀

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 this might be of interest to you, as a user/supporter of national archives: https://t.co/PfXLF9arGZ

[Calum E. Douglas FRAeS @CalumDouglas1]

Twitter history is awash today with all the "standard" comments on Churchill on his 150th Birthday.

I don't see much point in repeating the "expected" commentary as it reveals nothing new.

Many people know of his profound hatred for Communism, not "quite" so many know that Churchill, was in the mid 30`s fairly optimistic about Hitler and had a lot of quite favourable comments on him. (the segment below is in no way unfairly unrepresentative of Churchills overall views laid out of Hitler).

"...history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power..by employing frightful methods, but who, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler"

W. S. Churchill, 1935

What do I mean by this, is this comment designed to say I "dislike" Churchill ?

Not directly, although I do regard him as being capable of (unnecessary) acts of true horror.

In the main, it is important to distance yourself from polarised views of history, and people.

In fact the 30`s were a far more nuanced time than is generally suggested, and at a time when the Committee of Imperial Defence, and Chamberlain were making agreements that Hitler was the most direct and current enemy of Britain, Churchill was writing quite even-handed and neutral essays about Hitler.

If you want to know about who Churchill really was, and not what we are supposed to believe he was, you can do a lot worse than reading one of the least publicised books he ever wrote:

"Great Contemporaries"

In this book, Churchill writes very candidly about his views on many world leaders and influential figures in politics worldwide.

So, whilst you enjoy all the "We shall never surrender!" speeches (and wonderfully written they are), remember that just a few years before, it was Churchill, NOT Chamberlain who was writing compliments about Hitler.

At the time nobody knew with complete certainty what Hitler would turn into, but the signs were hardly disguised.

Don't be too overtaken by the "cowboys and Indians" version of history, it really isn't how things were (or are).

Many heroes did appalling things which if they had been carried out by political opponents would be regarded as unforgivable, and many who are regarded as weak fools were in reality, working quietly and diligently behind the scenes to ensure the future victory of the free world.

Its surprisingly difficult to decide whose names to write in those two columns, because usually they belong fully in neither.

So, be thankful Nazism did not overwhelm the world, but be careful before ascribing with total certainty the cause of that to any one person, and certainly not assuming that they were always set on pursuit of such an action.

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@Jonnysevern I'd forgotten quite how intense were the visuals 😁

[steve pottinger @BigStevePoet]

For a year now, my social media feed has brought me news of genocide, images of innocent men, women, and children blown apart, sniped, bombed, and buried under rubble by the army of a nation which has so thoroughly dehumanised them it simply celebrates their deaths. /1

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@erickdahan Oh 😄 Well, 2 years and counting then 😁

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

Customer support AI rickrolls a user. I can't think of a more perfect example of the problem with LLMs 🙄

[Flo Crivello @Altimor]

A customer reached out asking for video tutorials.

We obviously have a Lindy handling this, and I was delighted to see that she sent a video.

But then I remembered we don't have a video tutorial and realized Lindy is literally fucking rickrolling our customers.

[Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @HeidyKhlaaf]

A significant amount of safety research has existed since the 70s on Human Machine Interfaces proving exactly this. It's exhausting to watch money and effort wasted in a tech hype cycle to constantly undo and redo what we already know in safety engineering.

[Abby Denton @mizabitha]

A fascinating phenomenon now is people in tech support forums complaining that "even" chat-gpt was unable to help them with an incredibly granular problem they were having with scarcely documented software. I don't know who you expected it to plagiarize for that.

[Ian Silvester @Ian_Silvester]

@CalumDouglas1 OMG! 😂

[𝙇𝙚𝙚 𝙅𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙨 © 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Leejay1963]

The problem isn't a lack of money, food, water, or land. The problem is that you've given control of these things to a group of greedy psychopaths who care more about maintaining their own power than helping mankind.

Bill Hicks. Stand-up comedian, social critic. (1961 — 1994)

[Michael Shermer @michaelshermer]

Great thinkers are often prescient in their pronouncements, and Hannah Arendt is one of the greats...

[Andy Turner @chimpandy]

Brilliant 🤩