Deirdre Ratcliffe

Kayaker. Walker. Reader. on Brinja Yuin country. SARS-CoV-2: alert & alarmed.

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@SolidEvidence @1goodtern @SecureBio Wow, well done. Reckon you’ve really earned the excitement

[tern @1goodtern]

I can't believe they suppressed this.

Well, I can.

But there are going to be a lot of very rich people very pissed off that this is now fully public.

There is *no* safe quantity for alcohol consumption.

[Juez Central @Juezcentral]

No ha empezado el Mundial y Noruega ya tiene las 3 mejores fotos de equipo.

La primera antes de viajar, disfrazados de vikingos.

La segunda, su foto oficial, con la camiseta de Noruega, todos perfectamente alineados.

La tercera, ahora, todos los jugadores con las camisetas de su primer club.

Qué grandes los vikingos.

[Henry Madison @RageSheen]

The great lie of the pandemic was that public health action was unpopular and damaged people and economies.

Public health was invented to prevent that. And it did.

The rush to ‘re-open’ was the status quo protecting its rapidly declining influence. Normalising doing nothing.

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1958, a divorced single mom got fired from her secretary job for being a bad typist.

21 years later, she sold her side hustle for $47.5 million.

And her teenage helper would go on to help invent MTV.

Her name was Bette Nesmith Graham.

Before she became a millionaire inventor, she was a struggling single mother in Dallas with no college degree and very few options.

She married young during WWII.

By 22, she was divorced, raising a son alone, and trying to survive on secretary jobs.

She eventually became an executive secretary at Texas Bank & Trust.

There was just one problem:

She was a terrible typist.

The bank had recently installed new IBM electric typewriters that made correcting mistakes almost impossible.

One typo could mean retyping an entire page.

Her son later remembered watching her sit at the kitchen table in “tears of panic,” terrified she’d lose her job.

But Bette had another skill.

She painted holiday window displays at the bank for extra money.

One day, while painting over a mistake on a window, she had a realization:

“An artist never erases mistakes. They paint over them.”

That night, she went home and mixed a white liquid in her kitchen blender using tempera paint.

She poured it into a nail polish bottle.

The next morning, she used it to cover typing errors.

It worked.

For five years, her boss never noticed.

Other secretaries did.

Soon, women from offices across the city were asking for bottles.

Bette started making batches at home with help from her teenage son, Michael, and his friends.

She called the product “Mistake Out.”

Then came the twist.

In 1958, she accidentally typed the name of her side business onto a company letter.

Her boss fired her immediately.

It became the best thing that ever happened to her.

She renamed the product Liquid Paper and focused on it full-time.

Orders exploded.

By the late 1960s, she was selling over a million bottles a year.

By the 1970s, 25 million bottles annually.

Then she did something even more unusual:

She built one of the most progressive workplaces in America.

Her company offered:
• child care
• continuing education
• leadership roles for women
• jobs for disabled workers
• integrated staffing

This was decades before most corporations even considered those ideas.

In 1979, with failing health, Bette sold Liquid Paper to Gillette for $47.5 million.

Six months later, she died at age 56.

Half her fortune went to women-focused charities.

The other half went to her son.

That son was Michael Nesmith.

Yes the same Michael Nesmith from The Monkees.

And with the money from Liquid Paper royalties, he funded a small experimental cable TV project called PopClips.

It featured short films set to music.

PopClips became the direct prototype for MTV.

So one woman’s “typing mistake” helped create:
• a multimillion-dollar company
• one of America’s most progressive workplaces
• and the blueprint for the modern music video era

Bette Graham proved something her old boss never understood:

The mistake wasn’t the failure.

It was the opportunity.

[Ramin Nasibov @RaminNasibov]

Name a book that you think is 10/10.
But only one.

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

The Albanese Labor Government has just given the Federal police $200 million, as part of the new 'AUKUS Command' force.

Today we learnt this is solely to protect US and UK submarines.

Australians paying for the protection of the US military, that's AUKUS.

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@jjmmli

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@Portach333 Your photo of the lake is serene

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

What a mess! The failed privatisation of court transcription services is unravelling with Canada’s VIQ solitions rapidly winding down its Australian operations. This is leaving Federal courts and many State courts in the lurch. Transcripts are essential. https://t.co/P183c7N2ni

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

The lesson here is that core public services must not be privatised and this service, court transcription, should be brought back into the public service.

[Raina MacIntyre @Globalbiosec]

Rates of infection with other pathogens after a +ve #COVID test versus a neg test - more brilliant work from @zalaly and team. COVID causes immune dysregulation and ⬆️risk of other infections. https://t.co/yIZ9LvD2NF

[Dr Rae Duncan @Sunny_Rae1]

@hannahspierMD 1/Hannah, we have now almost 500,000 peer reviewed published research into long covid now. “Fatigue”, “post exertional malaise (PEM)” “Brain Fog” “difficulty concentrating” are not psychiatric symptoms. They have a pathological basis and clear demonstrable abnormalities 1/

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@EverestToday @morgfair “went missing” … when you mean “abandoned”…?

[🎶𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 ✨ @Old_But_Gold50s]

Widely acclaimed as one of the greatest duets of all time, this 1987 archival footage from Ibiza captures the iconic song "Barcelona." It stands as a vivid testament to the perfect fusion of Montserrat Caballé’s sublime operatic vocals and Freddie Mercury’s captivating stage presence—a masterpiece that left an indelible mark on music history and went on to become the official and defining anthem of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

Anyone in Australia reading this? 😳

[The Irish Times @IrishTimes]

Ireland’s data centre strain a ‘cautionary tale’ for rest of world, UN says https://t.co/3qZZWQkosg

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@RyanWeather @climatehazards Which year?

[High Performance Founder @hpfounder]

If you want to delay aging, you can't be comfortable.

Lift the heavy weights.
Do the cardio despite how you feel.
Eat the healthy foods when cravings say otherwise.
Keep learning when your brain wants to watch Netflix.

Your body is constantly battling for easy. You can't let it.

[Deirdre Ratcliffe @d_ratcliffe]

@Portach333 Well done

[Tara Blume @tcblume]

Science gasps for breath. They are removing all the ocean monitors to understand changes in currents and climate, and the excuse is a master class in obfuscation & double speak . (1/2) https://t.co/vs782YbcI3