Matt D

General geeking out about new technology (mostly medtech) & science. Also the odd climbing & science policy posts too.

[IET London Network @IETLondon]

Join the October 2024 Central London Network's #FridayLunchandLecture . Peter Cattermole, chair of @RemapUK will be presenting how they use skills to improve the quality of life and independence of people with disabilities. https://t.co/DY9azR1vIy #REMAP #IETCentralLondonNetwork

[IET London Network @IETLondon]

#IETCentralLondonNetwork is at the IET Savoy Place listening to Eddie Copeland from @LOTI_LDN giving a talk on Public Service Technology Innovations #Loti @IET_LondonSavoy @IETevents

[Scientists for EU @Scientists4EU]

An actual scientist for Minister of Science?!

It feels as though our nation has just gone up an evolutionary jump. 🙌

[Matt D @uPlumber]

@DrDavidBoyce Saw you coming and decided it couldn’t be strong enough to remove the smile. So went somewhere else it knew it could really piss people off.

[Brian Cox @ProfBrianCox]

The points Macron makes in this interview came up in several conversations I’ve had over the last few months - when the same points are made by different knowledgable people, I listen. The consensus appears to be that the chance of NATO being drawn into conflict in Europe with Russia over the next decade is priced much higher than I imagined - and I imagined it was quite likely. The rise of nationalism in Europe (and the US) makes this more likely. The historic lack of investment in R&D and defence across our continent makes this more likely. From the U.K. perspective, pretty much everyone agrees (behind the scenes for the moment) that Brexit has made these problems more difficult to address. As Blair said in the recently recirculating interview from 2019, the politicians who advocated it were naive and ignorant and did not understand how power is deployed on the international stage. What can be done? Again, I was surprised by the unanimity of the views from people with otherwise different political positions. We have to plan for a more isolationist US whose focus may shift away from Europe, even as we hope and work to avert this possibility. The U.K. therefore needs to reengage with Europe - by which I mean get itself firmly on the path to EU membership - as quickly as possible and before Macron leaves office. That depends primarily on the Conservative Party accepting the principle in opposition. The ball is in their court. This will (a) demonstrate that attempts to destabilise our continent politically are failing and (b) boost our economies so we can invest more in R&D and defence. Obviously, as you’ll see in the replies below, some people will need a lot of persuading. But the alternative is potentially existential, and so the case will have to be made. What we need in the U.K. is for a politician to emerge who has the rhetorical ability, courage and intellectual firepower to make the case to a public still shell shocked by the experience of 2016 - and who has the diplomatic skill to convince Europe that we are serious.

[Sim Kern @sim_kern]

Jewish author here, and for years I've used my social media to teach folks about the history of "antisemitism," but I will not be using that term anymore. And to fully explain why, we need to get clear on the history of the word. 1/🧵

[Matt D @uPlumber]

@Freeletics my subscription has been stopped, despite the annual payment renewing on 19 April. What the hell?

[Matthew Belousoff @bluesocks81]

I love techbro hubris. They 'solved' protein folding literally by relying on millions of hours of PhD level experiments to train their model. The only way to understand the universe at the Plank scale is also by experiments, not by the hallucinations of some AI #coolaid

[Matt D @uPlumber]

What a demolition of a body of lies by the Russian ambassador to the UN by the Polish ambassador. 👌

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

“He said we’re prisoners of Russophobia. Phobia means irrational fear…I put to you that it is not irrational when Russia threatens us. We trust it.”

The Polish FM totally destroyed the Russian ambassador and his lies at the UN Security Council

[Ben de Pear @bendepear]

$725 million is the settlement in America - but @facebook @meta was used to directly bombard c. 7 million with 1 billion Facebook ads grossly distorting the truth in the last weeks of #brexit by @Dominic2306 - he credits these ads as crucial see them here https://t.co/lzNwX8XIIA

[Matt D @uPlumber]

@adamhillscomedy Awesome. Tickets ordered. Can’t wait.

[Dr. Sean Mullen @drseanmullen]

Explain to me how this TikTok’r gets it and “public health experts” don’t. MDs don’t.

Share widely on multiple platforms.

Shout out to @michael_hoerger for breaking through to the younger generation.

h/t @sasswashere for alerting me to this most excellent video.

[IET London Network @IETLondon]

The IET Central London Network Xmas 2023 lecture is live at the IET Savoy Place listening to Mark Dakin, Managing Director at TAIT on the topic of The Artistic Application of Extraordinary Engineering @TAITTowers @TheIET @IET_LondonSavoy

[IET London Network @IETLondon]

Interested in how extraordinary engineering enables theatrical and stage artistic expression? IET London's #Christmas Lecture is for #artists & #performers as much as #engineers. https://t.co/X8HgnU97mO

[Scope @scope]

We’ve turned replies off on this thread, something that we’ve never done before ❌

But we don’t feel we have a choice.

Earlier this week we posted about ableist slurs in Ricky Gervais’ new show.

As a result, our replies have been full of abuse towards disabled people 🤬 1/7

[Matt D @uPlumber]

@gunsnrosesgirl3 No

[Matt D @uPlumber]

@TheSpaceshipper David Lynch is always my go to purely because I grew up with it and can almost quote it end to end, for accuracy the miniseries, and for beauty Villeneuve's. However, Villaneuve's film missed most of the economic, political, and the serious religious implications.

[Matt D @uPlumber]

I think that's academics in general.