Notices by Simon Brooke (simon_brooke@mastodon.scot), page 4

@amszmidt @vindarel there were indeed at the time attempts to make new key binding schemes for #Emacs to make it play nice with then-new key binding conventions, but the Emacs ecosystem was by that time so large that there were always horrible incinsistencies somewhere, so that as far as I'm aware there was never a comprehensive, consistent, key-binding scheme which was did not hopelessly violate user expectations somewhere.

@amszmidt @ringtailringo@mastodon.social @vindarel It's also fair to say that before the Mac became established -- in the mid 1980s -- there was no reason to prefer one set of key bindings to another. But as we increasingly came to use Emacs on systems where Ctrl-C meant `copy` and Ctrl-S meant `save`, #Emacs sticking to an older set of bindings which did not conform to these (newer) conventions just become a layer of cognitive nuisance which greatly reduced its utility. >>>

@amszmidt @vindarel I used #Emacs on VT100s and equivalents, and it was fine. I used Emacs under TWM, where every damned app seemed to use different bindings, and it was no worse than anything else. But by the time we got to OSF/Motif (1989) a default set of core keybindings had emerged, and almost all applications adopted it.

Leaving #Emacs as an outlier.

It did not need to be this way.

@vindarel No, #Emacs' pathological user hostility is not a feature. Yes, forty years ago I did use Emacs for almost everything. Forty years ago, there wasn't anything better. Now, almost everything is better. Almost everything uses consistent key bindings, at least for common functions. Almost everything has easily discoverable commands. Almost everything has consistent theming.

Emacs could have moved with the times, but it hasn't.

Gaza Verified is a very useful scheme (led by @aral and @joynewacc -- many thanks to them) which gives us confidence that the people we are helping are truly in #Gaza and truly in need; but I don't yet have ways of assessing where need is most urgent.

The people I am helping are among the most articulate, know western languages, have phones. There must be others who lack these benefits, whose need is greater; but I don't know how to reach them.

Those who follow me may be feeling overwhelmed by the number of appeals for help from people in #Gaza that I'm reposting.

I am sorry; I feel overwhelmed myself. I cannot help most of these people. My resources are very limited. I can't tell you whether one person's need is more urgent than another's.

But this need is real and desperate. Bombs are still falling; aid is still being blocked.

Please help if you can.

>>>

@aral @joynewacc @casey @aseelfromgz

Thank you all for the work you have done!

Well, trust me to put a mortice right through not one but two big knots. However, today's joints are much better than Monday's!

This is the first end frame of the new workshop sort of done. I'm thinking about whether to add diagonal braces. I really should, the would make the building a lot stronger.

It's widely reported that #China has been building out huge amounts of #solar photovoltaic generation, and of course that is a big contributor to slowing #ClimateChange. But what I discovered to my surprise this week is that China is also #Reforesting faster than almost anywhere else on Earth, which is an equally important contributor, and also contributes positively to the #Oxygen cycle.

https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation

@yogthos

"However, by 2015, support for independence stood at 52% among those on the left, compared with just 24% among those on the right – a difference of 28 points... In our most recent survey in 2024, those on the left were 34 points more likely than those on the right to say that Scotland should become an independent country"

#ScottishIndependence
#ScotPol

And this is why the #SNP should stop chasing right wing votes!

https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/scottish-social-attitudes-25-years-devolution-scotland

@LillyHerself The Scottish Government has always had the power to reform local government taxation, in any way it liked; but hasn't done so. We could have a #WealthTax; we don't. We could have more progressive #PropertyTax; we don't. They would have to have been local taxes, but we could have them.

We've done shockingly little on #LandReform. We're lagging way behind our own goals on decarbonisation. We have not defended #TransRights against the recent UK assault.

Need I go on?

@hellomiakoda unfortunately, having fecal material (specifically of other people, especially close relatives) in your food is pretty much the only way to develop and sustain a healthy gut biome.

Over-cleanliness is the root of a lot of disease (but under-cleanliness is the root of a lot of other disease, so the balance isn't easy).

It's not that our politicians don't know what's needed to slow #ClimateChange. It's that they don't care.

Their two priorities are

1. winning the next election, under the UK's absurdly dysfunctional, archaic and undemocratic system;

2. pleasing the big donors, who include the #FossilFuel industry, the car industry, and the armaments industry.

They do not care what happens ten years ahead: five is as far as they can see.

#ClimateEmergency
#Corruption

https://theconversation.com/we-surveyed-british-mps-most-dont-know-how-urgent-climate-action-is-266703

@aral We live in a world in which a person who says "I will always be a friend of [a state actively committing #Genocide]" is not only not arrested, not only not expelled from Parliament and from her political party, but is allowed to hold the second highest political office in a country which considers itself 'civilised'.

#GazaGenocide

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25510910.rachel-reeves-says-will-always-friend-israel/

"the #AI bubble is driven by monopolists who've conquered their markets and have no more growth potential, who are desperate to convince investors that they can continue to grow by moving into some other sector...

when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging "foundation models" will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job, and you will be long gone" — @pluralistic

#LLMs

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/econopocalypse/#subprime-intelligence

@alexshendi @amszmidt @neptune22222 that, sir, is a dirty, low blow.

@amszmidt I must be doing it wrong, then.

@thibaultmol As an #ActuallyAutistic person, crowded noisy places, like rock concerts, festivals, sports arenas, city centres, aren't accessible to me. But you can't change these places to make them accessible to me without taking away the things which make them useful and interesting to a lot of other people.

There are accessibility things which you can do easily at no significant cost to anyone, like wheelchair ramps and #AltText and hearing loops and so on, but there are some you just can't.

"Open source, the thing that drives the world, the thing Harvard says has an economic value of 8.8 trillion dollars (also a big number). Most of it is one person. And I can promise you not one of those single person projects have the proper amount of resources they need. If you want to talk about possible risks to your supply chain, a single maintainer that’s grossly underpaid and overworked. That’s the risk. The country they are from is irrelevant."

#OpenSource

https://opensourcesecurity.io/2025/08-oss-one-person/

I don't often quote Counterfire, but:

"Britain has many options for acting, such as:

* Supporting and enforcing the International Court of Justice rulings against Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers.
* Expelling Israeli diplomats.
* Inviting Israeli opposition leaders to meet with Britain and other countries to draw up a peace proposal.
...
* Calling a summit with EU member states to impose sanctions on Israel"

#GazaGenocide
#Complicity

https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-reality-of-israeli-genocide-finally-hits-british-politicians/