danielquinn
@danielquinn@lemmy.ca
Canadian software engineer living in Europe.
- Comment on Eurovision 2026: Electronic artist and YouTuber Look Mum No Computer to represent UK in Vienna - BBC News 2 days ago:
We shouldn’t be in Eurovision. If the UK had any self respect, we’d be boycotting it like Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, and Slovenia.
- Comment on Brushing fraud: Britons told to beware of mystery parcels as new scam soars 2 days ago:
All the pearl-clutching about how the product you receive may not adhere to good quality standards ignores the fact that “legitimate” companies like Hobbycraft were selling asbestos-laden products to kids right out of the brick random offer stores until about a month ago.
- Comment on Abolishing trial by jury: why is the government overlooking the obvious? 1 week ago:
This is just an attempt to avoid jury nullification verdicts on cases like Palestine Action and JSO.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x04 "Vox in Excelso" 2 weeks ago:
I really didn’t care for this one.
The premise of the debate was flawed from the start. The Federation has an obligation to offer help, but there’s no requirement anywhere that it must compel another race to accept that help. Indeed many, many episodes have gone out of their way to point this out. So the whole idea of a “debate” was pointless. Of course they should offer the help, but that’s the end of any moral or legal responsibility. Doing anything more would itself be unethical.
Interestingly as an aside, I found this whole prospect very American at its root. Not only should we accept that we must offer help, but of course we must compel these people to accept our idea of help. It stinks of regime change from without and I find the idea that the Federation would ever work this way ridiculous.
On top of that, we’re somehow supposed to pretend we didn’t all watch Esri Dax’s excellent critique of the Klingon Empire back on DS9 and instead accept that this lie of “conquest” is supposed to prop up the Klingon culture. Are we to believe that it’s been hundreds of years and the Empire is still built in lies they tell each other about honour and battle? Instead of showing any hint of evolution (and potentially stoking internal conflict at the idea of accepting charity from an enemy), we just had a 5 minute “battle” and it’s all ok now.
This wasn’t even a respectful battle. No blood was spilt by either side, no sacrifices made. Where is the honour in that? It was a mock battle to preserve a lie. Esri would not be amused.
- Submitted 3 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 5 comments
- Comment on UK government targets VPNs in new online safety consultation as Lords vote for ban 3 weeks ago:
I will never get used to the comfort Britons appear to have with surveillance. I guess it’s time to set up a Wireguard instance of my own in the Netherlands to proxy everything through.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x01 "Kids These Days" & 1x02 "Beta Test" 4 weeks ago:
Is anyone else concerned that they might making the same decision they did with Discovery and making the series into “Star Trek: Caleb Mir”? At this point, everyone else already feel like background singers to me.
- Comment on Israelis demonised as a ‘vehicle for hatred of Jews’, says UK terror laws watchdog 5 weeks ago:
I’d say it’s worse than that. If someone looks at a protest opposing genocide and they take from that that they’re antisemitic, then they’re essentially starting from a position of “Jews = genociders” which is pretty fucking antisemitic.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
Toward the end of 2024, Adam Something posted a brilliant video called “Why Centrism Won’t Survive 2025” and he made a very convincing case. Toward the end, he lays into Starmer’s Labour specifically, though he doesn’t predict the rise of the Greens here.
- Comment on Creating apps like Signal or WhatsApp could be 'hostile activity,' claims UK watchdog 1 month ago:
This has to be the standard response to these sorts of claims. I would love to see a Labour MP try to respond to this on Question Time for example.
- Comment on Met police agree to pay £7,500 to woman arrested over Gaza protest placard 2 months ago:
“Israel: what a cuntry”
Witty. I like it.
- Comment on Polling lead by age group, November 2025 2 months ago:
Jesus, the discrepancy between the Green vote among the young and old is… horrifying.
- Comment on Andrew will be banished from royal premises to King Charles' private and remote Sandringham estate 3 months ago:
“Oh no! Not Sandringham!” - Andrew, probably.
- Comment on Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us thrive” 3 months ago:
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the phrase “time theft”, but I largely agree. The real benefit of hybrid work is flexibility, and I’d never want to take that away from anyone. I just object to the constant parroting of this lie that remote necessarily means more productive. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve seen many many cases of the opposite.
- Comment on Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us thrive” 3 months ago:
Working from home sucks. Yeah I said it.
I’m a software engineer, and yes, there are days that working from home really does help with concentration and focus on a particular project, but unless you’re a contractor, tasked with “build this and come back when it’s finished”, building anything is typically a collaborative process. You know what sucks for collaboration? Working from home.
There are no tools that can sufficiently replace what the office offers: interaction, chance conversation, camaraderie and socialising with the people with whom you’re trying to build The Thing. It’s why people still go to actual conferences and no one cares about gigantic Zoom calls masquerading as real interaction. Slack sucks, Jira sucks, Teams suuuuuuucks. They’ll do in a pinch, but they’ll never offer real collaboration. For that, you still have to be in the same building.
That’s not to say that offering remote work isn’t great. There are people who work best in isolation, but that’s not all of us. I’d argue that it isn’t even most of us, and headlines like this “working from home makes us thrive” aren’t helping. They’re objectively bullshit. Having been in software development for 25 years, I can categorically state that the more remote the team I’ve been in, the less organised, the more disjointed and disconnected it is.
And don’t get me started on the whole “overemployment” trend, where people try to hold down two jobs by doing neither well at all. Yet another “perk” of remote work I guess.
- Comment on Green Party membership surges even higher as Labour loses a member every 10 minutes 3 months ago:
Welcome!
- Comment on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Season 4 Clip | Paramount+ (NYCC 2025) 4 months ago:
Am I the only one who thinks this might be a Caretaker reference?
- Comment on Record breaker Starmer is the 'most unpopular PM since polling began' 4 months ago:
It’s the expectation.
Boris and Truss were abject morons and Sunak was an insulated, rich Tory. They were expected to be terrible and so we weren’t surprised.
Starmer won in a landslide victory for Labour and went about screwing the poor, arresting old ladies, and presiding over genocide. Conservatives hate him because he’s on the Red Team, and the Left hate him because he acts like a Tory.
If he’d run as a Tory, he’d be scoring higher than everyone since Cameron, but he was supposed to fix the mess, not make it worse.
- Comment on Is Star Trek Discovery that bad? 4 months ago:
I agree 100% with this take and want to thank you for that excellent video! I’m not all the way through yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
- Comment on Polanski apologises over claim he can increase women’s breast sizes with his mind 4 months ago:
Hooray!
- Comment on Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards 4 months ago:
The opposition to id cards themeselves in this country is very strange to me. Most civilised countries have some sort of national identification number/card that can be used to access government services, and having worked inside the UK government, I can tell you what a total nightmare it is to develop services for Britons without such a unique id.
What kills me, is that inevitably the id card debate here seems to focus in on the existence of a card rather than what the government wants to attach include with it, like biometric data, or pairing it with an app with invasive permissions. You need an id number for me so that I can be identified when accessing government services, you don’t need to keep a record of every time I boarded a train or more surveillance nonsense.
This country is so used to government surveillance that they automatically assume that “id card means more tracking” rather than objecting to the tracking that already exists (have you seen Oxford Street?) and opposing an id that’d save the country mountains of cash and hassle if used properly.
- Comment on Zack Polanski urges UK to protect Gaza flotilla, as other countries risk war to resist Israeli impunity 4 months ago:
Fuck yes. More of this please.
- Comment on Just watched SNW 03.04 and that monologue by "Joni Gloss" about inspiring generations... it touched me 5 months ago:
Probably the only good moment in all of season 3 frankly.
- Comment on Green MP spots banned cluster bombs at London arms fair 5 months ago:
I downvoted this, largely because while you may have identified the photo correctly the way you’ve done so here makes it sound like Berry has made a mistake when there’s no evidence of that from the article.
From her X post (why the fuck are these people still on X?):
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers.
- Comment on Israeli president’s planned visit to UK angers MPs 5 months ago:
Duck that. Roll out the red carpet for him and then chuck him in prison.
- Comment on Polanski apologises over claim he can increase women’s breast sizes with his mind 5 months ago:
Watch his recent interview with Channel 4. I think you might come around to him.
- Comment on Spelthorne Borough Council Public Space Protection Order 5 months ago:
With a name like “public space defence”, I honestly thought this would be about making spaces more friendly to the public, removing hostile architecture like skatestoppers and Camden benches, or replacing ads with public art, roads with bike infrastructure.
I’ve been living here 10 years. I really should know better by now.
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 6 months ago:
That is… nuts. Is your home listed or something or is this must the council being crazy?
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 6 months ago:
Yes and no. So long as the air temp outside is higher than the inside, you should close and shutter all windows regardless of the direct sunlight.
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 6 months ago:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely both are necessary parts of the solution given the trajectory we’re on?
Absolutely, but critically these don’t address heat. More importantly, swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump in a poorly insulated home will just result in wasted energy and cold/damp people.
In order to counter that we need an efficient way of moving heat from inside back out again without letting any more in, which is not something many houses in the UK can do today.
In 2025, most people in developed hot countries are using air conditioning in addition to everything else
While I can’t speak for the whole of warm countries, my wife’s family is Greek and we visit often, where air conditioning is surprisingly limited given the temperatures they endure. Instead you see shutters on windows, tile floors (with rugs they pull out for the winter), and tree cover that shields the home from the outside. That’s not to say that AC isn’t common, it is, and rolling out solar everywhere is a great way to deal with that. My only objection is to the common refrain of “more heat pumps” without acknowledging that most homes in this country are so poorly insulated that any temperature regulation is lost unless it’s constant.