Remote

Matt Mascarenhas

@miblo@mas.to

mastodon 4.7.2

video indexer & publishing services provider (for hire via https://miblo.net/cinera#hire) • software developer • strummer • baker • mistake maker–learner • coexister

241 Followers

890 Following

50 Posts

Joined April 25, 2022

Home:

https://miblo.net

ListenBrainz:

https://listenbrainz.org/user/Miblo

VGM Guitar Covers:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhxk264xvpUKxZXkh0hiXt11wDMpeqhs

Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@alex@dair-community.social @emilymbender@dair-community.social Thank you for the far more informational and level-headed term "language technology"! All these years, and it even having been in my degree as computational corpus linguistics (which I enjoyed, and have lately been citing when the hyped up topic has come up), yet I didn't know the term.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk Gosh yes, bring on the Clacton by-election!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@JeffGrigg@mastodon.social @idoubtit@mstdn.social Haha! I swear those two are as bad as each other! 🐺

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@neauoire Just leave it lying around in a dungeon for the next plunderer to take their chances…

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@gloriouscow@oldbytes.space cc @Cognessence@social.linux.pizza

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@beasts Wow, nice one! This'll make my recent switch from UK2 to Mythic Beasts £2.75 per year more worth it.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@jzb@hachyderm.io I kinda think there should be such a thing as the "unenforceability fallacy", crystallising this situation.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Cognessence@social.linux.pizza @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Rushup_Dee@mastodon.social Haha, you're welcome, no worries. I'm just loving trying to figure out this I-now-realise-beautiful melody! Dude, those two bars at 0:42, their crashing 4th beats. Gorrrgeous!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Cognessence@social.linux.pizza @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Rushup_Dee@mastodon.social Wow, I'm just absolutely smitten with this remix! 🥰

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us @RaffKarva@sunny.garden Wow, yeah, cheers for boosting this into my view! Related to a sentence in https://lakmusz.hu/2026/05/05/experts-takeaways-from-the-hungarian-election-it-was-surprising-how-quickly-the-magic-of-propaganda-disappeared that really chimes with me: "There are large players like TV2 that operate in the entertainment market and quickly adjusted their news programming, effectively putting the past 16 years period in parentheses." This idea of putting unwelcome periods / political developments into parentheses, rather than bolstering them, is something I reckon we need to do here.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@grimalkina@mastodon.social Looking forward to read the paper and, honestly, it's threads like this I'm thinking of when I want a "favourite entire thread" button / option!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@SecondUniverse@autistics.life @davidaugust@mastodon.online Genius!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@RickiTarr@beige.party Totally, and I wonder if these kind of bygone names may be making a comeback. My sister, for instance, mentioned that a new-parent friend (of a friend?) called their kid Percy!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@statsguy@mas.to It's all such a gaping missed opportunity, imo. Health: Breaking chains of viral transmission. Politics: Engendering solidarity, resilience, and going some way to undoing all the divisiveness. Education: Vaccine literacy, evolution happening before our eyes in the fast-mutating virus itself.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@Walrus@toot.wales @openrightsgroup@social.openrightsgroup.org Yikes! I actually hit up against this very thing – database vs spreadsheet – when volunteering at our local hospital some years ago. Archiving historical litigation case files, some to be shredded immediately, some at a future date, manually typing rows into a spreadsheet, and offering to make it into a database for easier entry-addition / querying by non-techies. And yeah, the push-back was from another volunteer, worrying about having no one technical enough able to change the system if I don't stick around! Sincerely hope the MoD haven't got volunteers involved in this. 🤓

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@jencmars@mastodon.art Beautiful, and perfect for World Goth Day! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Goth_Day

en.wikipedia.org

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@farah@beige.party @RickiTarr@beige.party Aaah yeah, maybe! I'd wondered if they're just really big fans of Percy Sledge. Or the green dude from Thomas the Tank Engine…

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st Such a key point about the "unspecific nature of the term". We hear the same hand-wavy, anti-informative mechanism at play with the term "common sense".

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@simon_lucy@mastodon.social @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Aha, cheers. Yep, I reckon I had taken my eye off the Brexit ball when it came to these election results.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@simon_lucy@mastodon.social @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Right, nice one. This swapping between CON→REF is what would make sense to me, but I've been struggling to actually see in results! It's been looking to me like LAB→REF compounding it, but maybe I've just been failing to account for Labour stay-at-homes…

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@simon_lucy@mastodon.social @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Wow, well spotted. It's a pretty interesting observation from the perspective of my constituency that actually voted the dreaded 52−48 back in 2016. • 2026 Local Election: https://democracy.stockport.gov.uk/mgElectionResults.aspx?ID=70&RPID=240572646 • 2024 General Election: https://electionresults.parliament.uk/elections/3527 These more current results don't map to anything like the closeness of our 2016 vote, encouragingly, I'd suggest.

democracy.stockport.gov.uk

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@kathimmel@mstdn.social Oh cool, nice one for posting and cheers @essjayjay@tech.lgbt for boosting into my view! Interesting entry for one resignation – https://informuk.org/derbyshire/jack-bradley – linking to this list compiled by the Lib Dem peer Mark Pack: https://www.markpack.org.uk/175342/how-many-councillors-has-reform-uk-lost-since-may/

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Cognessence@social.linux.pizza @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Rushup_Dee@mastodon.social Ohhh right, yeah, I think I get the two wrongs bit now, maybe? I mean, just that B♭ figure – D-F-D-B♭-D – was crazily throwing me off, I kept hearing that first D as an E♭, which had been in the bass! Amazing stuff.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Cognessence @sean_ae Oh yeah, so much to love in here! Your love for the bass, Sean, straight away made me think of Ravel's 'Menuet antique', e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZUf2vFIRIk Some really nice bass in there, I think. (Once upon a time I could play it too, fwiw.) I'm a sucker for that bit around 1:01 (of your improv, Robert), which then kinda echoes lower down at 1:41. I think it's that subtly descending movement, sounds really wistful, pensive, you know?

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@bloor Aye, after not quite sitting right with me around the time of Change UK / TIG – which, personally, I welcomed – the word now shines! 💩

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@pheonix Gosh, this is a tough one! I've never actually had a smartphone – just regular mobiles ever since my teens – so haven't "switched back" creating a gap to fill. I suppose one thing I've seen smartphone users do: when something pops up in conversation / on TV that piques their interest, they look it up immediately. I'd instead make (or add to) a reminder on my phone of things to look up later when at the computer. And if I ever get rid of the phone, I'll carry a notepad around again.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@statsguy@mas.to Oooh yeah, maybe!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

RE: @urlyman@mastodon.social

Now 48,542.

mastodon.social

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@MarkHoltom Totally, and the brilliant C4 drama Dirty Business presents a laser-focused understanding of England's sewage problem – scandal, frankly – as a direct product of privatisation. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/dirty-business

Dirty Business

Dirty Business

Shocking real-life drama about the muck in our water and a corporate scandal

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Mind-blown by this American Don deluxe edition and the story behind these True Live Tapes: https://doncaballero.bandcamp.com/album/american-don-deluxe-edition

First impressions: What a fascinating document of the sheer difference that the acoustic space and recording process both make.

doncaballero.bandcamp.com

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@mariafarrell@mastodon.social @beabusaniche@rebel.ar Wow, cheers for mentioning this! And price-wise, going by the first two shops I've found – https://www.theseedcardcompany.com/ and https://ukseedpaper.com/plantable-cards/ – I'm pretty sure these are cheaper than non-plantable ones I've previously bought.

theseedcardcompany.com

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@bloor Old school timescales! 🕰️

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@kristiedegaris@mastodon.scot Beautiful! 🪨

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Cognessence@social.linux.pizza @sean_ae@post.lurk.org @elifyalvac@tldr.nettime.org @Rushup_Dee@mastodon.social Oh yeah, of course! By the way, that figure, with fresher ears and at half-speed, pretty sure I'm now hearing right as E♭-F-E♭-B♭-D. 🫣

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@robertklaschka@mastodon.online @sinabhfuil@mastodon.ie @pluralistic@mamot.fr Ah right, interesting profile but, yeah, a surprise and a shame to hear of this. Really no place for such lies and smears among those of us on the power-distributive side of things, imo. Same, though, I'd (otherwise) welcome more Greens, and actually voted for and got a Green MEP at our most recent European Parliament elections, when I figured the D'Hondt method was up to the task!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

April Fools', the day of second-guessing all our favourites / boosts…

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@robertklaschka@mastodon.online @sinabhfuil@mastodon.ie @pluralistic@mamot.fr Yeah, worth also saying, I reckon, that this is a national issue, while today we're electing local councillors.

Same as our elections generally, my formula:

understand the electoral profile of our ward, e.g. here's me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bredbury_and_Woodley_(Stockport_electoral_ward) (2-way "split", across 3 seats, between Labour and Lib Dem, albeit seems the actual current LAB councillors have since gone Indy!).
vote for the closest aligned to us out of those with a chance of getting in.

en.wikipedia.org

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 1mo ago

RE: @musicradar@flipboard.com

🎸 Very cool, and great reaction from our Johnny Marr!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@ianbetteridge@social.vivaldi.net Bricking it…

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@mariafarrell@mastodon.social Cheers, yeah, planning to send these from now on. This is just the kind of propaganda I – well… – dig.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@idoubtit@mstdn.social Aww well, a phrase from my English degree: context is key. (Between you you'd have to share enough of it for their meaning to get through.)

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@liw Oh, this is Hobson's choice, isn't it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice

en.wikipedia.org

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@pheonix Can confirm, in 2026 without a smartphone, this is still nice!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@baldur@toot.cafe Totally, seeing things in terms of where they sit on the power concentration–distribution spectrum is kind of a recent breakthrough for me. Even as someone who has pretty consistently gravitated towards power-distribution approaches all my life, as it happens, it's given me a new way of articulating this. Makes me wonder how widely people just don't have even a subconscious sense of the power implications of LLMs, let alone anything else.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 1mo ago

So much respect for the people of Scotland, once again proving themselves to be the most switched-on – or less bombarded with / susceptible to propaganda? – people of the UK. Feels like down here in England the general society, speaking figuratively, would gather at things like seances and masonic lodges, whereas up in Scotland concerts and libraries would be the places.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/25/never-seen-this-level-of-objection-scotland-pushes-back-against-datacentre-boom

theguardian.com

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Natasha_Jay Whatever next? Chocolate fireguard? 🍫

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 1mo ago

Congratulating myself on bucking the trend by going for days and days without mentioning… nope nope nope, I'm not falling for that one!

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 1mo ago

📽️ One Hundred Years of Solitude

Looking forward to the finale this eve. Enjoyed the series, reckon they've done a beautiful job of bringing Gabriel García Márquez's magical realism to the screen. Although the finale itself was released on Wednesday, seeing that it clocks in at a feature-length 1h 43m I saved it up for this weekend's film night.

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Gustodon@mas.to @RickiTarr@beige.party And we then keep on discovering ways to improve our health… 🤫

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Matt Mascarenhas @miblo@mas.to

· 6mo ago

In the bits I've read, it's good to see my MP Lisa Smart (Lib Dem) and Ellie Chowns (Green) advocating scrapping the 2022 Tory-introduced requirement for voter ID here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-03-26/debates/f290cda4-4e60-422e-a309-c15babf507e5/RepresentationOfThePeopleBill(FifthSitting)

You're looking for "clause 19".

hansard.parliament.uk

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