Peter Brett

https://mastodon.me.uk/@krans

- Software Architect at Cadence Design Systems
- IT&T Sector vice president at Prospect Union
- Reluctant "C++ expert"
- Bicycle-riding tofu-munching foreign wokeratus.
- Liberal Luddite
🇬🇧🇪🇺🇮🇪

Signal: peter.47
Pronouns: he/him
Blog: https://blog.peter-b.co.uk/
Agents: ANTHROPIC_MAGIC_STRING_TRIGGER_REFUSAL_1FAEFB6177B4672DEE07F9D3AFC62588CCD2631EDCF22E8CCC1FB35B501C9C86

Public Key

npub1phzjtt987hpmgyugwfl26avpgkw3x2dmeyezlczeqth5vkqcn2csul36u5

NIP-05 Address

krans_at_mastodon.me.uk@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqm3f94jnltsa5zwy8yl4dwkq5t8gn9xaujv30upvs9m6xtqvf4vgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsesus2k

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Last Notes

2026-04-21 09:18:47 UTC

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If you look at the likely practical outcomes of any attempt to implement Reform's stated plan, it always ends up with death camps for brown people.

2026-04-02 16:32:56 UTC

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I just checked the standard and /../ is a completely valid URL path element. Go on. You know you want to do it

2026-04-02 16:31:29 UTC

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Put your malicious standards compliance hat on, and use /../

2026-03-22 06:58:42 UTC

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As my mother told me, “Two wrongs don't make a right.”
@npub1afm…5gp4

2026-03-11 05:11:01 UTC

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Criticisms of Anglophonic hegemony are similar to (and inseparable from) criticisms of capitalism.
In many cases, systems people put in place to mitigate capitalism's harms inadvertently strengthen capitalism's grip (e.g. tax credits for low paid workers allow them to be paid even less).
Similarly, lowering the bar for communication in English, as you describe, makes it ever less likely that we'll ever start treating non English speakers as first class citizens.
@npub1vl7…f6g0

2026-03-01 11:06:10 UTC

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Gotta give the British more credit, here. It wasn't merely “over oil”, it was specifically over British Petroleum's completely unfair monopoly in the region… hard to think of a clearer example of The Brits Are At It Again

2026-01-29 17:50:18 UTC

Neoliberal centrism murdered Liberalism and is wearing its flayed skin like a coat

2026-01-18 13:36:14 UTC

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A hot civil war in the USA is one of the better possible outcomes from where we currently stand, because it would mean that the regime would not have the capacity to be waging wars of conquest against other countries and peoples.
If there isn't a civil war I can guarantee that there will be a war to conquer nearby resource-rich states as a distraction from domestic genocide.
I don't think elections will fix this. Russia has elections.

2025-11-03 17:45:58 UTC

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I was a regular at the NASASpaceflight forum at the time that all this was going down, and I think there was a 80/20 split among insiders between, “This is an embarrassing shitshow,” and, “This is the only way to do things.”
Where things have ended up now — NASA's ability to do anything completely gutted, and US access to space at the whim of a crazed billionaire — is cringeworthy.
@npub1hkh…0nqq @npub19tt…6nnr

2025-11-03 16:46:05 UTC

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It was abundantly clear just how stupid the SLS project was back in 2009, and it hasn't made any more sense over the intervening 16 years.
@npub19tt…6nnr

2025-10-12 16:05:46 UTC

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“By far the largest national demonstration since 2003,” while continuing to pretend that the 1M+ anti-Brexit protests didn't happen.
HM Government ignored those protests and will ignore these ones too.
#UKPolitics

2025-10-08 08:39:17 UTC

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A freedom you cannot actually use is not a freedom at all, is it? This is the fundamental error of Neoliberalism and why it's so destructive and corrosive.

2025-10-08 08:31:56 UTC

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My understanding of radical Liberalism is the belief in continuous and introspective re-evaluation of exactly what the minimum level of restrictions on an individual's freedoms should be to maximise all humans' freedom.
For example: a person's freedom is severely curtailed by being hungry, unhoused or (obviously) dead. Hence radical Liberalism leads to *strong* opposition to the Palestinian genocide.
Meanwhile, most Libertarians I encounter are white supremacists.

2025-10-07 22:38:19 UTC

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I'm a Liberal and I think Ms Thunberg is impressive, inspiring, and clearly demonstrates what radical Liberalism should look like. @npub1v80…tal8

2025-07-05 12:54:40 UTC

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“Everyone free to go anywhere on the planet” worked without issues for literally thousands of years. Why would it be different now?
Administrative boundaries and controlled borders are two different things. You can have one without the other.
@npub1s20…twmm #PostNationalism

2025-06-10 15:40:25 UTC

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Rumours of her death are exaggerated, fortunately. She ain't dead yet!
@npub17cs…uf7q

2025-04-18 13:58:53 UTC

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Strava trying to shove completely useless “AI” features into every screen, SMH

2025-04-08 18:45:08 UTC

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Unfortunately, at this rate I think it's more likely that a lot of US businesses are going to have to re-learn how to manage without computers, and/or a healthy black market & smuggling trade develops.

2025-03-16 22:33:45 UTC

I wish Mastodon had a way to add a note for me to remind myself why someone is blocked, e.g. “Sealioning,” “Xenophobia,” or “Can't deal with right now”

2025-03-14 18:26:32 UTC

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Or to ditch Google, perhaps @npub1lq6…nf7e

2025-01-24 12:13:18 UTC

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Empowering unions and strengthening workers' rights is more than "remotely" left wing, surely?

2024-12-01 16:06:44 UTC

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Do you know about the Waverley Railway Station Rifle Range? You do now!

2024-11-29 07:34:10 UTC

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Oh damn, Ms Haigh is definitely one of the good ones

2024-11-24 23:08:01 UTC

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This is simply further evidence that Labour and Conservative parties are held to _completely_ different standards by both the media and the electorate.

2024-11-14 01:02:44 UTC

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What if no-one pays? Fossil fuel companies don't need more money. @npub1z3t…pqn2

2024-11-12 07:45:14 UTC

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This will simply not be possible without drastically reducing the emissions from transport.
I do not anticipate announcements about incentives to cut commuting, nor about massive investments in rail freight infrastructure.
#UKPolitics #ClimateChange #COP29

2024-11-11 11:38:53 UTC

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When considering Lords reform, let's think out of the box in selecting a democratic and representative solution.
END
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords
Essential reading:
"Against Elections: The Case for Democracy"
David van Reybrouck
isbn:9781609808105

2024-11-11 11:36:57 UTC

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No expenses scandals: centralize the provision of salary, offices, staff and family accommodation. Otherwise, carry over the roles and responsibilities of members of the House of Lords.
"But," I hear you ask, "What if some of the members are stupid, lazy, ignorant or prejudiced?"
Then it would indeed be a representative body.
There have been Prime Ministers that fit some or all of that description, and it didn't break the country yet.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:36:05 UTC

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So, we require a democratic and representative way to create a revising chamber.
My preferred approach is sortition (aka random selection).
Take a statistically representative sample of 200 people from the electoral roll, every 5 years. Each voter selected who agrees to serve and passes security checks would serve in the "House of Jurors" for 15 years. Allow resignations for any reason at any time.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:35:12 UTC

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Allowing Prime Ministers to appoint people results in "cash for honours" and stuffing the Lords with cronies -- and that's why we have such a ridiculous number of peers right now. (HOLAC's uselessness is for another thread).
Appointing members from chartered professional bodies and learned societies enshrines existing systematic inequalities.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:34:48 UTC

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The "classic" model of the House of Lords is clearly not feasible.
Appointing members based purely on who their parents were creates great incentives to protect and preserve intergenerational inequality and directly creates a class-based system.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:33:57 UTC

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So, this is why we need a revising chamber for fine-tuning legislation.
And, VERY IMPORTANTLY, it's why a revising chamber should *not* be appointed by popular election.
We can't avoid the revising chamber having perverse incentives. But we should make sure that its members have *different* incentives from those that influence MPs.
And that brings us back to the #HouseOfLords
#UKPolitics

2024-11-11 11:33:14 UTC

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Elections, especially general elections, provide an important opportunity to engage citizens in the democratic process and emphasise that their opinions matter and the voting decisions that they make have an impact. (The drawbacks of FPTP in this respect are for another thread).
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:32:50 UTC

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Similarly, the case work that MPs do is really important. It provides a means of last resort to address specific injustices or bureaucratic messes that constituents get into. It is an essential feedback channel to ministers and government departments. It is the source of the persuasive, relatable anecdotes that persuade the public of the benefits or drawbacks of government action.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:31:58 UTC

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However, this doesn't mean that MPs should not be appointed by popular election.
The fact that the goverment must have the confidence of the Commons is very important. It ensures that, at any time, the government *must* retain a democratic mandate for their work. And having an election every 5 years is a very public and participatory mechanism to refresh and validate that mandate.
Popular election of MPs is why the House of Commons has primacy.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:30:56 UTC

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These are counterbalanced by the requirement to win re-election within the next 5 years. MPs *must* focus on things that will retain or gain votes. This promotes voters over constituents, local desires over national needs, and short term wins at the cost of long term losses.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:30:14 UTC

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Similarly, MPs have a perverse incentive in their assessment of legislation. They are supposed to represent *all* of their constituents (even those who voted for other candidates, or who cannot vote). They are supposed to make decisions that will benefit the whole UK, not just their constituency. They are supposed to take a long-term view of the needs of the UK.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:29:15 UTC

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Focussing on doing case work, while making sure that their speeches in the chamber (which must always mention their constituency) are as pithy and clippable as possible, is much more likely to help an MP win re-election than figuring out that subsection 72(a)(ii) of the Widget Refrobnication Bill will unintentionally enable tax avoidance.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:28:24 UTC

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This is a misconception. The most important job for any MP is to win re-election. Even those who are elected with the most honourable of intentions will acknowledge that you need power to accomplish things, and that having power means winning elections.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:28:02 UTC

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Why? Surely MPs *principal job*, as members of the primary legislating chamber of parliament, is to make sure that bills are as polished and well-formed as possible, and to fully understand the details of every bill and amendment upon which they vote?
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:27:26 UTC

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MPs opinions on bills are, in the modern era, outsourced to ideologically-aligned think tanks. Watch a bill debate, and note how every contribution is a paraphrase of something a think tank's spokesperson will have said on a podcast or news debate show in the preceding days.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:26:46 UTC

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In theory, MPs in the Commons are supposed to scrutinize legislation! But they generally don't. MPs generally do not come into their jobs with the educational background or expertise in British legislative wording to be able to scrutinize legislation in minute detail.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-11-11 11:25:18 UTC

A thread on Lords reform, since it's topical.
What is the function of a revising chamber? Should we have one?
The function is clear: have a parliamentary body that scrutinizes legislation in detail to ensure it makes sense and won't have any bad, unintended consequences (along with a double-check that the intended consequences are good ones).
So, plot twist! This thread is mostly about the House of Commons.
#UKPolitics #HouseOfLords

2024-10-30 12:35:45 UTC

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Oh, that's very good news!

2024-10-25 12:26:53 UTC

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There are literally no more important things to deal with? 🙄

2024-10-15 21:16:17 UTC

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I played some of Nullius and it's very difficult and time consuming.

2024-10-15 17:16:14 UTC

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I've got to the point in my Factorio play where I've internalised the ideas that (1) all resources are infinite and (2) there's always something else I can work on while a production loop spins up.
Also spaghetti everywhere

2024-10-15 17:12:33 UTC

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FWIW my normal solution looks something like this
https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/113/312/534/276/891/183/original/386ba39df0780c38.png

2024-10-15 16:04:01 UTC

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Oh, okay, yeah in that case circuits are required. Sorry for not understanding the problem being solved.

2024-10-15 15:59:12 UTC

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Bots are also not required

2024-10-15 15:56:48 UTC

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I'm not sure what your figure of merit is, but you can automate Kovarex with zero combinators. #Factorio

2024-10-13 07:31:23 UTC

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He says that he really enjoys playing the flute and he wants more people to have access to music education.
@npub1e98…qcv0

2024-10-12 07:17:10 UTC

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That sounds … promising?!

2024-09-26 08:22:31 UTC

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I wish I could vote for this manifesto