Butterflies' Bridgend habitat protected by volunteers - and cows - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c621jgepljvo

- Automated spam is on the rise.
- Our digital communities are at risk from increasing regulation.
- AI bots are overwhelming service providers.

But we can prevail!

Our annual assessment asks what tools and resources you need most to fight back. Whether you're a community builder, platform admin, or content moderator, your input directly shapes our upcoming work and advocacy efforts.

Take just five minutes and fill out the 2026 Social Web Operations Survey today:

➡️ https://tally.so/r/81MW6k

RE: https://toot.wales/@alexisbushnell/116893915975741391

Yep. I am now a 1 dog family.

TiLi has gone over the rainbow bridge.

It's #FediForumFriday- your reminder to check in with projects you're excited about, ask for or offer help, or just chat with the folks you met and refresh the joy and motivation you felt at #FediForum.

"There are only two kinds of people who use person-first language when talking about autistics:

1. Autistaphobic bigots. In other words, people who believe there's something wrong with being autistic. That being autistic is, in some way, a bad or shameful thing.

2. People who don't know any better. In other words, people who picked up the habit because it's so ubiquitous in the discourse on autism, thanks to the influence of autistaphobic bigots, and who've just never thought enough about the implications.

It's generally a waste of time to argue with bigots, whether it's about autistaphobic language or any other issue, because bigots don't argue in good faith. Since they're driven by fear and hatred of difference, rather than by reason…"

From 'Neuroqueer Heresies' by Nick Walker

#Autistic #Autism #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodiversity

There is a really high chance that today is gonna suck in heartbreaking and immeasurable ways here.

Yesterday, I was feeling a bit bummed out about domestic & geopolitical crap. I was pruning my cucumber plants, while thinking & hoping that more folks will not only understand why ordinary citizens need to fight back against their governments but also decide to go beyond simply understanding to step into taking more resistance actions - directly or indirectly.
That's when nature provided me of a beautiful reminder that hope arrives, when we need it. A gorgeous dragonfly flew close to me. First, it landed on my hair side ponytail & stared at me for almost a full 30 seconds. Then, it flew over to a nearby trellis & perched there, staring at me, for over a minute. Then, I watched it fly off & eat a mosquito, in mid-air. I don't have photos because I was trying to stay very still, during that entire dragonfly visit. That serendipitous dragonfly encounter helped to remind me that nature tends to deliver some hope-filled beauty, when we need it most. Nature is endlessly, serendipitous 💚

Trying to do some heatwave prep here.
- Freezing extra ice.
- Boiling a bunch of pasta (for pasta salads).
- Frying tempeh (for protein in salads).
- Getting housework, etc done so minimal to do during heatwave.

I've got the dogs a cool house too (like a cold bag that you can put ice blocks in but they can go in & out).

Not supposed to be as bad as it was last time so fingers crossed...

#UKHeatwave #Heatwave

"Perhaps the only difference is that now, in July 2026, nobody is shocked anymore; it has become entirely normal to see people, including the frail and disabled, detained for making a simple statement in support of an activist group."

https://novaramedia.com/2026/07/06/britains-year-of-arresting-pensioners-as-terrorists-has-taken-a-hatchet-to-our-civil-liberties/

#UKPolitics #WeAreAllPalestineAction #FreePalestine

I used the emdash before AI ruined it.

RE: https://toot.wales/@alexisbushnell/116874874020246061

Well this is going about as well as you'd expect a lifetime insomniac autist trying to change her sleeping while sick with a cold would go...

Wtf are you supposed to do with your feet? Point them? Flex them? Flop them in or out? Why can I feel my pulse in my feet?
Tried sleeping on my back with my knees bent which has worked on the occasions I've slept on my back before but I also can't breathe cos cold 🤧.

So now I'm just distressed and stressed and also getting spasms when I lie on my back.

A few years ago, I realized my wife's condition had something in common with #autism and I thought I'd make a comic strip about it, to help understand both.

She has demyelination: her nervous system doesn't automatically coordinate her movements the way most people's does. Every step is conscious, planned. And some signals still arrive too late, no matter how much practice.

With autism, social and emotional signals don't get pre-filtered before reaching conscious awareness. What most people process automatically, we process deliberately, with a similar risk of arriving too late.

🧵

👉 https://raphink.info/autism

#actuallyautistic #neurodiversity

@autistics

Much of AI "productivity gains" come from managers implicitly trusting an LLM to do a good job, and suspending the onerous micromanagement that humans employees get subjected to.

You can do that without paying Anthropic a single penny. It just requires letting the experts you hired do their jobs.

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/trust-is-not-built-on-craft-alone

#LLM #AI #tech #UXDesign #UX #SoftwareDevelopment #USerresearch

So it turns out I am actually supposed to be sleeping on my back with a pillow under my knees. I'm usually a side sleeper and had assumed that sleeping on my back with a back condition would be bad. So am gonna try switching up my sleeping in the hopes of making it more AS friendly.

It also says a warm shower (or bath) can help too but I'm not gonna get ahead of myself!

#AnkylosingSpondylitis #ChronicIllness

6 years of research: "The only trait that consistently predicted objections to remote work was narcissism—the tendency to be self-centered & entitled. The higher the opinions of themselves leaders expressed, the more they coveted power and status—& the more they favored return-to-office mandates."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597826000300

July is Disability Pride Month—a time to celebrate the strength, resilience, and diversity of the disability community as well as the perseverance of the disability rights movement.

Disability is not something to hide—it’s something to recognize, respect, and take pride in.

Happy Disability Pride Month! 💙❤️💛🤍💚
#DisabilityPrideMonth #DisabilityPride #Accessibility #Inclusion #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #DisabilityRights #Neurodiversity #ActuallyAutistic

The BBC News app displays notifications about results of matches in the men's World Cup, except this morning's England match's notification which just said No spoilers but you can watch it on iPlayer. The whole point of news is to give spoilers. You have one job bbc News app.
I know who won and don't care either way. It's just the special treatment of a match with our lads in it that irked me. They wouldn't do that for The Gambia v Bahrain or whatever.

@dave @Bam @thetitanborn

1) Don't ask Black users to CW discussions of their own racism.

2) Don't be on a server where mods mistreat Black folk.

3) Support the mods on your own server, financially and otherwise.

4) Don't engage with sea lions that say "Mistreatment? Here? prove it!" There have been enough threads shared on Black folk receiving racism. Individually convincing each one is exhausting, and expecting that is a tactic of bad faith actors.

Morning!

Today is a big day! I'm packing up the last few Kickstarter rewards and then I will just be going to the post office all day :ablobfoxexplode:

But guess what this means :artpeek:

I know how much remaining stock I've got...
Members first as usual :minette:

Look out for a studio post later today if you want any of my limited run stickers and collected comic volumes!

#stickers #anticensorship #comics

Every hobby starts with curiosity and ends with storage problems.