Kevin F. Quinn
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kevfquinn.bsky.social
Kevin F. Quinn
@kevfquinn.bsky.social
250 followers 550 following 1.2K posts
Mostly harmless. He/him.
vi, spaces, and the Oxford comma.
GenX, born at 325ppm.
Hastings, UK.

ALT avatar: Egyptian goose
ALT banner: four Canadian Geese
Posts Replies Media Videos
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Heh. I see the 9th edition is available for the oh so accessible price of £1,307.90 ($1,720) on Amazon, and for *rent* at £67 for 6 months on McGraw Hill.

Table of Contents listed here for anyone interested.
www.mheducation.com/highered/pro...
Snapshot of the listing for the book on Amazon, £1,307.90 for the hardback edition.
November 2, 2025 at 9:06 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Interesting aside from there - they expect public's use of LLMs to increase the number of consultation responses.

Sounds bad - of course disingenuous people will try to brigade public consultations with LLM-generated responses. Others will just submit a lazy response without checking.
Quoted from the government explanation of their Consult AI tool, with emphasis on the last phrase, "and widespread adoption...": "It would take 75,000 days to analyse all central government consultations in-house, costing £20m per year. Public consultations are a critical part of the process of making laws, but analysing consultation responses is complex and very time consuming. The government runs around 600 consultations a year on matters of importance to the public. Some are very small, but a large consultation might attract hundreds of thousands of written responses, and widespread adoption of Large Language Models will likely only increase the number of responses that consultations attract"
October 24, 2025 at 8:26 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
The debug handle thing shows http verification ok, but DNS failing.
Snapshot of the Bluesky handle debug service; shows "DNS LOOKUP FAILED: NO RECORDS FOUND" against DNS query verification method. Also shows the HTTP verification method is ok.
September 27, 2025 at 9:08 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Image in quote post with alt text
Boris Johnson @BorisJohnson X.com The murder of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy, and a sign of the utter desperation and cowardice of those who could not defeat him in argument. Charlie Kirk has been killed not for espousing extremist views - because he didn't. He has been killed for saying things that used to be simple common sense. He has been killed because he had the courage to stand up publicly for reasonable opinions held by millions and millions of ordinary people both in the US and Britain. The world has a shining new martyr to free speech Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones. 22:16 . 10/09/2025 . 2.6M Views
September 12, 2025 at 6:39 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
"Adult Content" per bsky mods.
🤷
Snapshot of Vajra's post with the "Adult Content" un-hidden, to reveal a cropped version of Raja Ravi Varma's 1890 painting "Judith".
August 31, 2025 at 4:45 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
I see there's a White Knobs Park at the end of the road.
Google maps image of Valley Sports Ground (White Knobs Park), in Caterham. White Knobs Way leads away from it at the top of the map.
August 15, 2025 at 3:30 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
We'll have to watch this. Can easily see a lot of YouTube content being marked adult-only because of the embedded VPN ads.

Social media providers may over-conply to manage litigation risk; so I could see any post here mentioning VPNs being put behind the age-verification wall.
"Virtual Private Networks While Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are legal in the UK, according to this law platforms have a clear responsibility to prevent children from bypassing safety protections. This includes blocking content that promotes VPNs or other workarounds specifically aimed at young users. This means that where platforms deliberately target UK children and promote VPN use, they could face enforcement action, including significant financial penalties"
August 2, 2025 at 6:50 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Bodiam Castle, East Sussex 🤠
@nationaltrust.org.uk

Also featuring a duck 😁
The archetypal castle at Bodiam, gloriously reflected in its broad moat on a clear still day, photo taken by me. Approximately the same shot as in the postcard in the quoted post. There's one solitary duck floating towards me. The postcard in the quoted post shows much more green and not such a bright clear day; taken from slightly further back it has foreground trees at the edges of the image, and the moat has a lot of leaves or similar on the surface.
July 30, 2025 at 7:12 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Seeing more of this recently. Cloudflare blocks me from some sites in a similar fashion.

I suspect it's the filters I use in the browser to (probably somewhat ineffectively) reduce the amount of ad-tech personal reaming that's endemic on today's internet.
Snaphot from New York Times blocking me because they "suspect that you're a robot". They list three possibilities; that I'm clicking inhumanly fast (no), that JavaScript isn't working for them, or there's a bot on the same IP as me (no). So likely the JavaScript thing (that may also cover cookie behaviour and other stuff).
June 23, 2025 at 11:58 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
One having a rest in mine yesterday. Yes, grass needs a bit of a mow. Couldn't do that while the fox was there, though, could I? 🤠
Fox looking around, head poking out above the long green grass, trees and stuff behind.
June 7, 2025 at 1:06 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
🥰 Hastings parkrun at St Leonards on Sea 🥰

maps.app.goo.gl/7tpP3KDXnAaZ...
Snapshot of Google Maps. Top half is a view of the Parkrun signs, beach and sea behind, taken by the Coastal Surveyor. Bottom half is the map, labelled "Hastings Parkrun, 4 years ago".
June 5, 2025 at 10:10 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
It was rather misty on Hastings seafront yesterday, took this snap of the boat sculpture on the beach.
Misty scene of the skeleton sculpture of a boat's prow (which also looks like a proud bird looking upwards) on the pebble beach at Hastings. Seafront buildings to the right, and the pier on the horizon line in the distance to the left.
June 1, 2025 at 10:23 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Latest pic on Google maps
maps.app.goo.gl/M3dbWbY7nZ9p...
Pub on George Street, Hastings - looks like a Tudor building with black wood framing and white plaster infill, and an overhanging first floor and further overhanging second floor/attic/roof.
May 31, 2025 at 5:20 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
🤦 your *other* port side, for crying out loud!
Cargo ship NCL Salten, having run aground with it's bulbous nose on the bow, which is supposed to be below the waterline, digging into the shoreline mere metres from the beautiful coastline house of an unfortunate Norwegian.
May 23, 2025 at 9:07 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Although, to be fair it seems if you serve "filet mignon", such a paltry plate is the norm - if this image from Wikipedia is anything to go by.

At least on this image the meat isn't incinerated as it is on that served to the crypto-bros.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet_m...
A small lump of meat alongside three cherry tomatoes on the vine, a few sprigs of small salad leaves, and the bottom half of a whole garlic bulb - all one corner of a plate (most of which is out of frame).
May 23, 2025 at 8:15 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Lives saved thanks to vaccines per year via Our World In Data, research by Shattock et. al. (2024).

"Anti-vax", in the end, means killing upwards of 150 million people per year.

ourworldindata.org/measles-vacc...
Bar chart of the cumulative global number of lives saved by childhood vaccinations from 1974 to 2024, from Our World in Data. Measles 93.71 million. Tetanus 27.95 million. Whooping cough (Pertussis) 13.17 million. Tuberculosis 10.87 million. Haemophilus influenzae type B 2.85 million. Streptococcus pneumoniae 1.63 million. Polio 1.57 million. Yellow fever 554 thousand. Hepatitis B 464 thousand. Rotavirus 396 thousand. Diphtheria 357 thousand. Rubella 286 thousand. Japanese encephalitis 29 thousand. Neisseria meningitidis A 2 thousand. Data source: Shattock et al. (2024), "Contribution of vaccination to improved survival and health: modelling 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunization."
May 23, 2025 at 6:09 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Just finished this today, "a closed and common orbit" by Becky Chambers, and loved it.

Lots of allegorical sci-fi AI* and aliens. Published 2016, elements particularly relevant right now.

* not remotely the current LLM nonsense, to be clear
Cover of the book. A night sky-scape, like a timelapse of stars as streaks across the sky, with a foreground shillouette from behind two people, on the ground, looking up at the sky.
April 27, 2025 at 1:27 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Three types.
Glasses stored upside down dont accumulate dust on the inside.
Same with mugs (not shown) 🤓
Kitchen cupboard, two rows is miscellaneous drinking glasses, all upside down, bottoms row is mixed stuff.
April 25, 2025 at 12:33 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
I have four well-heeled trays. Initially bought each in turn to replace the previous one, but in practice have kept them as having several is good - they can stack up beside the sink to be washed all in one go. Efficiency ftw 💪
My collection of four oven trays, all with great, erm, "patina"
April 21, 2025 at 10:58 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Obligatory
Anakin Padme four-panel meme. Anakin: 'Ghiblification feature is not available in the free version of Chat GPT due to "copyright" issues.' Padme, smiling: 'So the paid version remunerates Studio Ghibli, right?' Anakin: [says nothing] Padme, worried; 'So the paid version remunerates Studio Ghibli, right?'
April 11, 2025 at 2:02 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
My (novice) morning #TenMinMerlin haul from my back garden. Sixteen bird suggestions from the app this morning.

I've seen most of these quite regularly; not sure of the Greenfinch, Collared Dove, or Goldfinch.
Three snapshots from the Merlin app, listing suggested discovered birds, up to six birds per snapshot. Thumbnail images on the left, names on the right. Snapshot 1: Eurasian Blue Tit, European Greenfinch, Common Chiff Chaff, Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Magpie, Eurasian Blackbird Snapshot 2: Great Tit, European Robin, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Common Wood Pigeon, Stock Dove, Coal Tit Snapshot 3: Dunnock, Eurasian Blackcap, Eurasian Jackdaw, Eurasian Goldfinch
April 9, 2025 at 6:02 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Clear skies over the British Isles after a record-breaking March

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery

www.copernicus.eu/en/media/ima...
Colour satellite view of the British Isles, no cloud to obscure any of the view. Description from their website: "This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image from 2 April 2025 provides a rare, cloud-free view of the British Isles. Acquired in the wake of the UK’s sunniest March on record since 1910, the image reflects a period marked by extended sunshine and exceptionally dry weather. From the green lowlands of Ireland and England to the rugged Highlands of Scotland, the landscape of the British Isles is clearly visible, along with sediment patterns in the surrounding coastal waters. Copernicus data supports assessments of the impacts of prolonged dry spells on vegetation, water availability, and land use across the world."
April 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Infuriating. It's now common - the Independent does the same for example.

As you say, obnoxious. Hobson's choice - the only choice is to be tracked.

Here they declare 100 organisations get to know what you read, how you read, when you read, what you read next, where you came from...
Snapshot of The Independent front page, where the cookie "choice" box now requires subscription (so tracking) or accepting tracking cookies (so tracking).
March 30, 2025 at 11:02 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
Heh, turns out my brain is pre-emptively protected :)
Screenshot of Erin's post as seen from my account, showing the quoted post as Blocked.
March 29, 2025 at 8:37 AM
kevfquinn.bsky.social
🤦🏻Today in journalistic ignorance.

No such thing as an "Electron Playmate".

He's using a BBC Micro (the Electron is on his right).

"Playmate" is just a pack of cassette tapes.

The Electron wasn't £9.20 in 1984! (£299 iirc).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Snapshot of the use of a Getty stock image in the BBC news article. A young chap stands typing on one of a row of home micros at the shop display stand. There's a dot matrix printer on top of the computer he's using. On top of the Electron to his side, is a CRT monitor, and on top of that is an advert for a pack of 5 software tapes for £9.20 (would be cassette tapes, likely blank).
March 28, 2025 at 1:32 PM