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John Bull Profile picture
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4 Mar, 4 tweets, 1 min read
There are few things more surprising than a cold, wet kitty nose to the back of the knee. Particularly when you are unaware there is a kitty in the house.
"I am here. You have been informed." Tuxedo kitty sat under the table looking up at me.
"Snooze now. Wake me up when you feed the sparrows." Snoozing tuxedo kitty on dining room chair
PIGEON. PIGEON IN THE GARDEN.

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More from @garius

John Bull Profile picture
4 Mar
I loathe and avoid these interview questions. Because they carry a lot of hidden assumptions. The interviewee has to parse the "shadow question" lurking within them. Not everyone can.

So, below are things co-panelists have told me they want from these Qs over the years:
"Tell me about yourself?"

This is intended to get you to talk freely about something you are passionate about. It is not there to establish a particular work skill, but to see how you approach things you enjoy.
In some workplaces, it's also to determine cultural 'fit'. If the office is full of people who like doing outdoors things, or the boss is big on them and the company does lots of outdoorsy away days, then they're hoping for someone to say "oh i go hiking/surfing/whatever"
Read 19 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
3 Mar
To drive a car, you need to:

1) Own a car
2) Be ABLE to drive a car
3) Learn how to do it
4) Pass a test

I'm always FASCINATED how, culturally, keeping this as affordable as possible has become seen as of greater (not equal) importance than keeping public transport affordable.
Like, not raising fuel tax is seen as a massive victory for "the person on the street".

Yet any discussion about freezing public transport fares is INSTANTLY shot down as being to the benefit of a subset of people only, and somehow laughable economics.
It's not either/or. If you need to freeze transport costs to alleviate pressure on people's pockets, or to stimulate economic growth. If THAT'S your excuse. Then you freeze both road AND rail costs to the end user.
Read 6 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
3 Mar
Collaborating on content does not require every single collaborator being able to edit the sodding webpage.

It's a website, not a buffet. Collaborate first then pick one person to copy paste the text in.

Here endeth today's lesson on HE departmental web bullshit requests.
Having permissions to edit a university webpage is not a valid way of improving your sense of self worth, or a way of rewarding your staff.

The university website is not a substitute for therapy or promotion.

Here endeth today's second lesson HE departmental web bullshit.
The likelihood of a department blaming a governance failure on another department CUBES when you add a new department as owner to a website section. Not doubles.

2 owners? 8x the risk. 3 owners? 27x the risk.

Here endeth today's third lesson on HE departmental web bullshit.
Read 5 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
2 Mar
Lyn Macdonald was an absolute TITAN of WW1 history.

Indeed I can honestly say that I owe my passion for that period in part to her. Discovering her books as an undergrad opened my eyes to the complex narrative of WW1, beyond the myths. It was life-changing.
Beyond this, I will hold my hands up and say that reading her books chipped the first proper crack in my "war is boy history" brain.

I distinctly remember thinking: "Huh. Maybe Lyn is a man's name here?" and discovering it wasn't. All my profs were male. My reading now wasn't.
Looking back, I now realise with hindsight how important having her books available to me, at that time, was.
Read 5 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
2 Mar
Hey, old web people, remember when we sometimes used to build websites powered by Microsoft Access databases?

That was a wild time.
Right up there with the browser makers fighting over whether margin was inside the box or outside it.
And none of us. NONE OF US actually understood how float worked. It just kind did. Mostly. Except when it didn't. Oh well. Just slap a 400px padding at the bottom.
Read 10 tweets
John Bull Profile picture
1 Mar
This deserves to not be an image. Here:

Q: You're quite a writer. You've a gift for language, you're a deft hand at plotting and your books seem to have an enormous amount of attention to detail put into them. You're so good you could write anything. Why write fantasty? /1
Pratchett: I had a decent lunch and I'm feeling quite amiable. That's why you're still alive. I think you'd have to explain to me why you've asked that question.

Q: It's a rather ghettoized genre. /2
Pratchett: This is true. I cannot speak for the US, where I merely sort of sell okay. But in the UK I think every book - I think i've done twenty in the series - since the fourth book, every one has been one of the top ten national bestsellers... /3
Read 18 tweets

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