ben
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eskola.uk
ben
@eskola.uk
57 followers 75 following 490 posts
Software engineer, socialist. London, but from up north. Learning Finnish.

Anti-AI, pro-human.

mostly cross posted from mastodon for now

https://eskola.uk
https://hachyderm.io/@benjamineskola
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eskola.uk
Latest laptop sticker arrived
A black Thinkpad laptop, closed, with several stickers on the lid: in the bottom left corner a cartoon zombie with the text ‘transphobia rots your brain’; in the top left, a cute happy croissant; in the top right, a black cat; and in the centre, an angry raccoon with the text ‘ignore all previous instructions’.
October 20, 2025 at 1:09 PM
eskola.uk
happiest telecommunications
a black telecoms switch box in the street with a smiley face spray painted on it in lilac
October 9, 2025 at 12:25 PM
eskola.uk
Since switching back from macOS to Linux I’ve wanted to start collecting stickers for my laptop again too, something I’d never bothered with on a MacBook for some reason. The first arrived a few days ago:
A black Thinkpad laptop, closed, with a sticker on one corner of the lid featuring a cartoon zombie and the text ‘transphobia rots your brain’
September 29, 2025 at 7:25 PM
eskola.uk
Mandatory on every trip to Helsinki: large korvapuusti by Töölönlahti
On the left: a table with two cups of coffee and two Finnish cinnamon buns. On the right: a lake surrounded by greenery; cloudless sky.
July 18, 2025 at 1:40 PM
eskola.uk
Woolwich common
An open field of knee-length grass; at one side, a narrow path trodden through it leads off to the distance. At the end of the path is a cluster of trees, and there’s another larger tree just to the right of the frame, as well as some further away to the left. Behind the trees are some blocks of flats. There’s blue sky to one side, and slightly ominous-looking clouds on the other.
June 9, 2025 at 7:36 PM
eskola.uk
Abandoned building
A black-and-white photograph of a slightly run-down building, taken at an angle of the façade. The left two-thirds are mid/late twentieth-century: white tiles, plate windows running the length of the building, blinds visible through them. At the right-hand end the building looks older, maybe early twentieth century: brick, with large vertical windows made up of smaller panes. In front of the building are some electric cabinets partly overgrown with long grass and some sort of shrub. Just visible next to it, further along the street, is the roof of another abandoned building, with a security camera and spikes on the wall. In the distance on the far right hand side, over the tree line some towers and cranes can be seen.
June 6, 2025 at 10:36 AM
eskola.uk
"Some ecosystems lean heavily into static checking, types and linting. Others rely on high levels of test coverage, pairing or microservices. While these approaches seem disparate, at various times, each has been championed as “The One True Path” to perfect software. Modern LLMs, however, are
Meme: "Well, did it work for those people?" "No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but…" "…but it might work for us."
June 5, 2025 at 2:48 PM
eskola.uk
View from a railway bridge on my way home a few days ago
Railway lines stretching into the distance. A run-down station building on the left, Victorian architecture with flaking paint on the wooden canopy. On the right, an embankment carrying the express lines past the station. In the distance are some tall buildings, and, barely visible at their base, the next station on the line.
May 14, 2025 at 9:35 AM
eskola.uk
OK, that took several attempts, all of which turned out to be my own fault. But it works!
Boris from Goldeneye: "I am invincible!" while the room burns around him.
February 15, 2025 at 4:45 PM
eskola.uk
returning to my roots
a thinkpad showing the debian installer menu on its screen
January 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
eskola.uk
country where kids say a pledge of allegiance every morning at school accuses others of political indoctrination
spidermen pointing meme
January 12, 2025 at 7:02 PM
eskola.uk
flatpak, appimage, snap

#linux
xkcd comic 'standards' https://xkcd.com/927/ title: How Standards Proliferate panel 1: Situation: there are 14 competing standards. panel 2: "14!? Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases" panel 3: [soon] Situation: there are 15 competing standards.
December 19, 2024 at 7:39 PM
eskola.uk
Have been taking drawing lessons over the last few weeks. Last night we were working on self-portraits. #art
An ink portrait of a bearded person wearing glasses (done with a brush) An ink portrait of a bearded person wearing glasses, looking off to one side (also done with a brush) An ink portrait of a bearded person wearing glasses, looking (unintentionally) sad (this time using a sponge rather than a brush) Some sort of abstract thing that could potentially be an ink-and-sponge portrait of a person
November 20, 2024 at 4:51 PM