David O'Brien

@iamdavidobrien
419 Followers
1.2K Following
7K Posts

Human being, being human. Trying, not always successfully, to leave the world a slightly better place than I found it. It's a modest goal, I know.

Anti fascist. If you’re not, what are you?

Profile header is a slice of a pencil sketch drawn by my brother, an architect. The crop focuses on my eyes, and the craggy lines radiating from their corners. My eyebrows appear to have gone feral.

Profile image is me as an almost 40 years younger man. I have dyed black crimped hair in a broad mohawk.

Show threadDavid O'Brien6h ago

We are surrounded by trees.

Now every #corvid in the neighbourhood starts carking alarm calls whenever this silver darling comes along.

Show threadDavid O'Brien7h ago
But she/it is beautiful.
Show threadDavid O'Brien7h ago

She (I'm going to persist with that, why not?) is ferocious;

She once thumped into our garden from somewhere with a magpie in her maw.

I have never seen a domestic cat take a magpie.

Show threadDavid O'Brien7h ago
I am told it’s some kind of semi-feral Bengali wildcat. Apparently you can trade these things after 6 generations of breeding with less feral cats.
Show threadDavid O'Brien7h ago

This wee cat often comes into our garden.

She is gorgeous.

I say she. We have no idea of its sex.

David O'Brien7h ago
Sitting in the last of the midsummer sun.
David O'Brien10h ago
Rick Thoman11h ago

Solar midnight's bright twilight on Solstice, June 21, 2026 at 151am AKDT at Cleary Summit on the Steese highway, about 15 miles northeast ofFairbanks. This view, looking due north, courtesy Alaska DOT RWIS program. @mivox @SilverSalmonAK

#akwx #Solstice

David O'Brien14h ago
Jecture14h ago

Lovable claimed 100% accessibility. Axess Lab's screen reader test told a different story. This is the gap that matters. Automated scores don't catch what real users actually experience. If you're selling AI-built sites to clients, this is the case study for why human review still belongs in the workflow.
#accessibility #a11y #ScreenReader

https://axesslab.com/lovable/

Lovable’s AI built a 100% accessible site – or did it? | Axess Lab

We wanted to get an indication of how accessible AI-built sites are at the moment. So I let my colleague Daniel try out a site…

Axess Lab
David O'Brien15h ago
Show threadAkaSci 🛰️16h ago

"Participants were divided into 3 groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools).

EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity.

The LLM group's participants performed worse than their counterparts in the Brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring."

https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872
3/n

David O'Brien19h ago
Kristie21h ago

A drystone wall isn't one habitat, it's several, stacked vertically. Each zone has its own microclimate and its own community of species. Taking down a wall is an education in this. Also, occasionally, a surprise toad situation.

This week's Drystone Diary is about the fauna of the wall, from stonechats on the cope stones to adders in the foundations.

https://kristiedegaris.substack.com/p/drystone-diary-the-living-wall-fauna

#Scotland #DrystoneDiary #UK #Countryside #Nature #Stone #Animals

Drystone Diary - The Living Wall: Fauna

Exploring the wildlife habitats hidden inside drystone walls, from stonechats and birds of prey on the cope stones to wrens foraging inside the courses, common lizards basking on the south face, and slow worms, adders, toads and hedgehogs sheltering in the foundations.

Kristie De Garis