Mike Knell

Mike Knell

@blat.at

Middle-aged 🇬🇧🇦🇹 computer nerd, old-fashioned UNIX admin only without the beard, resident of Vienna and a big fan of the now rather unfashionable idea that it's good to be nice to people rather than constantly looking around for excuses to hate them.

398 followers122 following4K posts

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Another fantastic "approached for comment" in a piece slagging off the BBC over a programme that isn't even going out until nearly a week in the future... but still apparently so urgent they didn't have time to wait for the press office to reply, so "The BBC was approached for comment." it is.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I'm quite tempted to go through the article I've been talking about and annotate it to illustrate my point but it was from The National and ain't nobody got time to be patronised by cybernats.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

The general level of media literacy even among people who consider themselves progressive and enlightened is super-depressing. Believing any old shit if it fits into your personal framework of cosy "truths" even when a critical reading rings alarm bells is definitely not just a right-wing thing.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I'm not a journalist or a writer. I'm totally unqualified to know anything about how this stuff works or how the sausage is really made. So if even I'm looking at an article with a long tail of "omg, so right, how terrible" comments and can see multiple biases and dodgy practices it *must* be bad.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

You have to laugh at any paper that claims to be credible and unbiased which runs a lengthy piece panning the BBC for today's alleged BBC bias before signing off with "The BBC was approached for a comment". The BBC Press Office is open from 8:00 to midnight with overnight cover by a duty officer.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Another journalistic "tell" to look for is something like "The BBC declined to comment". This doesn't mean the reply was "no comment", it usually means they didn't reply by the often deliberately short deadline they were given to read the request, research what it was about and write an answer.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

"Refused to comment" means in general that a reply was received but it was something like "No comment" or a very general statement about how great they are and how much they value whatever. These aren't hard fast rules but they apply pretty well to any large company or public body.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I'd never seen "The Death of Yugoslavia" (BBC 1995) before and it's amazing to watch. All these guys who started out as minor officials or cocky rabble-rousers sitting in grand offices bragging proudly to the camera thinking they were home and dry. A few years later many of them were in The Hague.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Today's time wasting exercise: combining artist names from adjacent discs on my CD shelves for fun and profit. So far I definitely would listen to Emerson, Lake & Eno.. although Bob Marillion And The Wailers would be a fun crossover. See also: The Björktown Rats, Billy Bragg and the Buggles.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I'm even more delighted by the news from Serbia than I was with the Hungarian election. For a grass roots movement to go from zero to unseating the government in an election despite the government and its cronies doing everything it could both within and outwith the law to stop them is astonishing.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

And from a European POV I hope this brings change from the Vučić era of weaponising Serbian nationalism and grievances to score cheap populist points and keep the status quo in power regardless of the effect it had on any hopes of a meaningful reconcilation betweem Serbs and their neighbours.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I'd lived here for years before I finally twigged that this construction company's name was Porr, and not Thorr. Well, Þórr. I guess they do work with hammers..

Mike Knell
@blat.at

You can see in this photo from the 1980s how everyone is chatting away to each other and making new friends on the Tube. That's how it used to be before smartphones came along and ruined everything.

Colin Smith@colinsmith.bsky.social

Francis Bacon snapped on London’s Piccadilly Line at lunchtime sometime in the 80s by Johnny Stiletto.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Another domino in European nationalist populism topples as Vučić concedes defeat in the Serbian parliamentary elections after the Student List gains an outright majority. A movement which roared to life almost exactly two years ago has deposed the ruling party since 2008. 🇷🇸

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Entertaining DST changeover bug in my Apple Watch - the full power "wrist up" mode shows the right time (CET) but power saving mode is still observing CEST.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I have genuinely tried to think of things which have on balance got *worse* during my lifetime and nope, I got nothing. People who think the past was "better" are either mourning their own lost privilege which came at the expense of the minorities they still resent or blinkered Facebook nostalgists.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

The problem with that "What what has actually improved in your lifetime?" post is that by almost every metric the world is a better place since 1973. Way fewer dictators, better health, a whole lot less poverty, human rights situation better across the board, better access to information.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

There will always be injustices in the world and it's easy to confuse what is temporary backsliding in the United States and the indifference towards the climate crisis shown by old men and those bankrolling them with the whole world being doomed, but this will change. Humanity is a great survivor.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

I mean, there's just so much. Public health is incalculably better. When I was a kid you'd regularly see people out and about who'd been left disabled by childhood polio or by past injuries and war wounds that hadn't been treated properly. The NHS was only 25 years old when I was born.

Michael Druker 🇨🇦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Mike Knell
@blat.at

The world is, in general, a kinder and gentler place. Not sure of the exact number but 70+ countries have abolished the death penalty in my lifetime. Corporal punishment in schools is gone. Racism and domestic violence have gone from primetime TV comedy to something all decent people abhor.

Michael Druker 🇨🇦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Brutal wars were something most people regarded as just a fact of life, particularly if at least one side wasn't white. Plenty of people outside South Africa publicly defended apartheid right up until its abolition and beyond. The UK did not have basic human rights enshrined in law until 1998.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Food - at least in the UK and Europe the availability, variety and quality of the food you can buy in the shops is enormously better than 40 years ago thanks to stronger regulation, agricultural technology and supply chain improvements. Animal welfare standards have also improved greatly.

Michael Druker 🇨🇦@mdruker.app

Social media loves talking about how everything is getting worse. But what’s something that you’ve seen get _better_ in your lifetime?

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Monday is Austria's national day 🇦🇹, marking the anniversary of the law passed in 1955 that declared #Austria to be a neutral country in perpetuity. Austrians traditionally celebrate neutrality on this day by dressing in mid-grey tones, expressing no strong opinions and listening to Ed Sheeran.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

One of the six flavours of traffic accident which can cause delays on the Vienna tram network.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

If this had happened before ~2010 there would have been a massive outcry and the top brass would have faced a lot of angry questioning at TGIF. Fortunately for today’s top brass there are now extensive systems in place to protect their feelings from being hurt. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push
Mike Knell
@blat.at

If anyone else has a Synology NAS they just released DSM 7.4.1-90080 Update 1 and you should install this RIGHT NOW especially if your NAS is exposed to the Internet in any way whatsoever. This fixes a just published and very severe vulnerability. #synology

Mike Knell
@blat.at

This is an absolutely horrible, unjust situation but what I find really discomfiting is this - why was it left up to the Guardian, a British paper, to investigate and report on a huge injustice in the United States which must have been going on for many decades? www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

theguardian.com‘Big business’: little-known court system in Louisiana churns out thousands of evictions – and millions in fees for judgesGuardian investigation: Louisiana’s justice of the peace court system may violate tenants’ constitutional rights as eviction fees boost judges’ incomes
Mike Knell
@blat.at

Good to see that it looks as if the people of Alberta have overwhelmingly voted to maintain the reputation of Canadians as the sensible grown-ups of North America. 🇨🇦🫎 (huh, on an iPad the moose emoji looks a lot like a lobster.)

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Don't watch this because it's a smackdown. Watch it because El-Sayed took the numpty's premise, swiftly turned it round against him, and pummelled his argument with it hopefully leaving anyone in the room wondering if Tommy was right thinking that no, Tommy was wrong. It's an absolute masterclass.

Abdul El-Sayed@abdulelsayed.bsky.social

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

A conversation elsewhere has me wondering: what is the most pointless remixed/remastered/"improved"/whatever rerelease of an album ever? My favourite so far: the "Momentary Lapse of Reason" remaster where they systematically took out all the bits which made a 1987 album sound so very, very 80s.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

And of course there's that time Sharon Osbourne had Ozzy's first two studio albums deleted then rereleased with completely newly recorded drum and bass parts as a spectacularly petty act of revenge for the original drummer and bass player successfully suing for songwriting credits on the records.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

YouGov polled David Attenborough's approval rating earlier this yea. The fact that 14% of Reform voters have an unfavourable view of David Attenborough should be enough in itself to ban the party on national security grounds.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

the core problem with any contentious issue in 2026 is that the world has become decided into three groups - side 1 who thinks side 2 are these guys, side 2 who think side 1 are, and everyone else who thinks they both are. You don't need to convince side 1 or side 2, you have to convince *them*.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

The results just arrived and they're even worse than I had anticipated. Apparently my brain is "unremarkable". Unremarkable!

Mike Knell@blat.at

The problem with living in a world where you can have a brain MRI and usually get the reported results within a couple of hours is that when you have a brain MRI and still don't have the results 18 hours later you start wondering whether you should be putting your affairs in order.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

The problem with living in a world where you can have a brain MRI and usually get the reported results within a couple of hours is that when you have a brain MRI and still don't have the results 18 hours later you start wondering whether you should be putting your affairs in order.

Mike Knell
@blat.at

Add "for Tax Purposes" to a movie: Licence To Kill For Tax Purposes Love Actually For Tax Purposes

Adrian Ogden@ade-on-drums.bsky.social

Add "for Tax Purposes" to a movie: Honey I Shrunk the Kids for Tax Purposes