Matt Eason

Matt Eason

@matteason.me

Designer & developer working in digital government ambiph.one / govukvue.org / matteason.co.uk/scotbeats / stationlifts.org.uk He/him

624 followers169 following1.7K posts

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Am I being unkind to think that the BBC's Cyber Correspondent should probably have known what PHP was before yesterday?

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

I understand that journalists are not necessarily experts in every area of the subject they cover. But this is the equivalent of a motoring correspondent having never heard of petrol isn't it?

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

The last person I asked to use headphones on the train was a woman in her 60s watching videos of dogs being shaved at full volume. She protested that it was no different to the people at the other end of the carriage talking at a normal volume. Some people have literally no shame

gov.ukShare the journey, not the noise: government launches measures to prevent noise and antisocial behaviour on transportTackling nuisance behaviour on buses and trains will help people feel safer and more comfortable.
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Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Found the official campaign artwork in the press release. Sigh. People are going to argue that 'Watch videos quietly' means 'You can watch videos out loud, but keep the volume down'. And why just videos, not music?

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Theatres and cinemas are far too passive in their messaging about phones too. I get they can't play a message that tells you to put your fucking phone away but it needs to be not far off that. I haven't been to a film/play in the last 5 years where there wasn't someone pissing about on their phone

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

The last person I asked to use headphones on the train was a woman in her 60s watching videos of dogs being shaved at full volume. She protested that it was no different to the people at the other end of the carriage talking at a normal volume. Some people have literally no shame

gov.ukShare the journey, not the noise: government launches measures to prevent noise and antisocial behaviour on transportTackling nuisance behaviour on buses and trains will help people feel safer and more comfortable.
Matt Eason
@matteason.me

You had to be creative to pass the time when the internet cost 4p per minute

fesshole 🧻@fesshole.bsky.social

My hobby around 1995 was to blink at the same frequency as the clock on the VCR but out of phase, so that I would only see the digits lit up. Spent hours of my life on that.

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

You can tell exactly which way this is going to go by this snippet of the press release. Her supporters' opinion is stated as fact, her critics' "call her" an opponent of trans equality

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Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Your whole worldview collapses when you realise the stress is meant to be on "Street" and not "Preachers"

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

She's already managed to get Dara, who was happy to do so on the proviso that he wouldn't be expected to buy a gift, and Alex, whose greetings were unconditional

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Is Purple Tuesday no longer a thing? They haven't updated socials since April and this very final-sounding statement is the only thing on purpletuesday.co now. They'd usually be ramping up for November by now.

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

One downside of putting Things on the internet is a lot of the time you'll only know that people like the Thing and use the Thing when the Thing stops working

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Remembered I have a proper camera halfway through the eclipse. Are you meant to put a filter on the lens? Probably!

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

I've been holding out on getting a Switch 2 until they start releasing the special editions. I've decided there's going to be one for the Ocarina of Time remake so if whoever's uncle works for Nintendo could make that happen that would be great, thanks

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Kudos to HMRC for fixing this - they now randomise the results to ensure they can't be gamed with nonsense punctuation. And, entirely coincidentally, Coconut Free have decided their name actually doesn't start with a random exclamation mark.

Matt Eason@matteason.me

Instead you have to pick from myriad commercial options via their search service, which providers are gaming by giving their products nonsense names like !Coconut, "untied" (quotes included) and #GoFile to get to the top of the alphabetical results

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Imagine being forced to publish this on your own website and then _cutting_ customer service staff

The Guardian@theguardian.com

‘Customers prefer AI chatbots to humans’ says British Gas boss as 1,300 call centre staff axed

theguardian.com‘Customers prefer AI chatbots to humans’ says British Gas boss as 1,300 call centre staff axedChris O’Shea defends Centrica’s plans as it reports rise in retail profits despite falling customer numbers The owner of British Gas has claimed that most households would rather speak with an AI chatbot than deal with the company’s staff as it prepares to cut 1,300 jobs from its call centres. Centrica, the supplier’s FTSE 100 owner, plans to cut 800 jobs as the company carries out a “targeted deployment of AI tools”, on top of the 500 cutsit confirmed last month. Continue reading...
Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Thames Water texted that they're introducing a hosepipe ban for "all customers", except it doesn't apply to wastewater-only customers, and I'm a wastewater-only customer. They're just shit all round

Joe Lanman@joelanman.com

The audacity of Thames Water doing a hose pipe ban www.theguardian.com/business/art...

theguardian.comWater firms in England and Wales lost more than 1tn litres from leaks last yearHundreds of millions of litres were wasted every day, with Thames Water revealed as the worst offender
Matt Eason
@matteason.me

It's hardly the biggest issue in all of this but this machinery of government kerfuffle is going to expose the short-sightedness of tying the GOV.UK brand to a DSIT brand that's about to go in the bin - the horrible cyan was taken from DSIT's logo

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

Spare a thought for our GDS friends, who look like they're going to have to endure yet another machinery of government change

Rachel Coldicutt@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social

Feels like the answer to improving DSIT is some decent policymaking, rather than retiring it (wch would be a huge drag - shuffling departments takes up a lot of time and energy). The problem ofc is that Labour doesn't have a v strong SciTech talent pool to draw on giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Matt Eason
@matteason.me

This is fantastic for accessibility - Wimbledon's Inclusive Feed adds spatial audio cues and a high-contrast overlay showing the ball's path, bounces, serve speed and calls, for blind and partially sighted fans On iPlayer here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

RNIB@rnib.bsky.social

This year’s Wimbledon is serving accessibility through the Hawk AR: Inclusive Feed, designed to make live tennis easier to follow 🎾 It works alongside the usual sports commentary and adds extra audio cues during a live tennis match. 1/3