Shawn Wildermuth

Shawn Wildermuth

@wildermuth.com

⌨️ Microsoft MVP 🧠 Owner of Wilder Minds BV ▶️ Pluralsight Instructor 👥Former board member, .NET Foundation 🎞️ Documentary Director at Twain Films https://wildermuth.com https://twainfilms.com https://wildermuth.nl

2.6K followers216 following3.3K posts

Shawn Wildermuth
@wildermuth.com

I'd love the gamer community to get clearer about what they don't want out of AI. I think games that use AI for coding tasks are fine. But using AI for creative tasks (artwork, writing scripts, etc.) is not. Right now it feels like we're throwing the unicorn out with the bathwater.

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans)
@iwriteok.bsky.social

ok but this is actually an appropriate way to honor Bacchus and i think the ancients would have agreed

CNN@cnn.com

Italian officials are trying to identify a young woman who was filmed kissing, humping, and grinding against a statue of Bacchus, the God of wine and sensuality, in Florence over the weekend.

cnn.comItalian officials slam tourist who ‘mimicked sex acts’ on a statue of Bacchus in Florence | CNNItalian officials are trying to identify a young woman who was filmed kissing, humping, and grinding against a statue of Bacchus, the God of wine and sensuality, in Florence over the weekend.

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

The Tennessee Holler
@thetnholler.bsky.social

🔥 OBAMA: “Trump should be on HGTV. He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory…. He’s clearly not focused on lowering prices for you.”

Shawn Wildermuth
@wildermuth.com

This isn't the same as the equal time rule. This is censorship and appealing to the worst instincts of society.

Leicester Gazette@leicestergazette.leicester.news

Two University of Leicester students speak out over ‘absurd’ and ‘Orwellian’ decision by the BBC and ITV Studios to edit out pride pins worn on University Challenge

leicester.newsBBC edits out pride pins on University Challenge in ‘Orwellian’ move* * * This story was published by **The Leicester Gazette** : a local, independent newspaper about Leicestershire. 1,000 people have already joined our community. Just use those buttons below to download our app and **sign up for free**. * * * Astrophysics student Samuel Carlier and History student Emmeline Hague-Wright were shocked to find that their LGBTQ+ pride pins had been edited out of their University Challenge appearance earlier this year. The episode, initially scheduled for BBC Two on 24 August, was delayed twice before airing on 7 September 2026. The pins showed the progressive LGBTQ+ pride flag, the bisexual pride flag and a rainbow feather. Speaking to the Leicester Gazette, Sam said: “Living in a liberal democracy and having the state broadcaster tell you ‘we’re editing how you look’, seems very Orwellian.” Sam described the choice to remove the pins before broadcast as “weird” and “absurd”. He said: “[Censoring] that seemed weird. If I had worn a rainbow shirt, would they have censored that? If the idea is to keep things impartial, where is that line in the sand?” A side by-side image of Sam wearing the pin and with it having been digitally removed. Photograph: supplied Sam contacted the BBC to try to understand why his pins had been edited out. He told the Gazette: “The BBC people said they’d ring me, and I chased them, they just said go to the complaints website and file a complaint there, that’s what I did.” Since then, Sam hasn’t had a response from the BBC as to why his pins were removed. After the episode had aired, Sam noted that his shirt ‘melted’ into itself occasionally, as a result of the editing. Photograph: supplied ## Students believe the decision was made following online transphobia Emmeline was also shocked when she found out that the feather pin she wore was due to be removed from the episode she was in. It was understood by Emmeline that there was online transphobia in response to previous episode of University Challenge, and she had been contacted by the BBC, anticipating support from the broadcaster. When the BBC contacted her, instead of an offer of support, she was told her pin was going to be removed. “At first it was mostly confusion,” she said. “I heard that they had received a lot of nastiness online from people and I thought they were going to call me to say ‘we have support services if needed,’ and that wasn't what I got at all.” Instead, Emmeline was notified that the episodes were going to be delayed. “It was out of left field, I was confused for a while,” she said. “This entire delay has been because of a feather and two badges on a teammate that were basically impossible [for viewers] to see.” Emmeline had expressed her frustrations with the repeated delays from the BBC, spanning from mid-July to early-September. She said: “We were announced on the website and then delayed again, and then announced on the website a second time, and delayed even further. Speaking about the removal, she said: “It takes a lot of time” she said. “Making it [the edit] look good would be even more expensive and time-consuming. It seems like drastically a lot of effort.” ## Join the conversation Our app is more than just a way to keep up – it's a gateway to award-winning journalism and the local community. __Want to support our work?__ Click here for membership__.__ ## Wider criticism on LGBTQ+ support The pins Sam wore during the episode. Photograph: supplied According to leading LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall UK, two in five LGBTQ+ students will hide their identities at university for fear of discrimination. Stonewall has reported that more than 36 per cent of trans students have received hostile conduct from university staff due to their gender identity. Reflecting on the digital removal of the pins, Sam spoke about how disheartening the choice was. He said: “There was maybe like a span of eight years where someone could be uncontroversially out in the open queer – now that’s gone again.” he said. The BBC has also been widely criticised for ‘an attack on the LGBTQ+ community’ by pulling its involvement with the popular show, RuPaul's Drag Race. The broadcaster pulled its involvement in September following “significant financial pressures” as the reason for axing their involvement. The criticism follows another recent controversial edit by the BBC. On its hit show, Strictly Come Dancing, a decision was made to edit out ‘Protect the Dolls’ from contestant Bethany Antonia’s T-shirt. It’s a slogan which has become widely used to support the rights of trans women. The BBC defended their decision, saying the changes were made to meet editorial guidelines. It comes as the LGBTQ+ community has faced challenges amid an increasingly less tolerant political climate. ## What the BBC had to say When we asked them about editing out the pins worn by Leicester’s University Challenge team, a BBC spokesperson said: “In line with our editorial guidelines, we advise that no badges, flags, and emblems or symbols are worn or visible during filming, along with clothing with obvious branding or slogans. If such items are not removed for any reason then a decision is made between the programme makers and the BBC regarding any edits to the programme.” The BBC said the delays to the episode were unrelated to the decision to edit out the pins. A spokesperson for ITV Studios said: “University Challenge is an entertainment quiz show and is made in accordance with the BBC Editorial Guidelines requirements for impartiality.” The University of Leicester refused to comment on the matter. * * * **Before you go…** We’ve recently surpassed 1,000 subscribers, which is amazing considering we’re a small team on a shoestring budget. Now, we’re ready for the next stage of the Leicester Gazette. **Download our new app and get all of our journalism anytime, anywhere.** The app connects with **Bluesky** , **Mastodon** and **Threads** , giving you access to a network of around 60 million people. It’s a safer, more meaningful alternative to mainstream social media – owned by the community. * * *

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝
@sundaedivine.lol

Trump State Department spokeswoman Britt McHenry tosses a beer at a fan before being escorted out of a Wizards game for being drunk and rowdy. The State Department confirmed this morning that diplomatic relations have been severed with Section 112.

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Hoodlum 🇺🇸
@nothoodlum.bsky.social

EXCLUSIVE: You’ll only see this here. Childhood videos of Jared Kushner. I didn’t realize Natalie Harp’s mother was an actress who played the maid.

Shawn Wildermuth
@wildermuth.com

I got started when me and my friends got the original D&D manual. But after playing all my teens, I fell off TTRPGs completely by time I was 19. The combination of working (at 16) and some toxic people in our group forced me out. I tried this year to get back in, and the magic was gone for me.

SmokeyStafford@smokeystafford.bsky.social

"How did you get into table top role playing games?" I was 23 in 1986 and had just come back to Oz from Europe. My younger brother convinced me to join the D&D group of which he was Dungeon Master. The group of us then played for three years and also got into Twilight 2000. I miss those Sundays.

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Eric Michael Garcia
@ericmgarcia.bsky.social

Amy Acton's brother slams Vivek Ramaswamy featuring her estranged mother in a campaign ad. "This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants."

Shawn Wildermuth
@wildermuth.com

With my braves out of the world series, I'm happy if either Tampa or Milwaukee win! As long as it's not a team that rhymes with the Codgers or the Panties. #mlb #worldseries

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Isaac Levin
@isaacrlevin.com

GDPR affects .NET devs: apply data minimization, consent & subject-rights handling, encryption, secure logging & retention. Build data protection by design and document processors. #dotnet #csharp #GDPR https://www.isaacl.dev/hch

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Barry Dorrans
@blowdart.me

You mean like journalists and "colonies on Mars" or journalists on "The cybertruck is also a boat" or journalists on "The tesla also can fly"

Polymarket@polymarket.extwitter.link

JUST IN: Elon Musk warns superintelligent AI will be so persuasive that many people could get “one-shotted” into believing whatever it tells them.

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

Robert Kingett
@weirdwriter.caneandable.social.ap.brid.gy

An Open Letter to Matt Mullenweg on Accessibility in WordPress https://blindaccessjournal.com/2026/10/an-open-letter-to-matt-mullenweg-on-accessibility-in-wordpress/ #Wordpress

blindaccessjournal.comAn Open Letter to Matt Mullenweg on Accessibility in WordPressOctober 18, 2026 Dear Mr. Mullenweg, I am writing to you publicly as a blind daily screen reader user, an IAAP Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), and the publisher of Blind Access Journal. Many of our readers, and many of my professional colleagues, are authors, creators, publishers, developers and site owners with disabilities who rely on WordPress every day. I am choosing to make this letter public because the decisions at issue were made in public, they affect a very large community of people, and that community deserves to hear your answers directly. My concern is your recent action on WordPress Trac ticket #50486, “Improve the admin notices accessibility”, and what it signals about the future of accessibility in WordPress. ### What the Ticket Was Meant to Fix Ticket #50486 was opened in 2020 to address a basic barrier. Admin notices in WordPress carry no semantics that identify them to assistive technology. When a notice appears, a screen reader user is not told about it, and a keyboard user has no way to move directly to it. In practice, people like me can miss confirmations, warnings and errors that sighted users see at a glance. The ticket was postponed through many release cycles. Earlier this month, a modest fix was finally committed. It placed notices in a navigable landmark and added a notice count to the page title, which is the first thing a screen reader announces when a page loads. After six years, it represented real progress. ### What Happened Next The change surfaced legitimate technical problems, including notice counts appearing on the Dashboard and in the block editor when no notices were visible, and contributors were actively working through fixes. Refining or reverting an imperfect change is a normal part of software development, and the revert commit that followed explained its technical reasoning clearly. My concern is not that the work was revised. My concern is how the decision was made and what accompanied it. Your first comment on this six-year-old accessibility ticket was an instruction to revert all of the work. In the same comment, you told Andrea Fercia that he no longer holds any WordPress.org positions or authority and was “invited to contribute your talents to another project.” No technical reasoning was offered on the ticket. As reported by The Repository on October 16, you later said in WordPress Slack that you were simply no longer interested in his contributions. I acknowledge that you also apologized for the temporary locking of his account and said that was not your intent. Mr. Fercia has contributed to 33 WordPress releases, has been a core committer for a decade, and is one of the most experienced accessibility specialists the project has had. Removing him in this way, on an accessibility ticket and in the middle of active collaboration on that ticket, sends an unmistakable signal to disabled users and to the people who advocate for us. ### A Pattern That Concerns Our Community This does not stand alone. In August, you declared that the Accessibility Team had overstepped its authority, usefulness and charter, and that any other team or committer could override its suggestions. In 2025, you proposed developing accessibility improvements as a canonical plugin rather than in core. Taken together, these actions make it difficult for disabled users to know whether accessibility remains a core value of WordPress or is now treated as an obstacle to progress. Accessibility cannot be optional for the people who need it. When it lives outside core, or depends on the standing of individual advocates, people with disabilities are the ones left behind. The effect on contributors matters too. Several respected members of the WordPress community have said publicly that they feel unable to speak freely about these events. A project that depends on volunteer and sponsored contributions cannot build accessible software if the people doing that work fear the consequences of doing it. ### Important Questions In the spirit of openness that the WordPress project has long championed, I respectfully ask you to answer the following questions publicly: 1. Do you consider accessibility a core requirement of WordPress, on equal footing with performance, security and usability, rather than an optional enhancement? 2. What is your plan, and the expected timeline, for making admin notices perceivable and navigable for screen reader and keyboard users, now that the work on ticket #50486 has been moved to a future release? 3. What authority and role will the Accessibility Team hold going forward, and how will its expertise be incorporated into decisions that affect disabled users? 4. What process and criteria were applied in removing Andrea Fercia’s roles, and what process will govern similar decisions in the future, consistent with the project’s Code of Conduct? 5. What commitment can you make to authors, creators, developers and site owners with disabilities that the tools they depend on will remain accessible to them? ### An Invitation to Respond WordPress powers a large share of the web, and its choices shape what millions of people, including millions of people with disabilities, can read, publish and build. Clear answers would go a long way toward restoring trust. Should you choose to respond, Blind Access Journal will publish your response in full and without edits, so our readers can hear directly from you. To our readers, and to everyone in the WordPress community who shares these concerns: I encourage you to read The Repository’s reporting and the ticket history for yourselves, and to add your voice respectfully and constructively. Sincerely, Darrell Hilliker, CPWA Publisher, Blind Access Journal

Shawn Wildermuth reposted

MapQuest
@mapquest.com

The Roads Have Eyes! 👁️ Turn on the Surveillance Layer in Map Options to see known license plate readers from Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, Leonardo (ELSAG), Neology, Rekor, PlateSmart, Ubicquia, Verkada, and other outdoor surveillance cameras.