We had such a good time at our Annual Lecture, Research Showcase and private reception events on 'food' on Wednesday. A big thank you to all those who helped make it happen and another big thank you to over 500 of you who came along to make the day so special. The lecture video will be coming soon!

Attended excellent Cabot Annual Lecture (keynote + panel) yesterday. Followed on Bluesky [ @cabot-institute.bsky.social ]. (After prev on Twitter)

Have we passed peak social media? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here www.ft.com/content/a072...

This music video, directed by Kevin McGloughlin for Max Cooper’s song Repetition, features remixed fractal-like forms from the constructed world (roads, skyscrapers, wind turbines, etc.) interspersed with scenes from nature. Totally mesmerizing. [kottke.org]

🎨 Theming got a huge overhaul with the latest #ggplot2 release. In honour of that @teunbrand.bsky.social has written a comprehensive deep-dive into styling your plots, covering both old and new functionality. Grab a coffee and dive in! #rstats

Fahrner Image Replacement. Faux Columns. Sliding Doors. CSS Sprites. Suckerfish Dropdowns. 2003 was a fabulous year for standards-based web design. #WebStandards #WebDesignHistory #webdesign #frontend

ggplot2 4.0.0 is out and the new `paper`, `ink`, `accent` theme variables look super cool! Just pick 2-3 colors 🎨 to make your plots look great! I'm excited to hook this up to brand.yml 😉

This annual topic rollout is a reminder to myself that I still need to build a data vis course. But if you ever want to know the ins and outs to WHY we built them and kept them - we builkt distros too! - there are like 50K words in the StatsBomb archives across most of a decade.

Thread Meeting xkcd.com/3128/

The Case of the Terrifyingly Affordable Flashlight. “The tech, value, and products are proof that modern flashlights are absolutely insane and defy logic and manufacturing economics.” [kottke.org]

38M! 🎉

[After using RSS for 20+ years (and suffering the killing-off of at least a couple of favoured readers), I too am currently using Inoreader]

starting to think some of these AI companies are kind of shitty tbh

We convened a roundtable in Manchester to explore how data infrastructure could help more people get physically active. We were joined by regional stakeholders to explore the opportunities emerging around the NHS App, and the implications of the new 10-year health plan.

“Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines.” This, like many other Trump regime actions, will result in easily avoided deaths. [nytimes.com]

mRNA vaccines for HIV trigger strong immune response in people. “Two vaccine candidates using mRNA technology elicit a potent immune response against HIV, according to an early-stage clinical trial.” The good news lately re: HIV is incredible. Fund this! [nature.com]

Matt Webb on copyrighting your faults. “I think part of growing up is taking what it is that people tease you about at school, and figuring out how to make it a superpower.” [interconnected.org]

DuckDuckGo has added a feature to filter out AI images from search results.

Sometimes the historical dictionary offers solace through the existence of an obsolete word that is sorely needed now. One of them is ‘respair’, recorded just once, in the 15th century. It means fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.

'It shouldn’t be necessary to make this comparison. Sources: UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Auschwitz Memorial and Museum' Mona Chalabi on IG www.instagram.com/p/DMdSiSju8G...

An excerpt from Episode 926 with Dr. Mindy Pelz—a must-listen for any woman ready to stop giving her power away and start trusting her body's intelligence. Watch/subscribe: https://bit.ly/MindyPelz926  ✌🏼🌱 – Rich

Thanks for the memory, @classicweb.site. And, hey, we’re still at it. Check @alistapart.com.

Why and How to Write Minimal and Valid HTML, a Link Guide, by @meiert.com: meiert.com/blog/minimal...

Lights are going out across the Net for UK users. Age verification is driving sites to shut down, geo-block the UK or restrict features and content. In trying to tackle to worst of the Net, it's harming the best. 🗣️ ORG Exec Director, @jim.social.openrightsgroup.org.ap.brid.gy #OnlineSafetyAct

An article published on a blog is a blog post. It is not a blog. “Do you read my blog?” is a correctly worded question. “Did you read my blog?” (meaning did you read my blog post) is not. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

An analysis of every word that’s visible on NYC’s streets (from 18 years of Google Street View Data). “The data is astonishing; it feels like sifting through the city’s source code. For example, here’s all 111,290 matches for ‘pizza’, on a map.” [pudding.cool]

I love this article on the set design of Sesame Street and how it was influenced by Jane Jacobs’ ideas about vibrant urban spaces like the “sidewalk ballet” and “eyes on the street”. [kottke.org]

It's difficult to contain multitudes these days.

Thought Zubimendi may be his Real Sociedad self, and I’d have to write annoying long-reads about all the little things he’s doing to support others, even if the stats don’t pop. But he’s being his Spain self. And everybody can see how fucking good he is.

A list of the top 100 “most innovative, influential, and informative” podcasts of all time. The list includes 99% Invisible, The Big Dig, Code Switch, Heavyweight, In Our Time, Radiolab, Slow Burn, and You’re Wrong About. [time.com]

My equivalent of “breathe and count to ten” before ranting on social media is advice which (I believe) @zeldman shared years ago. Just because you have a voice online doesn’t mean that it’s OK to use it to vent when you’re in a bad mood. Use it to make the world a more positive place.

What happens when our digital maps vanish? No search. No browser history. No bookmarks. Could your site still be found? I wrote about resilience, memory, and rediscovering the human web: webringstudio.com/if-browsers-...

Built a thing to solve my annoyance setting up Python + Quarto projects in Positron (& teaching others to do the same) For anyone moving from .Rmd to .qmd who wants a cleaner on-ramp: meet Quoncierge. 🔗 github.com/lkwhite/Quoncierge #positron #quarto #rstats #datascience #reproducibility #jupyter

Tukey xkcd.com/3104/

In every country, for millennia, folk have enjoyed a swim in clean, safe, still water on hot days. But not in Britain today, where Bristol Water has deemed the water to be "extremely dangerous" and access revoked, purely due to the hot weather! 🤯 buff.ly/KEMxto4

Microsoft launched the "Python in Excel" preview last year, but how good is it really? This article comes from the author of the xlwings library and "Python for Excel" book, sharing his insights after extensive use. He argues it's not a VBA replacement but rather an www.xlwings.org/blog/my-thou...

You have a legal right to say no to Stalker Ads 🫵 You can object to being fed targeted adverts based on personal data that Big Tech collects about you. And companies must respect it when you do. Use our tool to opt out and #StopStalkerAds on Meta ⬇️ action.openrightsgroup.org/meta-opt-out

ORG turns 20 this year! 🎈 🎉 🎂 To celebrate two decades of fighting for digital rights, join us for Cory Doctorow in conversation with @mariafarrell.bsky.social‬. Register now to hear about Cory's work and how to fight Big Tech ✊ 🗓️ 16 July, 6pm BST 💻 Zoom www.openrightsgroup.org/events/org-a...

We finally saw "Flow", and the friends who had told us it was an exceptional film were wrong; it is a bona fide masterpiece. Director Gints Zilbalodis, who also wrote the beautiful, Klaus Schulzian musical score, is a magician.

How we made it: Dual heat domes hit Europe and US https://on.ft.com/3Tj7Kyf

Day 5 of #BristolDataWeek wrapped up on Friday. We had our Applied Data Analysis in Python: scikit-learn training session, Museums of Languages: A Concept Game Jam with Bristol Digital Game Lab, and the Careers in Data Science seminar with Compass CDT. #BristolDataWeek2025 #BDW2025

Day 4 of #BristolDataWeek wrapped up yesterday! We had our Best Practices for Reproducible Python/R Projects training session and the Gambling harms research: ideas for a data-driven research agenda workshop with Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research. #BristolDataWeek2025 #BDW2025

Our sessions for Day 3 of #BristolDataWeek have come to an end. We had our Introduction to Neural Networks training session, Mapping the Future City workshop with ‪@bdfi.bsky.social‬ and ‪@cabot-institute.bsky.social‬, and the Introducing Isambard-AI training session. Thank you to our speakers!

Day 2 of #BristolDataWeek2025 is officially over! Today we had our Introduction to Data Analysis in Python training, Health Data Research Network workshop, and the @sw-nuclearhub.bsky.social Challenges & Solutions: Data Science in the Nuclear Industry workshop. Thank you to all of our speakers!

Day 1 of #BristolDataWeek2025 is officially over! Today we had our Introduction to Python training session, Essentials of Working with Sensitive Research Data workshop, and the @gw4alliance.bsky.social‬ AI and Data Science: AI, Climate and Health event. Thank you to all of our speakers!

📣#BristolDataWeek is here! We have an exciting lineup of events for our first day! Check out today's schedule below 👇 Our events today are sold out but you can still register for events later this week. Get tickets now: tinyurl.com/m6rk3rt5#BristolDataWeek#BristolDataWeek2025 #BDW2025

Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object xkcd.com/3084