I'd be interested to know the ave age of people who nominated the books in the Guardian list, because it seems like a list of books you'd read if you did an English degree in the 90s. (I started mine in 1992, when a woman would not have been allowed to top a list like that, but otherwise same-same.)

When I rule the world, men will no longer be allowed to explain birth rates and fertility with charts. Honestly, lads, if you want to know why women are having fewer babies, do some qualitative research. Ask some women and find out.

I'm calling it. Yesterday morning was the only time when speculating about the Labour leadership contest would be in any way fun and now - unless someone comes up with a way to give Gordon Brown emeritus status - it will all be tawdry and awful and depressing and full of substandard gossip.

This is like a case study in how not to do it. Gates Foundation subsidises Anthropic to the tune of $200m to fund "public benefit" www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-...

"They are arguably the modern-day railroad,” Schulte said. “It makes sense for them to issue longer maturities because AI is a long-term infrastructure." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... I'm v sympathetic to long-term infra development, but what if hyperscale AI is as flying cars are to railways?

Talked to some funders today about how to make tech more equitable and pointed out that it starts with the lobby. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Even when school half-terms seem to be only 30 seconds long from a parental perspective, there is no length of half term that is not one week too long for a teenager

In spite of having walked past it a million times, I only just noticed this slightly weird sticker on the window of the red phone box in Parliament Sq. "Future generations", eh?

I've done a very good job of swearing off politics for ages but, as an erstwhile Labour member, I'd be lying if I wasn't feeling a slight frisson as we enter the shag/marry/avoid stage of leadership speculation, because what is it if not a fandom for dorks

Ran my eyes over these words quickly, parsed it as Streetfighter, consider this would be much more fun as a platform game, although not sure Starmer would have much range of motion for eg roundhouse kicks

ugh www.theguardian.com/society/2026... I mean, I say ugh, and now I think about it *I may have done this myself* the other day because I was in a hurry and it is so impossible to google anything now.

Not enjoying the nostalgic 2020 mood music of domestic political instability + people quarantined on a cruise ship.

Hello Delay Repay, my old friend.

I have likely missed the serious discourse on this. I'm a big fan of Jess Philips, but the technology does not exist to stop children taking naked pictures of themselves. Or, in so far as it does, the technology is "not letting children have cameras".

this is a tremendous, thoughtful, post by @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social - it's about agency and what might constitute "safe" AI.

Good morning from this annotation on Google Maps, which may be trying just a bit too hard

Well don't we all love to make a hot water bottle to take to bed in *MID MAY*

What other jobs are there besides PM in which the incumbent gets to say, "there is no vacancy! I'm not going anywhere!"

"ebike fires made up nearly 1/3 of all lithium-ion battery fires nationally [with] retrofitted and converted ebikes ... disproportionately involved ... There were 520 callouts to fires involving ebikes in 2025, compared with 149 in 2022." www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Writing an application for something, and it is extraordinary how working in UK policy since 2015 translates as working with 6 different governments. The most surprising thing being how nostalgic I am for Theresa May (who I felt was far too out there at the time, with too many right-wing policies).

Scary diagram on how much of our daily lives would fall apart if somehow we were cut off from US tech. Tech sovereignty and resilience is going to be costly! www.ft.com/content/4c3a...

For Lent this year (mid-Feb till early April) I stopped reading the news and it's the best thing I've done for ages. I look at the FT perhaps every other day now. On Thurs night, I went to bed at a normal time and didn't check my local council election results till mid-afternoon on Friday.

How can looking at so many pictures of people I have never met be so much like looking in the mirror?

We're watching Race Across the World and I keep thinking about how much all the friendly café owners etc would get into trouble if they were in the UK, offering the odd casual shift to people off the telly who don't have the right paperwork

is this good

At this point, not sure I need another email from a rail company explaining that "British railways are changing" (esp not from Gatwick Express)

Spent yesterday with a load of people working in digital across the public sector and was reminded that I could never be a civil servant, a lot of people work really hard, often in thankless conditions, and that ministerial teams need to stop drinking the Tony Blair Inst koolaid

I'm currently working on an AI safety review and the extent to which "tech bro makes car, the wheels fall off" is an extended metaphor for the last decade is not to be under-estimated

On a chaotic and fascinating Manchester-to-London train. Currently running an hour late. Was preciously told to get off at Nuneaton and "return to Manchester". Will we ever get to Euston? Who knows! But the shop is still open in coach B, so go for your life with the meal deal.

For the first time in weeks I'm doing some leisurely Bluesky scrolling and I am *very struck* by the massive difference in tone between my group chats and what I'm reading from the progressive political commentators.

If you have a desk-based, computer-based job, what's your typing like? Can you touch type? I'm currently sitting on a train watching someone type on a laptop using only their splayed index fingers in an absolutely RSI-nightmare inducing fashion. Want to give them some tips on median nerve flossing.

The sound of 500 people talking about hope ❤️ (sound on!)

Fantastically hopeful start to the day - from @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social - bringing much needed optimistim and a call to activism and collective action. Let’s all join. Let’s all do it now. societyforhopefultechnologists.org/ #CampDigital

YESSSS we really need to stop thinking and talking about the power we don’t have as digital professionals and acknowledge we do have authority, legitimacy, often relative safety, we are in the rooms where decisions are made. These are all kinds of power! @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social #CampDigital

That was fun! What a lovely hopeful crowd

Getting ready to go on stage at the Royal Northern College of Music for Camp Digital, talking about the Society for Hopeful Technologists (hello Bruce!)

Looking at the govt's sector analysis for employment in the tech sector and um HELLO would it have killed them to have two different headings and to discuss disability and women separately? I'm a woman with a disability, btw. No shade on my differently abled friends, but seems odd to conflate them

As a woman in tech, it's always interesting what people ask you to talk about. I have a policy of not doing "diversity" talks about women in tech - I make an exception for practical conversations about feminist approaches to policy, development, investment, but they don't come round very often

Anyway it occurs to me that the problem with "ideas that don't require a purchase" is they need anyone to actively give a shit. Engaging with advocacy is a PITA. This is one reason why the glossy Tony Blair Inst approach has a good hit rate: they actually want to replicate the corporate sales pitch

Thinking a lot at the moment about what it is to create technology that treads lightly. My go to is always the idea of "just enough", which is really what I want EF Schumacher's "appropriate technology" to be - and how the obsession with end-to-end digitisation/automation gets in the way of that

As is only correct when you complain about an NHS system not working, here to say that a very helpful GP called me a couple of hours later and I ended up at A&E getting some same-day tests, and got home mid-afternoon with a clean bill of health and some slightly too strong pain killers.

good morning to everyone waiting for the accurx gods to reset so they can make a request to make a GP appt

I can't remember where I saw this (sorry) but I saw someone the other day describing the importance of using your own brain, rather than gen AI, to do tasks as the mental equivalent of "time under tension" and it's really stuck with me

One of the best things about the dramatic rise in dog ownership in London since the pandemic is how brilliantly normal it is to see huge, tough-looking men idling on the pavement in service of tiny, silly dogs having a good old sniff of their environs

Yesterday, while hurriedly repacking my bag, despite the fact that I've know myself for 50 years, I actually thought, "I'm going to put my watch in this totally-different-to-normal yet completely memorable place, and I'll be able to put my hand on it straightaway when I need it." hahahahahahahahaha

Please please someone write the counterfactual drama in which govt is having undeclared meetings with Arts Emergency

This by danah boyd, on how social media is now parasocial, is vg journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I've been to a bunch of airports recently - uncharacteristically doing a lot of work travel - and so been to a few European countries, various diff Indian airports and to Nairobi, and airport infra as a solo traveller with a smartphone and an international debit card varies a lot

Unless you need physical accommodations or have young children, it is baffling to me why - in the ticket classes where you get plenty of locker space - people compete to be first on the plane. Surely the most coveted thing is to spend the least possible amount of time in the metal box?

I have no idea how many times I've watched the safety protocol on a plane, but I can absolutely guarantee I would not be able to remember how to put on a life jacket.