A bit of a holiday rant... We need to stop designing "target architectures." They're a fantasy. A waste of money. An approach that forces decisions too early, kills speed, and guarantees you'll never fix legacy tech. A utopian plan that's an anchor, not a map. dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/th...

New post on the Transform Wales blog from @niacampbell.bsky.social. We've learned the language of digital in Wales - agile, user-centred, transformation. Now it's time to learn how to live it. transform.wales/blog/2025/pr...

A huge thank you to Simon @metoffice.gov.uk, @elmosmoe.bsky.social @scottishaialliance.bsky.social, James from JDAC and Lauren from GIAA for a brilliant Data Bites AI special @publicdigital.bsky.social last night Watch back as live (write up/audio/slides to follow) bit.ly/databites59

Welsh word of the day: Gobaith - hope medium.com/@DyfrigJones...

My latest newsletter with all the analysis from a historic Caerphilly byelection willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/plaid-smas...

An historic night in Caerphilly / Caerffili as Plaid Cymru end more than a hundred years of Labour representation. Share of the vote: Plaid 47 per cent Reform 35 per cent Labour 11 per cent www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

New writing from me… Events like this week’s AWS outage are becoming more and more common. Whether it’s an accidental tech failure like Monday, or a major cyber attack, the only constant is the certainty that something will break. www.techmonitor.ai/comment-2/th... /1

TONIGHT!

A reminder. Only 6.9% of people in Wales were born overseas. Just 2.9% of people in Caerphilly were born overseas. Whereas 38% of medical consultants in Wales were born overseas. Immigrants are not holding our NHS back, they are propping it up.

Today's AWS outage demonstrates that 'accidental technology failure' is as much of a risk to company operations as a cyber attack, as PD CTO @daivaughan.uk tells ComputerWeekly.com www.computerweekly.com/news/3666329...

These sorts of major outages are thankfully very rare - but they do highlight how interconnected services now are. As we saw last year with Crowdstrike, companies that have thought about resilience will be back up and running quickly. Others may take some time.

JLR, M&S, Co-op and Harrods all allegedly outsourced things like cyber security and service desks to the same supplier

Researchers pointed a satellite dish at the sky for 3 years and monitored what unencrypted data it picked up. The results were shocking: They obtained thousands of T-Mobile users' phone calls and texts, military and law enforcement secrets, much more: www.wired.com/story/satell... 🧵👇

Today, we're launching Transforming Public Services for a Modern Wales. This report sets out a clear path for the next Welsh Government to move beyond short-term fixes and deliver better, human-centred services. #DigitalWales #PublicServiceReform

Tanysgrifwyr cylchlythyr – ewch i’ch mewnflychau! 👀 Newsletter subscribers: check your inboxes for news! 👀

"The NCSC is encouraging UK organisations to take immediate action to mitigate a vulnerability (CVE-2025-61882) affecting Oracle E-Business Suite." www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/active-...

From @willhaycardiff.bsky.social’s newsletter. After more than a year in office, how is it that the PM still can’t pronounce the name of Wales’ First Minister? A leader in his own party. It’s incredibly disrespectful. willhaywardwales.substack.com/p/wales-watc...

Today was one of my favourite lectures, on how evidence influences debates. Case A: 79 people died as a consequence of smart motorways (2010-2024). That's sufficient to pause the policy. Case B: In the first year of the Welsh 20mph scheme 900 fewer people were injured. There's still contestation.

Rydym yn lansio cylchlythyr misol i rannu diweddariadau ar ein hadroddiad a chrynodeb o newyddion a swyddi digidol yng Nghymru. Rhifyn cyntaf allan penwythnos yma. Cofrestrwch yma: buttondown.com/transformwales

We’re launching a monthly newsletter to provide updates on our report and give you a roundup of digital news in Wales and links to jobs. First issue out this weekend. Sign up here: buttondown.com/transformwales

Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack latest from the Financial Times 😬😬😬

Some practical action staff can take. 1. Speak to your union. This is the kind of thing the TUC should be all over. Why should trades unions fund a “Labour” party which treats workers like this? 2. Copy every request for a staff time meeting to Nick Thomas–Symonds’s Private Office

You wouldn't have the global success of GDS without staff networks like UK Gov Camp and OneTeamGov

Why are the American president's claims about autism the first item on British news bulletins? He's not our president, the advice doesn't apply here and he's not presented any evidence to support his assertions. So why spread these claims? What make this the biggest story in the UK?

BBC West Midlands Radio is devoting its entire breakfast show to reporting on the Jaguar Land rover cyber attack today. Incredible to hear about the enormous impact it's having on local people who rely on the plant for direct and indirect employment. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Does Tylenol cause autism? (A comprehensive neuroscientific response to the recent US govt report) [Summary] No, of course not! What's wrong with you? [Full answer] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-[1/237]

Read our full statement on the cyber incident impacting Collins Aerospace on our website: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/collins-aerospace-incident

Leaked memo from Amazon that warns existing H1B holders to avoid travel back into the USA after the September 21st deadline - their lawyers evaluated the new executive order as not just affecting new applications

In other news... a supply-chain big cyber attack affecting airports around Europe. This is a good time to share @publicdigital.bsky.social's recent guidance on recovering from a cyber attack: public.digital/pd-insights/...

ERP system replacements are some of the most difficult and complex projects we see organisations undertake. We’ve seen example after example go wrong. Late delivery. Blown budgets. Toxic environments. People left in misery afterwards.

I was pleased to chat with @australia.theguardian.com team who actually looked at the Age Assurance trial data, finding racial & other biases of concern before the trial are still very evident in the trial's actual data (downplayed in the official summaries): www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

New by me: A look into UK orgs outsourcing critical business and cyber functions to low cost providers and the fall out. I'll probably get in trouble for writing this one. doublepulsar.com/the-elephant...

Pu the line for the Welsh civil service in this and you’ll get a flat line.

It's gonna be interesting to see how this one plays out. There's louder calls coming in to the UK gov to bail out JLR's supplies, as they've started laying off staff after JLR's ransomware/extortion incident. But JLR made £2.5bn in profit last year. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When a large wind or solar farm application goes to the Welsh Planning Department, a long, complex process begins — one that developers readily exploit. Communities are overwhelmed, and are looking to an alternative government to make it stop ✍️ Grace Lloyd

No emergency alert test for me. Living in a mobile not-spot = silence.

Watching the cycling thingy highlights because it’s in my bit of Wales. But I twitching everything they say The Tumble. That’s not its name, no one calls it that. And don’t get me started at the rest of the pronunciations.

so not only is this appalling man peddling utter garbage about autism, he's also blaming women for their children's autism (Tylenol is paracetamol, fellow Brits). What a disgusting person he is

I told you so - “get rid of managers” is the beginning and the end of their “plan”. The fact is that the NHS doesn’t have enough operational managers and administrative support… this is what leads to inefficiencies, and ties clinical staff up with non-clinical work. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Tonight’s visitor. Bach is snuffling around the base of the bird feeders.

More hogs. They seem to be getting more used to us being in the garden. 2 tonight - one in the box and one down by the stream.

MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.

New Sunday Times profile in which I succeed, like a fencer in a 2hr marathon match, in fending off Qs abt my personal life & consistently turning focus back to my work & ideas. (Contra the interviewer's claim, many ppl do know me! They're called friends, & you know who you are ❤️) archive.is/BtZD0

I’ve been busy working on a few opportunities for work...but it’s all taking longer than expected. Frustrating for me, but an opportunity for you to bring me in for a few months instead! I’m available 3 days a week (asap!), hybrid to do 3 things: con't

Women's health being downplayed you say? Well I never.

“Age verification: what’s the harm?” | Girl on the Net explains https://alecmuffett.com/article/114168 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpn

This is the single best piece I've read on "replacing coders with AI," it fully dispells the myth from the perspective of a software engineer and does so in a calm, reasonable way. colton.dev/blog/curing-...

Something very interesting at the heart of this - assuming one can overcome a potentially intransigent practical barrier to delivering a policy *is in itself* a philosophical position. How can a universal, compulsory digital ID be rolled out in a country in wch not everyone is digitally connected?