One of the most remarkable objects in #Pompeii is a marble table support with P. Casca Longus inscribed on it. Longus was the 1st assassin to stab Julius Caesar on #IdesOfMarch (today in 44 BC). On his death Longus’ possessions were auctioned & this table was bought by a Pompeian

If you ask someone today to name the builder of Hadrian's Wall, they would give you a funny look. But historical memory is odd, and right up to the 1800s we forgot who built it. Until in 1840 John Hodgson, an obscure Northumbrian clergyman, published the LONGEST footnote in history... 1/22

Made the cover of @acm.org with "A Decade of Docker Containers", recapping much systems work! Docker grew so fast in those early days that we never got a chance to write an academic paper about it, so this has been a long time coming cacm.acm.org/research/a-d... w/ @justincormack.bsky.social djs55

Hard to overstate the excellence of this long-read from @shaunwalker7.bsky.social on the Western and Ukrainian intelligence run-up to Russia's full-scale invasion: the Iraq War's legacy, Zelensky v Zaluzhny, the geopolitical forces that shaped what followed. Awesome work, wonderful writing.

One of the highlights of the IndiaAI Impact Summit, this phenomenal panel hosted by OpenUK brought people who really understand open source together to dig deep into resilience and sovereignty. With Amanda Brock, @anastasiastasenko.bsky.social, Jimmy Wales, Dr Laura Gilbert, and @mishi.bsky.social

My first London primary school, Highbury Quadrant, closed last year www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/its-... - although my memories of the school dinners were not those of the people quoted in the article! The teachers were great though.

“Toto is not the first ostensibly non-tech company in Japan that has become part of the AI boom. Ajinomoto, better known for soup stocks, uses resin derived from its expertise in umami flavourings to make insulation material between chips and motherboards.” www.ft.com/content/4252...

glove

Thanks to @cedricchin.bsky.social for arranging a group call with @davidbessis.bsky.social definitely going to be reading his book about how maths is really done, see davidbessis.substack.com/p/thinking-f... for a taste

on the beach

My favorite: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potoooo...

sunset

On the beach

A very unexpected primrose in the churchyard for #wildflowerhour

Evening, from a few days ago.

WInters day by the sea

Fluffy toys spouting CCP talking points in response to questions is decisive evidence in favor of my "Philip K. Dick as greatest prophet of our era" shtick. www.bostonreview.net/articles/hen...

"The black line merely exposes the darkness inside the toy" ok wikipedia thats a bit much en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etch_A_...

Had not seen this painting by Constable before, Rainstorm over the Sea. (in the Tate exhibition, must go)

Welcoming our new Board members, @chira001.bsky.social, Ashley Ward, Clare Schramm, @justincormack.bsky.social, Margherita Di Cerbo, Maria Lema, @mathewlodge.com, and @mikemcquaid.com, to strengthen our existing OpenUK Board. openuk.uk/newboardmemb...

"Even after applying weights to ensure the reported demographics of respondents match up to the target population, 12 per cent of young adults in the sample declared they had a licence to operate a nuclear submarine." www.ft.com/content/1298... by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

Morning walk by the vineyards

🔥✨🤩🫣⬇️ Want to get more involved in OpenUK and become a part of the team? openuk.uk/ambassadors/ #opensource #opendata #openhardware #opensourcesoftware #openuk #ambassador

"China added 240GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of this year, and 61GW of wind"

For #wildflowerhour some wild snapdragons from Spain where I was earlier this week. Back home its more shaggy inkcap weather and slime mold bsky.app/profile/just...

I was re-perusing @komorama.bsky.social organizations are like slime molds piece komoroske.com/slime-mold/ and then ran into a whole lot of the tastefully named "dog's vomit slime mold" up the road - slime molds are weird!

evening walk

sunset

The Tour de France slows rise of far right

"This is a more extreme policy position than, say, the BNP’s 2005 manifesto."

I can't understate how good of a job the @inkandswitch.com folks did at this Automerge website. Wow, holy shit automerge.org And the fact that you can *interact* with the visual demo at the top? This is the new high bar for a technical website. Holy moly.

Autumn walk

"Storing beautiful things in your head is really worth doing"

First thing that comes to mind when I hear the Louvre has been robbed "Inside the air was filled with gorilla smoke. I was looking for a man who might specialise in piano robberies from the Louvre." goonshow.org/goonshow/nap...

owl

The EU wants to “help AI start-ups grow through increased demand for European-made open source AI solutions”

This autumn the UK Office for Rail and Road will decide on capacity at Temple Mills depot in east London What that is going to mean for Eurostar's rivals - and the many questions I still have! - I've written up in a new blog post jonworth.eu/constraints-...

after the roses

"The field changes arising from train leakage currents have to be added to the variations due to temperature changes, terrestrial tides and seasonal deformations of the LEP ring from the water level of the lake of Geneva and the amount of rainfall in the vicinity of CERN" cds.cern.ch/record/33409...

This sounds great on.ft.com/46vOll8

Evening walk

Goethe tells the story of the old Duke of Saxony, an original as well as stubborn man, whose advisers urge him to reflect and ponder before making an important decision. “I want neither to reflect nor to ponder,” he replies, “otherwise why would I be the Duke of Saxony?” www.ft.com/content/85ee...

“When translating Dumas’s work, for instance, he would sometimes go off on twenty-page-long digressions before returning to the text. His version of The Three Musketeers, which is some six hundred pages long in the original, weighs in at more than six thousand pages” yalereview.org/article/amir...

Saw some clouded yellows fluttering around today, very bright yellow! @bc-suffolk.bsky.social

dunno but this was his license plate

Some common soapwort for #wildflowerhour

"We dominate the world when it comes to “doing miscellaneous stuff”. Nobody can touch us when it comes to “things that don’t fit in any other category”." backofmind.substack.com/p/the-thing-...