Found this fine longhorn beetle today #wildflowerhour

So it turned out that many of the orchids survived the mowing and are happily flowering #wildflowerhour

The front lawn today, lots of oxeye daisies are out, the field scabious is a bee magnet, the birds foot trefoil is also popular with bees and moths, lots of butterflies around #lawnflowers #wildflowerhour

The first of the pyramidal orchids is out in the churchyard for #orchidchallenge in #wildflowerhour but sadly a farmer mowed down the largest orchid patch in the village before they even flowered so I remain sad despite this.

A GitHub for maintainers - Giving dependencies the same treatment the fork got nesbitt.io/2026/05/02/a...

A white green-winged orchid amidst the purple ones for #wildflowerhour

I cannot recommend this week's cover story by @christopherjm.ft.com highly enough. It's the frankly astonishing story of the fortitude of one Ukrainian drone commander on the eastern front... don't miss it... as.ft.com/r/ddae74ad-4...

All the hares are out today

New blog post: NHS Goes To War Against Open Source https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/nhs-goes-to-war-against-open-source/ The NHS is preparing to close nearly all of its Open Source repositories. Throughout my time working for the UK Government - in GDS, NHSX, i.AI, and others - I championed …

📣State of Open Con 26 is On The Road 🚘 and Early Bird Tickets for Edinburgh, on 5 June, are available at a discounted £99 until 6 May, focusing on the AI stack, working up from Compute through Models and Agents to user experiences and ROI with an openness slant. stateofopencon.com/edinburgh-so...

Jocelyn Galsworthy at Lords

Welcoming some impressive open tech contributors to the OpenUK team with our Ambassador refresh! 😇 We will be launching our Apprentice Ambassador and OpenHQ international Ambassador programmes in the next few weeks. openuk.uk/ambassadors/ #openuk #openukambassadors #opensourcecommunity

NEW: The Green Party is STILL bad at being green (FREE TO READ) takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/the-green-...

pretty in pink, purple and white - green winged orchids, wood anemone and early purple orchid because thats the time of year around here in Suffolk #wildflowerhour

My copy of @beenwrekt.bsky.social book just arrived, looking forward to reading this

Jarvis pull up the relevant shitpost

Cherry blossom in the garden coming out

IT Support to Major Tom You're Outlook's dead, there's something wrong Can you ping me, Major Tom? Can you ping me, Major Tom?

Part n of the FT Alphaville occasional series on tax hearings for various foodstuffs is one of the finest www.ft.com/content/eb37...

First cowslip of the year on the lawn for #wildflowerhour

Crane coming in to land. Peak Amsterdam

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!