Great thread from Ciaran. Genuinely world class state capability. In a new(ish) institution.

Work with me here: Product Hail Mary

There is no reason to be on Substack. There are plenty of free options. And if you need the membership stuff, consider paying for @ghost.org or @buttondown.com and keeping all your income.

So many good points… Even if half way through I started imagining the Zuckatar as a giant golden statue (can’t imagine why)

Does the existence of merchant adventurers and merchant bankers imply the existence of adventurer bankers?

Offering a documet for download? Make sure you name it something like important-report(1).pdf so Simon can spend 10 minutes try to work out where the duplicate is

Sunday Sunday

Thank you to whoever put BBC R3's Key Changes in my timeline. It is a fascinating and accessible introduction to classical music. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The question is simple: Moon? Or Muppets?

"You can't hear an image." The image:

So I guess my quest now is to convince him that Irene Handl, not De Niro, is the greatest actor of the 20th century

Pleased to announce I have a new name

Really cool even if the justification for “the 60º angle cut in the typeface is derived from the angle between two planetary bodies which are in optimal balance and harmony” sounds more like astrology than astronomy

Do horses want cake? We conducted an investigation into statements published by @bencollins.bsky.social in the print edition of @theonion.com.

One of the reasons I’m wary about data platforms that produce themes based on prompts, apart from accuracy fears. immersion in the data is seen as something to ‘save time’ on rather than a core part of the process. Also, as earlier in the thread, it’s the really bloody interesting bit!

Putting the meteor in meteorologist

Dramatic scenes at BBC Breakfast.

OpenAI's "North Star" is a fully automated researcher. Their biggest risk is their most important partner. And a USC professor just reminded us this accountability problem is 100 years old. Worth a read. www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-a...

Please enjoy one of the cutest videos that has been aired on the Icelandic news: The three year old Styrmir taking a long time saying that he enjoys making snowmen and then … just watch.

Not sharing a thing on Bluesky because it doesn’t have alt text. This is a shame because it is cute and funny, and I have a good pun.

Read the linked article and Cory D is articulating an observation that I don't see a solution to. Our capitalistic society elevates and rewards the hustler. What are we to do with cheaters and hustlers? They have "Captured the means of production": ALL labor and productivity benefits above the mean.

Structured, semantic markup, you say? www.pootlepress.com/2026/03/the-... #WordPress #Gutenberg #SemanticMarkup #WebStandards #AgenticCommerce

New correct pronunciation just dropped.

www.reuters.com/technology/o... OpenAI going for stock listing and this year's strategy is to kill their darlings, i.e. any less profitable activity. Sora was much hyped video model, pulling plug on Disney partnership. Focus likely now to be coding and enterprise tools, but can they rival Anthropic?

there was a young man from cork who got limericks and haikus confused

Audible's definition of personal development is wild

I am colourblind. I have completely rejected academic manuscripts and proposals that use only red and green in graphs without shape or line width differences. If they are that incompetent about use of colour, they are not going to be better in other things.

It is the anniversary of the My Lai massacre today. I'd say that even more than most years, it's important to remember what happened. And the role Hugh Thompson, an active serviceman, played in both stopping and publicising it. Despite enormous military, political and public pressure to stay quiet.

In terms of naming things, would you say you were more clature or clurture?

I know it's a silly jokey joke, but people REALLY need to stop anthropomorphizing their boyfriends. "My boyfriend told me" your boyfriend didn't "tell" you anything. "My boyfriend thinks..." your boyfriend can't actually think or feel; just output a convincing simulation of it based on probability 🙄

"Their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws" is something I think about way too often.

I want to build a .org tech stack and suck the oxygen out of the current tech h industry by designing ecosystems that support healthy communities, including individuals, local journalism, civic participation, and small businesses. Who is thinking about this that I should connect with?

this is like the thesis statement of our times

Asking Awkward Questions As A Service is back for IWD. If you'd like me to ask an awkward question of your employer (or former employer) this weekend, nominate them here 👇 iwd.momentusco.org

thomas, reading my post: …for now. it won’t stay that way me: i know chatbots are an appealing alternative for the moment bc they’re so clean & nice but that’s just the light on the end of the anglerfish

I think this approach hints at how employee-focused vibe coding is going to be practical. Tools need centralised interface guidelines, governance and metadata rules for input and output data, test and reporting requirements, as well as safeguards to manage sharing beyond intended audiences.

Programmers, of all people, need to be forced into using potatoes with shitty internet. People using potatoes with no or shitty internet accomplished *miracles*, modern programmers are using incomprehensibly better hardware to fuck about.

I got so frustrated at one point I just said "You have soup. We are making a sandwich. We cannot make a sandwich out of soup!" And I feel like that's what rebuilding from post-slop everything is going to be like.

Guess who gave himself minty fresh hands this morning. Should probably be a long LinkedIn post with a laboured analogy about experience design… but for now, who the fuck has ever put mouthwash in a pump dispenser next to a sink?

all those "Hi it's Chad from Blancmange, I noticed you haven't used Blancmange in a while..." emails might land better if they included any details to help me remember what product this is

If all parties put up qualified tradespeople at the next election they could usefully turn over the next parliament to doing DIY.

The moment when a caretaker has left the murder hotel and a new caretaker hasn't yet taken over is called an interredrum

Yes to fracking, no to f**king would be quite the slogan

Microsoft Teams app bar changes: When “clean” design undermines usability from @emilymancini.bsky.social

Anyone up to date with accessible - to authors - content management systems? Last time I checked, Craft CMS seemed to be the only one taking it seriously, but that was 5 years and at least 3 global crises ago. Double points if you have access needs and have a hot take 🌟

Do you use personas in your work? How do you use them? What are they good for? What are they not good for?

All presentations, you say?

Who knew missionary work could be done in SharePoint?

Managed to improve my mood on a grey Wednesday by around 5% by listening to my Beach Boys 'deep cuts' (ugh) playlist. Some highlights to follow. 🧵

Oh great, and it's not going to be the interesting ones is it? Here's another witless meme. Here's another intrusion of privacy. Here's more casual bias and actual disinformation...!