The confidence with which people are making strong claims based on very aggregated data which hides a whole swathe of statistical assumptions makes me nervous.

Very pleasant visit to Leigh Woods: saw goldcrest, nuthatch, treecreeper, blackcap, wren and long-tailed tit among others. Only managed a phone snap of this guy.

We should be taking notes.

“Blocking the Strait was actually MY idea!”

Starting to feel familiar.

A number of British academics and ex-academics just lost a potential pay cheque.

Some rare light among the gloom.

A US blockade is quite interesting in terms of relative pain tolerance. No Iranian exports = more pressure on regime in Tehran. But also, no Iranian exports = even tighter global supply, higher prices, more pressure on Trump too.

Operation If You Can’t Beat ‘Em Join ‘Em

Mark Rutte's time as head of NATO is not dissimilar to his time as PM in that he seems to think it is extremely sensible to keep playing footsy with far right leaders and that this will lead to no negative consequences whatsoever.

Make Britain America’s New Israel would be quite a slogan. www.ft.com/content/385a...

He's going to run as the anti-war candidate in 2028 and the stupidest people you know are all going to pretend to believe it.

Oh... my God. My first tweet to be stolen by the President of the United States 😅

Showing a .tex file from 2018 to students: "biblatex and natbib are both loaded in the preamble, a reminder of the handcrafted imperfections of the artist"

Jacobins have long backed the role of a revolutionary Vanguard.

Popes have come a long way since Urban II.

We might find out that the conspiracy theorists were right all along, and English-speaking identity politics opinion writing was indeed funded by a shady Hungarian

Even when expressing a fairly explicit and solid position, Starmer somehow manages to sound vague and hedged.

They are good at just about plausible deniability, the Israelis: “Operation Darkness? In Lebanon?… Oh, no, you see, that just refers to the Evil Hizbollah Terrorists — not the local children we just happen to be dropping bombs on again.”

Every single article covering Israel should start by mentioning that they dubbed yesterday's operations in Lebanon "eternal darkness." You know that so much has already been normalised when this isn't even a cause for outrage. 303 people, at least, were murdered yesterday by Israel.

wtf was that ‘joke’ on Radio 4 just now about people who don’t like Jews probably voting green?

Across the sector, there’s already pressure to use AI for almost all aspects of teaching, inevitably soon to include marking.

Crypto is the archetypal example that fintech is regulatory arbitrage and countries like the US not only allowed it but have been actively encouraging its use. Amazingly short-sighted.

A few years back I got an email from a nearby Russell group uni asking if I wanted hourly paid work marking dissertations — having hoovered up a load of our local students by effectively removing entry requirements, they didn’t have the capacity to teach them. You can probably guess my reply.

This is an absolutely shocking thing for a prominent philosophy professor to post and I think it really demonstrates how the tech industry has, instead of dealing with its water impacts or sharing real transparent info, instead nurtured this idea that community concerns are fabrications and lies.

There are now two well-known Lebanese beekeepers killed by Israel

Doesn’t sound like he’s all in on the ceasefire to me.

It's clear that without a cease fire in Lebanon, there's no cease fire at all.

Sure, because you don't think to double-check such minor details in situations like this.

Arguably, China is the winner of this one.

I have a bad feeling that 'two weeks' is about as meaningful and reliable as everything else that comes out of this White House.

The Gulf states are watching their entire development model and years of diplomatic engagement to make it possible crumble before their eyes. And Israel thinks it is achieving security when in fact the landscape of destruction it's surrounding itself with is choking off any hope of a viable future.

To talk vaguely and theoretically about a "Jewish State" is irresponsible. People talk about their fuzzy vision of what a benevolent "Jewish state" could mean in an alternate universe. But that's meaningless. The question is what Jewish State actually means in 2026 Israel: a Kahanist state.

At some point we are going to have to recognise that Israel is an integral part of what's going on. It's not just Trump.

Cornish Mazraa Beirut just now. Israel is bombing throughout Lebanon

I wrote this yesterday www.hauntologies.net/p/israel-bom...

Some men will do anything but check satnav

Even if the ceasefire holds, it's going to be quite some time until the dust settles and we figure out what's broken, what can be fixed and how long it will take. A period of price adjustment is incoming; it's worth keeping in mind what we recently learned about voters not liking price adjustments.

Pains me to say this, but bullish for bitcoin. We've finally found a use case. Seems appropriate that its an insanely carbon-intensive payments system.

Whilst obviously we can all breathe out a little, it does look like Israel are just going to occupy large chunks of south Lebanon and it's incumbent on the west to begin treating them as the rogue state they clearly are.

A thing to keep in mind: every war has losers. Not all wars have winners.

One of my unpopular opinions is that middle aged dudes who do lots of intensive running and/or cycling alongside the traditional centrist dad lifestyle are potentially doing themselves more harm than good.

An almighty rally in gilts taking place this morning, of anti-minibudget proportions

This is the board picture across lots of energy markets. Plus, of course, the time to rebuild and repair damaged facilities and a lasting risk premium means somewhat dearer energy for the medium term. But the months of unpleasant economic turbulence is a hell of a lot better than an actual crash.

<with confident certainty>: "they are just stochastic parrots"

There is no ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel is currently laying waste to.

*If* this ceasefire holds and becomes permanent, this is a major strategic defeat for the US. I can't see that this is even open to debate.

We know we face months of physical disruption to energy and food markets. Inflation will keep getting worse. The question is whether risk assets will care, if the underlying conflict has been resolved. I suspect not...unless the economy deteriorates in unexpected ways.

We didn't deserve this day.

Wrote up some thoughts on Anthropic's Project Glassing, where their latest Opus-beating model is available to partnered security research organizations only. Given the recent alarm bells raised by credible security voices I think this is a justified decision. simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/7/p...