Richard Fairhurst
@richardfairhurst.bsky.social
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📥 70
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Building the world’s best bike directions at cycle.travel
This week in “maybe we should have supported proportional representation after all” news
7 days ago
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And I still have my Multimap mug! (with typo on the bottom)
add a skeleton here at some point
13 days ago
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streetmap.co.uk
appears to have finally keeled over and died. In the early 00s it was one of the two big online map sites in the UK, but whereas Multimap smartly sold out to Microsoft, Streetmap ploughed on with its frankly antiquated tech, at one point suing Google for market abuse (and losing).
15 days ago
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Keir Starmer’s chief secretary made a blame-the-civil-servants speech, praising “doers not talkers” and calling for “complete digital transformation”, at what3words HQ today. what3words has lost £150m in ten years and is showing no signs of ever making a profit.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
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Starmer’s chief secretary reveals plans to bust ‘the sludge’ in Whitehall
Under-performing civil servants will be sacked and taskforces brought in to solve problems, says Darren Jones
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/20/darren-jones-sack-civil-servants-rewire-whitehall
16 days ago
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reposted by
Richard Fairhurst
Christ Church Cathedral School
16 days ago
180 pupils, 5 schools, 1 awesome concert! A little drizzle didn't dampen our thrill at hosting the Primary Schools Choir Concert in Christ Church Cathedral. Thank you to everyone who sang, listened, performed and directed - what a joyous way to spend a Monday afternoon! 🎶💙
#CCCSOxford
#MusicMatters
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Richard Fairhurst
Oxford Clarion
16 days ago
* “average resurfacing cycle for all types of roads in England is every 103 years” factoid actualy just statistical error. average resurfacing cycle is every 12 years. Stonesfield megalosaurus pothole, which was caused by a 700kg dinosaur 166mn yrs ago, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
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This is very neat: 3D city models made from OpenStreetMap data (inter alia)
www.lichtbild-manufaktur.shop
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Lichtbild Manufaktur | Custom 3D City Models & Relief Maps
Handcrafted custom 3D city models, relief maps & 3D topographic maps. Perfect as a hometown gift, premium wall decor, or a gift for architects. Configure yours now!
https://www.lichtbild-manufaktur.shop
17 days ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Gareth Dennis
22 days ago
For clarity, this government has so far: - cancelled HS2 north of Birmingham (previous government hadn't actually done that formally) - cancelled electrification of the Midland Main Line - cancelled West Yorkshire mass transit - cancelled the trans-Pennine high speed line
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The Telegraph (usual fare: “The Car of the Year is the Mercedes CLA – here is why you should want one”) has an article on “Britain’s 20 prettiest streets”. _15_ of them are car-free (and 4 of the others are very quiet). Restricting cars makes for better towns.
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/desti...
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Britain’s 20 prettiest streets
Our writer lays out the country’s very best alleys, avenues, crescents, cut-throughs, side roads, back streets and boulevards
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/britains-20-prettiest-streets/
24 days ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Oxford Clarion
27 days ago
Clarion news: We’re leaving Twitter (’X’). We can’t condone the objectionable content it now promotes, which goes against everything we believe and the Clarion tradition. Our live posting is now here on Bluesky, with all this plus much more in our email newsletter twice a week.
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This keyboard actually _is_ an entire computer because, unlike the Spectrum, it has a mass storage device included
add a skeleton here at some point
27 days ago
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15ish years ago, when all the roads to Charlbury were snowed up, the one thing getting in and out was the train. But I guess the HSTs were made of sterner stuff than the current trains.
add a skeleton here at some point
28 days ago
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Why don’t we have a successful mittelstand like Germany, why is Britain so bad at small/medium companies which just do what they do without fuss The Guardian: “companies which make enough money to cover their costs are zombies and must be forced out of business”
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
about 1 month ago
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This is amazing. A (not very large) language model that runs on a Z80. In 40k. You could run it on an Amstrad CPC.
github.com/HarryR/z80ai
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GitHub - HarryR/z80ai: Z80-μLM is a 2-bit quantized language model small enough to run on an 8-bit Z80 processor. Train conversational models in Python, export them as CP/M .COM binaries, and chat wit...
Z80-μLM is a 2-bit quantized language model small enough to run on an 8-bit Z80 processor. Train conversational models in Python, export them as CP/M .COM binaries, and chat with your vintage compu...
https://github.com/HarryR/z80ai
about 1 month ago
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Bag of Christmas cheese
about 1 month ago
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Christmas Eve 4pm: Denis Bédard ‘In dulci jubilo’ 6pm: John Cook ‘Divinum mysterium’ 11.30pm: Dobrinka Tabakova ‘Diptych’ Christmas Day 10.30am: César Franck ‘Sortie pour Noël’ Merry Christmas!
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Richard Fairhurst
cycle.travel
about 1 month ago
cycle.travel
now has a fresh new look on iPhone and Android – clearer, easier to use, and with new features such as clickable route highlights. Take a look on your app store of choice! iPhone:
apps.apple.com/app/id161963...
Android:
play.google.com/store/apps/d...
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Richard Fairhurst
Martyn Brunt
about 1 month ago
In the past month 3 transport routes have collapsed - but they aren't roads so don't make national news. All 3 have the same root causes, climate change, and Tory austerity passing responsibility for critical infrastructure on to charities and councils. This will happen more, and people will be hurt
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@rupertairbear.bsky.social
Service bus passing a Bull special this evening. Routemaster doing a three-point turn is going to be fun!
about 2 months ago
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First carol service of the season…
about 2 months ago
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“Reading for displeasure” is probably the most accurate description of Ian McEwan I’ve ever heard pp1-8: sad thing happens pp9-263: bad consequences of sad thing are drawn out in excruciating detail
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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The Coopers! Waterways World’s local, and a cracking pub for the post mortem on each issue when it came back from the printers. (It was better when they served Staffordshire oatcakes though.)
www.thetimes.com/life-style/f...
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It’s the world’s best beer town — and home to my favourite pub
The pubs, the breweries, the beers — our expert has the ultimate guide for a pilgrimage to Burton upon Trent
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/food-drink/article/burton-upon-trent-beer-town-zctn9787n
2 months ago
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Impressive new official UK online railway map. Appears to be vector tiles, Maplibre JS, manual selection of stations for each zoom level, hints for label placement baked into the tiles. No authorship information that I can see, but someone deserves plaudits for this.
railmap.nationalrail.co.uk
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An interactive and zoomable version of the entire National Rail network in Great Britain. Showing all lines, all stations and all Train Company routes.
https://railmap.nationalrail.co.uk/
2 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Jack Tindale
2 months ago
"average french person arrested 3 times a year for corruption" factoid actualy just statistical error. average french person arrested 0 times per year. Corruptions Sarko, who lives in le XVIe arrondissement & has over 10k convictions a day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
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Richard Fairhurst
Giles Wilkes
2 months ago
beginning to believe I would actually vote for a dead pigeon on a stick if it just promised to restore the fuel duty escalator
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For at least ten years, every music recommendation engine has been telling me “you should listen to Boards of Canada”. I finally listened to them and am now wondering why I didn’t do so ten years ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=St-m...
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Boards of Canada - Aquarius
YouTube video by MaxMalbi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St-mEIhvKOI
2 months ago
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No words
2 months ago
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reposted by
Richard Fairhurst
Oxford Clarion
3 months ago
Walter de Staplecat, Simpkin IV, Teabag, Balthasar and Benny D Cat take the stage as we meet the college cats of Oxford. And, of course, Magdalen’s Ozymandias. Read on for our photo special. (Includes a cat map.)
oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...
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College cats of Oxford
Once upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen's kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics. The grey ball ...
https://oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats-of-oxford/
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cycle.travel
has a bunch of code to handle this specific elevator! (Otherwise it really wouldn’t want to route up a hill quite as steep as that…)
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Nick Reeves #FBPE #NAFO
3 months ago
George Monbiot - "We should never underestimate the extent to which the BBC changed this country by giving endless airtime to Nigel Farage, other far right extremists and the Tufton Street junktanks, while shutting out progressive voices."
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Richard Fairhurst
Jim Waterson
3 months ago
I really like the Oxford Clarion which doesn’t get enough mentions when people write about local news startups.
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Pshaw. It’s biased in favour of a deeply regressive set of small-C social conservative views. It doesn’t have the imagination or the coherence to be either left-wing or right-wing.
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
John B
3 months ago
Everything good that's happened in UK rail in my lifetime has been stuff that's occurred despite the resistance of the Department for Roads, and the thing that the GBR structure does is to consolidate total power over rail in the hands of those bastards
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Very sorry to hear of the death of Terry Darlington, the endearing nutcase who took his narrowboat across the Channel (and various other entirely unsuitable places) as chronicled in ‘Narrow Dog to Carcassonne’.
3 months ago
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Another thoughtful piece about Adventure Cycling’s travails in the bikepacking age. Some suggestions in the comments that “it’s a bit more complex than that” but the core is: long-distance TransAm cycling is a rapidly ageing market.
theradavist.com/whats-next-f...
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What’s Next for Adventure Cycling Association? – Hailey Moore
If you've been following the trajectory of Adventure Cycling Association, it's no secret that the non-profit has been facing challenges, including significant membership decline, underfunding, and a m...
https://theradavist.com/whats-next-for-adventure-cycling-association
3 months ago
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Welp. Turns out the kid I used to sit next to at school aged 10 is actually Lord Voldemort
collider.com/harry-potter...
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Harry Potter’s New Voldemort Actor Speaks Out on Taking on the Iconic Role
Harry Potter's new Voldemort actor, Matthew Macfadyen, speaks out on what it's been like taking on such an iconic role.
https://collider.com/harry-potter-new-voldemort-actor-matthew-macfadyen-audible-audio-book/
3 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Cowleyforniadreaming
3 months ago
Absolute scenes in Oxfordshire. LABOUR voting WITH TORIES and the car brained IOA to remove a traffic intervention designed to speed up buses, and was recommended by 74% in the citizens assembly THEY ASKED FOR, AND that has already been praised by the BUS companies, after SIX days.
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Given that our local River Learning Trust primary has got through five heads in five years, I’m not convinced they need any help from the congestion charge for staff to start leaving
3 months ago
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The New Yorker wrote about the app I’ve spent most time in over the last 20 years: TextEdit, Apple’s bare-bones WYSIWYG text editor. Always works, never gets in the way. Less nonsense than Word 5.1, less nonsense than ChatGPT. Thank you, whoever maintains it.
www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
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TextEdit and the Relief of Simple Software
The bare-bones Mac writing app represents a literalist sensibility that is coming back into vogue as A.I. destabilizes our technological interactions.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/textedit-and-the-relief-of-simple-software
3 months ago
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KOM MAAR OP
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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reposted by
Richard Fairhurst
cycle.travel
4 months ago
Café ride to test the upcoming version of the
cycle.travel
app ☕️
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Headed out on the Bike Friday to explore some bridleways around Oxford.
4 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Stephen Bush
4 months ago
The Bluesky theory of moderation is one of those “I’d really like to believe in this, but I am dubious”, but I will put that aside for the iconic reply to “people who have convinced themselves that they are the boss of people they don’t give any money to“, a curse of social media.
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Even after 35+ years of Providing Free Stuff To Strangers Using Computers (late 1980s public domain software for the Amstrad 8-bits ftw), the sheer entitlement of 5% of those strangers never ceases to amaze me
4 months ago
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reposted by
Richard Fairhurst
cycle.travel
4 months ago
In one of those wonderful coincidences, the code to display
cycle.travel’s
app map yn Gymraeg was finished today just as the Welsh Government announced a project to crowdsource Welsh placenames for OpenStreetMa
p https://media.service.gov.wales/news/new-priorities-to-help-protect-welsh-place-nam
es
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Richard Fairhurst
madeline odent
4 months ago
just bored and thinking about how Freud's, the cocktail bar in a defunct Grade II listed church in Oxford, has been closed since 2023 'for renovations' but they haven't applied for any listed building consent and now it's the last remaining real estate in Radcliffe Observatory Quarter
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Dobrinka Tabakova’s Truro Canticles are just full of gorgeous harmonies and you should listen to them, very very loud
listeningproject.blog/2024/01/22/t...
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Tabakova – Truro Canticles (2016)
Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980), a contemporary Bulgarian-British composer, has emerged as a distinctive voice in the classical music scene of the 21st century. Active during the same period as other c…
https://listeningproject.blog/2024/01/22/tabakova-truro-canticles-2016/
4 months ago
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AI instant answers have their uses but “is it safe to cycle across Sudan right now” is probably not one of them
5 months ago
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Wait. The editor of Cotswold Life magazine was also lead vocalist in Inkubus Sukkubus?
www.linkedin.com/posts/candia...
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This isn’t the happiest of posts to write, but it’s just to let you all know I’ve handed in my notice as editor of Cotswold Life magazine. After working for 23 years (this month!) on the magazine –… ...
This isn’t the happiest of posts to write, but it’s just to let you all know I’ve handed in my notice as editor of Cotswold Life magazine. After working for 23 years (this month!) on the magazine – f...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/candia-mckormack-9531b214_this-isnt-the-happiest-of-posts-to-write-activity-7374090828635480065-9kTf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAADkpjcBlecd75i29VHa9lkvhYCMsNQaudc
5 months ago
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Richard Fairhurst
Dylan Difford
5 months ago
Lol. How well did the last govt insulting load-bearing parts of their electoral coalition work out for them? Like they watched what the Lib Dems did to the home counties and wondered what it'd be like if the Greens did that to the two dozen largest university towns.
add a skeleton here at some point
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