It's STEAM SUMMER SALE time! Which means I've updated my Steam Curator page with everything I've enjoyed recently. I'll also be picking out the best deals in this thread - bookmark this post! If you like what I do, consider tipping! (Ko-Fi/Paypal) - All tips go towards more indie games to research!

Bad Services is out today and I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my unwavering support for services that don't work. So much so that I've launched a new sister company - The Bad Services Corporation Welcome to your Bad Services Corporation staff induction. badservicescorp.com

We're holding a meet up in London on 1st July. It doesn't matter if you're an author, broadcaster, tour guide or general hustler, you're more than welcome as long as you work in history and aren't part of academia (sorry lovely academics!) DM us for location as places are limited!

If you’re in London tonight and are interested in journalism/tech, this is taking place *in an air conditioned room*: luma.com/09ugslis

Strip mining is like strip poker - terrible for the environment.

All governance starts out as either "ban everything" or "allow anything". Exploring what exists between is called policy development, otherwise known as civilization.

Yay! I'm hiring two Senior Accessibility Specialists to join my team on GOV.UK One Login. You'll be working with great people, solving complex problems for tens of millions of users. Salary of £70,834 - £74,317 (London) / £63,240 - £66,610 (National). Please share!

"NHS England is hurriedly withdrawing all the software it has written from public view because of the perceived risk of hacking [from AI]" https://www.newscientist.com/article/2524962-nhs-england-rushes-to-hide-software-over-ai-hacking-fears An open letter to keep it open https://keepthingsopen.com

Everything is so stupid

Our next event! 🚨 6PM, WED 29th April 🚨 At the MoJ or online. Lisa Trickey and Rebekah Wilson, LGA : LG2040: The State of Things to Come ​Jonathan Slater (ex DfE Perm Sec), Visiting Professor at King’s College London and QMUL luma.com/7nu2j853 Please share! Thanks 🙏

If you happen to be in London Monday evening I will be talking about institutionalising the digital state at NewSpeak House nationalconversations.org/events/4/

Does the world feel a bit upside down right now? Come and spend a year with us in London experimenting with political technology! Applications to join the Newspeak House fellowship programme for 2026-27 are now open: newspeak.house/study-with-us

Every feed I run is currently on @graze.social. Graze provides me with phenomenal infrastructure, free of charge; you can also use it, today, to remix my feeds so they're customised for your news reading needs. If every 📰 News feed user chipped in $1 /mo., it would fund the whole feed ecosystem.

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

Our friends at Newspeak House – where we've been hosting this year's CADA speaker series – have opened applications for their Fellowship Programme 🎉 Want to spend a year building and experimenting with political technology? Find out more/apply 👇 newspeak.house/study-with-us

Applications are now open: newspeak.house/study-with-us

The next Journalism Technology London is happening 21 April! luma.com/qjj9c8d7?tk=... We're actively looking for speakers, if you have something relevant to the journalism technology space you'd like to do a talk on, please DM me!

As part of National Conversations I am coming down to London to talk at NewSpeak House on Institutionalising the Digital State on Monday 20th April. nationalconversations.org/events/4/

our course at newspeak house is pretty cool! check it out

Does the world feel a bit upside down right now? Come and spend a year with us in London experimenting with political technology! Applications to join the Newspeak House fellowship programme for 2026-27 are now open: newspeak.house/study-with-us

This one should be interesting, 20th April 2026 at Newspeak House:

Me and @steipete.me have figured our dates and are running at the usual event space for the next Agents Anonymous in London, happening on the 23rd of March luma.com/6cnzck71

“Amazon’s Choice”

I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to improve democracy in the UK, and it turns out there's some low hanging fruit! Proud to finally have this report out, many thanks to @demos-uk.bsky.social for their help.

PSA Outer Wilds is 50% off on Steam till Thursday! This is the biggest discount it's ever gotten; usually sales max at 40%. store.steampowered.com/app/753640/O...

Well, hello world! State of the Future is a new think tank (from @gavinfreeguard.com) for public servants and others who believe data, digital, openness and innovation can deliver better policy, better services and better outcomes for people. sotf.org.uk (Quiet news day to soft launch, eh?)

Significant job this one. A chance to shape tech to work for the public interest. Director General for Emerging Technology and Artificial Intelligence at the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. (£174k) www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...

These goats have just finished reading Web Curios. Look how happy they are - this could be you, with one click! webcurios.co.uk/webcurios-20...

We thought in the future that we’d have all our meals in pill form. In fact we have our meals in bar or smoothie form, which is pretty close.

Unity is stronger than division. That’s why we’ve formed Together Alliance with 50+ organisations and thousands of individuals — all pushing back against the far right. #Together we show where this country really stands. Join us: togetheralliance.org.uk

Freemium is the privatisation of universal basic services.

We have been running the Data and AI Public Engagement Community of Practice since July 2024, to allow people to share their work and learn from others on engaging the public around data and AI, work through common challenges, and bring together practitioners from different sectors. (1/2)