Oh great. Combining two of my favourite things... April fools and Ring-necked Parakeets.

Suspect Starmer will regret not urging people to limit their car use. Feels a bit 2020: Other countries taking action, Britain complacently assuming it'll muddle along

I like this! It seems very similar to what I’ve written about before: hazelweakly.me/blog/stop-bu... (Although I really need to edit this blog post to include links to @grimalkina.bsky.social’s excellent learning skills that she’s implemented which show this pattern beautifully)

Oh god, I just remembered, tomorrow is the c**ntiest day of the year.

I have updated the @norfolknats.bsky.social species guide to Norfolk Psyllids, which is available to download from the NNNS website here: norfolknaturalists.org.uk/wp/wp-conten... It now covers 60 species (about 3/5 of the British list) so is hopefully of use even for those outside of Norfolk.

Sums up my thoughts on using it for much of software development too.

Conservatives at 18%! I hate people.

Didn't realise task forces could change MPs. BBC News - Great Yarmouth task force aims to make town centre more welcoming - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

An insect body part, recovered from an 80cm deep peat core in a mid-Norfolk fen. It seems quite a distinctive shape, so somebody may even know what species it is from. Let me know if you do! 1.3mm.

I've read a couple of articles, but what's everyones methods and tricks for pressing plants as biological specimens?

I've read a couple of articles, but what's everyones methods and tricks for pressing plants as biological specimens?

Baffling. So much effort to spread a non-native species with wind blown seeds. It was only 'iconic' because of its location and the fact that it made for a good photograph. A hysterical response to an act of vandalism.

This was always the real danager of tuition fees. Once it's a comodity people expect a return on their investment.

I have had a conversation with a teacher where they have used a similar system for early truanting intervention. Turns out the teacher would have pretty much identified the same kids. The 'system' just gives plausible deniability when something goes wrong. Has no-one watched the Minority Report.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2... 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 Labour will never be forgiven for this. Labour that started with a Keir, will end with a Keir.

Museum or data people: Is there a publically available API for taxonomic information?

Before I was born we knew the answer to "should computer make decisions with real impacts."

Great, so in 10 years' time, I'm still going to have a job. It's just going to be rewritting AI code, like I spent years rewritting VB code because people could 'experiment'.

Woke already won. For young people it is normal. This is why the right and, somewhat the center, are desperate for young people to support Reform.

A reminder that this event is next week, Tuesday 24th March 2026. It would be great to see many of you there!

Academic freedom doesn't mean you HAVE to hire race scientists, especially not one who says "In a meritocracy… Black people would disappear from virtually all high-ranking positions, with the exception of sports and entertainment"

I am welcome to test this theory if anyone wants to give me enough money to buy anything.

On 16th March, 1968 Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jnr was flying helicopter recon for a US attack on My Lai, an alleged Viet Cong-controlled village in Vietnam. But as the attack developed below, Thompson realised he was witnessing something something else: A massacre. He decided to act. 1/28

Came across the phrase "cognitive DDOS" to describe our present culture. Understood instantly what it meant.

Two questions: Who is going to pay for those vocationally trained services? Why wouldn't I retrain to be an electrician (assuming I'm not part of a rebel army to take down Palantir, sorry Cyberdyne Systems)?

Isn't it interesting that the government is using a platform (Twitter and possibly Facebook too) that falls foul of their own definition of extremism. www.gov.uk/government/p...

I've tried to resist using sat nav in areas I know for exactly this reason.

The Labour party watching another chance to reset their government sail by.

How dare they use Christopher Reeve.

Software development was never engineering, it was always artisanal.

At the insistence of the publishing companies, the UK govt prevents residents from accessing Sci-Hub, a free site containing academic literature, otherwise paywalled. Now they plan to let AI companies use any music, writing, art… to train their crappy programmes WITHOUT PAYING US A PENNY. Thieves!

I'm off out to see if I can find a Bee Fly.

Blair's first cabinet: Brown, Prescott, Beckett, Straw, Cook, Blunkett, Short, Mowlam, Harman, Darling, Dobson. Whatever their political pluses or minuses, where is that quality now?

I think what the by-election shows is that political parties don't spend anywhere near enough energy on finding the right candidate.

I would have thought this is one time a back of the envelope calculation would give us a pretty good indication. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This was always the problem with tuition fees. Universities are not training centres, they are knowledge centres that provide far more than degrees for students.

We need to stop using industry-friendly PR terms like “age verification” and call it what it is: Digital ID

Fancy that, academic attainment having a dominant role in school performance.

This is causing despair in academe. (1) We were forced to close during Covid. We had no choice! (2) We're not service providers like a restaurant, we are institutions of state. (3) We did everything we could. (4) This will cripple current students' education. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How about we start asking what Queen Elizabeth II knew?

A fight for the most anti-system candidate to be in charge of the system... at least sounds oxymorinic.

It is an irony that tech companies are built on desentralising their systems while they horde power and wealth.

Techno-optimism around AI reveals the contempt these CEOs and tech bros have for the work most of us do. They think writing, thinking and art can all be automated by AI because *they* can’t do any of those things.

It will be interesting to see if British people will put up with bullies like the US.

It's first interglacial when Britain is an island, which changes everything biogeographically. There's no 'problem' with different assemblages on islands, it's diversity. Britain wasn't any worse off for not having Brown Hares, nor Uists for not having Hedgehogs, Ireland for not having snakes etc.

iRecord is really important as a repository for UK wildlife/nature records, including casual records, surveys and trapping, and non-native species. This is well worth doing 👇

The reflex to identify the nature will not make this relaxing. @richardkbroughton.bsky.social

The kids actually made animals that don't exist. The AI just put a bunch of stuff that already exists together into a polished slop blender. You can't get a better illustration of why AI can't create anything new while human creativity is bottomless.

Just published... Phyllocnistis triandricola (Almond Willow Maze-miner) New UK at Surlingham, Norfolk 14/08/2025 by Seb Buckton (Gen. Det. P. Hall, R. Voith) #teammoth #norfolkmoths norfolkmoths.co.uk/micros.php?b...