A result which both illustrates the magnitude of the Reform threat and the problems with Labour’s “Farage is right, don’t vote for him” response. 37 point Lab to Reform swing. Labour go from first to 4th as anti-Reform vote splits 3 ways. Combined Lab/LD/Grn vote larger than Reform vote.

So depressing to see a Labour Home Secretary posting this kind of populist anti-immigrant boast on X. Everything about that is failure.

@uklabour.bsky.social has a massive majority and enough time to make temporarily unpopular decisions that will genuinely improve people's lives. Instead they're bringing in immigration policies and divisive rhetoric aimed at an audience who probably won't vote Labour anyway

Something you may not have thought of if you ban IP addresses when you detect abuse- IPs are more likely to be shared by multiple (maybe 100s) of independent users in countries where internet adoption was slower due to bias in IPv4 allocations www.theregister.com/2025/11/03/c...

#Git Worktrees. Wish I'd know about them years ago www.tomups.com/posts/git-wo...

My statement on the formal recognition of the Palestinian state.

Saw a lot of runners in Edinburgh so Googled to find out what the race was... #aifail

Next year's Research Software Engineering conference: Sheffield! 9-11 September 2026. Collocated with the International Research Software Conference 7-8 with the Research Software Alliance. #RSEcon26 #RSEcon #ReSA

@simonhettrick.bsky.social on the problems with the Research Excellence Framework in the UK. Software (and many other outputs) should be considered - but very few universities include them. 97.6% of submitted outputs were publications. #RSEcon25

FRIDGE, SATRE and AIRR at #RSEcon25 #TrustedResearchEnvironments

#RSEcon25 kicks off with a keynote by @amandabrock.bsky.social from @openuk.bsky.social academic.oup.com/book/44727 #opensource #openaccess

Longstanding followers will know I have consistently tried to unpick concepts of race / ethnicity from genetics. TLDR; Race/Ethnicity - a self identification process about a categorical group is v different from the high dimensional variation in the genome despite a thin connection by visible traits

We took over the giant screen at Farage’s big rally in Birmingham

Should URLs in #JsonSchema IDs be resolvable? They don't have to according to the spec json-schema.org/understandin... but _should_ they be?

No schadenfreude or satisfaction in seeing ‘prominent’ Trump cheerleaders in the UK finally see the light & change their tune (Andrew Neil is just the latest). Just a low simmer at their toxic blend of arrogance, cupidity & ignorance & the knowledge that the media will still promote their ilk.

🟥 We are happy to announce that the SSI has received £4.8m from @ukri.org to launch the Research Software Maintenance Fund. Find out more about this exciting opportunity at www.software.ac.uk/news/ukri-aw...

Can anyone explain why the UK government is inviting a sexist racist climate change denier for a second state visit? www.bbc.com/news/article... (it says "invitation from the king" but it's the government that decides)

Welcome to Bollard World. A place where dreams come true. #WorldBollardAssociation

Honestly Labour you have a large majority and more than 4 years to the next election. Why do you have to be so limited and limiting in your thinking? 🤦‍♀️

Editor in chief of the British Medical Journal gets straight to the point on the damage being caused by the new US president, misleading information on social media, and the deliberate failure to invest in fact-checking. www.bmj.com/content/388/...

"That progressives have failed to grasp how utterly tech has changed everything in our political culture – esp. given revelations of the role of psychological profiling through social media – is exploited by the right as a new ‘Wild West’. Elon Musk, is the most logical next step in this trajectory"

This is, as I see it, the defining problem of our media environment. We have more and more people doing commentary and analysis based on facts gathered by fewer and fewer reporters. It’s can’t hold.

Any "avid cyclist" who claims that the solution to road safety for cyclists is simply to be more skilled and assertive should be required to demonstrate that they are more skilled and assertive than Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel who was, this week, doored.

NEW: How baby boomers became the least healthy generation Until recently, bad habits were concentrated in the young. Now, people born in the 50s and 60s are drinking more than any other age group - and are driving up obesity rates too @thetimes.com 1/7 🔗 www.thetimes.com/article/4efe...

We all think plastic pollution is a problem, and it is. In the nearly 70 years between 1950 and 2019, the world produced a total of ~9.5 billion tonnes of plastic. But all the plastic we have EVER produced weighs as much as CO₂ we emitted into the atmosphere during the first three months of 2024!

A nice talk today from Paul Behrens at the Oxford Martin School about dealing with climate change. In some areas we're ahead of where we thought we'd be (eg prevalence of solar), surveys show the public and scientists are much more in favour of action than perceived! www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRMz...

Public Engagement in Data Research Initiative (PEDRI) have launched their new website and it's looking good 😀. If you work with data about the public (e.g. healthcare, government) and want to know how to maintain the public's trust you should have a look www.pedri.org.uk

Big milestone for Project Jupyter 🚨: Jupyter has finalized the creation of the Jupyter Foundation, hosted by @linuxfoundation.org. www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-...

Breathtaking. #WorldBollardAssociation

A nice write-up of the disadvantages of using #blockchain to store an immutable log blog.sigstore.dev/sigstore-blo...

Narrative CVs: How do they change evaluation practices in peer review for grant funding? Check out this blog post @dorassessment.bsky.social reporting some preliminary findings from a RoRI project designed to investigate the evaluative use of narrative CVs: sfdora.org/2024/11/05/n...

Finally, some good news from the USA www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/b... #theonion

Some big news this morning www.theguardian.com/media/2024/n...

The power of regular expressions. Or the insanity of regex. youtu.be/5vbk0TwkokM

It's the time of year where it gets dark early in the evenings, and in response we put the clocks back an hour so it gets dark even earlier 🤷‍♂️

Exceedingly important discovery: Ikea Kallax shelves are exactly two LEGO studs wide. A simple bracket shape like this will stay in place without any support.

The need for blocking, especially on a platform where bots abound and the algorithm favours trolls, is obvious. But in case you'd like to know my personal reasoning, here it is below! The article on the psychology of trolls is here: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your...

If they used the £22 billion to improve bike lanes and public transportation in the country, it would reduce CO₂ emissions way more.

Three Kinds of Research xkcd.com/2977

Hello! I'm here to find out whether #BlueSky has better discoverability than #Mastodon. I'm interested in #openscience #opensource #openstandards #openinfrastructure