Morning at the Royal Norfolk Show.

My taxi driver is listening to Radio 4. Not sure what to think. Is it the new LBC or Talksport?

Burnham's going to have a bit of time before the coronation, he should absolutely shadow/note take for some Universal Credit user researchers.

Cars will have a kinetic energy limit, not a speed limit. This would be based on the current speed limits, as applied to the lightest car currently available on the market.

Out in Lowestoft today

Israeli government social media spent World Refugee Day spreading conspiracy theories about UNRWA. Extra layer of tragedy because this is really not that far from what the Tree of Life shooter was talking about.

Oh look, for the one trillionth time it's Unite doing the thing they do.

Where’s Andy Burnham going?

No, these are pretty straightforwardly critiques of a state! If you don't want people to accuse you of genocide and apartheid, don't do genocide and apartheid.

Every so often you begin to suspect that your Google ads may have had something to do with where your GPS says you were that day.

The whole thing here is interesting, but probably very relevant to people working in gov/regulators: civil society is going to use pattern matching on your transparency data and make you look supine if you aren't actually enforcing rules. At a time when trust is going down; that is bad.

Two new fantastic fixed term digital roles in @fullfact.org towers Python and AI focused engineer fullfact.teamtailor.com/jobs/7879633... and An entry level associate product manager role fullfact.teamtailor.com/jobs/7910711... both close on the 29th June and we always #ShowTheSalary

Did this go anywhere at all @edent.tel @johnlsheridan.bsky.social? dataingovernment.blog.gov.uk/2020/11/10/w... only I have loads of fields to fill in when I save legislation to Zotero and a DOI would be heaps easier.

BBC taking the whole balance thing into a whole new realm

Time for me to repeat one of my ‘sayings’. If you try to solve a problem by passing a law, but people don’t obey the law, you now have two problems where you used to have one.

Need to switch my brain on and off again to stop thinking about this but now would be a good time for someone to do a rapid economic analysis on the implications of everyone having to verify their age to watch a YouTube video or embedded clip.

If only we had a natural experiment to show what happens when we go from no social media access or education in youth to total unrestricted access in adulthood. Wait, we might. *All of our current society and politics*.

Recently started using a new (fiendishly complex) insulin pump cannula where the instructions were only available as a YouTube video. I hate the idea and risks of intentionally barricading like this.

Note this in particular- which is effectively saying ‘we’re consulting on the policy so haven’t worked it out yet but you should give us the power to implement it using a less scrutiny-intensive method down the track’. Which isn’t a good way to legislate. And not what secondary legislation is for

And obviously MPs can have legitimate interests in industries that have fun days out and sunny countries, but you do start to go 'uh huh' when there's another one.

Its amazing how much politicians do actually have big buttons labelled 'make life better', and how much the media scream when they try to press them. An astoundingly successful policy that has been the cause célèbre to oppose by 'common sense' leaders for half a decade.

Enjoying the Discourse today. My wife used to be a script reader for a Dublin theatre company and the absolute howlers Americans would send in about the Troubles (e.g. gunfights and air-raids in 70s Dublin). I'm diasporic enough to know exactly how little I know and not write a play/tweet about it.

The next Doctor Who series will probably have an episode called 'The Valid Concerns of the Daleks' 🙄

Been googling around a very specific Asahi Linux issue (HiDPI scaling makes Snaps strobe). The absolute dross AI page summaries think I should type into the terminal *using Sudo* is going to take down something important sometime soon.

The only thing that makes me sure this isn't my wife is that we're only at 10 years.

A long shot, but does anyone want to dogsit my lovely greyhound 10th July to 8th August or so? A dog for all seasons. A gentleman. A total dork.

I'm retiring at the end of 2026, the fruition of a long-held plan (tho' my sister beat me to it, as ever). I'll be staying on at public.digital as a Non Exec, but otherwise expect more playing with LLMs, agents, ESP32s etc. My shed awaits! public.digital/pd-insights/...

Bad news for any young person with an interest in medicine, art or art history, anthropology, or any one of legions of subjects which would involve non-sexual images of unclothed humans. Only grubby perverts have a reason to see skin and they must be prevented at all costs

I can’t believe we’re collectively living in this timeline and some people seem fine with it.

DOCTOR: "So what seems to be the problem?" PATIENT: "Mmhbbhhggr hhruuh engghhuu." DOCTOR: "I'm sorry I can't understand, but don't worry. Great singer Bob Dylan is in town. Go see his show and no matter what ails you, you'll feel better!" PATIENT (sadly): "Ehg ddnghh m'm Bddnnn."

Had to get an out of print book on Hansard for quote mining. Came with this beautiful bit of history in the cover.

It was a genuine highlight of the year so far to speak at #CampDigital the other week. Thank you @nexerdigital.com @catcutmore.bsky.social @shaungomm.bsky.social 🙏🏻 If you want to watch my professional / personal / professional talk at a recommended 1.25x speed here it is youtu.be/-Q-wl5jGgwk?...

I have a longer thing I'm working on about this, with more data and stuff, but the key thing folks need to know: anyone on the left *CANNOT WIN* with any kind of content on platforms where the right owns the algorithm. Not just in politics — in entertainment media, or anything else.

UK 2004 crowd need this as MSN.

This is a perfect story - you've got a law that's too weak to really use, complete dismissal from the state and developers just sailing through. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Anyone else I know going to this? events.ox.ac.uk/oxford_event...

This book will be published after my submission date so there's no way I'll be reading it for the PhD. But. I think it's going to be a banger, so might be the first book in 8 years I read for interest.

Curry cookers: if you cook a mild curry for the kids, do you have a secret thing you stir in to make the parents version spicy only at the point of serving?

As a T1D, my phone controls my insulin pump and monitors my blood glucose. Sometimes I need to use my phone in this sort of situation, I wish I didn’t need to. I worry about this sort of story.

What would happen if govts mandated all new data centres be solar/renewables and generate their needs +10%? Appreciate the water also needs thought, but power?

Adam Curtis generator vibes for writing about the history of Hansard as it relates to Democracy Club on a sunny Saturday.

For the sake of my PhD and tracing the interconnectedness of the 00s UK Internet: how many of you working in civic tech or government have, at any point, donated money to @b3ta.com? I can see a few of you in the newsletter mentions.

This is fascinating.

Lovely evening paddling down the Wensum.

Had a lovely time playing Air Trombone at @transformgovtalks.bsky.social last week.

That is the right diagnosis when the technocratic consensus based politics of the 2000s is long gone. The challenge for the essay is that it doesn’t have a project that remotely fits the time and place we are living in. Saying ‘AI’ is not the same as having a plan for Britain.

Claiming AI will be/is transforming an economy is just "can't someone else do it?". It's a tool, you have to specify how, in which way, for whom, to what end? All of this does actually need a mapped direction, a political project, perhaps even an ideology. Otherwise it's just outsourcing strategy.

Lily Burger (Hermannplatz and F'hain) in its glory days.

Not directly dunk quoting. But: 1) So many civil liberties arguments boil down to "I don't want to be caught when _I_ break the law" 2) A big network of unaccountable private surveillance is definitely bad