This, but registering for Starmer's Digital ID card

Here's the press release for digital ID and it is quite the shopping list of features. My first concern here is for the team who need to deliver quickly against the mix of a general purpose "do everything" app and a fairly specific set of features set out here www.gov.uk/government/n...

I think it'll be the people who are freely given access to it (whether there supposed to or not) who'll do the real damage. Look at what Cambridge Analytica achieved with mostly just data acquired from Facebook.

The CCTV everywhere is also bad, but it came in gradually and doesn't have the feel of a centralised system. Plus it's all a bit flaky, a bit analogue, even. It takes work to track movements, to spy on people. There's a cost to using it. An ID card means an ever-growing database of everyone.

This journalist explains how the government can't be trusted with data systems, always overpays for underperforming systems and that American companies of the type to which they're already outsourcing our data have unfettered access to much of our data already. So… he's in favour of ID cards.

Oh man, imagine the kind of ID theft that would be possible with a digital ID card system in this country. You come back from from holiday and a guy who looks vaguely like you has stolen your entire life. What about the biometrics, though?? Well, his match your entry in the system. Bad luck.

Sign this and get yourself a row in one of the first columns in the Big Database of Everyone.

A digital ID gives a government - or anyone with the skills to break into the system - the possibility of completely excluding you from services on a whim. Don't bet against the authoritarianism or cruelty of future governments, even if you're OK with this one.

Ok. They’ve pissed me off. I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards: 1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

Imagine if Corbyn had fired Starmer (and whoever else) and managed to force through a vote for May's Brexit deal. I can't guess exactly what would have happened next, but I think we'd be in a better place in terms of the overall UK economy. 🤔

I hope there will come a day soon where it dawns on someone in Starmer’s team that their strategy of communicating “Nigel Farage is right about everything but please vote for us instead” is fuelling these disastrous figures rather than mitigating them, but today is not that day

Oh man, where to start with this crap?

I am working on a talk ('Everything you wanted to know about heat pumps but was afraid to ask') for a local climate group. I though I'd step back early in talk to give a perspective on heating in England since its birth. What do you think? 1/2 #Energysky #Heatpumps

This is just beautiful 😍

Presumably Starmer won't lead the Labour party into the next GE, but will he be replaced by someone like Burnham who seems to at least want some Good Things - or someone like Streeting? Andy Burnham launches thinly veiled bid to replace Keir Starmer share.google/g4IW7ZtHBB6H...

Indian cities are so woefully unprepared for global warming. Well, I suppose everywhere is unprepared. Regression reigns.

How is it OK to send this kind of thing to people? It's a load of creepy threats designed to make you feel nervous. Just because I'm not interested in buying their product. The TV licence is a weird anachronism that needs to end.

So the squeeze continues… live gigs were at least covering the costs of some bands even while record sales collapsed, but even that option seems to have eaten itself. “Thanks to the thievery of the record industry”: Garbage quit touring | MusicRadar share.google/VjQz2Rs8Pdaf...

I keep hearing that Musk is some kind of genius because Twitter didn't collapse after he fired 80% of the staff… Except it's now 75% bots. This is like saying your theme park is still incredibly successful even though nobody goes there because the rides are still running.

Vertical rows are the agrivoltaic winner! “The vertical panels produce slightly less electricity—but with higher value, as generation peaks coincide with morning and late afternoon demand…The crops don't seem to mind the presence of solar panels and they like the wind protection they provide.”

Nothing here should be considered radical. What's the point of a government that isn't trying to make ordinary people's lives better? And obviously we need to maintain a liveable planet.

Wow…

LANDMARK MOMENT - the Greens now have more members across Great Britain than the Lib Dems! Let's keep it going! 👇🏼👇🏾👇🏽 join.greenparty.org.uk Latest stats available: 85,800 @greenparty.org.uk (England & Wales) + @scottishgreens.org combined membership 83,174 @libdems.org.uk (a single party across GB)

If Shamima Begum can be have her citizenship rescinded on the basis that she is likely eligible for a foreign passport, so can most of us.

The maniacs in Trump's government are set to declare that paracetamol causes autism. Pregnant American women could end up being denied a low risk, widely available painkiller on the whims of some of Earth's most ridiculous people. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Every time anything happens that makes conservative people even remotely uncomfortable, the right will always say it's the thin end of the wedge. It's incredibly effective messaging.

Covid is gonna shape American politics for years and years because it was the first time most Americans were asked to make sacrifices and they lost their minds because of it.

Best of luck, America. And it's a good time for the rest of us to take stock, yet again.

This is absolutely wild… is the US trying to destroy its own economy?

Glorious 🚲

Chuffed to see this get a massive boost yesterday. If you haven’t already, please read, sign and share (fellas, the read and share bit applies to you too)

Do you want a nerd-out thread on how this chest was made in the 1730ies and some forensics?

The Thursday Murder Club is on the TV for some reason… it seems to be written for old people, but paced for TikTok addicts. And they've somehow managed to make the ridiculously accomplished cast seem amateurish. Bizarre.

I don't know anything about the company other than what's written in this article, but this seems like a shame. This sector could *really* use some reliable government backing. Retrofit specialist folds after spiralling sales costs | Construction News share.google/7MMSxSLGgwlz...

It's easy to be a pessimist about the energy transition, especially when you read news from the USA or Alberta. However, in the space of a few weeks, I read three optimistic views which show how the transition to an electric world running on sunshine is happening now and is unstoppable.

What we're seeing in the "don't sign up for protests" discourse is what Paulo Freire described as the convert's failure to trust the knowledge of the oppressed. As the convert tries to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, they refuse to let go of a world where they were the authority by default.

Avoid Meta products. WhatsApp is gradually getting this shit imposed, too.

My god

Yikes..!

It's kind of nuts the extent to which Starmer and co have managed to screw up being (so-called) centrists. Blair showed them how to do it: be a Conservative, but do a few nice things, too. Any changes you make are shallow and temporary, but at least a good proportion of people struggle to object.

France just spent €11 million to answer one question: Are people living near vineyards dangerously exposed to pesticides? The results are in. 🧵 1/

Uh hu. Mmm.

Absolute horseshit - presented in isolation, without comment by the BBC's flagship current affairs programme. These are political actors who have been briefed to say things that are politically useful for them. The BBC is acting as their mouthpiece. bsky.app/profile/bbcn...

The sheer incuriousness of the modern media is perhaps inevitable when everything is now, now, now… But there's no excuse for not having experts and people who dig deeper into things and try to understand and explain the truth. It's a rarity that happens, even with hot topics.

I'm pretty sure that this is a great summary, for those who (unsurprisingly) confused.

I think he's kind of right, but I don't think it's as simple as taxes. Billionaires barely pay taxes. They'll find new ways to dodge anything that's introduced. I think it's more about power. It's the upper middle classes that are in it for keeping taxes low. www.youtube.com/shorts/oaNJ4...

I don't really know who Noah Smith is, but I see stupid bullshit he's said pop up on social media weirdly often. Does he occasionally, perhaps accidentally, say something that's true or useful, or is it all just nonsense? Is he quoted because he's usually right, or because he's always wrong?

I honestly don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the BBC news is a threat to British democracy. Their unrelenting "impartial"washing of ridiculous right wing bullshit critically distorts the public perception of reality.

Lol. Nobody like Starmer. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Straw insulation is on the simpler sides The building parts complex to solve from a safety perspective; openings/balconies are conventionally insulated. Let's go and mass produce insulation batts like copano.fr decentralized.