The government doesn’t see UK data assets as priorities at all - includes ONS. Did the idea of a ‘National Data Library’ & data infrastructure in the AI Opps Action Plan just evaporate?

If you’re a Windows user looking to avoid upgrading to 11, there are now some more user friendly versions of Linux around such as www.linuxmint.com

NEW: I wrote about British churches installing heat pumps, in some cases in 1,000-year-old buildings! Decarbonisation may not be easy, but many view it as an act of faith. This is a special feature to mark The Reengineer’s first anniversary! Spread the word! 🥳 www.thereengineer.pro/p/let-there-...

And @jwyg.bsky.social's brilliant new Public Data Cultures also offers much inspiration - and critical learning from decades of open data www.hive.co.uk/Product/Jona...

In further #opendata starting points, a lovely plug from Tim and work from the Data for Development team.

Great reminder of the fantastic work done to put the Open Data Handbook together. If you’ve not come across it it’s a really good starting point for understanding, publishing and using #opendata.

💯

This is tremendously short-sighted - if you don't hire junior people, where are your experienced, senior people going to come from in 10 years' time?

What could possibly go wrong?

Open data friends, If you could recommend only one resource (book, website, organisation, social media account, video, tool, other) what would you recommend to someone starting on their #opendata journey? Something that will help them learn and explore.

Right… because the real problem was that big tobacco wasn’t “clear about risks” — not that they were selling an addictive product that harmed the health of both users and non-users.

The #CrossChannelRail final report is now out! You can download it here: crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/projects/cro...

My granddad was a refugee, my wife, our close friends and those of our kids are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Do ministers ever think about the message their rhetoric on "handouts" and "golden tickets" for migrants sends about whether this is a government for people like us?

We're three weeks shy of the 5th anniversary of my hydrogen ladder being published. Back then, there wasn't a lot of clarity where H2 might fit and the ladder was designed to direct efforts to feedstocks, ammonia, etc. There is no excuse for this waste today.

www.ft.com/content/fce7... "OpenAI appears to have spent more than $12.4bn at Azure on inference compute alone in the last seven calendar quarters. Its implied revenue for the period was a minimum of $6.8bn."

This is incredibly thoughtful and worth your time if you’re involved in open innovation, #opensource and #opendata . We need licences and processes that better reflect resources held in common and our update our understanding of The Commons.

Diesel out ⛽️ Batteries in 🔋 It IS really that simple, shows this 🇸🇪 vessel from the 70s ⚡️⚡️⚡️ #alwaysbecharging

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

Oracle shares are down nearly 30% in the past month, reversing more than $250B in market value gains following the announcement of its OpenAI deals in September (Financial Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

love this for you ICC www.euractiv.com/news/interna...

New thing! The @carefultrouble.bsky.social Careful Consequence Check is now live and free to use. Based on research with the Bristol Digital Futures Institute, this practical tool will help you answer the question "is my AI product creepy and weird" www.careful.industries/consequences

This will kill the heat pump market. And that means cuts in investment in the whole system: tech, skills, supply chain, business investment. And the subsidy is not a *benefit*, it's designed to equalise the choice between gas and electric. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Really good to see @icebreakerone.bsky.social 's Research Guide for large LLMs published. Building on the fabulous work of the @mysociety.org team, we wrote it originally to guide our internal research, which Paul Johnston has expanded on. ib1.org/2025/11/13/i...

Author wrote best book he's ever written. Publisher disintegrated/fucked off with author's earnings. Book was finally published by new publisher. Author has bought two hardbacks, for full price, to give away, signed. Please repost/reply if you'd like a chance to win one.. bsky.app/profile/zygo...

www.linkedin.com/posts/luizaj... New York's new chatbot legislation goes further than others. The state's users must be protected against suicide ideation and the bot must start every 3 hours it's a program not a person.

I’ve shared many maps showing river basins but none like this! We are seeing the population living in each basin. Many big “countries” emerge that way but also many new micro states. Great fun. Source: buff.ly/628eSWm

@gilesyb.bsky.social we are so close to chinas emissions declining. Two exponential processes of solar roll out and gdp growth perfectly balanced for an instant before one dominates the other.

This is a very bad idea on so many levels.

"Far from a peak, China's gasoline demand is estimated to have fallen 9% in October on the year to 12.5 million tons, with average daily use roughly flat with September..." China's oil demand is entering structural decline.

Here is an embarrassing graph I have just made for a report. Fun fact: in 2020/21 Indian Railways added the equivalent of the UK’s *entire electrified railway network* (over 6000 route kilometers!) to their own electrified network - and then did this again in 2021/22 …and AGAIN in 2022/23! 🤯

ICE “is also ramping up its social media surveillance, with new AI-driven software contracts, and is considering hiring 24/7 teams of contractors assigned to scouring various databases and platforms like Facebook and TikTok and creating dossiers on users.”

The AI boom comes to America’s loneliest place - on.ft.com/47Rn3Fb Bookmark for any time anyone wants to portray environmental concerns as unthinking nimbyism. Free link

“Though [CFO] Friar later walked back her suggestion, saying that she was advocating for structural support for AI in general, not just her company, it is likely true that some kind of huge subsidy or another is probably the only way that OpenAI’s preposterous business model […] can be sustained.”

"They can only maintain this stance if they are able to convince enough people that irrational moves towards more climate chaos are in fact pragmatic, and that climate campaigners’ demands are unrealistic [...] grow a spine"

Homes from straw, beer and bread from grains, clothes from beer brewing... That's a good amount of solution capacity from one crop.

The US is the world's largest oil and gas producer. Yet, "China is now making more money from exporting green technology than America makes from exporting fossil fuels."

This is completely fascinating, and I do think the UK govt are likely to come a cropper on this in a similar way soon. Someone said to me the other day that more than 600 data centres are going through planning at the moment

I'm still scratching my head on Tesla's market cap and *that* pay deal (which isn't quite what it seems, makes no business sense and will probably go to court), but in doing so I've found this incredibly detailed reporting of all the stats you might ever need www.honestjohn.co.uk/the-latest-t...

This is #actuallyexistingsolarpunk: the realisation that the tools we already have to hand are far more transformative, and more ecologically beneficial in every sense, than all the speculation around novel digital technologies: bsky.app/profile/jame...

This is not the gift of a government. This is the gift of the sun. And it has some really interesting implications… #actuallyexistingsolarpunk

Please take a minute to scroll through this—and share it. It's the story of our time. The Authoritarian Stack: How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic American—And Why Europe Is Next. www.authoritarian-stack.info

This is an excellent listen, and gives glimmers of hope. Definitely worth 35 mins of your time.

Venture capitalists want to eat the world. The playbook: identify a target, flood it with capital, capture the system, cash out. Today, their target is American democracy—and they're betting big on Trump. My conversation with @catherinebracy.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw_W...

I've spent *weeks* working on this special report for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social on GB News co-owner Paul Marshall – and the astonishing, unprecedented influence network he's built on the UK's right. There's never been anything like it before. www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-p...

An infuriating tale of national infrastructure meets local politics, but brilliantly told. martinrobbins.substack.com/p/how-hs2-bu... HT @jonnelledge.bsky.social

New register up, a few notes to follow

15yrs of GPS data on bison, bighorn sheep, moose, pronghorn, wolves, & cougars shows they adjust to higher temperatures more by moving than by adapting themselves. Thus it’s not enough to protect animals where they are. They need access to a variety of landscapes. www.earth.com/news/large-m...

I am looking for a post-doc working on behavioral/environmental/urban/energy economics to join my group at the University of Copenhagen. Position is 2 years (possibly 3), good salary, free health insurance, one of the most livable cities in the world. Apply here: jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...

Whoop! Mr @jonworth.eu has finished his BIG research project on #CrossChannelRail. What will it take to get to/from more places in continental Europe to/from London (and maybe bits of Kent or Stratford)? There's a launch in person and virtual. crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/projects/cro...