if you're running out of family dinner conversation may I suggest hitting them with some fun cardboard facts from our big cardboard story? 📦🎁📦 as.ft.com/r/e9673efd-f...

A really nice—and surprising—chart from Amanda Shendruk's excellent newsletter, Not-Ship www.not-ship.com/when-do-most...

New🍿📉: Netflix originals are now rated lower than rivals on IMDb — although things have improved since 2022 (funnily enough, I think I cancelled my subscription that year). Interactive version here if you want to see the individual titles: public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...

Could ChatGPT be losing its lead? Downloads of Google's Gemini chatbot app surged to rival ChatGPT's over the summer. Gemini 3's hyped launch this month may have pushed this even higher ..

Reeves has shifted her focus from growth towards ‘fairness’ based on our analysis of her 2024 and 2025 Budget speeches

‘A new service called Objector is offering “policy-backed objections in minutes” to people who are upset about planning applications near their homes.’ Another reminder that AI can be used for things you don’t like as well as things you like…

some properly jaw dropping graphics in this excellent piece by @alisonkilling.bsky.social

Lovely image editing evals with before/after sliders https://genai-showdown.specr.net/image-editing

Do you enjoy playing chartle.cc? We’re opening up to the community! Are you a scientist, journalist, researcher or just a data-enthusiast and would like to submit your own data (it should be a country-based time series)? Get in touch with us - we’d love to feature it!

Neither candidates or voters are used to a 2 horse race in Ireland; I think it'll lead us to a fractious, attack-laden campaign, and turnout below 40% Latest newsletter #Aras25 www.thebriefing.ie/our-first-am...

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites The style is now unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war

How unfair is your council tax? on.ft.com/470KNX9

Mt Fuji from the office this evening - the photo really doesn't do it justice

Actually... from my reading of the artists' basic income report, the government did not earn money back from the scheme (although its costs were offset 37%) Most gains were societal and came from putting the artists' improvements in wellbeing in € terms assets.gov.ie/static/docum...

I've been in Japan a week and so far the biggest culture shock has been being surrounded by dozens of places to get really excellent looking coffee, none of which open until 10am

A cool use of AI in newsgathering, this. US companies are talking more and more about the risks rather than the benefits of AI in their SEC filings (while still being super-optimistic in earnings calls). By @melissahei.bsky.social @chriscook.news & @claradoodle.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...

Matcha has been getting more popular for a good few years now but this summer it really took off - with sales doubling in UK cafes vs 2024. 4% of drinks sales are now matcha-based, according to Square payments data🍵

Scrolling through a big csv of Farage tweets is quite the experience

Which country has the highest number of patent applications per million people worldwide? Do you think you can solve it? Have a try at chartle.cc

Simon Harris and his family have faced credible death threats in recent days. This morning Elon Musk piles in by falsely claiming Harris is stopping McGregor from running for president.

#dataviz Haven't seen such a breathtakingly garish 3D chart in a very long time

🇺🇸 Staggering partisan divide 🇺🇸 76% of Republicans say they’re satisfied with the direction of the US; less than 1% of Democrats feel the same Gallup calls it the widest gap ever recorded on this question. Astonishing polarisation 👇

😵‍💫 www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

This is an incredible story from @stevedineen.bsky.social www.cityam.com/mass-halluci...

Small chart, big problem

NEW: Saudi is holding internal discussions about having China or South Korea hold the 2029 Asian Winter Games as it struggles to deliver its desert defying ski resort in Neom. on.ft.com/45qlxtK

New 📈💨: a record number of renewable power projects were granted planning permission in Q2. Battery storage projects drove a lot of the increase. But developers warn grid connections are still the real bottleneck..

Retail sales are the latest UK data series to suffer from "ONSistis". So we've launched an interactive game — Is It Borked? — for you to guess which data series the ONS has been forced to suspend. (NB: The answers all come from the ONS so may not be right.) www.ft.com/content/e9bb...

After seeing this excellent chart from the folks at @data.ft.com, we had to see how things look across the water. Irish solar in 2025 has already overtaken 2024 as of the second half of July, and it looks likely to exceed 1TWh later this year for the first time ☀️

New: Solar power generation in Britain so far this year has overtaken the total for 2024🌞 It's one third higher than at this time last year and the total for 2025 was enough to power 5.2mn homes for a year or the Tube for more than a decade.

Please dm me if you can help.

New 🍻: Republicans are abstaining from alcohol at record levels - with a third fewer saying they drink this year compared with 2024. The nationwide drinking rate of Americans has also plummeted to a nearly 90-year low, according to a v long running Gallup survey 👀

had fun taking a break from numbers to chat to some comedians and Oasis haters yesterday! with @jonathanvincent.bsky.social & @simeonkerr.bsky.social on.ft.com/45Gky8L

Tourists are embracing 'shoulder season' to avoid European heatwaves and wildfires 🥵 - chart for @marinovik.bsky.social story www.ft.com/content/d865...

Palestinian children have been killed at a rate of more than one child per hour during Israel's war in Gaza. “A whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” UNICEF’s executive director said. Here are some of their stories: wapo.st/3UCiAjn

It's ONS baby name day... and Olivia and Amelia are in the top 2 girl's name spots for the 13th year running. 40,000 Olivias in a decade

Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been killed during an attack by Israeli settlers in the south Hebron hills. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

In "Legitimate Concerns" news. 41% of the 899 arrested for taking part in Farage Riots last year had been reported for crimes associated with intimate partner violence. For those arrested by one police force, this figure was 68%. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The UK introduced “robust” age checks for porn and other online content today Also related: VPN interest massively up in the UK, according to Google Trends Story with @lhn.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/the-ag...

Reminds me of the time a slop factory rewrote an FT piece of my own but replaced words with synonyms throughout. "told the Financial Times" became "told Monetary Happenings"

An AI slop factory apparently tried to rewrite our article about AI not replacing workers en masse, but hit the paywall... so just summarised the paywall. If this is the robot that takes my job I'll be v embarrassed

‘FT analysis of US official data showed there was no clear correlation between an occupation’s potential exposure to generative AI and whether it lost young workers between 2022 and 2024.‘ www.ft.com/content/99b6...

We are entering the Tiny Dancer era on.ft.com/3IKZm8y

New 📈✍️- we're hearing a lot about AI decimating graduate jobs. But the data paints a more complicated picture on what's behind the fall in entry-level roles With Delphine Strauss, @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & Sarah Lim on.ft.com/4f1wWmK

Russia’s “swarm” tactics against Ukraine are increasingly cutting through Ukraine’s defences, with drones striking targets at three times the typical rate in recent months www.ft.com/content/1a19...

5pm dinner bookings are up 11% in London this year as part of a post pandemic trend for eating out early that's forcing restaurateurs to adapt 🍽️ New story with @joshgd100.bsky.social & exclusive OpenTable data on.ft.com/46PbL5h

Pottery progress. Finally getting the hang of glazing!

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.