Ben Proctor

Nonprofit data jobs 2026-03-06 Featuring vacancies with Save the Children UK, Places for People, The Met Office and several more (bit of a thin week tbh)

Feast your eyes on not one, not two but actually several data jobs with nonprofits buttondown.com/likeaword/ar...

The Black Death’s counterintuitive effect: as human numbers fell, so did plant diversity New study finds that plant biodiversity collapsed in landscapes where arable production was abandoned during and after the Black Death era.

The Black Death’s counterintuitive effect: as human numbers fell, so did plant diversity theconversation.com/the-black-de...

Ten simple rules for teaching data science Teaching data science presents unique challenges and opportunities that cannot be fully addressed by simply borrowing pedagogical strategies from its parent disciplines of statistics and computer…

Ten simple rules for teaching data science arxiv.org/abs/2602.028... HT Giuseppe Sollazzo

Reform are denying me access to the Welsh manifesto launch...

Remember a few weeks ago when Reform UK threatened to defund Bangor University in the name of "free speech"?

Well despite repeated requests, Reform are not allowing me to attend their manifesto launch.

1/3

Welsh ‘revolution’ required to hit target of 1m speakers by 2050, says report Welsh language commissioner calls for ‘transformative’ intervention, amid Reform UK threats to undo new powers A “revolution is required” to protect the Welsh language, according to a major new report. While the number of Cymraeg speakers has remained more or less stable for decades, it has not risen in line with significant population growth, making the language more vulnerable, according to the Welsh language commissioner’s five-year report, published on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Welsh ‘revolution’ required to hit target of 1m speakers by 2050, says report

Nonprofit data jobs 2026-03-01 Featuring vacancies with ActionAid UK, WWF-UK, RSSB and many more

Read the latest round-up of data vacancies in nonprofits buttondown.com/likeaword/ar...

Local Strategies for Engaging Youth with Data Highlighting four local organizations that are training and partnering with youth to shape community-informed solutions.

"People most affected by racial, economic, and geographic inequities in health and well-being should be able to access, contribute, and interpret data to assess structural inequities in their communities" localdataforequitablecommunities.org/local-strate...

Could it be you? New vacancy listed on Lib Dem website: Regional Communications and Content Officer

Ed Davey accuses care home trustee of embezzlement amid watchdog inquiry Lib Dem leader says crisis at William Blake House is ‘one of my worst nightmares’ after Guardian revealed inquiry into finances

Ed Davey accuses care home trustee of embezzlement amid watchdog inquiry

Which piece of speculative fiction had the greatest single-day stock market impact? Oh, give my props to the writer. Price’s at an all-time low in the future

“Blade Runner depicted a world in which some people’s entire job is simply to clean up after bad robots, thereby accurately predicting the vibecoding trend.” www.ft.com/content/f123...

NEW

Land and Expand - how Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence

What a close reading of public domain documents tells us about two concerning contract awards

Detailed post by me, following-up on my FT column

emptycity.substack.com/p/land-and-e...

In the UK addresses – for example, "29 Acacia Road, Beanotown" – are maintained by local authorities. The list of address changes as flats, houses and offices get developed and demolished. These local lists are collected into a national dataset and made accessible to other public and private sector organisations. While this happens address data gets tangled up in a complex web of other organisations who end up holding some intellectual property rights in the data, particularly the Royal Mail and the Ordnance Survey. The Royal Mail is a business and the Ordnance Survey is a business owned by the government. Because they are businesses their primary goal has become to generate revenue for themselves by selling the data, rather than maximising the public good that could be created from using the data. As a result the UK's address data has become expensive, hard to access, not always accurate, and hard to correct.

An opportunity to put address data higher on the UK agenda peterkwells.com/2026/02/21/a... post from @peterkwells.com

Also:

How to respond to the DSIT survey on increasing access to public sector data peterkwells.com/2026/02/21/h...

#openaddresses #opendata #datapolicy

Finally the label is getting behind it!

Nonprofit data jobs 2026-02-21 Featuring vacancies with Orchestras Live, The Wildlife Trusts, ONS and many others

I just published Nonprofit data jobs 2026-02-21 buttondown.com/likeaword/ar...

NEW

How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence

How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir

By me, at FT

www.ft.com/content/5207...

Interesting…

The workplace wasn’t designed for humans – and it shows Burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s a design flaw. But there is another way.

The workplace wasn’t designed for humans – and it shows

Autistic people seem to feel joy differently – here’s what it can tell us about neurodivergence It’s a common misperception that autistic people are always unemotional.

Autistic people seem to feel joy differently – here’s what it can tell us about neurodivergence

Powerful stuff.

Replacing humans with machines is leaving truckloads of food stranded and unusable If the systems sending our food to market are just overseen by machines, then there’s going to be issues that could result in a food crisis.

Replacing humans with machines is leaving truckloads of food stranded and unusable

‘Heath Ledger knocked my tooth out jousting with a broom’: how we made A Knight’s Tale ‘The lances were made of balsa wood and filled with uncooked spaghetti – so that when they broke, there’d be an explosion of what looked like splinters’

‘Heath Ledger knocked my tooth out jousting with a broom’: how we made A Knight’s Tale

Britain’s relentless rain shows climate predictions playing out as expected After an exceptionally wet start to 2026, two climate scientists explain what’s going on.

Britain’s relentless rain shows climate predictions playing out as expected

Sefydlu gweithgor enwau Cymraeg Bannau Brycheiniog Bydd gweithgor yn cael ei sefydlu i adolygu enwau Cymraeg yn ardal Awdurdod Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog, ac i wneud penderfyniadau ynghylch sut fyddan nhw’n cael eu sillafu’n swyddogol. Yng n...

Sefydlu gweithgor enwau Cymraeg Bannau Brycheiniog golwg.360.cymru/newyddion/ia... @golwg.360.cymru

@mapio.cymru

Opportunities for public sector data survey 2026: questions

DSIT is looking for ideas about what public data to focus on making available (to business) within the National Data Library.

www.gov.uk/government/p...

Open : Data : Night is back in Manchester 📊

Join us on Monday 23 February, 18:30–20:30 at Altogether Otherwise (M4 4BB) for an evening of open data talks, quick-fire slots, and community connections.

Got a project, idea or question? Bring it.

🎟️ bit.ly/ODM-ODN261

Strong agree

www.eventbrite.com/e/dvs-love-d... this looks like a fun dataviz workshop

This is so good: @weratedogs.com calls out Ring for using people's love of dogs to manufacture consent for mass surveillance.

Leicester Cathedral reveals sign language wedding held in 1576 Cathedral bosses believe the signed service could have been one of the first in England.

Well this is a very touching local news story.

The SEND system isn’t working, not for students, their families, or their teachers.

It’s time to stop tinkering at the edges and start transforming our education system.