The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.
🧵 1/5
Seems like a good time to remind people of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/201711...
I do not fear the rise of superintelligence.
I do, however, fear the rise of billionaires, organizations, and world powers who seek to use computing to maximize their power, influence, and control.
Two orange books that say Log Books
An Amnesty International Slide that says United Kingdom, dismantling the human rights framework
A lanyard that says After Section 28
A white woman in black holding a microphone speaking at a conference
Last Friday I hosted After Section 28, a conference looking back at Section 28, the law that banned the promotion of homosexuality
300,000 children face 10-year wait for settled status under UK plans, says IPPR
The consultation closes on Thursday. What is being proposed is dreadful. Can I encourage you to engage with the consultation and put your dissent on record?
endless.downward.spiral - is this the beginning of the end of What3Words?
shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/02...
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
99% of my bouldering is falling off. You need to enjoy failing, or you would find another pursuit.
On 1 May 1517, xenophobic mobs, riled up by preachers who were in turn pressured by wealthy broker John Lincoln, rioted in London. They claimed that foreigners were stealing their jobs and welfare. Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London, tried to stop the mob with an empassioned speech.
SDinGov 2026 Call for Sessions is open: govservicedesign.net/call-sessions
Conference theme: Democratising Design
/ @sdingov.bsky.social
Done in a microwave is best
Our club's winter nets are at a local girl's school. I was delighted to see that they have such great facilities and it makes me hopeful for the future of the game.
Does the subsequent silence mean it deleted your computer?
#uksnow GU51 3/10
ITV News: BBC to air Would I Lie To You Boxing Day episode featuring David Walliams
So, just to confirm, the BBC can’t keep Robin Ince on the air because his trans allyship brings the organisation into disrepute, but they can keep David Walliams, who performed Nazi salutes at the recording of this very show, on the air despite him being predatory towards women. Cool. Very normal.
authors you have the chance to do the funniest thing right now
Throwback to when the bird site wasn't a hellsite #uksnow GU51 3/10
The 🇬🇧UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially designated Apple as having Strategic Market Status (SMS). After four years investigating Apple’s restrictions on browser engines and web apps, the CMA now has statutory authority to enforce a code of conduct.
1/12
A bit of a holiday rant...
We need to stop designing "target architectures." They're a fantasy. A waste of money.
An approach that forces decisions too early, kills speed, and guarantees you'll never fix legacy tech.
A utopian plan that's an anchor, not a map.
dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/th...
Many of the propagandists of Autocracy, Inc., have learned from the mistakes of the twentieth century. They don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong and the democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.
This is from Autocracy, Inc, about how modern autocratic propaganda works.
I consider this every time I decide what to share and how to frame it.
Would you repeat it?
How Caerphilly best Farage Reform
I lived in the one house on our street that couldn't get fast internet for years. Openreach told me the cabinet was full. I eventually went to the first new provider that put in fibre.
We (OpenUK) are running a free unconference in London next week to discuss AI.
agentopenunconference2025.eventbrite.co.uk
Boosters and sceptics very welcome!
#Unconference #London #AI
Ruby Central said some really concerning things today. I don’t think they’re representing the situation accurately. andre.arko.net/2025/10/09/t...
This sounds amazing and you are *so* the right person for this role!
📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.
Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.
photo of paulina borsook
1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).
But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that
The Ruby community has a DHH problem
tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-...
