Ed Sherman

Another example of the bitter lesson?

I'm afraid we've been at it again

‘Super sewer’ chief bows out to the sweet smell of success London’s £5bn Thames Tideway project has been completed without drama using a pioneering financial model

‘Super sewer’ chief bows out to the sweet smell of success on.ft.com/4gdIXWU

😭

Tempting fate? No, the second scoop is an earl grey sorbet!

See also: the phenomena of second scoop regret with gelato h/t @scientificdiscovery.dev

New method detects inflation turning points using disaggregated price data, revealing early signals in Argentina's 2024 disinflation and US tariffs in 2025, from Alberto Cavallo and Gaston Garcia Zavaleta https://www.nber.org/papers/w34102

I think this way of doing is exactly the right one for figuring out AI tool applications and trying to improve internal processes (albeit it’s not my kind of language). The discovery/alpha/beta cycle or framework can become a straight jacket. Or trap. Or whatever the right metaphor is.

I've started a new blog called 'ways of doing' which is about ways of doing digital. Thanks to @matthewsheret.com for suggesting the name.

This is such pithy wisdom from @richardpope.org

The British Academy Summer Showcase – Saturday

Whats happening to birth rates around the world? I’ll be chairing a panel today at 1.30pm on how population change will change our world. With @rebeccasear.bsky.social, Emily Jackson & @jburnmurdoch.ft.com - all welcome in our cool central London building!
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/summe...

An Introduction to Google’s Approach to AI Agent Security Here’s another new paper on AI agent security: An Introduction to Google’s Approach to AI Agent Security, by Santiago Díaz, Christoph Kern, and Kara Olive. (I wrote about a different …

Another prompt injection paper review! This time it's "An Introduction to Google’s Approach to AI Agent Security" by Santiago Díaz, Christoph Kern, and Kara Olive

Some interesting ideas in here, particularly around Google's three core principles for agent security simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/15/...

Something something, innovation is not linear

Gunge - Wikipedia

How the world has changed… but this did make me look up what it was made of, and it has its own wiki page

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunge

For those interested in mirror life, yesterday the Government Office for Science published an expert roundtable summary on it

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

Mirror life

Really interesting to see this topic getting attention. Did you see that yesterday the Government Office for Science just published an expert roundtable summary on mirror life?
www.gov.uk/government/p...

My experience of taking SPL was great. I took 10 weeks off at the start (more later) and wasn’t remotely ready to come back till 5. I strongly encourage all the fathers to be in my teams to take a substantial chunk off at the start too

Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are increasingly popular in the social sciences, not only in medicine. We argue that the lay public, and sometimes…

Increasingly believe that this should be required reading before anyone is allowed to do science.

I spend an *inordinate* amount of time these days citing this piece and explaining that RCTs are not instrinsically and exclusively causal.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Here's a great little tutorial on getting started with my LLM tool for running local models!

One of the best ways you can contribute to any open source project is to publish unofficial guides like this one

Developing a quantitative, multi-sector, semi-endogenous growth model of structural change in innovation and production, incorporating demand-pull and technology-push forces, from Diego A. Comin, Danial Lashkari, and Martí Mestieri https://www.nber.org/papers/w33855

Population aging affects firm entry and profits via demand: older households' higher consumer inertia acts as a barrier to entry and lets incumbents raise markups, from Gideon Bornstein https://www.nber.org/papers/w33820

What will the new arts and crafts movement be?

Management practices account for about 20 percent of cross-country differences in productivity, with the US having the world's best managed firms, from Raffaella Sadun, Rachel J. Schuh, Jonathan S. Hartley, John Van Reenen, and @nickbloom.bsky.social https://www.nber.org/papers/w33765

Management and Firm Dynamism Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Just out: our new NBER working paper explores what happens when management is treated like a technology—something that spreads across firms, boosts productivity, and lowers the cost of change.

There’s a time that comes for all of us, a threshold of second scoop regret and when sorbet becomes an increasingly attractive option…

I love that place (and others near by) - but is very extra. Last time I just couldn’t get through it, my body just shut down

Dave's approach to evals is really interesting. It encouraged me to take a look at promptfoo, which appears to be the most mature of the current stack of open source eval tools simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/24/...

Distilling key facts about housing affordability and its decline in the US and reviewing the literature on housing supply and the causes of declining affordability, from Nathaniel Baum-Snow and Gilles Duranton https://www.nber.org/papers/w33694

I understand what you’re saying, and I can see it’s a nice hobby for those that like it, I just think they’d be better in London as actual parks or woods, or homes. Also, the more we build in London the less we need to build outside, and people in London have a lower environmental impact

I think outside of London the tradeoffs for land use are not really such a big deal. It’s not my thing, but happy for others! :)