Ben Mayer

I'm minded to recall the Mad Men scene:

"But you never say thank you."

"That's what the money is for!"

The Europeanisation of UK politics post-Brexit is really something to behold.

We’ve had some great feedback on our report on Progressive Activists and are keen to work with orgs that want to get the best from progressive workforces. Though I’ve seen a handful of people have interpreted what we’re saying as progressives need to be more centrist and wanted to respond to that. 🧵

All the vox pops with Woking lawyers are already on Lib Dem leaflets.

Screenshot of a twitter post showing that the latest openAI commercial model is better than previous models at doing arithmetic but still cannot reliably produce the correct answer of multiplication problems with values greater than 11 x 11. It's supposed to be impressive I think

you fucked up a perfectly good computer is what you did. look at it. it's got innumeracy

Musk's Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government Imagining how we'd cover overseas what's happening to the U.S. right now

Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at how the US media would cover this story if it was happening in a foreign country. Here’s that story that should be written this weekend: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-jun...

Trump is a One-Dimensional Negotiator

I'm going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don't know, I'm an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes.

DeepSeek jailbreak

I periodically return to Michael Morpurgo's 'King of the Cloud Forests', and every time it remains as charming (and heartbreaking) as ever. Similarly, 'The Hobbit'.

I recall a Question Time episode where one of the audience members raised it as a hypothetical - if a Congolese asylum seeker could be deported to the country that displaced them - and it was met with blankness by the Conservative representative, but also most others in the room

amazing that they’ve now had years to come up with a compelling “in your wildest dreams” use case and this is what they’ve gone with. this is psychopath shit; nobody wants this. but it IS the pitch for microsoft copilot!

Tbh I think the packed lunch one is more sus. I know she's trying to look 'normal' and down to earth, but what normal person is choosing a sandwich over a state banquet?

The Hobbit is a much more straightforward narrative, as well as being a delightful read, so would set you up well for LotR to follow. Enjoy!

Also, both museums are well worth your time if you haven't been! There's also a fairly new museum, the Museum of Moroccan Elegance, which is super quirky - a history of Moroccan fashion through the medium of knitted dolls...

Musée de la Musique also has live traditional music on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings! Not free, but only about £6 (with complementary tea, of course), and compered by one of the guys who founded Maison de la Photographie.

Final point on this, if you only talk about child sexual exploitation when the perpetrators are of a particular ethnicity, it's not convincing that sexual violence is your primary concern...

Suspect and victims of child sexual abuse by ethnicity showing proportions similar to population ethnicities.

Far from being culturally specific, the data quoted in @stephenkb.bsky.social newsletter today, suggests that child sexual exploitation is depressingly widespread/in proportion to population ethnicities. Two caveats....

on.ft.com/3DDlpLS

Also, does she think Boko Haram is an ethnic identity...?

I would argue that as much a reason for English exceptionalism (which I completely agree is a problem for the Union) is the simple fact of size: England accounts for 85% of the UK population, and 7 of the 9 regions of England have larger populations than Scotland, let alone Wales & Northern Ireland.

The 'LinkedIn post'-ifiction of political speeches.

I'm very much the same, in that each task has to be a single action, otherwise it defeats the point for me. Interesting about the different sizes blocks to denote time, that's a neat visual heuristic!

I also like to break my 'Do Do' list down by estimated length of time to complete, (<30 mins, <1hr, <2hrs, 2+ hrs) as I find that incredible useful when trying to decide which task to tackle next

100% check out Trello, in that case. I've used a number of different organisation software over the years, and this is the one that best fits my thought process (and sounds like it'll fit yours, too!). And it can be super simple, too, unlike lots of other things I've tried.

What I think is interesting about Gregg Wallace is not, in fact, Gregg Wallace at all.

It’s the way that, as someone who watched Masterchef since it was called Masterchef Goes Large… how many female contestants start out brilliant and then over several eps their performance collapses.

I think it's very similar to what you've described! Essentially, it's a visual management process, where each list item takes the form of a card or box, and can be moved around both in terms of priority, and also between different 'bins', such as 'To Do', 'Doing', 'Done'. Works wonders for me!

This sounds like the Kanban system! I use Trello to essentially do this digitally

I agree, but for many people, particularly in areas of the world that have reasonable cause to distrust the West anyway (and the 'Western neoliberal hegemony'), it's seen as something that doesn't and shouldn't concern them. Understandably so.

I follow a lot of international development and, in particular, African accounts over on the other site. I think a large reason most of those haven't moved yet has less to do with amorality, and more to do with the fact that western (identity) politics just isn't a factor in their decision making.

Agree! It may occasionally have its uses, but more often than not I find its simply used as a placeholder for real ideas, and it's frankly such a woolly concept these days.