Paul Smith

Full Fibre is here. Image of a happy man sat in front of a computer.

The email I've been waiting over 20 years for. Openreach have rolled out their 'full fibre' to where I live. It's too little, too late. Profiteering sods have held me and this country back for decades. Addicted to metered copper lines they've had their knee on the throat of a vital service.

NX, pnpm, React, Webpack, Typescript, NPM, Node, Styled components, Storybooks, Jest, Git Hooks........ Off to the sea-bed you go.

I always chuckle at these types of food descriptions. "Pan fried fish" or "Hand cut chips". "Grass fed". etc.

"Developer convenience" often equates to "Doesn't care about the user".

Returning to User flow diagram you created a few months ago is a good test of how good a job you did. Give myself a solid 8/10 but always room for improvement.

💯

Congratulations! For the work you’ve done at Defra and on the new role.

How to melt my brain quick time. Put me in a room with a bunch of smart software devs/engineers talking about APIs, security and infrastructure and then have their work be dependant on me. 😂

On my way to London for an NHS Hackday event with colleagues from across digital, clinical and telephony. Looking forward to learning more about natural language processing, data transfer and how UCD can play a role.

A slide-deck with lazily generated AI imagery is already akin to using WordArt.

Wish I had time and motivation to write week-notes or read other people’s regularly. Between work, life laundry, looking after the kids, trying to be healthy, to be active and all the other demands. It struggles to make it onto the day’s to-do list.

That type of metered connection is a recipe for huge inequality. We need a fair and neutral internet for everyone. Data is metered (sort of) and there are already fair-use policies. I think it is fair to charge more or high end connections, huge volumes of data, IP addresses and uptime though.

ChatGPT has changed the game when writing code. Asking it to write nunjucks filters with a basic prompt, converting chunks of html into consumable objects/dictionaries. Off-loading these tasks lets me get to the thing I'm trying to do much faster.

If you want to create completely free software for other people to use, the absolute best delivery mechanism right now is static HTML and JavaScript served from a free web host with an established reputation.

Here's why think that in more detail: simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/28/...

I will go to extraordinary lengths to hide wires.

As somebody who had to fight hard for an EHCP for my step-daughter, this sort of bull is infuriating.

Used ChatGPT earlier to do the work of a 9 year old feature request to an open source templating language. Tests and all. Now thats useful and worked well with a handful of tweaks.

Absolutely. 💯- Nearly always means it’s hiding inequity somewhere.

Agreed. It got my attention as a current NHS England staffer likely to be made into a civil servant again within DHSC in the next two years. I’m nervous I’ll be told my salary is too high for the equivalent (sort of) grade within the Civil Service.

Recruiting and Retaining Civil Service Technologists Technical talent in the civil service is crucial for public sector delivery, while reducing the state's dependence on costly consultants. To do this, government must be able to attract high quality ta...

Interesting post from CBP (@britishprogress.bsky.social): "Recruiting and retaining Civil Service Technologist" has some good observations and recommendations. Thoughts? cc:
@tomski.com @andrewgreenway.bsky.social britishprogress.org/uk-day-one/r...

I recently held my walk for a couple of minutes because I was behind a young woman but going in the same direction. I checked my phone for a moment hopefully making it a more comfortable distance. I think that makes anybody feel a bit better too.

Gromit goes for a snack

I miss Trello. JIRA Raaaage!

Out of interest contractor friends…. “Inside IR35”… Anybody able to share how much a typical public sector Senior or Lead Interaction/Service Designer rate shakes out to be per day? DMs welcome.

By all accounts I got my current job ahead of over 150 applicants. It took an application form and two competency based interviews. Less than 12 months ago. Sounds like I might have to apply for it again soon as part of the abolition/subsuming of NHS England. Isn’t that a treat. 😞

What hosting service/platform do you use for your website or blog? I'm using Netlify at the moment but looking to save money and know if there is anything better out there.

uBlock Origin has itself been blocked by Google Chrome. Time to switch browser.

What’s New in Affinity? We regularly update our apps to ensure they deliver the best possible creative experience for our users. Here’s what’s new in the latest update.

Finally!!! Colour picker automatically chooses picked colour by default. Affinity apps have needed this for so long. affinity.serif.com/en-gb/whats-...

Microsoft Teams recordings are good. AI summaries are usually decent but watching some back recently has made me realise that I still struggle to succinctly get a point across. I waffle, say 'err' a lot and generally sound like the imposter from a rough North Manchester estate with low GCSE grades 😬

Eff Yew to anywhere that shows prices exclusive of VAT. So annoying. They either show it separately but make you do a bit of mental arithmetic to get the figure you actually care about when deciding or they show it you right at the very end before checkout.