Marcus Shepheard

Dan wasn't even born before decimalisation (nor was he anywhere near the UK when he was born) but still he yearns for Britain's pre-decimal times 55 years later.

Want to know what I think the government should do about the "plan 2" student loans? It is your lucky day! >>>

Of course. Why would you invest in soft power?

It just helps in the kind of warfare that:

a) Russia has shown it's actually good at;
b) Russia is waging on the West already;
c) The UK/NATO nuclear deterrent is useless in preventing;
d) Costs a fraction to fund compared to military hardware.

Tell any of the scientists you know who have remained on the site everyone still calls Twitter, even though it's nothing like Twitter.

The @qmul.bsky.social news article on it is pretty shoddy too. This line which subtly conflates the annual cost of curtailment in 2025 to the total projected cost between 2025-2030 makes it look like we'll be spending £20bn per year. I had to read it twice to be sure. A poor effort there.

Toe curling

Absurd - Schrödinger’s cabinet secretary

Excellent number crunching here.

I have today been informed that, despite personal assurances to the contrary, the Green party have once again used my image and misrepresented my words on a second leaflet circulated in Gorton and Denton ahead of the by-election. I have now lodged an official complaint with the returning officer.

Has anyone called him a carpetbagger yet?

If we're going to talk about crimes in London, might as well add this exhibit to the list. Bloody yikes

The next set of mayoral elections will be more like a lottery as voters will have to guess who will make it into the Top Two and who they want/want to stop to be mayor. Lets have proper preferential voting now.

Reminder that "jaywalking" was literally made up by american car manufacturers to shift the blame for accidents from drivers to pedestrians. "Jay" was a slang term meaning "idiot" or "rube".

Hitting the targets: can the UK government realistically deliver the Warm Homes Plan’s big ambitions? Can the UK government realistically deliver the Warm Homes Plan’s big ambitions?

We've been digging into the numbers that sit behind the warm homes plan and assessing how realistic its targets are. Ultimately we think its doable - but the margins for error are incredibly tight.

Read more here: www.nesta.org.uk/report/hitti...

this also raises the frankly wonderful prospect of some Uruk Hai running a nice little boulangerie deep in the bowels of Isengard

Plan for 28 Impington homes would have just four parking spaces The plans by a council-owned company are recommended for refusal by the authority's highways team.

Disappointed about lack of affordable housing, but planning for low vehicle ownership is wholly justified. Site is 100m from busway stops, <2 miles from Science Park and 3 miles from city centre by high quality cycle routes share.google/Z7pJCiXTUPNd...

Isn't this basically the same position (vis-a-vis the location of interest) as their candidate for Mayor of London?

Bridgen?

Cycle Movement Strategy Phase 3: Bayswater Road The Bayswater Road Cycle Movement Strategy Phase 3 scheme looks to enhance cycling and pedestrian facilities in both directions along Bayswater Road, from Palace Court to Lancaster Terrace.

Last opportunity to comment on proposals for improving cycling on Bayswater Road cmsbayswaterroad.commonplace.is/en-GB/

Imagine! How could wind and solar ever compete with fossil fuel electricity across an entire year, across an entire block of 450 million people!?😉

Figure 1 shows, as well as ensuring stable funding, the Plan will also see all programs funded centrally, as the bill-funded Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme, which has dominated recent energy efficiency policy spend, was scrapped in the Budget last November.

After half a decade of chopping and changing on home upgrade schemes, the Warm Homes Plan should see a more consistent Government approach into the late 2020s.

As well as ensuring stable funding, the Plan will also see all programs funded centrally.

More on the Warm Homes plan➡️ buff.ly/QJ2881G

Don't know if this sort of rhetoric has caught up with the fact that Reform's base are the most dependent on welfare of any party's

DESNZ seems to believe it's happening soon

🇬🇧 The Warm Homes Plan is a welcome step towards smart, low-carbon tech playing a central role in home upgrades.

⚡🏠 As empirical backing for that shift, our research shows that heat pumps cut carbon ~70%, while solar + batteries can slash bills for fuel-poor households (even below zero in summer).

Deciphering the Warm Homes Plan Join us to discuss the new Warm Homes Plan

And if you want to hear more about this from us, please join our event at 1200 tomorrow.

www.nesta.org.uk/event/deciph...

How will the Warm Homes Plan change home heating? Prioritising electric technologies like heat pumps and solar, and backed by £15 billion investment, the plan will mandate minimum energy efficiency standards for rented homes and create the new Warm H...

Happy Warm Homes Plan day (for those who celebrate).

We have been working through the plan here at @nestauk.bsky.social, and we have some thoughts.

More numbers and analysis will follow!

www.nesta.org.uk/blog/how-wil...

This wasn't the remake of Speed (1994) that we wanted or expected, but perhaps it's the one we deserved.

I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows. I'm sorry. I know that when we talk about "digital sovereignty," we're obliged to talk about how we can build more data-centres that we can fill up with money-losing chips from American silicon monopolists in the hopes of destroying as many jobs as possible while blowing through our clean energy goals and enshittifying as much of our potable water as possible.

Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...

Sanderson is also guilty of the pathology that all systems within a narrative need complete explanation - to the point that it really kills his prose (IMO).

But that world-building is evidently addictive, and easier than narrative.

He's also 77, which is not exactly the age when people tend to ramp up their complex outputs.