John Speakman

John Speakman

@speakman.bsky.social

And yet, here we are. Data and technology bureaucrat. “Truly the political colossus of our time”. Slightly American (or slightly British?). He/him. 📍London

925 Followers 1,973 Following 153 Posts Joined Aug 2023
3 days ago
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I still think about this a lot.

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7 hours ago
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His Harvard Lab Was Thriving. Then Came the Cuts.

Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...

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18 hours ago

Leeds Grammar. Sorry. Yeah.

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19 hours ago

Prornes!

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19 hours ago

pigeon

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21 hours ago

1. The smell of new books in a bookshop
2. Regular garbage/trash/rubbish/recycling collection by tireless, strong, public spirited people
3. Witnessing unanticipated public acts of kindness

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23 hours ago

Health care practitioner in the United States said to me last year “that should get you to the finish line”. I’m older than Claire but still it made me stop and think.

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23 hours ago

Except Reverberation. Oh dear. Can’t have the Bunnymen without Mac.

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23 hours ago

Reevaluating the post Ocean Rain work of Echo and the Bunnymen. It’s all right.

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1 day ago
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John Solly Is the DOGE Operative Accused of Planning to Take Social Security Data to His New Job A whistleblower complaint alleges John Solly claimed to have stored highly sensitive Social Security data on a thumb drive. Solly and Leidos, his current employer, strongly deny the allegations.

www.wired.com/story/john-s...

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3 days ago
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London right now

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4 days ago
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BBC Radio 6 Music
Riley & Coe

Now Playing
Orange Juice
Felicity

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4 days ago

Very complete, so completeness, much completitude

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4 days ago
Album cover for B12’s double LP “Time Tourist” (1996)

Now playing: B12 “Time Tourist” thanks to Palace Records on Brixton

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4 days ago
Detail: "The son's trial is set for May 2026"

"Preferably this rapture would happen in the next six weeks or so"

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4 days ago
Inscription above the door of the Walworth Clinic, Southwark, London (built 1937): “THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE IS THE HIGHEST LAW”

Walworth Clinic

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2 months ago
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Grunya Sukhareva - Wikipedia

TIL: Before Hans Asperger or Leo Kanner, a Jewish-Ukrainian psychiatrist named Grunya Sukhareva defined autism in 1925. Both men did not cite her work. She also had documented how it affected women and girls, where the men did not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunya_...

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5 days ago

The accompanying illustrations from the Radio 3 Now Playing bot are fire

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6 days ago
View down Park Avenue in NYC to midtown, showing a grey cloudy sky

Early on a grey and cloudy Sunday morning, Park Avenue NYC

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1 week ago
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success.

Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

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1 week ago

No worries!

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1 week ago

Have been wondering why you sent me this Jacob. Conclusion is I am not the John Speakman you think I am, unfortunately!

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1 week ago

Like a chip butty, you mean?

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1 week ago
Castel del Monte, a very unusual, totally symmetrical octagonal castle built in the 1240s in Apulia, Italy

Castel del Monte, a very unusual, totally symmetrical octagonal castle built in the 1240s in Apulia, Italy

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1 week ago

The only correct location for the controls of an overhead shower is far enough away that you can turn it on without being sprayed with freezing cold water. This is not difficult to understand.

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1 week ago
Map with many points of Americans trying to locate Iran on a world map. 23% successful only.

The ocean. Some of the points are in the ocean.

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1 week ago

New York City lulls foreigners into a false sense of security. It feels like a slightly cartoonish version of other countries but it is really a Trojan Horse concealing America

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1 week ago

I think Bluesky is getting better, the network effects are finally kicking in and random connections are starting to fire. Just in time as the world is wobbling more than it has for a while!

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1 week ago

There was a “naff pop singer” spiky hairdo of the era. Him, Howard Jones, Flock of Seagulls, Kajapoopoo. I think it had to do with how much the hair stuck out sideways? Anyway I think they all had the same hairdresser.

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1 week ago

Except in New York City where you are not allowed to do it, like a normal country.

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