Steve Scott

AfterLoss - Bereavement support for the practical things Afterloss guides you through the practical side of bereavement, step by step. Personalised task lists for UK law, document storage, and family collaboration.

A few notable updates for afterloss.uk this weekend:

- New interactive demo - see what's behind the login screen.
-Comprehensive guides covering some of the less-appreciated aspects of managing a bereavement.

Feedback, as always, appreciated.

And please share. @afterloss.bsky.social

You can also follow the official account at @afterloss.bsky.social

AfterLoss - Bereavement support for the practical things Afterloss guides you through the practical side of bereavement, step by step. Personalised task lists for UK law, document storage, and family collaboration.

Another busy day working on Afterloss.uk. Comprehensive guides added that cover many of the features the service helps you navigate.

I built afterloss.uk after my dad passed and dealing with the admin that follows. It helps families through what they need to do in those first weeks and months.

I'm looking for testers. If you know someone going through this, please pass it along. It should help.

Free. Bugs likely.

🇬🇧 UK only.

I met my wife in a pub in 1998 when Scotland were playing Brazil - the last World Cup they qualified for.

I did not think it would take another 27 years to qualify.

Time flies...

It's not just job applications sadly. I spend more time reading AI-generated emails than I used to.

On the topic of "Automation of editorial judgments" we should catch up. LLMs can't do this work right now - cost, lack of audit-ability, accuracy etc) but smaller models are getting close, and in some cases are already 'there' in terms of automating key steps (I think you know who I'm referring to).

My first full post for @scholarlyfutures.bsky.social - What might it mean to publish research with no human in the loop? open.substack.com/pub/scholarl...

Bookmarked!

The moment before The Beatles walked across Abbey Road. I think they should have used this one personally.

Also, whose gran is that?

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Flying home to Edinburgh seldom lacks visual impact.

🌟 Can you visualize a future in which you’ve won a grant of up to £25,000? #CatalystGrant

💡🌱 Digital Science’s 2025 Catalyst Grant is now open for applications - with the theme of #DataVisualization.

🔗 See more about our Catalyst Grant - and apply here: www.digital-science.com/investment/c...

The 2025 Catalyst Grant is now live. Our theme this year, Data Visualization, relates to any technique that helps automate the way people interrogate, interpret and act on research-related data. If you have an idea, or an early prototype, we want to hear about it.

Please share!

If you'd like to know more, feel free to ping me...

I was 50% right here...

Arrived home after a three day course on AI. Of all the facts, this stuck with me:

Generating an image using AI = charging a smartphone, or driving 4.1 miles

Generating a 100-word email with GPT-4 = 519ml of water (basically a standard bottle).

There are mitigating factors, but still. Ouch.

Discuss.

#cycling #tourdefrance

When Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, it triggered the loss of 20,000 subscriptions to the Strand Magazine.

To recoup lost revenue and placate outraged readership, the magazine serialized a new Holmes adventure as a “prequel.”

For some reason, this reminded me of Fox News and Dominion.

Anyone involved in publishing, reading, writing or editing scientific papers should read this argument against generative AI carefully.

"LONDON drops down wealth list as super-rich move out," blared a Times splash on 9 April, reporting that there are supposedly 11,300 fewer "dollar millionaires" in the British capital than there were last year - the fastest fall of any global city except Moscow, as the wealthy move their money abroad. The story was also reported by the Telegraph, Express, Daily Mail and Evening Standard, while the Times returned to the subject next day in a 1,300-word feature. Even culture secretary Lisa Nandy responded to the alleged exodus, blaming it on Brexit, not the Labour government. But how accurate are those remarkably specific figures? They come from South Africa-based outfit New World Wealth, commissioned by "advisory firm" Henley & Partners. As pointed out by the New Statesman's Will Dunn back in January, but not mentioned in the Times, Henley & Partners sells advice to rich people about financial planning, and consults governments on "investment migration" policies - so is opposed to higher taxes on rich people. And while New World Wealth puts out seemingly definitive figures, they come up with them using "models" based on tracking the online footprints of a far smaller number of people, without actually knowing where they pay tax. Moreover, when contacted by the Eye, the company offered another important caveat, saying it was "important to note" that "most of" the decline in wealth in London over the past decade was not actually down to people leaving the UK, but poor performance of local businesses and a decline in the FTSE 100, which it also uses to collate its reports estimating relative global wealth. So the super-rich in question may well still be here, just not so super-rich any more. The unreliability of New World Wealth's "data" and what it actually means hasn't stopped hacks reporting on a mass evacuation by the rich over government policies, which has become an accepted truth. Those figures seemed to have an effect on the chancellor: soon afterwards Rachel Re…

thank you Private Eye for taking apart this flakey headline-grabbing research

Gliders gliding in the park this afternoon. Amazing machines.

Every journalist today looking at their boss.

Today’s news reminds me of the time the HR department of a company I worked at (not my current one!) sent a send:all email to staff outlining who was to be made redundant.

This could be used as a monitor to track population health*.

*Said as a Scotsman.

Getting to the stage where I ask an LLM to do something ambitious, hit submit, and think "I really hope you aren't able to do a good job on this...".

Supporters Praise Trump For Upholding Traditional American Value Of Supporting Murderous Dictators For Political Gain

Supporters Praise Trump For Upholding Traditional American Value Of Supporting Murderous Dictators For Political Gain

4 weeks after preprint "Understanding the importance of SHAPE to the UK research ecosystem" by @britishacademy.bsky.social, @jameswilsdon.bsky.social , and @digital-science.com I checked Bluesky reach on @altmetric.com: Phenomenal with an upper bound of 121550 followers! doi: doi.org/10.48550/arx...

Artwork with stylised image of a white woman with long hair bending back with eyes closed among purple roses and silver organic lines on a silver background

Detail from the Art Nouveau gesso panels by Glasgow School artist Margaret Macdonald, c.1907 #WomensArt

America still needs Canadian oil. Here's why And why the tariffs on Canada could plausibly lead to America doing deals with considerably more shady countries. A dive into the weird and wonderful world of heavy oil

✍️Despite being the world's biggest oil producer, America is v reliant on Canadian oil. And getting MORE reliant, not less.
So what happens when tariffs get imposed on Canada?
The answers are quite unsettling, for the American people... and for everyone else edconway.substack.com/p/america-st...