"During a routine cyber evaluation, AISI identified an incident in which AI agents took sustained, unsanctioned action directed at real people and organisations." This is a UK Gov agency, discovering the very real dangers of unfettered AI Agents. 😬 www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...

Incident Report: unsanctioned agent behaviour during cyber testing | AISI Work

During a routine cyber evaluation, AISI identified an incident in which AI agents took sustained, unsanctioned action directed at real people and organisations. We are disclosing what we found, what…

aisi.gov.uk

Former neo-Nazi activist withdraws... But Badenoch now offers him advisor role. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Former neo-Nazi activist withdraws as Conservative election candidate

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who was convicted of harassing Jewish MP, says Badenoch has offered him advisory role instead

theguardian.com

Digital by Default Coaching Ltd - digitalbydefault.coach or kinda silly Just Jukesie Limited - jukes.ie

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

"For him, the Reflecting Pool is not a little thing. It is dominating his days, it is a signifier of his greatness." Donald Trump is focused on his own legacy – but his Washington renovations have gone "horribly wrong", and it's all he can think about www.thenewsagents.co.uk/article/why-...

Why is Donald Trump still banging on about the Washington Reflecting Pool? | The News Agents

Four months after a botched, and unnecessary, $14 million renovation of the Washington Reflecting Pool, Trump is still furiously trying to catch the “vandals” responsible. Why is this his most…

thenewsagents.co.uk

Big new release of my LLM CLI tool and Python library for talking to hundreds of different LLMs - reasoning traces, OpenAI Responses support, server-side tools, smarter logging and a whole lot more simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/4/n...

New release of LLM adds support for reasoning traces, OpenAI Responses, server-side tools, and smarter logging

I released LLM 0.32 this morning, the most significant new version of LLM since the initial launch of the project. The new version includes support for visible reasoning traces, server-side …

simonwillison.net

"Kew Gardens has had a weather station since 1871. This July was, based on third party analysis of Met Office data collected at the site, the first calendar month on record where no rainfall was measured at Kew."

London's first month without rain

Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?

londoncentric.media

Please enjoy our 4 min 30 sec adaptation of the Odyssey youtu.be/E_uY84iZRFQ

Damon & Naomi - Song to the Siren

YouTube video by Damon and Naomi

youtu.be

Local Elections Archive Project: Essex CC 2026 results added www.andrewteale.me.uk/1lxn

Early signs of the Climate Collapse Cascade… www.politico.eu/article/hung...

Hungary faces energy crunch as drought shuts down Paks nuclear plant, PM says

Budapest loses 40 percent of the country’s electricity generation as water levels continue to drop.

politico.eu

Pollsters were right, but also lucky, in Greater Manchester Mayor contest buff.ly/E8JFklJ

Pollsters were right, but also lucky, in Greater Manchester Mayor contest

This time, it’s another of my ‘how did the pollsters do?’ round-ups as we now have the reality of the Greater Manchester Mayoralty result against which we can judge how the pollsters performed.

buff.ly

The USA is at the same time a nuclear armed superpower, and one of the most ridiculous states in the history of the world.

Due to demand, I've scheduled a second Code Craft & AI workshop on Tues Oct 6th at 18:45 BST. Join me and learn how classic software engineering principles and practices are not just compatible with AI, but *essential* It's funny how that turned out 🙂 www.tickettailor.com/events/codem...

Register – Code Craft & AI – Zoom

Code Craft & AI – Zoom, Multiple dates and times - September 1st 18:45 BST SOLD OUT October 6th 18:45 BST £99 + UK VAT Large-scale studies by the DevOps Research & Assessm...

tickettailor.com

Another in the Virpi series, this time in response to a social media challenge, the difference between starting journeys and seeking destinations thecynefin.co/the-next-rig...

The next right thing(s) - The Cynefin Co

Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking. Antonio Machado So there are goals in a

thecynefin.co

think there's probably something interesting about revealed preferences here, or at least what we assume them to be - Westminster was convinced that Britain craved a dull, quietly efficient, non-ideological guy and that's what Starmer was for a while, but turns out it wasn't what people wanted?

Will Cooling@willcooling.bsky.social · 5d ago

Obviously Starmer made a lot of mistakes but I don't think you can overlook the fact that people just never liked him and that was long surpressing Labour's vote share

“Perhaps the list of candidates seems hilarious viewed from elsewhere,” Fr Simpkins ruefully concludes. “However, those who truly care for [Clacton] and its people, are not laughing.” www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Beating heart of Clacton-on-Sea: the Church, Nigel Farage, a by-election, and a misunderstood community

On a sunny July day, James Macintyre takes the political temperature in the Essex constituency

churchtimes.co.uk

Read the latest analysis of the Manchester mayoral by-election from @robfordmancs.bsky.social for @news.sky.com here ->

Politics latest: Labour's Bev Craig wins by-election to succeed Andy Burnham as Greater Manchester mayor

Labour have won the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election, with Reform in second place. The vote was triggered after Andy Burnham resigned as mayor before he became prime minister. Follow the latest ...

news.sky.com

"The limited view teams have" is worth exploring. Software engineering unlike some other professions: - Neglects the history of it's ideas and prior art - Has very few apprenticeship models - Is overly beholden and vulnerable to economic drivers

Jason Gorman@jasongorman.bsky.social · 6d ago

The original sin of software development

I have got to the point where any article with a passage that begins "Writing on X…" immediately invalidates itself and I just close the tab.

To quote Mark Blyth, the climate crisis is ‘a giant non-linear outcome generator with wicked convexities. In plain English, there is no mean, there is no average, there is no return to normal. It’s one way traffic into the unknown’. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There is no ‘getting back to normal’ with climate breakdown | Mark Blyth

As the IPCC report makes clear, there are now only unknown and unfamiliar alternative futures that we can choose from, says political economist Mark Blyth

theguardian.com

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · last wk.

It's not going to become 'the norm' though, is it? That's what so fucking terrifying about it. It's going to become a lot worse, very quickly.

Why do people believe conspiracy theories? Research points to unmet needs for certainty, control, and belonging. My own research suggests that perceived victimhood is another key factor. medium.com/@m.j.faccian...

What Makes Someone Believe a Conspiracy Theory?

A massive new meta-analysis concludes that certainty, security, and belonging play a major role, and my own research finds that perceived…

medium.com

Interesting insight into the dark networks that are funding right wing groups across Europe, including Britain: www.thenerve.news/p/cpac-confe...

Liz Truss, dark money and the gen-Z Catholics: who’s behind CPAC in the UK?

The British debut of Maga’s favourite conference last week was widely seen as a joke. But a Nerve investigation reveals its young organisers are part of a web of culture-war connections – from the US ...

thenerve.news

"We need to stop thinking of party membership as some transactional stakeholder role where we pay subs and knock doors in return for influence over policy. It should be a vocational role - to facilitate participation and deliberation from voters" — @pauliewaulie.bsky.social

AG@anthonycgreen.bsky.social · 2w ago

If activists don't start to appreciate the multitude of perspectives held by residents their party will wither and die www.progressonline.org.uk/political-re...

Our latest voting intention sees cross over. Labour move ahead by 4. Their first lead since March 2025 & highest share since Nov 24 🌹 LAB 28% (+4)
⏩ REF 24% (-2)
🌳 CON 22% (nc)
🔶 LIB DEM 12% (+1)
🟢 GREEN 8% (-3)
🟡 SNP 2% (nc) N = 2061| Dates 24-27/7| Change w 22/7

TDD with agentic AI: I recently interviewed Nizar Selander about how he's doing this. It's (still) all about confidence. Video: youtu.be/bDLdZIAjH5Y Article: coding-is-like-cooking.info/2026/07/the-...

The Most Important AI Coding Advice You Haven't Heard Yet - Coding Is Like Cooking

This article is also published as a video on the Modern Software Engineering Channel You’ll have heard Dave Farley talking about the benefits of using ATDD – Acceptance Test Driven Development – to sp...

coding-is-like-cooking.info

New Blog Post! My struggles of getting started with Aeron, and also working with Claude. It's a Friday afternoon blog post and I have not carefully edited it for grammar, nor shortened it for impact. But it's published, and a bot didn't write it trishagee.com/2026/07/24/g...

I wrote this 👇 open.substack.com/pub/vicderby...

and then extent the Future Generations Act to the whole of the UK?

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · last wk.

This would be a very good move. I'm a recent convert to mandatory voting and increasingly messianic about it open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

The next UK Gov Camp is heading to Manchester, our most voted location from last year. We are looking for people to join the organising team in two key areas: General Admin Team: Helping with overall admin remotely , such as ticketing, volunteer management, comms and engagement.

The big Burnham tech ed drive, as first reported by Chris Smyth and I earlier today: as.ft.com/r/5a30779d-b...

Andy Burnham aims to cut welfare bill by getting young people into work

UK premier draws on experience as Greater Manchester mayor with move to link up schools and employers

as.ft.com