Fair play to John Healey, who managed to time his 5.5-week break from government to coincide exactly with the World Cup
Deborah Barnard
@deborahwrites.co.uk
💻 Technical writer 🐱 Human to one loud cat https://deborahwrites.co.uk/
Feeling slightly bored after the end of the World Cup, so consoling myself by deciding to follow the Nations League. We're nearing an era of perpetual football: a major tournament every year (alternating men's and women's) and now the men's Nations League to fill some of the winter.
Too often, outsourcing comes at the expense of our services and the workers who keep them going. If you want public services to work for people, not just profit, sign the Record of Support for Labour’s insourcing pledge. www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/of...
Official Record of Support: Back the Biggest Wave of Insourcing in a Generation
Outsourcing companies frequently compete to win public contracts by reducing costs: it's a race to the bottom on the pay, terms, and conditions for their workers. This has a knock-on effect for servic...
megaphone.org.uk
Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language. It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
1/ This seems like a good accessible intro to AI psychosis: youtu.be/MW6FMgOzklw?... (caution: the guy has had controversies in the past) This is the paper he's referring to in the video: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.10970 Key takeaway: it can affect anyone, not just people with pre-existing conditions.
AI Is Slowly Destroying Your Brain
YouTube video by HealthyGamerGG
youtu.be
Construct validity is the missing dark matter in big tech research about developers. Once you see it, you never unsee it.
1/ This article by @naomialderman.bsky.social is very very good: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n... Loads of excellent stuff in it, I'm just highlighting a couple of things that stood out to me.
Don’t argue with strangers… and 11 more rules to survive the information crisis
Feeling overwhelmed by divisive opinions, endless rows and unreliable facts? Here’s how to weather the data storm
theguardian.com
You might think “boring” but seriously, this is a masterpiece. www.nan.fyi/database
Build Your Own Database
A step-by-step guide to building a key-value database from scratch.
nan.fyi
Zensical – a modern static site generator. We're excited to release @zensical.org, our new SSG that is compatible with Material for MkDocs: – 5x faster rebuilds – Modern design – Blazing-fast search Read the full announcement on our blog: squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-mater... A thread ⬇ 1/7
Zensical - A modern static site generator - Material for MkDocs
We are thrilled to announce Zensical, our next-gen static site generator that addresses and overcomes the technical limitations of MkDocs
squidfunk.github.io
1/ The creator of Material for MkDocs has released a new static site generator and accompanying themes, @zensical.org : squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-mater... Loads of info in the post about what, why, and timelines.
Zensical - A modern static site generator - Material for MkDocs
We are thrilled to announce Zensical, our next-gen static site generator that addresses and overcomes the technical limitations of MkDocs
squidfunk.github.io
Reliability is sort of like a stomachache. It’s hard for people to really appreciate not having issues until you have issues.
Daniele Procida (not on here I think) has written an incredibly powerful post on AI and documentation: vurt.org/articles/my-... Every other paragraph is worth quoting and examining.
My favourite German word - Daniele Procida
If creators of documentation are prepared to sacrifice its human purpose in order that LLMs can more effectively slurp it up and regurgitate it on demand, then they have meekly accepted values that mo...
vurt.org
Back in the day, Twitter used to be really good if I set up a thread to connect freelancers with clients. Let's see if Bluesky can do it. Clients: if you're looking for freelancers/contractors, get in the comments Freelancers/contractors: get in comments Everyone else: boosts appreciated
we've already sold 1000 copies of The Secret Rules of the Terminal since it came out on Tuesday!! so to celebrate I'm giving away 1000 copies to anyone who can't afford to buy one. You can use code BUYONEGIVEONE to get a free PDF copy if $12 USD is a lot for you. wizardzines.com/zines/terminal
1/ Could we all solemnly swear not to be too judgemental of each other about AI? Because I've got a horrible feeling I know what the next impossible hiring trend is going to be: you'll need enough AI on your CV to get past the pro-AI people, but not so much that you deter the anti-AI people.
If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people: 1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money 3) We won’t need a lot of troops 4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq 5) We’ll find WMDs 6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators 7) It will be easy 8) It won’t take long All lies.
1/ A surprising amount of government admin. My last passport renewal was quick and easy. So is setting up as a sole trader. Tax returns are probably as painless as they realistically can be. And the fact most people don't even have to do tax returns is nice.
Helene von Bismarck@helenebismarck.bsky.social · last yr.So,as a little thought-experiment, tell me something about the United Kingdom that works well and is actually quite impressive. I am not trying to sound like some boosterish politician. I just genuinely believe that making people believe that all is lost is a convenient pretext for shady characters.
1/ 'How to write for AI' is a question that comes up repeatedly. TL;DR and resources 🧵 #ai #documentation #technicalwriting
Stop believing that your brain peaked in your 20s... it's not true but it might become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you stop challenging it www.ft.com/content/5d47...
A lot of people say generative AI shouldn't infringe on copyright. These researchers actually tried to do it. The result: an 8 terabyte dataset of text that's openly licensed or in the public domain & 7 B parameter model that performs as well as Meta's Llama 7B www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Analysis | AI firms say they can’t respect copyright. These researchers tried.
A new effort using only openly licensed data may have implications on thorny policy disputes around copyright and AI
washingtonpost.com
The more time I spend with Kapa AI (RAG chatbot for your docs sites and communities . . . plus a bunch of other useful stuff) the more impressed I am.
Cursor won't let you use it unless you agree to it learning from your code. You can turn this off later . . . but why can't you refuse at this stage? Anyhow, I just set a new personal record for shortest software trial.
Try out the new interactive Playground component on the docs home page: www.11ty.dev#try-eleventy... That’s right: we’re running Eleventy in the build and in the browser. This unlocks many more exciting options for Eleventy projects — stay tuned!
I don't think I've ever seen a supposedly fluffy piece go this harsh. Someone at the FT (a) really doesn't like Altman, (b) is really confident in their lawyer, and (c) recommends Zitron's, erm, worrying article on the potential of OpenAI to pretty much destroy everything.
Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · last yr.I love this whole thing and not just because it quotes me. extremely catty in a way I think is magnificent, especially this bit about how much the internet hates Sam Altman's coffee machine