Rugby season starts again. Early season is pretty delightful way to spend a Sunday morning… depths of winter coming soon
Ben Unsworth
@benunsworth.co.uk
User centred design in government. parkrun tourist A4418. Director of Digital and Tech for Kingston and Sutton councils.
I came very close to letting my 6 year old walk 1km home during the recent eclipse because she was being an unbearable little prick and ruining it for everyone.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2w agoMan leaves young son on Mount Fuji before ascending Japan’s highest peak
Is anyone looking at how we might scale what works in GM?
Owen Boswarva@owenboswarva.bsky.social · 2w agoThe Single English County Saying No to Palantir www.wired.com/story/the-si... on the Analytics and Data Science Platform (ADSP) used by the NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board #NHSdata #patientdata #govtech #techpolicy
![The health care board for one part of England, Greater Manchester, has repeatedly declined to adopt Palantir's FDP, choosing to stick with a home-spun platform developed over the best part of a decade. The board claims it doesn’t need Palantir, that its own platform is functionally superior and more trusted by the public. "[Even] a technically strong platform will struggle to realize value if clinicians, data controllers, patients or the public do not trust it," Matt Hennessey, chief data and analytics officer at NHS Greater Manchester, tells WIRED. "If we were to fully adopt the FDP … it would be a retrograde step."
That claim—disputed by Palantir and other FDP advocates—has fed into a national debate over whether the government should seize an opportunity next February to terminate the NHS contract early, instead of allowing it to run until 2031.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tfsbnpnsnbnuz5jzuod6qlgt/bafkreifvq6cpo3e5cm7dargfe6wnptf5bdwyr4bia6jiqdjvnzg4qcrdie)
Interested in how you funnel civil servants into local gov when it is also contracting 🤷♂️
POLITICO Europe@politico.eu · 2w agoAndy Burnham will make “significant” cuts to Britain’s civil service staffing in a bid to funnel officials into councils and mayoral bodies in England, the official leading the U.K. prime minister’s devolution unit has indicated to POLITICO.
A close friend is at risk of redundancy, as part of a clumsy global mega corp re-org. He leads data science and AI implementation in a large telco. Very hands on with building and implementing stuff from boring ML to shiny new LLM stuff. Where do people look for jobs these days? Is it all LinkedIn?
A 97% eclipse is 80% more underwhelming than a total eclipse. Not worth the price of the kids being dickheads because of a late bedtime 😉
Entire village slowly making their way up the local hill to view the eclipse
Lovely day at Chessington World of Adventures, with the small caveat that paid fastrack tickets are bullshit. If I was king for a day, I would end this practice.
Another thing the boy will be better at than me before too long. First ever wave he tried to catch and he’s up on his feet 🏄♂️ 🤙
House move making some progress, lawyers are lawyering. Next major admin is schools. It’s 2026 and the online experience is still appalling. Why are you making me interact with a GIS tool? Completely unusable on mobile. Let me put a postcode in a field and have a list of results returned please.
Option B. But, before flipping the coin sell a 50% stake of the potential winnings for £200k to a hedge fund.
YouGov@yougov.co.uk · 2mo agoIf you had a choice between instantly receiving £50,000 or a 50% chance to win £1m, which would you pick? £50,000: 73% 50/50 chance of winning £1m: 21% yougov.com/en-gb/daily-...
Trying to explain the latest AI security frenzy on channel 4 news m.youtube.com/watch?is=yVF...
AI gone rogue: OpenAI agent hacks Hugging Face
YouTube video by Channel 4 News
m.youtube.com
💯 this. One of the most important long tail effects of the Government Digital Service is the increased accessibility of public sector digital services - which helps everyone.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 2mo agoLike this from @timharford.ft.com on how inclusive design principles can often help all users, not those just seen as traditionally excluded www.ft.com/content/4d8e...
My local council has replaced the main search bar with an AI chat and I don’t like it. I’m just not convinced every interaction needs to be a bloody chat. The integrations with some back office systems is neat, I’d just like to see a new UX paradigm for this stuff
“Verify your age” Submits undergrad dissertation on a floppy disc.
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2mo ago"Verify your age" Produces rotary phone, flawlessly dials a phone number
Benjamin here, only my parents use it…. but agree it’s lovey to have the option there. I think my later years will be mostly hedonism and eccentricity as a Benjamin.
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 2mo agoAlways think it’s a shame not to give your child the longest version of a name (William rather than Bill, Frederick rather than Freddie) just because it’s nice to have options. Also why I’m glad to have an otherwise redundant middle name.
OK, this is an unlikely ask: is anyone in S London willing/able to lend an MTB/gravel bike for next weekend, suitable for someone about 5ft 9in? Reasons/justification/location in next post. In return: a cleaned bike/eternal gratitude/nice bottle of wine/even some cold, hard ££ if preferred.
Irony is turning half your garden into a paddling pool and the temperature dropping by 10 degrees
Selling and buying houses is still all done by writing on bits of paper then 😭
In the process of moving. Been looking at some delightful 1960’s modernist estates in Surrey - many of which prohibit visible heat pumps, solar panels or EV chargers 🤯
Henry Mance@henrymance.ft.com · 2mo agoAnecdotal, but I have been very surprised by the number of climate-conscious acquaintances who have replaced their boiler without even considering a heat pump www.ft.com/content/691a...
Two weeks after the brother in laws stag do parkrun, it’s a wedding day parkrun in Tetbury
Not sure I agree with the ‘Good’ rating of my environment sensor in the home office. Work has had to stop.
Very much budgeting for a full aircon install for the forthcoming house move. Was hoping to do solar first, but that can wait if this is the new normal.
Excellent weekend of boxcar racing. Our entry (that I am hired muscle for pushing, not engineering) won the best engineered for its tilt steer mechanism.
Stag do this weekend. Thing I am most looking forward to is getting a new parkrun location tomorrow morning 🫣
Selling house and already suffering idiots in the first week. Feedback: we really want an open plan kitchen and dining room. Maybe look at the photos and floor plan of the Edwardian cottage before you book a viewing?