Tessera

Jonty

@fairless.xyz

Service designer for the climate emergency, mechanic, & cargobike charity trustee. Used to work night shift. 📍Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

1040 Posts1007 Follower 1105 Folgt

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2d ago

Transported a single tub of butter back from the village shop. Idk if society says you NEED a car for this, but they certainly seem to prefer using one.

View down from the saddle into the front cargo platform of a Long John-style front loading cargo bike. A small tub of butter is strapped to the platform.

Fietser@americanfietser.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm not here for politics, I'm here to see posts from people who did things with a bike that society says you need a car for.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2d ago

Transported a single tub of butter back from the village shop. Idk if society says you NEED a car for this, but they certainly seem to prefer using one.

Fietser@americanfietser.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm not here for politics, I'm here to see posts from people who did things with a bike that society says you need a car for.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 3d ago

The environmental storytelling in this apocalypse movie is a bit on the nose

London centric
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?
Jim Waterson and Polly Smythe
Aug 03, 2026

Jim Waterson@jim.londoncentric.media · 3d ago

Stories about life, death and taxes (plus some original photos) www.londoncentric.media/p/londons-fi...

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 3d ago

Chance of me attending an event with an AI generated flyer: 0% Chance of me attending an event with a flyer made with wax crayons: 100%

Edinburgh Critical Mass@edcriticalmass.bsky.social · 3d ago

A little look behind the scenes for how the amazing night ride image was made. Wax crayons and inverted luminescence. There might be another Friday night ride soon.

the artwork for a previous critical mass ride before digital effects were applied

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last wk.

Idk who needs to see this, but: after six months of incredibly frustrating intermittent E020 errors on the Larry Vs Harry #cargobike motor, I certainly did. Did not realise this was adjustable! So easy. youtu.be/g39Wj6jR94s?...

How to tighten a Shimano Steps battery(to fix E020 error)

YouTube video by CycleDifferent

youtu.be

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last wk.

A v interesting angle on the AI hype cycle I hadn't clocked before. From the very smart Nikhil Suresh. "...we have executives around the world nervously pointing guns at each other... watching everything gradually spiral out of control" ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/ai-mani...

On a trip overseas, I had the privilege of a meeting with one of the Fortune 500 executives mentioned at the beginning of the post, who will remain anonymous so that they are not executed by firing squad by their board. As we were chatting, it became clear that they were very switched-on and technically competent, and they also happened to be at a company that had committed to the usual battery of exorbitant claims about their recent innovations – we’ve 100x’d our productivity, AI is the future of everything, I am but a vessel for OpenAI to make love to my wife. You know, normal things. But since I had them there without any microphones around, I asked why this was being repeated without opposition. Was it just sales fluff?

The answer was a lot more interesting. It was partially ridiculous sales material being delivered to an easily excitable audience, but this was not the dominant factor constraining honesty. Executives at their customers were saying absurd things about achieving 100x productivity, and this meant that if any executive at the vendor said that these gains were not plausible, it would undermine the credibility of the customer’s executive, be perceived as an attack (or heresy), and possibly result in an enterprise contract cancellation. And getting enterprise contracts cancelled because you wanted to opine on something that doesn’t really matter to your organisation’s mission is a great way to get fired.

But this company was also a major player, of the kind that signs enormous enterprise contracts with other companies. So presumably there is another vendor that has sold to them, and their CEO is worried that saying something sane will contradict this executive, and very quickly we can see how we can have executives around the world nervously pointing guns at each other, not wanting to be shot first but also watching everything gradually spiral out of control6. This is to say that we’re facing a coordination problem around executives being honest arou…

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last wk.

Me, on the other hand: a paragon unbiased neutrality

Jonty@fairless.xyz · last wk.

Huh. Gary on LinkedIn is arguing that solar is not 'homegrown' energy, and we rely on overseas governments for the components. He's got nothing against solar though. I wonder if he has any secret ties to... Oh hey look at that.

A Linkedin post from Gary Forsyth, Director at Gary J Forsyth Energy Consulting Ltd:

Someone in your PR department needs to think about the "Homegrown energy" trope. UK Solar panels are imported from;
- Jinko Solar - China
- Longi Solar - China
- Trina Solar - China
- JA Solar - China
- Canadian solar - Canada (funnily enough!)
- Astroenergy - Chint Group - China
and so on - it's pretty much China all the way.
There's no mass market manufacture of solar panels in the UK. China dominates the silicon ingot and wafer market.
Nothing against solar. I think it has it's place in the energy mix, but we rely on overseas companies and overseas governments (especially China) for supply. Nothing about that is "homegrown". It's bought in.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last wk.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2w ago

Excellent write up from @simonwillison.net. I love living in a world of capricious computer gods that can harness eye-watering amounts of energy to slice through guardrails and cheat on tests.

It’s pretty clear what happened here. OpenAI removed safety filters for an in-progress model, locked it up in a sandbox and told it to solve the ExploitGym problems. Given the absence of guardrails there was nothing to prevent the model from attempting to break out of that sandbox, break into Hugging Face, and read the answers from there instead.

OpenAI’s sandbox used the now common pattern of allowing access to an allow-list of sites related to installing additional packages via a controlled proxy. In OpenAI’s words:

While operating in our sandboxed testing environment, our models spent a substantial amount of inference compute finding a way to obtain open Internet access, in pursuit of solving the evaluation problem. To gain access, the models identified and exploited a zero-day vulnerability (which we’ve now responsibly disclosed to the vendor) in the package registry cache proxy. With this access, our models performed a series of privilege escalation and lateral movement actions in our research testing environment until the models reached a node with Internet access.

So step one was to break out onto the public internet. The model then broke into Hugging Face to find the answers:

After gaining Internet access, the models inferred that Hugging Face potentially hosted models, datasets and solutions for ExploitGym. Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation. In one example, the model chained together multiple attack vectors, including using stolen credentials and zero-day vulnerabilities to find a remote code execution path on the Hugging Face servers.

Chaining together multiple attack vectors is exactly the kind of thing these new models can do, where previous generations of models might have failed.

Tom Loosemore @tomski.com · 2w ago

Simon Willison is an (inter)national treasure. If you want the definitive take on the OpenAI/HuggingFace hack, it's here on his excellent blog: simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/22/...

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2y ago

Sorry I missed the team call this afternoon, I was re-reading the emails I sent yesterday to make sure I sounded cool and easygoing and didn't use any exclamation marks

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 3w ago

Finally dropped the oil out of this, and it's packed with glitter. My actual face: 😨 My guess: PO got hit w/the '£2k o-ring' issue these old BMW airheads suffer from, starved the crankshaft of oil, and spun a conrod big end bearing. Time for open heart surgery. If it's bad, could be a total loss 😔

A white BMW r80/7 motorcycle, partially stripped down, standing in a garage.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 3w ago

Finding it hard to concentrate on work after my hols so I'm trying out the pompodouro method. 20 minutes work founding porcelain factories in Sèvres, 5 mins break.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 3w ago

[Climate refugee camp] Me: [chanting] north, north- Other refugees: north, NORTH Visiting DESNZ minister: [pounding her clipboard] NORTH, NORTH, NORTH!

James Ball@jamesrball.com · 4w ago

Arctic arctic arctic

Nicolas Fulghum @nicolasfulghum.bsky.social · 4w ago

Solar's sharp rise continues. As of April 2026, global solar capacity now exceeds 3 terawatt. 1 gigawatt → 1 terawatt: 20+ years 1 terawatt → 2 terawatt: 33 months 2 terawatt → 3 terawatt: 19 months

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 4w ago

My sister is looking after the dog while we're out of the country. So the dog is suddenly getting extremely long and interesting walks every day, along with frequent complimentary photoshoots. We are increasingly concerned that the dog will regret our return.

Two dogs, one large white, one small brown, sit on a paved area looking at the camera. The iconic red Forth Rail Bridge arches across the Firth of Forth in the background.

A large white dog stands on a graffitied concrete abutment in the bright sunlight, looking attentively at something of camera and to the left.

A large white dog sits on a bench in bright sunlight, tongue hanging out and ears blowing in the wind. The bench is on a heather covered hillside. A stone wall and distant green hilltop is visible in the background.

A large white dog, tail aloft, walks across a wide expanse of sand at sunset. The sun is behind it, and the dog's shadow extends long towards the camera. The sea and a distant beach wall are visible in the background.

ahdok @socksandpuppets.com · last mo.

One of the outcomes of every UBI trial I’ve seen is people pick up new skills like *crazy*. It’s so much easier to study or learn a new trade when you don’t spend 90+% of your energy every day putting food on your table.

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · last mo.

The reason there are no more good ideas in tech is that every office has these "low odor" whiteboard markers. Ten years ago, every Design Thinking session participant was way more creative because they were strung out on marker fumes.

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last mo.

I think I speak for all customers with agile electricity pricing when I say: "oof"

A screenshot of a bar graph showing half-hourly electricity prices over the next 30 hours. Circled in red is a high price of 80.5p per kWh of electricity, which will be charged tomorrow evening, according to the graph

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last mo.

Tech stocks: *do literally anything* Me, a luddite entangled in global tech markets:

death by snoo snoo

Alt: "Death by snoo snoo" - a gif from the animated series "Futurama". Three characters are shackled to a wall. Their individual expressions each oscillate back and forth between horror and excitement.

static.klipy.com

Jonty @fairless.xyz · last mo.

*Me, politics genius* Kier's little brother wears tshirts and uses Just For Men. What might this mean for Brexit

A photo composite picture of Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham. Both have similar expressions and glasses and faces. Underneath the picture, a BBC headline reads "Kier Starmer resigns, as Andy Burnham confirms he will run to replace him as Labour leader and PM"

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

David Attenborough sits on a log in a rainforest, speaking to camera. A large speech bubble is scribbled onto the picture, indicating he is narrating the skeet quoted below.

Jonty@fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

0900 on a sunny father's day, and the dads are already putting on their seasonal display. I've already seen three lawn dads out cutting grass, four dog dads nodding silently at one another, and a group of six brightly coloured cycle dads zipping down the road

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

Back in February 2018 I spent a very happy evening learning about Railfreight's graphic design language in D&AD's basement. So obviously I've got this book (and you should too at that price).

A stylish gallery room, decked out in colourful livery and stylish plywood. Some large white display cases are in the foreground, and people mill about looking at them.

Large plexiglass covered display cases, full of colourful printed samples of railfreight branding, insignia and livery

A woman holds a small child, and both point at large metal freight train insignias laid out in a large plexiglass covered display case. A large image of a freight train paint scheme design is projected on a screen behind them.

Neil Norman And His Cosmic Orchestra@fubsyshabaroon.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Currently on sale for just £7.99, instead of the usual £40.00 RRP.

Edinburgh Critical Mass @edcriticalmass.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Well done to Voi for taking advantage of the high latent demand for cycling in Edinburgh. Imagine what we could do with better infrastructure and more cycle hangers! #Edinburgh #cycling www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/edinbur...

Edinburgh's Voi cycle hire scheme is company's most successful in Europe

‘Riders in Edinburgh have covered over 1.3 million kilometres, which equates to 34 laps of the Earth’ - Cllr Stephen Jenkinson

edinburghnews.scotsman.com

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

My service owner definition of done

Catbus@catbus.phd · 2mo ago

always complete this checklist before leaving the house

sign reading

IS IT HOT?
DOES IT LOOK GOOD?
ARE YOU PROUD
TO SERVE IT?

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

The note in the intro about how science doesn't have to be intuitive to be correct reminds me of this outstanding intro to quantum mechanics. "In some sense the pressure is off for you guys...I don't get it, and you don't get it, and Feynman doesn't get it" First 60 secs: youtu.be/uK2eFv7ne_Q?...

19. Quantum Mechanics I: The key experiments and wave-particle duality

YouTube video by YaleCourses

youtu.be

Prof Stephen Serjeant@stephenserjeant.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Many pro astrophysicists receive unsolicited letters from amateurs with new but subtly wrong physics theories, often about relativity and from retired engineers. This cute new paper is a perfect reply & I love how it uses cyclotrons & transponders & radar 🧪🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2605.21660

Stand Up to Racism Scotland @sutrscotland.bsky.social · 2mo ago

THE STREET ARE OURS: THOUSANDS OF ANTIRACISTS RECLAIM THE STREETS IN GLASGOW AND HUMILIATE FAR RIGHT THUGS Glasgow reclaimed the streets from the far right today!

Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Digital transformation.

A sign at the entrance to a park with a piece or black duct tape covering the parks service phone number. Website or nothing, baby!

Jonty @fairless.xyz · 2mo ago

Interesting report by friends at @nestauk.bsky.social on my desk this morning. We've got far more work to do, but proud to see that parts of Scotland and Wales are massively outperforming the UK average in terms of heat pump uptake. www.nesta.org.uk/data-visuali...

A bar graph titled 'Most of the local authorities with the highest share of heat pump installs are in Scotland and Wales.' The graph shows the top 20 UK local authorities by heat pump installations, split into nations. 14 of the 20 are in Scotland or Wales.

Neil Grant @neilgrant.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Chart of the day. The energy transition is happening in real time! 😍

Two area charts showing that in Australia's National Electricity Market, battery discharge replaced peaking gas at the evening demand peak between April 2025 and April 2026.