You can now automatically turn your Splink model settings.json into a live in-browser linkage model. Simply drag in your .json and get an interactive webapp www.robinlinacre.com/splink_setti...

The Splink and uk_address_matcher team will be at #IPDLN2026 next week. If you're a user and have questions or feedback, or merely Splinkerested, feel free to get in touch, we'd love to to talk to you. Also we'd would love to meet anyone who we've worked with over the years - give me a shout.

We've released a new dev (beta) version of Splink 5 today which you can install using pip install splink==5.0.0.dev4. This is very close to the final code we expect to release in Splink 5 (expected in September), so please do give it a try and let us know if you find any issues.

Arithmetic annihilation - a tower defence game for primary school kids to learn maths. (Same as vocab annihilation but with maths) Works on mobile and desktop. rupertlinacre.com/arithmetic_a... For best experience on mobile, install as an app ('add to home screen' from Chrome)

If you do record linkage in #rstats, I'd love your feedback on irelink: Fast Probabilistic Record Linkage. It is a port of Python's splink package, rewritten with a clean, pipeable R interface. All of the magic happens in a database backend (default is DuckDB) so it's incredibly fast.

My free letterpaths library now has: - A freehand writing app for use with stylus - Print and pre-cursive worksheet gen - A font (.otf, .ttf, .woff2) that you can use in desktop apps eg Word or on web - Capital letters - Kerning between each letter pair set manually www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths/

Vocab annihilation, a kids' game for learning new words rupertlinacre.com/vocab_annihi... Code: github.com/RupertLinacr...

New blog: Optimising DuckDB performance on large EC2 instances. A few simple changes can make workloads run multiple times faster: - Fewer threads can result in higher performance - Pay careful attention to disk I/O - Experiment with how to write data to S3 www.robinlinacre.com/optimising_d...

How @camunicampop.bsky.social researchers are turning static snapshots of Victorian Britain into dynamic life histories. The team are linking over 200 million census records, revealing how people moved, worked and lived in ways never before possible. 🔎 Read on 👉 www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/tracing...

Continuing on my search for good game mechanics for maths games for kids. This one is a lane crossing game: rupertlinacre.com/number_lanes/ This seems to work well because it's fun (at least accordingly to my 7yo), but there's no time pressure to answer the questions.

Introducing letterpaths 1.0, free software for teaching cursive writing. Blog w/ examples, videos + worksheet generator: www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths_... As far as I can tell, this is the best free and open source library for building handwriting tools according the the UK curriculum

As capabilities have improved, I am increasingly sceptical of the description of LLMs as a 'calculator for words', and the idea that they excel at semantics, because their rate of improvement in these areas seems extremely modest in comparison to things like coding and tool use

Here's an example of how my `letterpaths` library can be used to power a game, intended for phones/other touchscreen devices Game: www.robinlinacre.com/letterpaths/... Code: github.com/RobinL/lette... The game can be installed as an android app so it can be used fullscreen. It's free+open source

Developing a cursive writing typescript library capable of powering educational apps. It's free an open source and has: - Geometry for each letter - Algorithm for joining letters - Algorithm for animating cursive writing - Algorithm for tracing/path finding Link in 🧵

Finding working with agents all day a bit mind bending. Always having to think about how to enable an agent to do good work, and how it verifies its work.

After a period of stagnation in UK solar nice to records starting to be broken again in 2025 and now 2026 by significant margins

The country quiz now has: - Capital cities mode - Single continent mode - 'What country is highlighted' mode (following a travelling salesman route) - More detailed borders - 4k mode, with much bigger map - Choice of map projection rupertlinacre.com/country_quiz/ Access via options menu.

Reading The Baroque Cycle - King of the Vagabonds (2003). This quote hit me: “What does the Doctor want?” “To translate all human knowledge into a new philosophical language, consisting of numbers. To write it down in a vast Encyclopedia that will be a sort of machine...

In the next five years, we are going to do LOTS of census linking 🔗🔗🔗🔗🔗, produce new transcriptions of all UK censuses 1841-1921, and use these to study migrations and demographic transitions, thanks to @ukri.org ! Sneak peek at: www.geolinking.hist.cam.ac.uk

uk_address_matcher v1.0.1 is released: - Hugely reduced memory usage, especially when matching to full UK. - Over 30% faster - Now supports duckdb 1.4.4 and 1.5.0 - New docs on choosing a matching threshold and optimising accuracy here: moj-analytical-services.github.io/uk_address_m...

I have been enjoying playing Sporcle's countries of the world quiz with my son, so I made a fancier version. Play here: rupertlinacre.com/country_quiz/

We are pleased to release `uk_address_matcher`, a free Python package for address matching and geocoding, developed by Tom Hepworth and me. The package has several aims: simplicity, speed and accuracy.

📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on! “Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤 A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.

In case you missed it: New blog: Respectful use of AI in software development teams www.robinlinacre.com/respectful_u... LLMs are increasingly able to write production quality code. But what cognitive work can be delegated to LLMs without damaging the health of the team?

For anyone with FOMO wondering whether to pay for Opus 4.5/Claude Code, my experience is that OpenAI Codex is very similar in performance. i.e. both are excellent, but Claude Code is not a magic unlock

Excited to be a part of the initiative to "Move Fast and Fix Things", announced in Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister's speech today. One measure is an expansion of the No10 Innovation Fellowship, for which we've launched a new website! fellows.ai.gov.uk Speech: www.gov.uk/government/s...

New blog: Respectful use of AI in software development teams robinlinacre.com/respectful_u... LLMs are increasingly able to write production quality code. But what cognitive work can be delegated to LLMs without damaging the health of the team?

Made a simple game to help my daughter learn her alphabet. Took about 1 day for full code, >200 images >200 voice files and music nano-banana-pro is incredible. But it's also so quick to vibe code image and audio processing scripts. robinlinacre.com/bee_letters/ github.com/RobinL/bee_l...

I struggle to find no-nonsense, free and 'fun'(ish) maths games for my son (7yo) so I have been making a few Here's another one: Maths vs monsters. This is his fav so far rupertlinacre.com/maths_vs_mon... Code: github.com/rupertLinacr... Other games/maths utilities: rupertlinacre.com

OpenUK Awards 25 Open Data Category sponsored by Open Data Institute, Shortlist is live, congratulations to the shortlisted nominees: Ministry of Justice UK Splink Team (@robinlinacre.bsky.social), OpenActive, and UK Power Networks (Yiu-Shing Pang) 🍾🥂🏆 #openukawards #opensource #opendata