← Feed

Posts

• View post

  The scale of investment in technology infrastructure in the US is mind-boggling, with a wild vision for the future being painted by the anticipated revenues from AI data centres through to 2032. #AI #tech https://thetwocents.substack.com/p/nine-percent-of-gdp

• View post

  Ordered a Steam Frame. I've only ever toyed around with VR in the past so have no idea what to play when I get it — beyond Half Life Alyx and my flight sims. Anyone have any suggestions? #VR #Steam #SteamFrame

• View post

  I'm guilty sometimes of undervaluing the importance of CPU power with stuff that I'm doing. Like, whatever the workload I'm likely to be working with, the differences in performance always feel like they're going to be marginal. I just migrated a workload off a 7401P (24c/48t, 2017) that took 8 minutes to a 9900x (12c/24t, 2024) that took it down to ~55s. I may need to move to Threadripper at the next refresh 🤔

• View post

  This is reassuring. The next election is likely to include the biggest tactical vote ever. No matter their political persuasion, Brits recognise the national emergency that is Reform. #UKPolitics #UKPol

• View post

  A likely ignominious end for a publication that wrought oh so much damage during its ascendency. One of my red flags is when people say they don't like/trust/watch/listen to the BBC, and when people on the left say it they invariably have The Canary in their repertoire instead. A friend of a friend recently told me they *only* get their news from The Canary, and thought it was the very best source for journalism in the UK. That stung. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/sep/04/canary-...

• View post

  I am oh so very relieved that Polanski's brief wave of left-populism after he took over the Greens appears to have eaten itself already. #UKPolitics #UKPol https://www.thetimes.com/article/3b5472db-673e-47fe-bf40-40b27f1d5568?shareToken=730b0cba220cb7f5eef4c2d1c986289b

• View post

  Had a fun date yesterday.

• View post

  The cool thing about being in your forties is that when you tell someone you managed to have a good night's sleep they congratulate you like you've just had a child.

• View post

  It's amazing how many of my work conversations are now suddenly about doing things in the north.

• View post

  God, Flaming Lips were fantastic. #music #gig #FlamingLips #Cardiff

• View post

  I don't know whether to highlight this as positive news or not, but yet another right wing voice is calling out Kemi Badenoch's abandonment of the net zero consensus: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/07/28/pull-brink-kemi-badenoch-before-you-destroy-conservatives/ Her rightward lurches look, with hindsight, less insane politically now given the Burnham coup, but even so I think this is one crazy stepping stone too far. Reckless populism epitomised. We should expect better of...

• View post

  It's such a strange moment. The US is in the midst of a democratic crisis, with woefully unqualified and regressive right wing populists having total control of their government and dominating their culture. But the moment will pass, and things will incrementally improve from November, and one day folks will look back at these painful absurdities as just a dark blip — as they did on Nixon, and Trump during the Biden years. #USPol #USPolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87nj3w9g...

• View post

  New poll. Usual caveats, just one poll etc. The Burnham Bump is now measurable, approximately 4-6 points — albeit alongside the Farage controversy and the Greens' numerous missteps. I think Burnham is making lots of errors and the bump is temporary, but I think the back of the populist surge across Reform and Greens has more permanently been broken, and the next election will be back to the usual Labour/Tory/LibDem tempo. #UKPolitics #UKPol

• View post

  Long, long, LONG, overdue. Neidle taking him to task last month was a massive exposure, even after a ton of other recent disastrous online conversations and videos. He's not the worst at it, nor even the worst Brit, but the online space is full of people peddling wild views far outside the consensus as truth to people who don't know what they're hearing is nonsense — especially on economics. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/gary-stevenson-to-quit-youtube-channel-ga...

• View post

  I don't post much about the insane streamer drama I embarrassingly enjoy, but this one deserves special mention. Here, Stardust, a relatively small streamer, persuades a toxic doxxer and rapist vtuber streamer to go on stream with her then over *6 hours* questions him calmly and with total poise, systematically proving him wrong on every single point, and masterfully shutting down his evasions, deflections, and attempts to wriggle out. Glorious. https://www.youtube.com/live/xSqfq8VXx3U?is...

• View post

  Talking with a colleague today who has a son named Arthur, and he's suitably obsessed with Arthurian legend and D&D and similar. Top lad. She also told me that he's so nerdy that 'Arthur' had turned into Artoo in their family, after R2-D2, and that's just the coolest thing I've ever heard. Imagine having a kid named for C-3PO though 🤔

• View post

  I will do a blog post soon, but my full expectation is that my enthusiasm for our politics is going to wane in the coming months. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and snipe. I'm going to quietly pray it doesn't go as poorly as I think it will. Meanwhile, US politics will be heating up in the run up to November, and I can be truly insufferable when I get enthused by their political scene. Like, they chose not to elect Kamala in preference to this mass chaos, for REASONS.

• View post

  An actually accurate piece on migraines, absent the woo that usually accompanies them. Need to get 'prodrome' in my lexicon in place of 'aura' (I thought they were one and the same) and 'postdrome' for the post-migraine fatigue. #migraine https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/19/banging-headache-mysteries-migraine-treatments

• View post

  "The cost of climate-worsened wildfire smoke alone is larger than what earlier studies said every other estimated cost of climate change would be, combined." 😳

• View post

  Got reminded of this piece from last year about one of the more absurd media moments of recent years. Mass uproar and fury at something that... actually went pretty well. Came up in the context of susceptibility to misinformation and our lack of a shared understanding of reality anymore. Spending some time with folks absorbed in populist narratives is exhausting. #UKPolitics #UKPol https://inews.co.uk/opinion/we-were-warned-about-a-catastrophe-for-private-schools-so-what-actually-happened-...

• View post

  Some birthday adventure snaps and the tentative return of my mediocre street photography.

• View post

  I hate this weather. Hate hate hate it. Every time I go outside I can't wait to scurry back home to my air conditioned flat with the curtains drawn and cool darkness enveloping me. Nevertheless, I'm on leave this next week and bouncing around the country a bit, and I'm spurred to pick up the camera again.

• View post

  This piece, originally titled, "Who broke Britain?" (I hate it when publishers change titles like this, especially when they choose worse ones) really nails it. The unspoken conclusion (the Tories) comes with the wider undercurrent of misinformation and populism as the cause for Britain consistently having chosen the most self-harming route between 2010 and 2024. Gifted link, free for fourteen days. #UKPolitics #UKPol https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/07/uk-productivity-ec...

• View post

  I'm not going to chart every step of this downward spiral, but these first few days as his coup takes control deserve narrative. Here he is, out the gate, nakedly wrong, absurdly un-Labour, failing to understand electoral politics. This is one tweet, one moment in time, surrendering at least ten million votes from the crucial centre to the right. For the sake of... some temporary glazing from Green voters. We're doomed. #UKPolitics #UKPol https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/...

• View post

  There are many good reasons to oppose cryptocurrencies and many reasons why shady individuals flock to them, but it's plainly obvious exactly why the Faragists and a certain subset of the online right *love* them. It's literally just because they're unregulated, and in many cases transactions are untraceable. Farage lobbying Bank of England for them is akin to him lobbying directly for legalised corruption, foreign influence, and unlawful political financing. #UKPolitics #UKpol

• View post

  First as tragedy, then as farce. No major party is going to stand against Farage in his byelection. Count Binface may genuinely be his primary opponent. I'd like to see him unseated and would've backed a fight against him, but this will make it seem all the more absurd with only small, fringe parties and joke candidates standing against him. Though another byelection seems likely in short order when the standards committee rules on him. #UKPolitics #UKPol #Farage https://www.thegua...

• View post

  Burnham should parachute in and stand. #UKPolitics #UKPol https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn0v9l9x0g8t?post=asset%3Af66d5886-ed0d-4afa-81d4-5d0713fbed62#post

• View post

  I'm not into football at all, but am I right in judging it's likely to be US vs France and England vs Argentina in the semifinals? Blimey.

• View post

  I'm going on an adventure! #summer #selfie

• View post

  Almost got my new note-taking setup working right. That's the Boox Note Air 5C e-ink tablet and my Xencelabs 16 hooked up to my Linux machine. Both sync via Syncthing into my Silverbullet space. It's not *quite* perfect due to the constraints of Boox's apps (and alternatives don't work well with e-ink) but it's close enough for my workflows — especially once I build some funky stuff in Silverbullet around it.