I like digging through old archives and tracing my way through quotes. Here's a particularly good one from Albert Einstein which is often peppered around the Internet without any sources. If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German…
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This book is excellent at describing the symptoms of madness which have beset the world. It expertly diagnoses the causes which have led so many people into a mirror-realm of fantasy. Sadly it falls short of prescribing a cure. I doubt anyone who has fallen into the conspiracy mindset will read this book - but I hope if you read it you will become inoculated against the brain-worms. Let's…
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If you've ever tried to write a computer program, you'll know the dread of a syntax error. An errant space and your code won't compile. Miss a semi-colon and the world collapses. Don't close your brackets and watch how the computer recoils in distress. The modern web isn't like that. You can make your HTML as malformed as you like and the web-browser will do its best to display the page for…
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Many years ago, in another lifetime, I was presenting our team's work to a rather senior politician. Here's how I remember it: "We want to provide value for money," I said, "so we propose that running five small pilots of [thing I still can't talk about]. We know there are multiple technologies which could work. But we don't know which one will work best." "How will running something five times …
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I recently read an interesting article about Accountability Sinks. In it, the author argues that part of the reason for having business processes is that they diffuse accountability. Every one of us has tried to have an argument with an employee of a big company, and it always goes like this: the human being you are speaking to is only allowed to follow a set of processes and rules that pass on …
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I expected so much more from this book. It starts with a central thesis - the UK over-indexes on America because we speak the same language, but there is an enormous gulf in attitudes between the two nations. We rarely hear on the news what's happening in France, Germany, or Ireland even though they're much closer geographically, politically, and culturally. That sounds like a pretty good book! …
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Five years ago today, we installed solar panels on our house in London. Solar panels are the ultimate in "boring technology". They sit on the roof and generate electricity whenever the sun shines. That's it. This morning, I took a reading from our generation meter: 19MWh of electricity stolen from the sun and pumped into our home. That's an average of 3,800 kWh every year. But what does…
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My good friend Suw alerted me to this venerable book by repeatedly ranting "What is your theory of change???" online. If ever there was a moment to yell "WHAT IS YOUR THEORY OF CHANGE???" that moment is now and we should all be yelling it at Just Stop Oil.It seems to me their theory of change is to make enough people pissed of with them that... er, um... Step 2: ???Step 3: Profit!! Wait, that's…
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This is a retropost. Mostly written in August 2020 but published long after I left the Civil Service. It is, although I don't quite realise it, the depths of the pandemic. Everyone is relegated to working from home. Thousands of Civil Servants trying to keep things running from their kitchen tables, on dodgy WiFi, with crying children in the background. Things are happening quickly. Much more…
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Freedom of Information law is brilliant! It allows ordinary people to ask questions of the powerful and get solid answers. Sometimes these questions are sensible and journalistic. Sometimes they're vexatious. Sometimes they're a little silly. The silly ones can be fun to answer. It's a good chance for a politician to show their human side. It's pretty hard to get wrong. I mean, unless the…
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The UK has some tough advertising regulations. There are restrictions placed on gambling adverts, alcohol, tobacco, and all sorts of other products. But there are no regulations on political advertising. There are dozens of smaller parties contesting the UK's General Election. Some are single issue parties, some are independents, some parties contest multiple seats, some contest only one. …
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This is a retropost. Written in January 2023 but published long after I left the Civil Service. One of the weird things about working in Westminster is how terrifyingly normal it becomes to work in grand old buildings, stuffed with grand old artworks, and staffed with grand old politicians. You turn a corner and there's a bit of Henry VIII's tennis court. There's a Tracy Emin hanging on the…
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