Dan HIll

Crude oil prices, showing a very sharp increase in the last day, from around 65 to 101 dollars per barrel..

Oil prices wouldn't be all over the news today if more of our economy was powered by local, secure renewable energy.

This isn't an "energy crisis". It's a fossil fuel crisis.

44% of UK electricity came from renewables in 2025. More of that plus an electrified economy => no more oil shocks.

“Until now, creativity has been stifled by the need to acquire playing skills.” The BBC’s hottest take in 1986 about kids making music on computers is, let’s say, questionable. But watching kids create a composition in this recently dug up clip on what appears to be a Yamaha CX5M...

“Until now, creativity has been stifled by the need to acquire playing skills.” (Dubious take, but this clip is still too good—having been a schoolboy in 1986. Something a little The Day Today about the whole thing, incl. Miss Tester's somewhat clipped accent) www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

Artek purchases Finnish forest to protect biodiversity and secure future birch supply - Artek

"Artek purchases Finnish forest to protect biodiversity and secure future birch supply: The design company takes responsibility for full product lifecycle – starting from when raw material is still in the ground" (This is hugely heartening—and smart) www.artek.fi/en/news/arte...

A death scholar on why we need to stop being naive about dying: ‘I always hear, “Can’t you just put me into a nice meadow?”’ Dr Hannah Gould on eco-funerals, being ‘the death person’ and the one thing everyone should know before they die

“Dr Hannah Gould on eco-funerals, being ‘the death person’ and the one thing everyone should know before they die” (Nice interview with my great colleague Hannah Gould) www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Applied EV – Unlocking autonomy for every industry Software Defined Vehicle Technology

(Enjoying the pragmatic bluntness of the industrial design for what looks like a 'robot ute') www.appliedev.com

Paris school streets are raising the global bar for children’s wellbeing More than 300 streets in the French capital have been redesigned to be traffic free. The welcome sense of calm is not going unnoticed

“Paris school streets are raising the global bar for children’s wellbeing” (Such amazing work by Paris) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Using flawed, uncertain, proximate and sparse (FUPS) data in the context of complexity: learning from the case of child mental health The use of routinely collected data that are flawed and limited to inform service development in healthcare systems needs to be considered, both theoretically and practically, given the reality in many areas of healthcare that only poor-quality data ...

"FUPS data are clearly disputable facts, but they can be drawn on as a form of evidence to aid decisions in the swampy lowlands of practice." (FUPS 'flawed, uncertain, proximate and scarce data', by the ever brilliant Miranda Wolpert + Harry Rutter. Instant fave) pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Can Europe Be Climate-Neutral By 2050? New Monitor Tracks The Pace Of The Energy Transition Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub have developed a monitor that tracks how quickly companies are switching to climate-neutral energy.

"We were surprised by how large the share of companies is that are doubling down on gas and oil,” says study author Johannes Stangl of the CSH. “The energy transition is practically not happening in the Hungarian economy,” Thurner emphasizes." (Reinforces Fressoz's thesis) csh.ac.at/news/can-eur...

… and this forms the DNA of a bigger course in City Leadership and innovation, aimed at professionals (or equivalent) as well as graduate students. Watch this space. For now, congrats to the students and thanks for all the hard work, engagement, and invention.

They provided great insights into innovative city gov. Teams developed inventive strategies for complex challenges —food systems in Indonesia; zero waste construction; retrofitting the city for affordable housing; circular sustainable housing; 15 min cities for the ‘burbs etc …

I brought external speakers: Karolina Bäckmann-Faulkner from 3XN/GXN, Lord Mayor of Hobart Anna Reynolds, Cathy Oke on city government and climate action, Daniel Pejic on city diplomacy, and Ingo Kumic from UniMelb partnerships team x Llawella Forrest from Queen Victoria Markets Purpose Precinct…

Work was conveyed via group presentations and reports, as well as individual reflections on the process. Lots of coaching from me—very enjoyable old school face-to-face physical collaboration in the classroom!—but kudos to the students for getting into it so well, and working so well together…

Students (from multiple programs) worked in small groups to develop complex missions for systemic change, across housing, circularity, food and transport, and then worked up fully realised ‘missions’, incl’ innovation teams, skills, networks, strategic vehicles, portfolios of prototypes etc…

… using Bloomberg Philanthropies’ public Innovation’ playbook as well as the various mission-oriented innovation approaches (including my own work from @vinnovase.bsky.social days)

Very impressed with my students in the City Leadership multidisciplinary ‘intensive elective’ I run at Melbourne School of Design—fantastic work! I had ten days with them, working through the strategic design playbook + @iipp-ucl.bsky.social dynamic capabilities framework …

First talk in this semester’s public lecture series ‘Beyond The Classroom’, which runs alongside design thesis in the M—Arch here at Melbourne School of Design, feat. @ssdh.studio — lovely, thoughtful, careful work … Talks are curated and hosted by students; series led by @roryhyde.bsky.social

"Made in EU" - it was harder than I thought. I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure. Here's the stack I landed on, what was harder than expected, and what you still can't avoid.

"Some things are American and you just have to accept it" (This is good. Trying to do a tech startup solely with EU infrastructure. Reminds me somewhat of Thomas Thwaites' iconic 'toaster project' - www.thomasthwaites.com/the-toaster-... - but still: valiant!) www.coinerella.com/made-in-eu-i...

SecondPress — Turn your Spotify playlist into a record collection Paste any Spotify playlist and we'll check every album for CD and vinyl availability, with links to buy from many retailers.

I made a thing. I hope you like it (feel free to share)
secondpress.club

here's why I made it (aside from just for the fun!)
dgen.net/0/2026/02/25...

Cycling is social.
Design to enable it.

UCL is 200 today. So what would “founding a university” look like now? A bicentenary is a celebration. It can also be a design brief.

(This is really excellent, from my colleague @rainerkattel.bsky.social at UCL. Universities today essentially mitigate against meaningful work. Rainer’s suggestions indicate another way—not backwards, though it’s informed by long history, but forwards) rainerkattel.substack.com/p/ucl-is-200...

A whole lot more than a transport system A tram network holds a city together, conferring a conceptual cohesion that is itself welcoming, which makes the mid-century rush to rip them out across cities worldwide all the more baffling.

Farrelly: “We should interrogate all strategic city-making decisions with scepticism, insist on a true and thoughtful citizen voice, and fill our cities and neighbourhoods with ever-increasing networks of trams” architectureau.com/articles/a-w...

Despite concerns about policymakers + planners being asleep at the wheel on this (potentially leading to a decrease in public transport investment rather than the reduction in private cars and increase in public space and bikes they could entail) I thought the service itself was pretty exceptional.

Even after cutting EV incentives, Norway only sold 98 diesel cars in January Norway cut EV incentives, resulting in a rush and record sales. That would usually cause a hangover, but EVs still took 94% share in January.

“In January 2026, only 98 diesel cars were sold across all of Norway, alongside 29 hybrids and 7 petrol-only cars.” (Seven!) electrek.co/2026/02/03/e...

China’s most infamous ghost town is now training ground for driverless trucks The empty boulevards that once symbolized the mainland’s property bust now serve as testing grounds for hundreds of autonomous vehicles.

Speaking of: a use for some of China's increasingly 'baggy' over-built cities: "The empty boulevards that once symbolized the mainland’s property bust now serve as testing grounds for hundreds of autonomous vehicles" restofworld.org/2025/china-o...

The Street as Platform 2050 How Digital Dynamics Shape the Physical City

In Los Angeles this weekend, I took a ride in a Waymo, which reminded me it's over a decade since I wrote 'The Street As Platform 2050', speculating about the impact of fleets of autonomous vehicles (which I called 'Drivers', perhaps a subconscious nod to Ryan Gosling) medium.com/butwhatwasth...

"There's always going to be debate in city planning. Always. But there's good faith debate, based on disagreements, and then there's deliberate lies and misinformation." — @brenttoderian.bsky.social. #UrbanTruth

Thanks @christian.bsky.social ! There’s a refined version here medium.com/a-chair-in-a...

⚠️ The Real Housing Crisis

IIPP Visiting Professor of Practice @cityofsound.bsky.social argues against the prevailing "build, baby, build" narrative in current housing policy in his recent essay for the @designmuseum.bsky.social's Future Observatory Journal.

🔗 Read it here: buff.ly/zfriIhQ

Oui! Tres most places with a bit of civility

The Australian Government’s $26 billion per year nature-harming problem revealed by study | Biodiversity Council Australia Groundbreaking research has uncovered that the Australian Government is providing $26 billion per year in financial support to activities that harm the nation's unique natural environment, known as bi...

The Australian govt hands out $26B per year in nature-harming subsidies

This represents ~4% of the total federal budget
Or twice as much as the federal govt invests in supporting government schools nationally
Or 25 times more than they spend on looking after nature

via @biodivcouncil.bsky.social